The Amazing Life of Steen

Easter Sunday in the Holy Land

2009-04-28T08:03:00.001-07:00

Sorry that I am late getting this onto my blog. I was really busy my last couple weeks in Jerusalem. I did however want to show you what i was able to do on Easter while in the Holy Land. First off the majority of the people in Jerusalem are Jewish and they have their Sabbath on Saturday. Because of this pretty much everything is closed down on Saturday so we have church on Saturday. This leaves sundays open for us to go and visit the local christian denominations services.

So early sunday morning some of us got up bright and early at 4 o'clock so that we could get good seats at a Lutheran sunrise service on the Mount of Olives.

It was really neat to be able to see how other good people who have faith in Christ worship. It was good to see all the things that we had in common. It was good to see the truths that we shared as believers in Christ.

The service was a really good service as the Father of the congregation reviewed for us the Resurrection of the the Savior Jesus Christ. It was really amazing to sit on the Mount of Olives where so many things happened during the Savior's life and watch the sun rise.

As i sat on the mount and watched the sunrise i reflected on my Savior Jesus Christ. Just as the sun rose that morning the Savior rose from the tomb so many years ago and because of that day we too are able to rise again after death to be judged and live with our Heavenly Father again. Because the Savior was raised to an immortal perfect body of flesh and bone we too will be raised from the dead to an immortal perfect body of flesh and bone. I am so thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and for the perfect life that he lived and that He rose from the dead.

After going to the service on the Mount of Olives we headed to the Garden tomb for another service, As you can see there were lots of people lined up to go to this service.

Here i am in front of the garden tomb before the service started.

The service was evangelacal. So they had a band and singers for the service.

The service was really good. We sang almost the entire time. I really enjoyed this service as we all sang together in praise of the Savior.

People raised their hands in praise and they sang.

Galilee in a blink

2009-04-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry I do not have time to give you a full account of everything that i did in Galilee the 11 days that i was there so you are going to get the brief account. You can get the rest when i come home if you want to know more. Galilee was amazing! This is where the Savior grew up and where He did most of his ministry. One of the first stops on our trip was to Nazareth. This is where as you know the Savior grew up. We went to the synogogue that is built on top of the foundation of the original synogogue that the Savior went to when He got up and read out of Isaiah and said today "these scriptures are fullfilled in your ear". This is when He announced his Messiahship to the people of His home town and they did not believe him.

Below are pictures at the Mount of Beatittudes. This is where they beleive that Christ gave His Sermon on the Mount. The Church belows dome is in the shape of an Octagon 1 side for each beatittude. It was green with lots of flowers and behind the church if you looked out you had a view of the Sea of Galilee. The Spirit was very strong here and we discussed the wonderful sermon that Christ gave. This is where Christ gave them the higher law, The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Below is St. Peters Church at Taghba. Taghba is the place where the Savior feed the 5,000. It is also the place where Jesus called some of the 12 apostles while they were fishing. Also where Jesus turns and asks Peter 3 times if he loves him. Peter says yes three times and the Savior says then feed my sheep. Peter is also told that he is going to be leading the church. The church is to commenorate that event. Like eveything this is by the Sea of Galilee as well. I am looking out at the sea.

View of the inside of the Church. We were able to sing here for a while. While we were singing this other tourist lady joined in singing with us. It was really neat!

Palm Sunday

2009-04-05T11:34:00.001-07:00

So as you know today is Palm Sunday. In Jerusalem it is a big deal. Palm sunday is to celebrate and remember the Savior's Triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This morning we went to the Church of the Holy Seplechure to a service. It was really amazing! There were lots of people packed in the church surrounding the Holy Seplechure. There are 3 different christian faiths that are present in the Church so they each had their own service. Alot of times at the same time. The one that we watched was the Catholic procession. They came in dressed in their Catholic clothing and they did some kind of service in front of the Seplechure itself. I couldn't hear them plus they weren't speaking english. After that they (there was A LOT of them) walked around the Seplechure in a procession carrying palm fronds. The organ was playing while the procession was going around the seplechure. It was beautiful! It was amazing to see all the different faiths come together because of their faith in Jesus Christ. We all got some palm fronds as they walked around and we were supposed to wave them in the air as they went around. Below is me with my one frond leave. I didn't have any when i first came but one of the priests I think pulled one off of his big one and gave it to me. I throughly enjoyed it. The pictures don't do it justice and i wish you could hear the music that was played.

Later today we were in a big procession where we carried palm fronds as we walked the route that the Savior went when He made is triumphal entry.

There were SO many people there as you can see the streets are packed. It was really neat to see all the different Christian faiths come out to celebrate this glorious occasion. In Jerusalem the majority of the people are either Jewish or Mulsim and although i deeply respect and love all the people who live here it was nice to see a gathering of people that share my faith in the Savior Jesus Christ.

This is just a fun picture i took of the Franciscan monks. They were so nice. I asked them if i could take their picture and they smiled real big and were excited for me to just that. After the picture they thanked me for taking it. There are such wonderful people that live here in the Holy Land. I am thankful everyday that I have had the opportunity to be here and get to know them.

2009-03-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

Today we went on a field trip to the park like a national reserve place. You have a guide that takes you around and teaches you about the land during the Bible times and the different practices during the Bible times. The first thing we went to was a well. We talked about how Rebekka drew water from a well and how important water and wells were in Bible times. It was really neat to really think about how much work it really was for Rebekkah to draw water for Isaacs servant as well as his camels. To get enough water for all of his camels and him she would of had to draw about 300 times from the well.

After that we went over to a place where we were able to try and herd the sheep and the goats around to different places. This was really fun. I'm not going to lie though our group didn't do good at all. That's alright though because we had a lot of fun in the process. After we that we talked about how Shephards herded their sheep and how this related to the great leaders in the Bible that were Shephards: Abraham, Moses, David, and the most important the Savior Jesus Christ. A Shephard when he heards sheep and goats he will walk beind the flock. Why does he do this? He walks behind to make sure none of them gets lost and to help those that are weak and are struggling. This is how great leaders are. Especially our Savior Jesus Christ who was the perfect example of a leader.

We also were able to make our own spices by crushing it in a hand grinder. It was really fun but i have to admit the spice we made didn't taste that good.

For lunch they took us to where we made our own pitas or unleavened bread. This is what we cooked them on. This picture is so funny of me. I look like a little kid. :)

We also were able to see a real torah scribe writing a torah scroll. Over here people have professions of writing the torah scrolls that they use in the synogogues. Its a long process to get a torah scroll written. All in all I thought today was really fun and I was able to learn a lot of things.

Shabbot

2009-03-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

Shabbot is always one of my favorite days. We have breakfast at 8:00 which means that we get to sleep in as compared to our usually time of 6:30 or 7:00. After breakfast is choir practice at 9:00 which i usually almost always go to. After choir our church starts at 10:00. On Shabbat we only have breakfast and then dinner at 4. Shabbot dinners i think are always really good. I don't know if that is because they really are better than the other days or because I am really hungry. :) Today was a really good day. I really felt the spirit a lot today during sacrament. There was some really enriching talks and a lot of musical numbers. There was a total of 3 musical numbers during sacrament. I was involved in the last one where 5 others and I sang a duet of I know that my Redeemer lives. After the church block i went up to the 7th floor of the Jerusalem Center and sat out and wrote in my journal. The 7th floor has a wonderful view of the city. Right beind me is where we have sacrament every Shabbot. The curtains are usually open so you can look out over the city. I love going out here to just ponder on the things that i have done and the things that I have learned here. Its getting so pretty here with all the flowers blooming. We also finished our finals this past week so from now until the end of our stay here we only have 2 classes. One of them is the New Testament which I am really excited about. I get to go to the places where the Savior taught and preformed the great miracles that He did. I am so blessed to have that opportunity.

Here is another view of my favorite place to go and sit. In this picture is me and my roommate Bre. I really like spending time with Bre as well as my other roomate Emily. We have a lot of fun together.

2009-03-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

On tuesday we went to Bethlehem. My teacher Dr. Mussallam that i have for my Palestinian class also is a teacher at Bethlehem University. We were able to go there and to have class with his students. It was really neat. We watched a movie that talked about the Palestinian side of the story and what happened to them during the 6 day war. It was really sad. I loved being at the school and being able to talk to the Palestinian students. Bethlehem university is a Catholic School that has both Christians and Muslims going to it. As you can see the campus of the University is really nice.

After going to Bethlehem University we went to eat at the Shephards field Village Restaurant. Here we all are waiting for our food.

Then after our lunch we walked through Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity. This is a church that was built over the cave that the Savior Jesus Christ was born.

This is one of the statues inside the chapel part of the church. It portrays Mary as the protectorant of the baby Jesus.

Here i am in front of where the manger would have sat. The place where our Lord and Savior was placed on that blessed night. Obviously all the marble and columns weren't there when the Savior was born. They built a shrine on top of the place that the manger laid. The manger they said is somewhere is Europe. The neat thing that i learned was that the cave is shaped like an angel and where they believe the mnager was is right in the heart of the angel.

The highlight of my day in Bethlehem was when we went to the Shephards fields. It was probably on one of these hills if not on the very one that we stood on the the Shephard were watching their fields by night and an angel of the Lord pronounced the news that the Savior was born and was lying in a manger.

While we were at Shephards Field there was a little lamb there. What a perfect addition to our trip!

We had a wonderful program that night. We sat in the shepards field that looked out over the lights of Bethlehem. We sang christmas songs and were taught about the main characters in the Nativity story. We listened to musical numbers about Christ's birth and then ended with my teacher Brother Wilson telling us the Nativity story from Luke from memory. The spirit was very strong as we all pondered on what took place that night so long ago. It was amazing to like about being one of the shephards that night. I can imagine that the lights that glowed from Bethlem although smaller looked similar to the glow that we were able to see. What would it have been like to be tending your flocks and have an angel come and bare the good news that the Savior of the world had been born? What would it have been like to go and to kneel down by the babe that would be your king of kings and save you from your sins? I imagine it would have been a very wonderful, spiritual, humble thing to kneel by the Savior. I know that the Savior lives. I know that he was born on that quiet night in Bethlem so many years ago and that he live the perfect live while on this earth so that we would know how we needed to live. I know that if we follow him that we will be able to live with our Heavenly Father again someday.

2009-03-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

This past week i have pretty much been inside except for the field trips we went on. We had our mid terms and some of our finals. Even though this past week has been kind of stressful I am just thankful that i have the opportunity to be here. I am so very blessed. I have learned so much and am excited to learn more as i continue my studies here. As you can see from this picture the flowers are starting to bloom and the days just keep getting nicer and nicer. Out here where this picture was taken is a place that a lot of us like to go to study or look down over the old city of Jerusalem. If you don't know already i love it here!

Purim

2009-03-13T05:49:00.000-07:00

One of the Jewish holidays is the Holiday of Purim. It's when they celebrate how Esther saved the Jewish people from destruction. The way they celebrate it is dressing up in costumes and going to the synogogue and reading the esther scroll. While reading the scroll everytime the name of Hammon is read everybody uses noise makers and yells to drown out his name. For those of you who don't know he is the bad guy of the story. There are also all kinds of parties going on in the streets for the more secular jews.

For like two weeks before the actual day of Purim the little kindergarteners dress up in their cute little costumes. Here is a picture of some of them when we were in the old city one day. Aren't they so cute!! it's pretty much like Halloween that last a couple weeks for the kids. they dress up everyday for about two weeks and get lots of candy. I thinking that i might want to start celebrating this. :)

About 20 of us went to the synogogue that was near by to celebrate purim. And yes everybody was dressed up at the synogogue including us. Even Obama came to the synogogue to celebrate. :)

I thought this was so cute. This old Jewish couple with their scroll of Esther all dressed up to celebrate the holiday.

We just had to throw costumes together from the stuff that we brought from home. i am supposed to be a Hawaiian girl. Even though it kinda looks like something you would wear just as a normal outfit.

Here is a picture of all of us that went to the synogogue. It reminded me of a big ward halloween party with a program. One other thing about Purim that i found to be very interesting was that part of the holiday is getting drunk for the adults. So pretty much all adults get drunk that night. Even the ultra orthodox Jews will get drunk. There were all kinds of policemen out that night. So for the adults its like a Halloween and New Years rolled into one.

2009-03-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

Today we took a field trip to go see the Seperation wall. This is the wall that the Israel government put up around Israel to seperate the West Bank from Israel. They started building the wall back around 2001 when there was lots of terrorist bombings in an attempt to keep them out of Jerusalem. As you can see from the graffitti on the wall that many people have expressed their feelings toward this wall. Its sad to see the people divided like this.

The wall served its purpose in helping to stop terrorists attacks but it is also seperating family members from each other. I pray for a solution to be met that can compromise both the Isreali and Palestinian problems. I have learned to love both people and pray that they will be able to live together peaceably.

For one of our field trips we went to the Jerusalem Archeological Park. This is right next to the temple mount or where the Dome of the Rock sits. The ruins here date back to the 2nd temple period which is the period of the time of Christ. The stairs that Stephanie and I are sitting on are the original stairs that led up to the temple mount during the Christ's time. The temple mount had seperate gates for the entrance and exit. So where we are sitting is where the people of the time would have walked up to enter the temple. Way up in the top left hand corner if you look very closely you can see the filled in gate that was the entrance to the temple mount. It was filled in and part of it is covered because the Muslims have a mosque that sits right up from there. These are the stairs that the Savior would have used to enter the temple. It was on these stairs that Mary Joseph and the infant Jesus would of came when they came to offer sacrifice after the Savior's birth.

Where i am now is over to the right of the other gate. These gates are the exit to the temple mount. As you can see they have been filled in too. There are many events that happened on these stairs. One day when the Savior and his twelve apostles were leaving the temple and walking down these stairs they saw a beggar that was blind from birth. One of the apostles asked the Savior if the beggar had sinned or his parents had. Back then people believed that if you had an ailment of any sort you had sinned. The Savior told him that neither had sinned. The Savior then spit in the dirt and made mud and put it on the Beggars eyes and then told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. We know that the man did go wash and he was healed. What i thought was really interesting was that in one of the accounts of this story in the Gospels of the New Testament when the Savior is putting the mud on his eyes it says that he annointed his eyes and then told him to go wash. This eludes to the concept of washings and annointings.

This is a place that the director of the Jerusalem Center said was where he thought the pinnacle of the temple was. If it is this is where the Savior stood when Satan tempted him to jump down.

This is the road that is right below the previous picture. This is the actual ruins of the main road that existed during the time of Christ. This is another reason why the director thought that the pinnacle of the temple that is talked about in the temple was right above here. Satan wanted the Savior to jump down to prove to the people that he was the Messiah. This would be the best place to do it because of this main road. This was the busiest road during the times of Christ. This is where the majority of the people would have seen the Savior. Of course the Savior did not work that way and did not give into the temptation of the Satan. There are probably so many other stories that took place in these very places thousands of years ago. Its amazing to me to think of what went on at these places. My director told us a story of the 1st man on the moon. After he had already gone to the moon he came to Jerusalem and walked along the same stairs that we walked on which are the same stairs that the Savior walked on. He said that walking on stairs that the Savior walked on meant more to him than walking on the moon.

Old Joppa in Tel Aviv

2009-03-09T05:44:00.000-07:00

Right before we left Tel Aviv we looked out the window of the bus and saw a muslim dressed in her normal muslim attire wearing a baseball cap on her head. I thought it was very humerous.

Another place they took us was to this tree. It is just hanging there by these cords. It was pretty cool. There is some symbolism with it but i wasn't sure what it was.

In Tel Aviv they have this Wishing Bridge. Along the railing they have all the zodiak signs. You are supposed to go stand by your sign and touch while you are looking out at the sea and make your wish. I am not really angry in this picture. The sun is in my eyes. :)

In Joppa we went to the house of Simon the tanner. On the roof of that house was where Peter had his revelation that the gospel was to be shared with everybody and not just the Jews. This revelation opened up missionary work to a lot more of our Heavenly Father's childre.This revelation made it possible eventually for all of us to become members of Christ's church.

The is the port at Joppa. This was the same place the port would of been in Bible times. It was at this port that Jonah had his experience with the whale. The Lord gave Jonah a call to go somewhere and he wanted to run and hide from the Lord. We all know that you can't hide from the Lord. Jonah was then swallowed up by a whale. We all know the story. This story teaches us a couple of things. One we need to be responisible and do the things we are asked to do and that the Lord knows everything and we can't hide anything from the Lord.

This monument symbolizes the Melchezidek Priesthood.

King Abdulla's Mosque

2009-03-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

I for some reason left out from my blog about Jordan the visit that we made to King Abdulla's Mosque. He is the King that is reigning in Jordan right now. The people love him. One really cool thing that i learned about him is that he will go out and try to disguise himself to that he can go among the people and see how they live. He also sometimes will go out a be a taxi driver. He does this to get to know the people and their concerns. I thought that was very cool. No wonder the people love him so much.

Here are me and Bre before we entered the Mosque. We had to wear scarves around our heads to cover our hair and we had to put on these black robes. They looked like choir robes with hoods. As you know for Muslims they do this to be modest. Especially when entering a place where they worship.

Here is a view of the ceiling of the mosque. I thought that it was very beautiful. You will notice in my pictures that there aren't any kind of images in the mosque. It is forbidden to have anykind of statues or anything like that inside of a mosque. Mosques are just big and wide open. They don't have any chairs because people go there to pray and they don't need chairs.

Part of the Muslim religion requires Muslims to pray 5 times aday. Inside King Abdulla's mosque it had a list of the times that the Muslims are required to pray. Because there times to pray correlates with the rising and setting of the sun the times change in accordance. Right now these are the times that they pray. You might notice that there are 6 times listed there. The second time is the time that the sun rises. It isn't a time that they pray. For those people that have to work and are unable to go pray at those times they can make them up afterwards. For example if someone is Muslim and they aren't able to do any of the prayers that day because of work than that night when they go home they have to make them all up. So instead of praying five times throughout the day they pray five seperate times that night.

I don't have a picture of this but when Muslims pray they first start standing up and then go down to there knees and then they will bend over and touch there foreheads to the floor. They have someoen that stands in front of the group that leads the prayer. The prayers are recitations except for when they have their foreheads on the ground. This couple minutes they are able to have their own personal petition to Allah. Walking around the streets of Jerusalem you can tell which Muslims are devout because they will have a callous on there foreheads from praying so much.

Here i am in the mens section. The cutout in the wall behind me points the Muslims in the direction of Mecca. They are in all mosques.

This is me in the Womens section of the Mosque. When they go to pray they have different sections. One for the Men and one for the Women. This is actually an entirely different room from the main room where the men go to pray.

Jordan and Tel Aviv

2009-03-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

So here it goes this is really long but i am making up for a week of awesome things that i did on my trip to Jordan. The first thing that we did in Jordan was we went to Petra. Petra for those of you that are wondering is where they filmed the last part of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That made Petra really famous but there is a lot more there than just that. I have way too many pictures so i just put up a couple of them. Before you get to the treasury that is in Indiana Jones you walk through this canyon with beautiful colored rocks surrounding you. The pictures don't do it justice. They were amazing shades of red and purple and somtimes yellow and white.

Here is the moment you were waiting for. Cue Indiana Jones theme music. This is the treasury. It was awesome because you are walking through the canyon like the picture before and all of a sudden it opens up and there it is!

This picture might look like it is the same picture as up above but it isn't. We climbed 852 stairs up the mountain side to get to this. It was worth it though. The hike up was beautiful and the lookout a little ways from this was gorgeous. If you can't tell we are spelling Jordan. I am the letter d.

Here is one of the views from the look out that i talked about. I just couldn't get over how pretty it was!

Here is a picture of me in the canyon down below the mountain just to give you another look at all the different colors of rocks. I wish you could have been there. Like i said the pictures don't give it justice. It was absolutely beautiful!

After going to Petra the next big thing that we did was go to Jerash which is where the ruins of an ancient Roman city are. I loved it there. I thought it was beautiful!! To start off my Jerash picture the one below shows me in the ancient arena where the Roman citizens would come to watch chariot races and gladiator fights etc. i am standing right in the middle of the arena.

Here we are at the top of the huge amphitheater. It was actually kind of funny because while we were there they brought out these people that played the bag pipes for us. While they were playing some people started doing the congo. So here we have some American people doing the Congo to Irish bagpipes in a Roman amphitheater that is located in Jordan. As you can see though from the picture it was pretty impressive.

Around the bottom of the amphitheater they had almost like an ancient microphone system. There were these circles that went along the entire bottom of the amphitheater. someone could go whisper in one on the other end and we would still be able to here it on our end. I thought it was pretty cool. In this picture is me and Marianne.

i loved all the rocks amongst the green. It was so beautiful!

Here i am again. Its not by anthing in particular but i thought it made for a good picture.

After we toured around Jerash there was a Roman show that we went to. It was pretty cheesy but i really liked it. It was a lot of fun . Here we are sitting on the actual seats that the Roman citizens themselves sat on when watching the Chariot races and the gladiator fights. During the gladiator fights we got to determine whether or not they died. It was thumbs up if you wanted them to live and thumbs sideways if you wanted them to die. This is how it actually worked back in the roman times when they actually did have the gladiator fights.

After the show was over we got to go down and take pictures with all the people from the show. It was a lot of fun!! Here i am with one of the chariot drivers.

He we are pretending like they are killing us. Everytime i look at this picture i laugh. I think its so funny!!!

Me and my roommate Bre are by the announcer of the Roman show. He was by far the cutest guy in the show.

Right as we were walking out after taking pictures i saw a helmet sitting there so i asked if i could put it on. I was trying to look really fierce but i think i just came across as goofy. :) Don't you love how the helmet is covering up my eyes!!! LOL!!

2009-03-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Here i am at the Citadel overlook. As you can see this was another ancient Roman ruin. It wasn't that big but both of these pictures are in front of the remains of the Hercules Temple. So of course I needed to show off my massive muscles and hold up the columns.

Our first stop in Tel Aviv was the Diaspora Museum. You probably don't know what diaspora means because i didn't know what it meant until i came here. The diaspora refers to the scattered Jews after they were exiled from Jerusalem after the second temple was destroyed by the Romans.This is a monument inside the museum built for those Jews. It is symbolic of what the Jews had to go through after being exiled and scattered. Our guide said that the best explanation that she heard of this came from a little 8 year old boy. He was standing beneath and exclaimed "This is a Jew trap". After learning about the history of the Jews i think that this is a very good interpretation. When the Jews were exiled and persecuted a lot of time they weren't allowed to live their lifestyle because many times if people knew that they were Jewish they would be persecuted if not killed. This little lights in the middle represent the jews trying to cling together while the cage like structure around represents the many people who tried to stop the Jews from being Jews and not letting them live their lives.

The next stop that we made was to Independence Hall. This was where Israels Declaration of Independence was signed. When i was sitting through the presentation that they had i noticed that there was some Israeli people on our tour too. I kept watching them as the program went on. They explained the history behind it and then they played for us the recording of when they signed the Declaration and then had us listen to their National Anthem. Watching the Israelis sing along with their National Anthem made me think of how much I am proud of America's Independence and how i feel when i sing our National Anthem. It made me realize how much this place and what went on here means to the Israelis that live here. Israel became a state two years after the end of the holocaust when there were 1,000 of Jews who literally did not have a home. I can see why this place means so much to them. The lady that was speaking to us mentioned that there were still a lot of ugly things here like the seperation wall and all the checkpoints that they have in the Palestinian Territories. She said how these things were keeping both the Palestinians and the Israelis in the Ghetto. I hope and pray that they will be able to find a solution to the problems over here and really be able to extablish the Independence and equality for all that their declaration talks about.

2009-03-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

The first thing we did in our free time in Tel Aviv was go to the Carmel Shuq. This is just shopping as you can see. If was a lot of fun. In this picture is Chelsie, Terry Ann, Marianne, and me. Tel Aviv is very different from Jerusalem. It is very much westernized and has a European feel. It was almost like being in America again. Almost. With the clothes that we are wearing in this picture we would probably still be considered imodest to some people in Jerusalem. In Tel Aviv we were probably the most modest.

I love this picture! i think it is so funny! Yep that is a guy wearing a big skirt. I didn't get his face but he was wearing makeup too. I never thought that i would see this in Israel. He looks like what i would expect to see in dowtown Seatle, San Francisco, or New York. :)
I thought the picture of the little girl with her parents with her little fairy wings on was so adorable! It was nice to see a father holding his childs hand. In Jerusalem you hardly ever see a father holding his child its always the mother.

2009-03-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

One of the places that we went in Tel Aviv was the flea market. It was defianantly an experience. I didn't buy anything because i pretty much just had to walk through it because we were running late. When i took this picture the guy got mad at me and wanted me to pay him money. I just ran away.

Heres another picture of the flea market. It was pretty much a giant expensive garage sale. The best thing was that they had this juice place where you picked whatever fruit you wanted and they mixed it up and made like a jamba for you. It was so much better though. It was all fresh fruit with a little milk and ice. No icecream or anything else. I loved it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-07T08:03:00.000-08:00

One of the highlights of Tel Aviv was going to the the Mediterranean Sea. While it was snowing in Utah and Idaho I was on the beach in 80 degree weather. It was wonderful and beautiful!!

We didn't get to go swimming because we didn't have enough time but we rolled up our jeans and walked along the beach. I got a little picture happy and took a lot of pictures of heidi, terryanns and my feet. Can you guess which one is mine? yep the extremely white one with the crooked second toe :) I loved it! It was so much fun!

Hezekiah's Tunnel and the Pool of Siloam

2009-02-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

Today was probably one of my favorite field trips. We went to Hezekiahs tunnel. Back when the Assyrians were taking over everything right and left. Hezekiah had Jerusalem fortified and they carved out this tunnel that runs underneath the city of Jerusalem that diverted water down to inside the city. This secured a water supply within the fortified city. Since water was such a crucial thing it was important to have a supply that couldn't be cut off by the Assyrians. This tunnel is 1750 ft long. When they carved this out they had two teams start on different ends and they met in the middle. It's amazing that they were able to meet within inches of each other. It was so fun we got to walk through it, water and everything!!! As you can see the water at some places got pretty high. As you can see there were a couple of us shorties where the water got a little higher on us than everybody else. :) It was so fun though. Hezekiahs tunnel emptied into what was called Siloam Pool from Jesus time. Today it empties into another pool that they call Siloam pool but it isn't the same one that was there during Jesus's time.

Here is what the real Pool of Siloam would of looked like during Jesus's time. This is the pool that it talks about in the scriptures when the Savior when the Savior heals a man that was blind from birth. He puts mud over his eyes and tells him to go wash in the Siloam Pool.

I am sitting on the original stairs that were here during Christ's time. Right in front of me where the dirt begins is where the pool of Siloam would of began. The other picture is of me and my roommates Emilie and Bre on the stairs with the place where the pool would be off to the right. It was really neat to be here because I walked in a place that we know that the Savior walked.

The caroline bells and shopping at the Jewish Market

2009-02-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Chelsie, Marianne,Krista, Celeste and I went with Brother Squires over to the Caroline Bells in the YMCA Bell tower. Brother Squires plays the organ here in the Center. Him and his wife take 6 people every sounday to go ring the bells. Me and Chelsie played Ode to Joy. I played the top hand and she played the bottom hand.

The bells are hooked to a thing that looks like and is set up like a piano. We each practiced on the fake piano and then we rang them for real.

Here is a look at the bells that we got to ring!

Here i am standing by the bells looking out of the bell tower.

Here we are all in front of the bells. We each got to play a song and then we all did the chime for the 12 o'clock hour. It was Awesome! We played for about 70,000 people that live in West Jerusalem. It was so much fun!!!

After we went to ring the bells we went and walked around West Jerusalem and saw some things then we went to the Jewish Market or what is called the Suk. It was so much fun. These are just some of the things that are ther. There are tons of fresh and dried fruit stands. There is also all different kinds of nuts. i bought these delicous what we call love nuts. They say they are just peanuts but they have this coating on them and they are so much better than peanuts. I also bought a ton of dried bananas. YUM!!! Below are some pictures that you probably won't see in the US to much.:) look at all those kippas!!:) the other picture is a shop full of spices. Even those reddish tree looking things on the counter are spices. i want to go back here on Friday because thats when its packed full of Jews getting ready for Shabot. :)

Christ's Church

2009-02-23T09:07:00.000-08:00

I don't remember what day but i went to a church called Christ's Church. This church was built in the Ottoman period. It was built for the return of the Jews to Jerualem. They built it so they could convert the Jews to Christianity when they came back to Jerusalem. Inside the Church they made it look similar to a synogogue because they didn't want to make the Jews feel uncomfortable. They have a menorah and a star of david. They don't have any statues and any crosses in the Church. The only thing that they have that resembles a cross is in the stained glass window below. It is actually a grape vine. They really do grow like that. I thought that was so interesting because Christ is referred to as the vine in the scriptures. It was a beautiful church.

Outside and behind the church was this table painted like this. I thought that it was really neat. So of course i took a picture!!! Everything here is so religious or alludes to something religious. I love it!! Its amazign to think about how Christ is the bread of life and that if we eat of His bread we will never go hungry again. I know that to be true. It is only through the Savior that we find happiness and meaning in life. I love my savior and am so thankful for the strength and support and comfort that he has, does, and will continue to give me. I am so thankful to be here in Jerusalem the place where the Savior walked and taught and where he bled and died and then on the 3rd day was resurrected for me and for everyone. I know that the Savior did all of those things. I know that HE LIVES!!! What comfort this sweet sentence gives!

This was on the outside of the Church of Christ. The top is in Hebrew and then Arabic is below it. If i have to tell you what the 3rd one is than i feel sorry for you :) Jerusalem does need peace. I love the people here. It makes me so sad to here the stories that they tell me. So many people have lived here their whole lives or the most of their lives and haven't been able to trully live in peace. I have taken for granted a lof of the blessings that i have of just being able to live in the United States. My Palestinian teacher told us that when he was in the United States his favorite thing to do was to get on bus and just sit there and drive across the country. For him he felt so free doing that. Here there are so many check points that you have to go through all of the time. He lives in Bethlehem which is in Palestinian territory. Every time he comes in to teach us he has to go through border control in order to get into Israel. There are also many check points thorugh out the entire Palestinain territory. I am so blessed in so many ways that i take for granted everyday.

2009-02-20T03:55:00.000-08:00

I might have already posted pictures of this church but i am not sure so i am posting them again. This is the St. Mary Magdeline Church. I think it is so beautiful. This is the second time that i have been here. This time a came with a bigger group. The group picture is of us on the steps that lead up to the church.

Right before you walk in the gate to the stairs in the previous picture you are met by these beautiful purple flowers. I love purple so i took like 5 pictures of the flowers. Lucky for you i decided not to put them all in here. The other picture is my favorite picture. Right when you go in the gate before you go up the stairs you turn left and go through an alley way and over to some really old steps. These steps were here during the Roman times and is one of the three places in Jerusalem that people are almost sure that the Savior walked on.

As you can tell by the plaque below we went over to the pools of Bethesda. This is where there was a lame man that was waiting by the pool and everytime the water bubbled in the pool the first person to get into the pool was healed. Well as we know he was unable to make to the pool. The next part of the story is when the Savior Heals him and as the plaque says the Savior says, "Rise, take up your pallet, and walk."

As you can see there has been a lot of excavation at this site and you can't see the pools. Infact where the pool would have been is actually covered by modern or should i say semi modern buildings. It was really fun to walk around the excavations though. Everything there is really really really old.

The last thing i am going to talk about today is the tomb of Mary. This is one of the places that people beleive is the burial place of the virgin Mary. It was really dark inside so the pictures aren't that great. Next to Mary's tomb was a walkway that lead to a cave. This cave (and a garden near by that i couldn't find) is where they believe is the place that the Apostles waited for the Savior while he was in the garden of Gethsemane and where Judas Ischariot betrayed him. Being here i realized how close this place really was to the Garden of Gethsemane. It is really close. It made me wonder how the Apostles could have fallen asleep while our Savior was going through the agony that he did while he was atoning for their sins and for all of our sins. I am just so thankful that the Savior did in fact atone for our sins. I know that he did. I know that because of him we can all become perfect in him. We can all live again in the presence of our Heavenly Father. I know this to be true and am thankful for the testimony that i have of this.

Qunruntul Monestary and the Knesset

2009-02-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

On our Field trip to Jericho we went to Quruntul Monestary. As you can see it is located right on the side of the mountain. Almost like it is part of the mountain. This monestary was built where they believe is the spot that Christ was tempted by Satan. There is another church on the very top of the mountain where another denomination thinks the place was. It was really neat. We had a little hike up to the monestary and it was really hot that day but it was worth it. It was a very quiet peaceful place not like that busy old city in Jerusalem.

As you can see the view from the top was pretty amazing! minus the power lines of course. The view looks out over Jericho or the city of palm trees as it is refered to in the Bible. You can't tell from this picture but there are lots of Palm trees in Jericho.

This is just a picture to let you see just how this Monestary was built. It was built off of the Mountain. As you can see one wall is the mountain and the otherside is what they built. It was awesome!! You might be wondering why i have a scarf over my shoulder when i said that it was a really hot day. The monestary is fairly i guess you could say orthodox and they advised us to take a scarf to cover our heads to show more respect. By the time we all walked to the top we were way to hot to put them on and nobody seemed to care.The other picture below is the room that they have to worship. I am sitting by the exact rock where they beleive that Jesus stood when he was tempted by Satan.

Another thing that i was able to do was to go visit the Knesset. This is what we in the United States would consider the Capitol in Washington D.C. I never would of ever thought to go there but they just recently had an election her in Israel. They have a democractic Parlimentary system that is really hard to explain. My Jewish teacher doesn't evem know exactly how it works. It was really neat to go there. They gave us a tour and we got to go into what we would probably call the legislature room. Like everything in Jerusalem there was lots of symbolism throughout the Knesset. I would have more pictures but we weren't allowed to take our cameras inside and i couldn't get a good picture of the outside of the Knesset. The picture of me by the statue is in the middle of the round about right by the Knesset. I thought it looked pretty cool.

2009-02-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

The other day we took a walk down to the old city and we ended up going to the church of the Flaggulation and the church of the condemnation. As the names indicate they church of the condemnation is where Christians believe that Christ was condemned and the church of the Flaggulation is where Christians believe he was beaten and whipped. The first two pictures were taken at the church of the condemnation and the other picture was taken at the church of the flaggulation.

Today i had the opportunity to go and volunteer at the Princess Basma Center for Disabled Children. I worked with the hearing impaired. They had these high tech chips that were implanted in their heads that helped them to hear. They were so cute. We just played with them. It was a little difficult because they didn't understand English and we didn't understand Arabic. At first we tried to play ring around the rosies because it didn't involve too much instruction they just followed what we did. They didn't understand anything we said but they liked the falling down part of the song. After a while the teachers took over with the games and we just sat in on the games and played with them. They really enjoyed having us there. They always wanted to sit by us and hold our hands. After our games we played with playdough with them. After that i got out my camera and started taking pictures and the kids just went crazy. They all wanted to be in the pictures. I sat down on the ground and they all tried to come over and sit on my lap. It was so cute. I really had a lot of fun!!! I would love to go back again. Down below are a couple of the pictures that were taken. The one with the 3 of us girls i am standing with my roommate Bre and Janay another girl from the Jerusalem center. The picture with me and the little girls is them wearing the little crowns that i made for them out of the playdough.

2009-02-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

The last day in Egypt we got to climb Mount Sinai and see the sun rise. It was amazing!! We got up at 2:00 in the morning and set out for the mountain. It was beautiful walking up the mountain in the dark becasue all the stars were so bright and beautiful. It was really neat to think about the promise that God made to Abraham that his posterity the Isrealites would be as numerous as the sands of the sea and the star in the sky. Also to think about the vision that Moses saw of the creation of the world. The other thing that i couldn't stop thinking about was the marvelous things that took place on that mountain. The burning bush and Moses being in the presence of God and being able to see him face to face. It was a marvelous experience. Despite the cold it was wonderful. When we got to the top of the mountain it was freezing!!!!!! We defianantly needed a winter coat. I had so many layers, scarves, blankets and i was still freezing. I could not feel my fingers they were so cold and i had gloves on. We were all cuddling with each other for warmth. Nobody cared we were just too cold to care.

When the sun rose it was absolutely beautiful it was so worth the hike and the cold. As the sun came up you noticed so many things that you didn't see before like that mountain range that surrounded Mount Sinai. I t hought that it was so beautiful!!!! On the way down it was like having a completly different hike because now we could see everything. I loved it!!! If i ever get to come back and do it again i will bring warmer clothes though. :)

Muhhamad Ali Mosque

2009-02-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

One of the last things that we did in Egypt is go to the Muhhammid Ali Mosque. As you can see it is huge. I thought that it was really pretty. We all had to take off our shoes when we went inside. This is because when Muslims pray they touch their forheads to the ground. So, they don't want people walking around with dirty shoes on. We sat in there while our tour guide Emad taught us a little bit about the islamic religion and how they pray. It was really interesting. They say recited prayers. When they bend down and their forheads are on the ground this time is when they themselves get to say whatever they want to Allah. This is where they get to say their own personal prayer. This is something that i never knew. Just a little more about the Islamic religion that i thought you might like to know. Muslims have 5 what they call pillars or duties that they believe in. The pillars are: they beleive that there is only one god Allah and Muhhamad is his Prophet, during the islamic month of Ramadan they fast every day all day from sunrise to sunset, praying 5 times a day, giving alms to the poor, and making a pilgrimage once in their lives to Mecca.

Since i have been in Jerusalem i have wanted to get pictures of the people that live here. When i waas in the mosque was the first time that they wanted to take pictures of us. when we were sitting on the ground listening to our explaination of their religion there was a group on Muslim adults that were taking pictures of all of us while we sat on the ground. Then afterwards i was walking around looking at things and the 3 girls in the picture walked up to me and started talking to me so i was asking them their names and how old they were and they then they asked me if i wanted a picture. They wanted to know if i wanted a picture with them. So i took one of us. I thought that they were so cute. (not the best picture of me though :)) So anyways after i stood up from taking the picture this group of Muslim boys surrounded me and then i noticed that there friends were taking pictures of them with me. I thought it was so funny. I just stood there and smiled.

Here is a picture of what the inside of the Mosque looked like. I thought it was really pretty. During there 5 daily prayers they would lining this building praying. As you can see there is no furniture in the mosque that is because with they way that they worship they don't need furniture.

After we went to the Mosque we went to the Christian section of Egypt which isn't that big. Remember there are only about 10% of Christians in Egypt. We couldn't take any pictures becasue they were not allowed. It was really neat thought to see the Christian aspects of Egypt. We went to the church that was built over the cave that they beleive that Joseph and Mary fled to with the baby Jesus when Herod gave the order to have all the male babies killed.

2009-02-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

To start out my blog today i thought i would share with you some of the beautiful views that i had from the hotel that we stayed in in Luxor. The Nile was right behind us and it was gorgeous looking out everyday we were there. One night we just sat there and watched the sun set. It was so nice.

One of the temples that we went to was the Karnak temple. It is the biggest temple that was built. This temple wasn't built for any Pharoah in particular but every Pharoah wanted to make his mark. It was built for the Egyptians greatest god Amunra the son god. Like i said each Pharoah wanted to leave his mark on it someway so each Pharoah would build their shrine to the god AmunRa making sure of course that everybody knew who the person was that added on to it. This is the temple had a lot of symbolism connected to the temples. They had a holie of holies that had an alter in it. It was for the god AmunRa but it was interesting to see the comparison to our temples. they had a holy of holies that was considered the most sacred place. Only the High Priest and the Pharoah (because he did whatever he wanted) could go into the holy of holies. Our tour guide said that the alter had power in it and he wanted all of us to touch it before we left. Yes my hand is the one right in the front with the watch on. I thought it was a little funny because our tour guide said that every time that he touches it he feels the power shoot up through his arm and then all over his body. :)

Everywhere we went in Egypt we always had security gaurds with us. As you can expect a while ago when they were having all of the suicide bombers tourism went way down and as i said before tourism is their number two source of income. So to help with this give security to all the tour buses that come through Egypt. They all dressed in nice suits and ties but underneath their suit jackets they were packing.

One last story that i thought was really amuzing was at the last temple we went to which was the temple for Ramses II me and my roommate Bre went to take a picture by Ramses head and when we got over to it our tour guide asked us to take a picture of him next to it so we did. Then i went over there and while my roomie was taking a picture of me i noticed that our tour guide took a picture of me too! kinda weird!!! I thought it was pretty funny though too!

2009-02-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things that i did while in Egypt was i went on a camel ride. It was so fun. It was like 45 minutes long. How many people can say that they have ridden a camel. They are very interesting to get on and get off of. They lay down while you get on and they stand up while you are sitting on them. Its the same for getting off they lay down with you on it and then you get off. You feel like you are going to fall off. It was super fun though. My camels name was william Shakespeare and the little boy that was leading my camels name was Muhammad. There are so many people named Muhammad in Egypt. Almost everybody you meet is named Muhammad after the Prophet Muhammad. So anyways my camel must have been slow and clumsy because during the courst of my ride it tripped like 5 times and the guy that was leading the camel behind me kept whipping it with its lead rope. I thought it was pretty funny.

My favorite thing about the camel ride was that they took us through this little village. I loved seeing all their houses and all the people that lived their especially all the little children. I just liked seeing how the people really lived there. Below is one of the houses that we passed. They are so close together they are like townhouses. I loved the Arabic that was written on the side of the house. Arabic spoken i think sounds harsh and angry but i think that Arabic written is beautiful. The other pictures that i have are just some pictures of the people that we passed on our little camel ride. Don't you love the kids!! They are so cute!!! All the little kids would come out to wave at us as we passed by. The last picture is a guy that is cutting sugar cane with his machete. This i am sure will be one of my fondest memories from my experience here.

2009-02-09T11:34:00.000-08:00

Alright so all i have to say is that shopping in Egypt is STRESSFUL!! The shop keepers are extremely pushy. They will do anything to get to buy their things. They will practically pull you into their store. It is quite annoying. They will always heckel all the girls. I don't know how many times they would say you have beautiful eyes, or we heard all the time spicey girls. It was a little funny at first but then it got really annoying oh lets say about 2 seconds into our shopping experience :) You have to barter for everything and they will always try to rip you off so buying one thing takes forever because you have to barter the price down. Sometimes i would almost rather pay the higher price just so i wouldn't have to barter but i don't have a lot of money and i don't want to get ripped off when i know i can get it for cheaper. I only bought like three things and we were there for 3 hours. You can't just run in quick and grab something. So anyways by the end of my first day of shopping in Egypt i had had it. Hence the picture of me shooting my head. When we were walking home after our shopping experience we walked by the McDonalds (i know they are everywhere) and we noticed that they had delivery for McDonalds. It was really funny. They had little mopeds for the deliveries. Of course we had to get a picture. Now you can be even lazier you don't have to get in your car to drive to the drive through all you have to do is pick of the phone. :) They other thing that i thought was really really funny was one of the last shops before we got back to our apartment was a spice shop called spicey girls. It was so funny because we had been called that too many times to count shopping.

2009-02-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

2009-02-08T07:12:00.000-08:00

We had the opportunity to go on a faluka, which is a sail boat as you can see below. We took the faluka up the nile river. It was awesome. The nile river was right behind the hotel that we were staying at. It was gorgeous. Although you would NEVER want to get in the Nile. It is not so clean. It was really fun though and i loved looking out at all the other sailboats and the people and scenery along the shores.

The number 2 source of income for the Egyptians is the money that they make from Tourism. Everywhere you went you always had someone wanting you to buy something. They are very persistant salemen. Even when we were out on our faluka ride some cute little kids rowed out to us in their little boat trying to sell us things. The other picture i have is the picture that i took of our HOT rudder boy on our faluka ride. This picture doesn't do him justice because you can't see his face very well but he was really cute. :)

Here is a picture of everybody on my fieldtrip bus in front of the statues of Menes. They are huge statues. The amazing thing to think about is that these were the statues that were at the doorway to a temple. Can you imagine how big the temple must have been!!!!!!

So here i am in front of the Temple for Ramses III. Don't i look fabulous with my fanny pack!!:) I just liked how there were numerous door ways all the way back. Of course you cannot have a temple with out pillars. The other picture is a picture of my roommate Bre and me hugging the pillar. They are huge!!! I really liked looking at all the heiroglyphics and to see how big everything was. One thing is for sure. The Pharoahs liked to make sure people remembered them and it worked because how can you forget them when they have these huge buildings built for them. Everything they built was huge. They defianantly made sure that people knew that they built it too with all the heiroglyphics and carvings of them.

Below is a picture of me in front of a statue of Ramses III. This is actually one of the many statues of Ramses III. I tired to pick the one that was the most intact. It just shows how massive they were. I look so small next to it. I also included one of the many pictures that i took of the heiroglyphics. I loved looking at them and seeing how intricate some of them were and wondering what they all meant. The ones below are in a cartouche so they are probably the name of Ramses III. A cartouche is the bubble looking thing surrounding the carved heiroglyphics. They would write the Pharoahs names inside these cartouches. Only Pharoah's could have their names written inside the cartouches. They also would have two cartouches for the Pharoah's name. They would have one for their birth name and then one with the name that they recieved when they became Pharoah.

Valley of the Kings

2009-02-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite days was when i went to the Valley of the kings. This is where many of the Pharoahs tombs are. After a while the Pharoahs realized that building pyramids served as almost a banner telling robbers to come rob from the tombs so they started carving the tombs out of the mountain side where they wouldn't be do noticable. One of the most impressive tombs that i saw there was that of Ramses IV. There was a lot of carvings and painting and a lot of symbolism as well. Unfortunantly they didn't allow any cameras in any of the tombs and they were really strict about it so i can't share any pictures of what i saw. All I can say is that it was amazing! I wish that i could to decribe it for you but it would take me way too long. sorry!

This is us at the top of a staircase that led up to the tomb of Thoutmes III. After climbing all those stairs to get up we had to climb a lot of stairs back down into his tomb. It was really cool though.

This is a view down in the valley of the kings just to give you an idea of what it kinda looked like. By the way it was really hot that day!!!! If you can't tell :)

This is me and my roommate Bre in front of the sign for King Tut's tomb. We were able to see his mummy here as well. All the stuff that they found in his tomb we saw later at the Egyptian Museum. It was very cool and so was seeing his tomb. His tomb wasn't that big because he was Pharoah for only 9 years. The reason why we have so much of his stuff is because the robbers couldn't find his tomb because it was covered up by the debris of a tomb built right on top of it.

This is the mountain that looks out over the valley of the kings. They chose to make this a place to put there tombs because the mountain itself looks like a pyramid. Another tomb that i was able to go into was that of the Pharoah Sety. Yep the one i the story of Moses. It was very cool. One other interesting thing that we weren't able to go see is that there is also a valley of the Queens. The most famous tomb being that of Queen Nefertiti. It's so famous and i guess so magnificent that the tickets are $1,500 for an hour.

2009-02-03T22:39:00.000-08:00

Here are just some pictures of Cairo that i thought you would like to see. Cairo's population is 20 million. Its like the 2nd most populated city in the world. As you can see from the traffic driving can be pretty crazy. The people here do not drive in lanes they drive where ever they can fit on the road. Beleive it or not i only saw one accident while i was there and it was a little fender bender i was surprised that i didn't see any more. Also everybody here hangs their clothes outside to dry probably because it like hardly ever rains here.
It is really dirty in Cairo. As you can see from the picture of the canal. The streets were just as bad. The sad thing is that people actually live in this. It really made me sad to see the living conditions of the people that lived here. There are a lot of very poor people that live here. My heart went out to them especially all the little children and the really old grandmas and grandpas that had to work in the fields and cut down their crop by hand. I felt really blessed for what i had when i was here.

Just another picture of what the daily life for the people that live here in Cairo. It was very very common to see donkies and horses as the peoples main way of transportation. It in alot of ways made me feel like i had stepped back in time. It really is a different world for a lot of the people that live here. In America we own horses and donkies for pets or for recreation. In Egypt they own them to sustain life. They use them as transportation they use them to help in their fields. It is a necessity for them.

Here is a picture that i took of one of the many fields that i saw. Alot of time there would be men, woman, grandparents, and children out with machetis cutting down the fields. They do not have the modern technology for harvesting crops and even if they did they probably don't have the money to buy this modern technology. Like i said before i really was felt sad for these people. We really have it very very good in the United States. We should always be thankful for what we have. The United States is a wonderful place to live. I know i have said this before but we are so very blessed to live there. I feel so blessed to have the things that i have. I might not have the best car in the world but i bet the people here would just die for any kind of car. Before you start complaining about what you don't have think of all the blessings that you do have.

So as you can see i have another picture of a pyramid. this is actually the first pyramid ever built. As you can see it is a step pyramid and this is what gave the idea for the design of the great pyramids. This is the pyramid of the Pharoah Zoser.

Here is me and TerryAnn in front of the hand of a statue of Ramses II. This shows just how big the statue is. This statue is one of two. This one is actually not fully intact. The one that is intact is going to put in the front of the museum that they are going to be building in Cairo over by the great pyramids. I really loved this statue because i was able to get really close to see all the detail in the carving. It was trully magnificent to see the workmanship of the Egyptians.

This is a close up of Ramses II face. I thought it was beautiful. I can just imagine the time that it took to carve something like this out of stone and this is just one of the many other statues of Ramses II that exist all over Egypt. Not to mention all the other marvelous statues and temples etc. It was just so amazing to me.

2009-02-03T02:54:00.001-08:00

quick note about the picture at the end. We were seperated into two groups the Mathhew bus and the Mark bus. Someone forgot to use spell check when printing our sign. :)

2009-02-03T02:36:00.000-08:00

2009-02-03T02:05:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! I am back! Egypt was amazing!!! Its going to take a while for me to get all of you caught up with eveything that we were able to do there because we did a lot. As you can see below our first day to go out in Egypt we went to the 3 great pyramids. They were amazing! It amazed me how they were able to build such massive structures without the modern technology that we have now. I am sure that all of you know that the pyramids were built as tombs to house the Pharoahs mummified bodies. Once someone became Pharoah they would immediatly start on there tombs. The three great pyramids were for 3 Pharoahs that were father, son, and grandson. Each was smaller than the first to show respect for their elders. The biggest pyramid is for the Pharoah Kufu and the second biggest is for his son the Pharoah Khafre, which is what the Sphinx above is also built in the image of. There is a temple that was built next to the Sphinx for Khafre that was built only to be used once for the Pharoah when he passed away. This is where the priests would mummify his body and prepare him for the afterlife. The Egyptians had a very predominant beleif in the afterlife and you can see symbols of it everywhere. The whole process of emballing and mummifing the Pharoahs along with carvings stone statues was to ensure an afterlife for them. They believed that you needed one or the other in order to achieve it. The 3 great pyramids are the most prominant tombs but there are hundreds of them lots in the shape of pyramids and others not which i will explain in a later blog. The Egyptians beleived that after you died you had to go through a judgement. In a quick synopsis once an Egyptian died he would be brought by Anubis the god of the dead to a place where your heart would be weighed on the scale of justice. It is weighted against the feather of Ma'at which is symbolic of truth, justice, balance, righteousness etc. If their heart was lighter than the feather than they would go and become an Osiris. Osiris is a god of the afterlife. So in Mormom lingo in a way they would have eternal life as a god. If there heart was heavier than the feather than there heart would be eaten by the devourers and in a way they would go to what we call hell. Its interesting to see the similarities that the Egyptians had to the belives that we have. The Egyptians are decendents of Noahs son Ham. Ham married outside the covenant and he was denyed the greater preisthood and so was his posterity. They did not have the priesthood to preform any temple ordaninces or anything that involves the greater preisthood. So because they did not have they chose to immitate it. This can be seen in a lot of the things that they did that are similar to things that the Israelites did and even things that we do and believe today. There is not enough time or space to write everything so you will just have to wait until i get home in April sorry!! Just think of all the things that i will have to tell you then!:)

Egypt Trip!!

2009-02-03T01:52:00.000-08:00

2009-01-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

2009-01-24T09:38:00.000-08:00

So today has probably been my favorite day! Today we went to the Garden tomb. This is were many people, including the Latter day Saints, believe Christ's tomb is. It was amazing they took us on a tour around and then let us go into the tomb. Our tour guide was very cool. He was really funny and you could tell that he had a testimony of the Savior which he born in his own way at the end of the tour right before he let us go into the tomb. I felt the spirit so stong here. More than any where else that i have been. After we all had a chance to go into the tomb we moved over to another area and we sang some songs together. It was really neat. There were tons of other people there looking at the tomb and there was a group of people from Nigeria and when we started singing How Great Thou Art a lot of them started singin with us. One of them even same and video tapped us singing with his camera. It was really neat. The thing i loved the most was that the spirit was so strong there. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that he loves us so much that he died for us on the cross and that He rose again on the 3rd day. I know that it is through him that we will live again. I am so thankful for the testimony that i have of him. I am so thankful for the opportunity that i have to be here in this wonderful place. The pictures that i have below are of the entrance to the garden tomb and the tomb itself where we believe is where the Savior laid. "He is not here for He is risen"

2009-01-23T12:50:00.001-08:00

Today since we couldn't go into east jerusalem or the old city we decided that we were going to go to the Biblical Zoo. Really its just a regular zoo but its really cool. They have a lot of really cool animals and they are in really wide open spaces so you don't really have to look through a cage at them. It was a lot of fun! Probably my favorite thing was the chimpanzes. The really close picture i have is because one of them was right up against the glass and everytime we would knock on the window it would knock back at us. Or if we made noises at it it would knock on the glass. I don't know if it was playing with us or if it was really annoyed with us but it was really cute and fun. We saw a lot of other cool things of course lions, tigers, giraffes, elephants etc. We also saw vultures that had just barely been fed. It was cool but a little gross because they were ripping apart these big rats. One of the cool things was that there wasn't a fence between us and the vultures. They could have flew out right into our faces if the wanted to. I thought it was pretty cool. Some things is the zoo i thought were a little different. The picture of me and the door is of one of the snakes like cages. Usually they will make their cages like habitat with rocks and tress and stuff but this one was like a western scene. I thought that it was too funny so i took a picture. The other picture is of me and my Amazing roomies Emilie and Breanna in front of the elephants. On Sunday i leave for Egypt so after tomorrow i won't be blogging because we can't bring our laptops with us. That's alright because i will have a lot of stories to fill you all in on when I get back.:)

2009-01-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

2009-01-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

The pictures below are me in front of the dome of the rock and a picture of the western wall where the jews go to pray. I explain more about it below. :)

2009-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

2009-01-22T11:26:00.001-08:00

hey so you are probably wondering what in the world are these pictures. yeah they might seem kinda boring just looking at them until i tell you what exactly they are. So i have to give you a little back ground first. So as you may know the city of jerusalem has been destroyed more than once and everytime it was rebuilt they would just build on top of the old foundations so a lot of the Jerusalem that Christ would of walked on is actually underneath the Jerusalem now. One of the things that is still remaining is the retaining wall from the platform that King Herod built to build the temple on. The reason why it is still remaining is because the wall was really really really high. So because it was built so massive there is alot of it that is underground that you cannot see. The other day we went on a tour of what is called the kotel tunnel. This tour takes you through a tunnel that walks you along the western wall of the retaining wall that is underground. The western wall is a very sacred place to the Jewish people because it is the closest thing to where the temple would have been when it was still standing. Jews come here to pray especially friday nights to bring in the Sabbath or what they call shabot. Over here there day of worship is on saturday. The pictures below show a model of what the temple mount would of looked like when King Herods temple was built. The picture with the guy, which was our tour guide named yonathen, is a picture of the western wall that is underneath the ground. The other picture is us walking through a area that was carved out by water. The pictures do not do it justice. This tour was one of my favorite things that i have done so far.

2009-01-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

2009-01-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

Oh so i forgot to tell you a little story that happened from the pretty church yesterday. We went up there and there was this little old nun that was walking around the church that was sprinkling water on the church blessing it. We walked up there and she wanted all of us to come to her and she sprinkled water on us to bless us. I thought it was so funny.:) We walk up to her and she sprinkles water in our faces.:)

2009-01-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

Today during our free time we walked down to the old city and just went shopping. We hadn't been really shopping at all since we got here and we needed to get somethings. We had a lot of fun and at the end of my free time the grand total was 340. I bought like 3 skirts and a bag and a lot of earings. I also bought two scarves and some jesus sandols. I love shopping! That is pretty much all we did today besides going to our classes. On Sunday we are leaving for Egypt!!! so the pictures below are us in the markets down in the old city shopping and the other picture is one of the shop owners he was trying to convince us to buy a skirt so he was putting it on and showing us how they look. It was really funny so i asked him if we could take a picture and he was ok with it. :)

2009-01-19T10:59:00.000-08:00

2009-01-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

Today was a really neat day. We had a complete free day today!! so right after breakfast we called some taxis and had them drive a group of us over to En Kerem. En Kerem is where they think John the Baptist lived and where Mary came to visit Elizabeth when she found out she was going to bear the Savior. It was really neat going to this town. The church that we went to were beautiful. The town itself is more like a little village. It was very peaceful and calm there. i felt as if i had stepped out of the world for a while. It was very refreshing. It was very quiet there and i didn't see a lot of people except for the occasional nun or monk. :) We spent the entire day there. A lot of the time we were lost trying to find how to get to things but we had fun in the process. We had some very yummy gelato while we were there and right before we came back we got some pastrys. :) Before we went down to the city we stopped at the Haddash Hospital where they have the chaggal windows. They are 12 stained glass windows that represents each of the twelve tribes. They had an audio recording that we listened to that helped explain the symbolism for each window. I thought it was really neat.

2009-01-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

Below is one of the pictures of the Chagall Windows in the Haddasah Hospital

2009-01-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

2009-01-18T10:51:00.000-08:00

These are pictures taken at the St. John the Baptists church in En Kerem.

2009-01-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

2009-01-18T08:01:00.000-08:00

We went to another church. It was a Russian Orthodox Church. We weren't able to go inside because it was closed which is too bad because from the looks on the outside i bet it was gorgeous inside.

2009-01-18T07:54:00.000-08:00

2009-01-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

Part of todays activities in En Kerem included going to the church of the visitation. This is a church that was built to commerate when after Mary was visited by an angel and told that she was going to bear the Christ child she went and visited her cousin Elizabeth. As we know Elizabeth was also with child. She was bearing John the Baptist and the babe lept in her womb when Mary came and visited. The pictures below are just 3 of the many picture i took. The bottom is statue of Mary and Elizabeth, the middle is a picture of me in front of the church, and the top is a beautiful picture of Mary holding the Christ child.

2009-01-18T07:37:00.000-08:00

2009-01-16T05:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went to the rockerfeller museum which i talk about below and after we went there we went to the money changers and while we were there security from the Jerusalem Center called us and told us not to go into the old city because there was a demonstration going on at Damascus gate. So then we went over to Omars wood carving store. Omar is a shop owner who pretty much caters to the Mormons. His son went to BYU-Provo. We went over there and looked at his stuff which is beautiful! After that he took us over and bought us all fallafles. Fallafles are pitas filled full of veggies and fried chick beans and lots of other stuff. They sell fallafles everywhere kinda of like selling hotdogs in Time square. So he bought us all one which was really nice of him. After that since we couldn't go into the old city we just went back to the Center. On the way home i took a picture of the Graffitti that was on the some of the walls on the street that leads up to the center. The graffitti is there because of the conflict that is going on in the Gaza strip. It wasn't there like a week before we came to the Center. The othere picture is a picture of the Jewish market or what the teachers here call the Jewish Costco. This is where they go a lot of the time to get groceries for their families. You don't find regular grocery stores here like you do in the US.

2009-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

2009-01-16T04:54:00.001-08:00

Yesterday in our free time we went out to the Rockerfellor museum and you were not allowed to take pictures inside but there was this area in the middle of the museum that was open to the outside so we started taking pictures. i don't know if we were really supposed to but we did. It was really nice that day and i thought that this part of the museum was really pretty. In the pictures of course is me and my roommate Emilie.

2009-01-16T04:47:00.000-08:00

2009-01-16T04:39:00.000-08:00

2009-01-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

sorry that it has been a while since i have updated my blog. so today we went on our first field trip. they took us around the outside of jerusalem so that we could look at jerusalem from different directions and learn the geography of the land. It was really neat because the geography of the land is the geography of the Bible. All the stories that you read in the Bible i am able to see where they take place. Below are just some of the pictures i have that i liked i have to many to stick on here. the one mosaic of christ was taken in the Victoria Augusta church that sits on the mount of olives. This is one of the places that people believe was where Christ ascended into heaven. In the church they had the little cut out thing and me and my roomie Bre decide we needed a picture. I think that the coolest thing that happened today goes with the picture of the woman herding the sheep. We were on top of this mount and my professor was telling us about the land and telling where certain things in theBible took place when all of a sudden they came up over the hill. The cool thing was that my teacher was about ready to tell us that it was probably on one of the hills near there that the shepherds were gaurding their sheep when an angel of the Lord came and told them that the christ child had been born. It was perfect timing. Way off in the distance behind them is the city of Bethlehem.
so i started my Hebrew class and it is really cool. i love all of my classes. Unlike other semesters i love going to them and learning from all of them. They are so interesting! anyways i love all you guys! i will try to do my best to keep this up to date for you!

2009-01-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

2009-01-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T09:53:00.001-08:00

hey everybody make sure and click on older posts to see the rest of my pictures!

2009-01-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

So today after our two classes we were able to go into the old city of Jerusalem. I was so excited to leave. We left and walked down to the old city wall and went through Damascus gate. One neat thing about the gates that go into the old city is that they do not go straight in. You have to curve around to get in. This is for safety. They didn't want the gates to be something that someone could just ride straight into the city. Also it protected them if someone were to attack them with arrors etc.The group that i went with went to the Church of the Holy Sephlecure. This church is considered the holiest place in the entire world. I have pictures below. While we were there we met up with Brother Huff one of the Old testament teachers here and he explained what everything was. It was really neat. All the pictures below are the shrines that they built on top of the places that they thought were those places. They built this church over all the sacred sights. Back in Jesus time this place would have actually been outside the city walls of Jerusalem and would have been just dirt etc. This was really amazing to see. People come from all over the world just to see this church and to worship inside.

2009-01-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

This is outside the Damascus gate into the old city of Jerusalem.

2009-01-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

this is outside the church of the holy seplechure. this church is considered the most sacred place in the entire world.

2009-01-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

This is the spot where they believe is where Christ was put up on the cross. This picture should have been switched with the picture below sorry

2009-01-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T09:15:00.001-08:00

This is where they believe that Christ was nailed to the cross. this picture should actually be before the previous picture sorry

2009-01-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

this is where most of the christian world believe was where the body of Jesus was prepared after being taken down from the cross before He was taken to the tomb. My professor Brother Huff told us that the stone is actually only 150 years old but people still come and worship this spot. they come and touch it with there hands and kiss it.

2009-01-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

2009-01-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

This is in the place where most of the christian world believe Christs tomb was. Usually there is a huge line waiting to get in here but we were lucky and there wasn't a line. You can't really tell but i am in this little tiny room that can only fit like 5 people in it and you have to duck to get in it. People come in and kneel down to worship here. Outside people light candles and leave them as a form of prayer.

2009-01-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

2009-01-10T08:36:00.001-08:00

shalom!
hey everyone! so today in the Sabbath here. since the Jewish sabbath is on saturday we have our church meetings on saturday too. actually sabbath starts for the jews at sun down friday night and goes until sun down saturday night. pretty much of jerusalem shuts down friday night and saturday. Church was really neat today. We had sacrament in the big auditorium that looks out over Jerusalem. i have to say that its kinda hard to pay attention when you can look out at the dome of the rock. It was really neat though. there is a little brach here in israel with a brach president. the students in the program make up most of the branch but there are a couple families that live here that come to the center for church. they work for like the american consulate and places like that. also the families of the people that teach here are here as well. there is also a family that is here because the husband is going to the Hebrew University. I guess the university is a very good school. i want to go over there and check out the campus. So because we are in a branch they give out callings. i got a calling to teach sunday school to the teenagers that are here. there is only like 5 i think and i think most of them are the children to the teachers that are here. there is even a nursery here. i am excited! its going to be fun!
in Relief Society the sister who taught lives in Bethlehem. for a long time she wasn't able to come to church because she is palistinian and Israel wouldn't let her into jerusalem because of that. Now that she has a UN job she is able to come in. She is a really neat lady. She is the only member in her family. i want to sit down and talk to her and find out how she became a member of the church. its really neat to learn the gospel in a place like this. Like i have said before i am excited to learn all that i can while i am here. Tomorrow i start my Hebrew class. i am excited about it. If you want to do me a favor and tell people that i do not have access to my facebook so i can't stay in contact with people that way and also either let them know about my blog or have them give me their email address. anyways love ya lots! talk to ya later !

2009-01-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

so yesterday they took us on a tour of the old city of jerusalem. it was really neat! they have all kinds of churches and shrines everywhere. We didn't have a lot of time so we weren't allowed to take pictures so i can't share pictures of what i saw now sorry. I am really excited to be able to go back and spend some more time there! its really amazing here!

2009-01-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

not much has happened today. today was our first day of class so that was kinda neat. i am actually very excited to learn here. Its so different learning about the bible when you are living in the place that the bible talks about. classes are different here in that they are not on the same days or the same times like regualar college classes. one of the classes that i had today i am not having again until next friday. just a little more about where i am. the jerusalem center is owned by the church but the land that it is on is not. it is owned by israel and is leased to us. They only let us build it here on the agreement that we would not prosylite. there is a group here that there sole purpose is to make sure that nobody preaches to the jews. they sometimes will go up and ask you questions to see if you will start teaching them. they aren't mean at all and they wouldn't do anything to us but if one of us were to start teaching them then they could make it so we could no longer come to the jerusalem center. we are told if someone asks just to say that we can't talk about that and just leave it to that. it is the same with political issues. the people here like the mormons and they know who we are. hard to beleive huh? :) we are white and dress way different than they do. :) the other day when we took our tour through the old city of jerusalem this guy saw us and was like " BYU! from the east to the west byu is the best!" then he walked off and said Lehi Liahoni. It was pretty funny! so one thing that i will prbably miss when i go home is that five times a day they have a call to pray. it sounds like someone is singing in isreali and its being put on a loud speaker so the entire city can hear. when ever this goes off the muslims are supposed to pray. its pretty neat! the first prayer is at 5 in the morning. they are really good at keeping us save here. there isn't anything going on in Jerusalem but they are very precautious. i feel very safe in this building. its weird but cool. the director and assisant director and the people that run the center here are not LDS. they are muslim,jewish, palestinian and i think there is a christian here to. they are all really nice and its neat that they are here and we can get to know them. well gotta go! until next time! love ya!!! Christine

2009-01-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

So the first picture below is a picture that i took from the porch off of my apartment. I love being able to look out of my room at Jerusalem. This isn't the best view of the dome of the rock but if i walk down a little farther i have a really good shot. The second picture is one of the pictures that i took when we were coming from the airport to Jerusalem. It is beautiful!

2009-01-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

I am in Jerusalem!!!

2009-01-07T11:43:00.001-08:00

Hey Everybody,
so i made it over to jerusalem. it was a very long 4 flights. i first few to denver then i flew to washington DC and then to Vienna and then to Tela Viv which is a half hour from jerusalem. It is amazing over hear. The center where i am staying sits up on the hill that looks out over the old city of jerusalem. i can see the rock of the dome from my bedroom. there is an amazing auditorium that looks out over the old city. It is beautiful here. i am excited for all the things that i will be able to do and learn while i am here. Tomorrow they are going to take us on a tour of the old city of Jerusalem. i am way excited!!! this is going to be really short because i am really tired and although you will be getting this at 12:40pm it is 9:40pm here. i love all of you and i will right more when i am not suffering from jet lag.

I leave for Jerusalem in 4 days!!

2009-01-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

The days are counting down. i leave for jerusalem in 4 days!!! my last day of work was today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i was so excited about that! sunday i leave for Utah and then i fly out on tuesday the 6th. WOW!!!! i am starting to get a little stressed just because i want to make sure i get everything i need before i leave. i can only take one checked and one carry on and i have to bring everything because you can't find a lot of the stuff there and they are too expensive. Also things have gotten a little scary over there so i am afraid that they are going to keep us in lock down and we won't be able to go anywhere. that would really suck!!!!!!

Dad's Surprise Birthday Party!

2008-12-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

Today i have to head back to Rexburg for work. Yuck! i have enjoyed having the time off with my family. Not only did we have fun at Christmas but we had a surprise party for my Dad's birthday. We all went to the golden coral my dad's favorite place to eat. He thought that we were just going with just us but waiting at the restaurant was my dad's brothers and sisters and the rest of his grandkids. We sang happy birthday to him of course and then all of us kids got up and spoke about memories that we had of Dad growing up. Then we watched a slide show that my sister Marcia made that went through my dad's life. It was really fun. I am glad that we could do that for my dad.

Christmas Day!!

2008-12-28T11:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah i know i am posting this a little late. Christmas was a lot of fun. We did our traditional opening of the presents we all got a lump of coal as you can see from the picture. Leann and I got a money tree with one hundred dollars on it. :) I only wish that it would actually grow some more money!!!:) Our Christmas morning it was just me, my sister Leann and her boyfriend Chriss, my brother Alan, my mom and my grandma. Later we had another opening of the presents with ALL my sisters, brother-in-laws, aunt and uncle, and my cousins. It was a lot fun. I wish that i had pictures of that but i didn't take any. my bad!!! Christmas was a lot of fun. It was really nice to see all my family. i wish they could all stay a little longer!!!!!! I love my family!!!

2008-12-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

2008-12-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

So the wind died down a little so i went outside to take a picture of the snow. We were lucky that the snow plow came. You might not be able to tell but the plow made almost a tunnel down our road and the snow is taller than me!!!!

2008-12-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

2008-12-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

These pictures don't give the wind and snow justice. I could of got a better picture but it was too windy and cold to go outside and get a better picture! You can literally see the snow blowing when you look at it yourself!

2008-12-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

2008-12-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

So i left yesterday after work to drive home to Pocatello for Christmas. I got off at 4 and i pulled out of Rexburg at 4:30. It was a good thing that I got off of work so early. The drive to Pocatello wasn't bad. The roads were completely dry. As compared to last Christmas Eve when i got my car stuck 5 times just between walmart and my apt. and my friend Scott had to drive me home for Christmas! I got to Pocatello around 6. What was good was that like an hour or two later we started getting winds up to 60 mph! I am not even stretching the truth they were really that bad. Snow started drifting like crazy. Last night we had to dig out our cars and move them so that they didn't get burried in the snow. Pocatello is notorious for getting wind. Especially where i live. If its blowing in downtown Pocatello it will be blowing much more up at my house. I was really glad that i got into town before the wind started blowing. I would of been blown clear off the freeway!! Today christmas day they actually closed a lot of the road in Pocatello. These are the roads just inside Rexburg i don't know about the freeways. They are probably closed too!!! It's ok because i am in my nice warm home with my family for Chrismas day!!!

2008-11-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

My friend cody had a big cutout of Will Ferrell and it ended up in my apartment. so my roommate heather decided to put it into my room. when i got home from work i opened my door and sure enough he was there and of course it scared me. i thought it was pretty funny. i left it in there and finally i was like heather i need to move this because every time i walk into my room it startles me. then heather decided to put it in my bed. i could not stop laughing!! i was laughing so hard that i fell on the floor and couldn't breath!!! then i of course got in bed and took pictures!!!

2008-11-23T08:32:00.000-08:00

2008-11-23T08:28:00.001-08:00

These are some of the pictures that we took in the gardens the sunday before thanksgiving break!!!! we had a lot of fun and took lots more pictures than these!

2008-11-23T08:25:00.001-08:00

The sunday before thanksgiving break it was such a nice day that we decided to go to the gardens and take

2008-11-23T08:22:00.000-08:00

2008-11-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

i came home from work yesterday and my roomies had planned a surprise party for me. i have the best roomies and friends ever!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-04T18:39:00.000-08:00

2008-11-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

My roomies invited all my friends and people from the ward. when i first came in i saw that my apartment was decorated and that there was a cake but only my roommates and my friends that are usually over here were sitting on the couch they said happy birthday but they didn't get up or anything. i wasn't sure but i thought that things were a little weird. Sure enough a couple seconds later all these people came running out from the back. then jason told me to go over to the pantry because he said that his present was in there. i knew that something else was up. so i walk over there and all the guys were packed into the pantry. they all came running out almost running over me picking me up and giving me hugs. it was an awesome night. it made my day. i have the best friends ever.