Step 1: Get roomies and cruise in sweet new ride.
Step 2: Go to Kava Roots and get acai bowls.
Step 3: Take pictures with sunset at Sunset Beach.
Step 4: And then… don’t stop laughing, or believing. Don’t stop believin’. [I love that song.]
I can’t handle this heat and humidity these days. Neither could my roomie Hayley. So we put on our suits, walked across the yard, and jumped in the ocean. Night swims are the best. I love this life.
I’m finally back in school. Yay! I love school, especially here at BYU Hawaii. Does it get any better? I’m excited for my classes too, and learning all sorts of good good things.
My lovely classes:
~anatomy
~physiology
~early church history
~self defense
~communications
~intercultural peacebuilding
16 credits of jolly goodness.
I woke up at 6:30 am to the beautiful crow of a rooster.
I think it’s going to be a good day.
I love Hawaii.
She’s a pretty cool girl. I like her a lot.
We finally had our annual Owens family photo shoot, where we grab our cameras, go in the back yard, and take pictures of each other. It’s the greatest. Man oh man I love these peeps so much.
Today is a day of independence. I can feel it.
I feel free as a bird!
To celebrate this joyous day, I got my two beautiful little nieces, put on their matching Fourth of July dresses, and went to the field behind their house, with a camera in hand of course. Then we proceeded with our freedom photo shoot, except it wasn’t really much of a freedom photo shoot. It was just me taking a few pictures of them and trying to keep Katy from crying as Natalie held her. Nonetheless, we got a few delightful pictures and had an even more delightful Freedom Day. A big big thanks to our Founding Fathers. Let freedom ring ring ring.
I finally saw Robby Reeves today!!!
I miss this cool kid sooooo much.
I saw Shelby today! He was in at church because a lot a lot of people from his town came down to my town for Memorial Weekend. It was sooooo sooo good to see Shelby! I miss that cool kid. I miss all the cool kids.
I still miss Jerusalem so much and think about it everyday. I wish I was still there, but it’s good to be home, it’s just not Jerusalem though.
But home is awesome, I love it. It’s so fun being with the fam everyday and being in Homer, AK, because Homer is absolutely beautiful, and the summers are the best.
I start cleaning boats tomorrow. Good. I’m out of monies.
I have massive blogging to do. I’m not even done with the last few weeks of Jerusalem yet. Then I spent a week in Utah, then I came home to AK for a week and a half, then I left for two weeks and went to Arizona to see my bestest friend Carla and we drove all over California, and now I’m finally home, for the whoooooole long summer.
Woo yeah woo yeah. Yeah woo. Woo woo yeah.
I’m back in America, and not just any part of America, but Utah…
Traveling was loooong. It was the saddest ever leaving the JC, and soooo sad leaving the peeps. How am I supposed to survive without my Jerusalem life? These past four months were the best of my life, thus far.
But at least we had Stephen Wilkinson’s graduation party for a little reunion.
It was sooooo good to see everyone again! It had been about 24 hours and I was so sad without all my fellow JC ites, so sad.
But this party at Silky Wilky’s house was the best, and we had to get in one last GQ picture until the next reunion.
It’s hard being gone. I miss it alllllll.
My four months at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies (aka the JC), was the best four months of my life up to this point. I learned so so so incredibly much and grew so much and saw so much. It was one of the most unique experiences anyone could ever have.
I learned about the history, the culture, the politics, but mostly I learned about Christ. Being in the Holy Land, Christ was obviously the center of my Jerusalem experience. It was the best. I miss it so much.
So sad to say goodbye. Peace out JC.
Shalom 408. Best Jerusalem roomies I could ever ask for. We had so much fun fun in our little room. Love these girls.
Bye bye for now to the best Old City explorers and best Middle East adventurers in the world. Miss you girls.
I miss it so much. I wish I was still there.
But peace out.
Ma es-salame… go in peace.
What does one do when they return from floating in the Dead Sea? A talent show of course!
There were so many good acts and funny people and talented things. It was the greatest. Although I would definitely have to say that the highlight for me was performing my favorite song with my favorite girls.
Kara, Marianne, and I sang “Shine, Jesus, Shine!” and came up with some sweet dance moves for it. We also dressed up in sweet outfits with sweet makeup and put baby genie pants on our heads.
Kara, Marianne, and I sang “Shine, Jesus, Shine!” and came up with some sweet dance moves for it. We also dressed up in sweet outfits with sweet makeup and put baby genie pants on our heads.
After our outstanding performance, we took a series of unsuccessful jumping pictures using the self timer. What fun we have.
Don’t you love our outfits? :) The song and dance was even better.
Okay, hopefully you can’t completely zoom in on our faces, because if you can, you will find the most horrible picture of us three ever taken. Love it.
Don’t you love our outfits? :) The song and dance was even better. 
Okay, hopefully you can’t completely zoom in on our faces, because if you can, you will find the most horrible picture of us three ever taken. Love it.
My new favorite song, as learned from the Lutheran hymn book when we went to a service there. I fell in love as soon as we started singing. And I never stopped singing it, shouting it out as I walked through the halls at the JC, or up the many stairs, or sitting in my room, or in the computer lab. I’m still singing it now.
Shine, Jesus, shine. Fill this land with the Father’s glory.
Blaze, Spirit, blaze. Set our hearts on fire.
Flow, river, flow. Flood the nations with grace and mercy.
Send forth your word, Lord, and let there be light.
Have you ever been in a body of water with 33% salinity? Not many people have, since you can only do it at the DEAD SEA! I have been fortunate enough to go there though, and to float in the water like a buoyant little human. Funnnnnnn stuuuuffff.
We all posed holding a newspaper. It’s what you do in the Dead Sea, kick back, relax, check up the latest. Thanks to Lindsay for the picture by the way.
Soooooo fun. My goodness, I missed water so so much while in Jerusalem. I live in Alaska; I go to school in Hawaii; I must have the ocean in my life. This Dead Sea trip was quite refreshing for my need of salt water.
And here is everyone who I have come to love soooo much. All of my JCites coated in Dead Sea mud. So you know that Dead Sea mud you pay big bucks for, well, we had an endless supply. Just go to the mud hole, dip your hand in the ground, grab a chunk, and wipe. Good for the skin apparently.
We went to Masada too, a fortress built by Herod the Great, and to get up there you had to take this tram. You can kinda see the Dead Sea in the top left corner of the picture.
Speaking of Herod the Great, he was pretty great. You know who else is great, Brother Huff. This picture is him teaching us about Masada and all sorts of good things. He really is sooo great and I have learned so so much from him.
This is Bro. Huff’s son. I just had to throw in this picture because Zach is such a funny little dude. Crazy kid.
Later in the day we went to some waterfall. And the hike was sooo hot and there were soooo many people. I don’t remember enjoying it much, that was until we got to the waterfall. It’s always worth it when you get to the end.
And to top it off, Nycole and I got this sweet picture of our sweet watches that we bought in the Old City. Mine is a Harry Potter watch and hers is Fula or something, Muslim barbie basically.
Then… QUMRAN! Where the DEAD SEA SCROLLS were found. Whoa. I was there where the caves are where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. The caves are behind me in the picture and guess what is on my chin… yep, it’s a fly. There’s a fly on my chin.
On field trips such as this, you may have noticed that I like to take random pictures of various things. This one is a picture of the authentic Jesus sandal and foot, or basically, it’s Carly’s dirty foot.
And here is Steve Marcum looking good in my sunglasses.
On the bus ride home, Eliza fell asleep, in this position, mouth open, looking pretty darn awesome.
As we were on the bus back to Jerusalem, there were some camels on the side of the road. Oh I love the Middle East.
There’s nothing better than ending your day with a camel.
Let me tell you, sunrise service on Easter morning at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, while singing beautiful, joyous songs of worship and praise with those wonderful friends who you love so much… it doesn’t get any better. This has been the best Easter of my life, and I highly suspect that it my stay as the best Easter of my life for quite some time.
I woke up at 4 am, got in the taxi at 4:30ish, then went and got in line at the Garden Tomb with a bunch of the Jerusalem Crew. There was a group of maybe ten other Christian students studying here in the Jerusalem who were first in line. But other than that, our group was it. The doors opened at 6 am, and we waited in line for well over an hour, but it was totally worth it because we got the best seats in the house!
Chelsea, Stephen, and Jacob. Seats don’t get any better than this. Can you imagine being at the Garden Tomb on Easter morning?! We were there with so many other faithful Christians, celebrating Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Christ. And we were celebrating at the place where Christ came out of the tomb as a resurrected being. Incredible. Spiritual. Definitely one of my top three Jerusalem experiences.
The sunrise service did have preaching and sharing of the Easter story, but it also included a lot of singing. This picture is the musical group that lead it all. They were soooo good and so into what they were singing. Everyone was. I LOVED IT. Hmmm… makes me kind of want to convert to evangelical Christianity. :) Only joking. Being a Latter-day Saint is the only way to go.
I LOVE THIS SONG. Oh my goodness. I had the hugest smile on my face the entire service. Everyone was just rejoicing and celebrating Christ and celebrating the resurrection. We were all united together with the same foundation and with the same belief in Christ.
This is after the service was over, (too bad it had to end). Here’s me and good ol’ Ryan Money, who was shouting “Amens” and “Allelujahs” through the whole thing. What a character, that Money Man.
Before this Easter in Jerusalem, I didn’t really know what Easter was all about. I hadn’t thought about it much, as I hadn’t thought about a lot of things very much. But Easter celebrates Christ’s resurrection. I looooooove Easter.
Palm Sunday, Christ enters Jerusalem on a donkey. The triumphal entry. I was privileged to take his path from Bethphage (or maybe Bethany) and into the beautiful city of Jerusalem.
Christ then teaches in Jerusalem and journeys to Bethany at night to stay with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.
Thursday evening, Christ has the Last Supper with his apostles and institutes the sacrament.
Later on Thursday night, Christ goes from the Upper Room, across the city, through the valley, to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he atones for the sins of the world, where he sweats great drops of blood from every pore, where is bears every pain, physical, mental, and spiritual that we might face. It was that night, that he saved us all.
He is then taken to the houses of Annas and Caiaphas, then to Pilate, Herod, and back to Pilate, where he is condemned, scourged, mocked, humiliated. and tortured.
He then takes the path through the city, now the Via Dolorosa, and carries his cross to Golgotha, as he is in such great pain and is completely exhausted.
It is on this Friday that Christ is crucified and remains on the cross for most of Friday.
Joseph of Arimethia begs his body from Pilate, then Nicodemus helps prepare Christ for Joseph’s tomb. Christ is placed in the Garden Tomb. Day 1 is complete.
Saturday/Shabbat/Day 2 passes.
Sunday, Day 3, EASTER morning, the bonds of death have been broken. Christ the Lord is risen!
Happy Easter.
We went to the Herodion, which is most likely where Herod the Great was buried. It is located in the West Bank so we had to go through security and the Separation Wall to get there. I took a picture of a sign right before the wall and then my camera wouldn’t really shut off.
I’d shut it off and the lens wouldn’t go back in. I tried everything to fix it, but it wouldn’t fix. I took the battery and chip out multiple times. I pressed all of the buttons like crazy. And then I decided to hit it a little bit, and I went a little crazy…
This Jerusalem trip and traveling of the Middle East was hard on my camera. It started to die. It was slowing down a lot, it’d make funny noises, and it was reaching its end. On this fateful day, it actually did die. So I figured I may as well make the best of it and help it on its way out, and break it into a million little pieces.
After my bout of destruction, this is what my camera looked like. Goodbye old friend.
Though I only had about two weeks left after I destroyed my dead camera, I had to get another right away. So less then 24 hours later, I spent 1250 shekels and got a new camera. Luckily, it was the exact model that I wanted and the exact same camera that Stacy got for Christmas. It ended up costing me $270 to buy it at the store in Jerusalem, but at Costco in the states, in only cost $170. Cost me $100 extra to buy it there, but totally worth it, because I took this picture of my home in Jerusalem.
I LOVE IT HERE!
Ramadan is the name of ninth month in the Muslim religion. It is a time of fasting, praying, and alms giving. They fast from sun up to sun down for the entire month. That is so crazy. Do you know how hard that would be? That is insano. The Muslims also give a lot more money and food to the poor at this time. The refrain from gossip and other evils to purify themselves and become closer to Allah. At the end of the month of Ramadan, they have a FEAST! That’s the part that we did, although we feasted months and months early. You have to modify things for JC life though.
Dr. Adnan Musallam, our professor for our Palestinian/Islam class, taught us about Ramadan and introduced us to the two sheiks that he had come and pray for us. The sheiks are like the religious leaders. The two that came in were father and son and their names were Nagi and Feras I think. Their positions at Al-Aqsa Mosque have been passed down in their family for 530 years. They are the type of people that do call to preayer.
Five times a day, there is call to prayer. I love listening to it. And when I first got to Jerusalem, I loved it waking me up at 5 am every morning. Love it. They sing surahs (sections of the Quran, the Muslim holy book) and it’s really amazing what they can do. They don’t breathe for sooooo long too. They just sing/speak the surah.
After learning about it, the feast began. Our kitchen staff at the JC is so good. Jimmy and Mohammed, they’re all so good to us.
Marianne, Kara, and I sat together at a table, and guess who else… KEN! We had so much fun at our little table. And we created some sort of concoction for Ken to drink. He did it, painfully. What a trooper. But he did get a magnum bar out of the deal… :)
There are so many opportunities to serve and help other people here in Jerusalem. One of our main service projects is putting together hygiene kits to send to those in Gaza, who have been devastated. It’s so good and we put these assemble lines together and speedster speedily pack the bags with towels, soap, tooth brushes, tooth pastes, and other such things. Those people need it.
Another service opportunity is feeding the babies. There is a Muslim hospital right down the street and you can go there and feed the little newborns and the babies that are underweight. This one I was feeding was maybe about 4.5 lbs, and it was 40 days old or something. Feeding the babies is really cool. Made me miss my darling nieces.
You can also go to Princess Basma’s Center for Disabled Children and play with the kids. There are all different severities the children, but it is so fun and so good and they just need people the play with them.
There were so many things we could do here to help bring a little peace to Jerusalem. I only wish I would’ve done more. Peace.
Another field trip! Woo hoo! We just went around the Old City to various sites associated with Christ. One of the big stops was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is one of Sham Sham’s favorite places. In that church it has all of the sites that Helena determined to be the sites of the burial, crucifixion, condemnation, and other such things. It is an incredible church
with incredible, old, old, old mosaics all over the place.
There were some fun little caves too. Woo hoo for caves!
Then we went to this church where Father Angelo, a cool dude, told us cool things about his life. I think said something like doing what he does means you have no money, no wife, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But I’m not sure if he said that or not. Somebody did at some point because I heard it somewhere… :)
Father Angelo showed us how Orson Hyde, one of the early apostles, had carved his name on this door in one of the rooms.
Then we went in to another church and Brother Skinner (or maybe Brother Huff) taught us about the “eye of the needle.” Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven. The stones near this arch are Herodian stones, 2000 years old. That opening on the side is called the eye of the needle. It was there for people to get through when the gate was closed. Perhaps that is what Jesus was referring to, because it would be extremely hard for a camel to get through this opening, especially with their awkward movements.
Can you see a camel getting through here? Not really. I guess it must be pretty hard for rich people to get into Heaven then.
Also at this church were paintings of Czar Nicholas and his family. There was a painting of Princess Anastasia. I LOVE THAT CARTOON! Anyways, the Romanovs stayed in this room for a while. I went in this room. Cooooooool beans.
The next church was Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, when I had gone to mass about two months before. It was awesome going in there again, because we got to sing my favorite song… “SHINE! JESUS! SHINE!” We sang that song when I first went there and when we came here for the field trip and Bro. Skinner asked if anyone had a song they wanted to sing, I yelled out, “671!!!” Oh I love Shine, Jesus, Shine. Best song ever.
After the churches, a group of us went and learned about the Shroud of Turin, which is possibly the cloth that Christ was covered with in the tomb. There’s a lot of evidence that’s supports it, but that’s kinda crazy. It was really cool learning about it though. I am learning so much here. I don’t want to leave.
