I love

I love Jesse.
I love being at the Jerusalem Center.
I love studying about Jesus.
I love the Old City.
I love my friends in the Center.
I love my friends in the City.
I love my family.
I love Christmas time.
I love Christ.
I love my life.

In the Old City

Kaitlyn and I: love that girl

Jesse and I minutes before he proposed...guess which one of us knew what was up?

We found Jesus's face spray painted on the ceiling of a cave.  Only in Jerusalem....or maybe Provo.

Lauren and I wishing you all a very Merry Christmas all the way from Jerusalem!

Days are Numbered

Is it weird to anyone else that I am only in Jerusalem for 8 more days?

Is it weird that this beautify is less than a sabbath's day journey from where I sleep?

Or that I won't be surrounded by these gems everyday?  

I know I look huge in this picture, but I was wearing three sweatshirts, three pairs of paints, and three pairs of socks.  

Or that I will be married to this wonderful man in 24 days?

And something for us all to be excited over is that we all have 19 days left till Christmas!

the big 2-0

 Age has been a strange concept to me ever since I skipped third grade.  I've always felt like I was Kennedy's age because we have always done the same things and been at the same stage in life, or at least in my mind.  After I was able to reason with my brain and tell myself that I am indeed not Kennedy's age, I lump myself with my class's age.  But alas, this is also incorrect, so then I have to just accept the fact that I am the age I am and it's no big deal.  Tomorrow is my 20th birthday and that's weird to me.  This past year has been the year that I have had the most changes in the way I see the world and how I view myself in it.  The biggest thing that I have learned in this past year is the battle between faith and fear.  They can not co-exist.  It's so easy for me to hide behind my fear; fear of failure, fear of the future, and fear of the world.  While shooting hoops today, it hit me that this fear that I have is choking my potential.  Kaitlyn gave me the best advice in regards to basket ball.  She said that I needed to do two things: pretend like no one is in my way and keep shooting after I get blocked once or twice.  That girl is the best.

 with Jess in Amman :)  Isn't he handsome?

Boy that is the best, Jesse.  Jesse has taught me so much about what it means to have faith.  Being away from him has been painful this semester.  Being in Jerusalem has been completely life changing.  I am the 1%.  I have no reason to not be happy, confidant, and successful.  I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to grow and learn how to overcome fear through faith.

On a side note, here is my birthday gift to you all...finally a few pictures from the trip thus far!

At the pools of bethesda with Allyson and Whitney

in turkey with elyse

Inside Hagia Sofia with my group

sack lunches....

In a water/hampsterwheel on a field trip

Under the center with none other than whitney

candid in turkey

enjoying my first of 2 magnum bars

at the Harem in Turkey

Galilee

I'm in Galilee for the next 10 days and thrilled to be here!  I will try and write a little bit about what I'm doing while we are here.  

Today, we went to nazareth and it was so beautiful!  St. Mary's and St. Joseph's was incredible!  It almost made me want to be catholic. ;)

We also went up to the cliffs by Galilee and it was beautiful.  Lizzy and I commented that it looked just like Pride and Prejudice.

Everything is very peaceful and totally beautiful.  I'm so grateful to learn here.  And by learn, I mean study the Bible like crazy!  I have a paper to write for tomorrow and a midterm tomorrow that I need to go and cram study for. :)

p.s. in case you were wondering, Jesse and I are getting married in exactly 46 days!  woot!

Basketball and Good Deeds

Who knew?  Who knew basketball is so fun?  The center has a no-boys basketball league and our team just finished our first game...and we won by one point.  Our team consists of Kaitlyn, Wendy, Whitney, Andi and me.  Obviously, a great combination.  Not going to lie, it was a freakin blast and I am seriously wanting to develop some skills.  Speaking of skills, apparently, home-girl Katie Cutler is really good at bocce ball and won $400 in a tournament.  I aspire to have skills like that. :)

More importantly, today we visited Yad Vashim, which is the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Israel.  It was an extremely touching and humbling experience to learn about the horors that took place less than a hundred years ago.  As I went through, I just kept thinking about things that I know that are going on right now and wondering what am I going to do about it. 

I don't want to lecture any of you wonderful, fantastic readers, but what things are going on around you are you choosing to ignore?  Being engaged to the wonderful man Jesse Thomas has been life changing to me.  He has taught me so much about what is going on in the world, our country, and locally.  If anyone had a heart of gold, it's that guy.  Reason  number 808,298 why I fell in love with him was seeing him with the people he taught on his mission (luckily, he was called to Salt Lake City, which obviously is the best mission in the world).  He met and fell in love with so many different people from all walks of life.  Something that I didn't know was that Salt Lake City is a refugee city and is host to thousands of refugees that could use a little help.  Jess and I are hoping to be able and work with an organization next semester to help them get used to the city and make sure that they are safe.  If you too would like to get involved, or just learn a little bit more about the issue in Salt Lake, click here. 

Now, go do the right thing.

Jordan!

I just got back from Jordan and had the time of my life!  Jordan is probably my favorite country that I have been to while studying in the Middle East for a couple of different reasons. (Some,  more biased than others)  Jordanians are so happy!  The first day we were there it was like we walked into a cheesy movie because all of the people litterally ran out of their homes to wave at us as we drove by.  People are so much happier there than they are in Jerusalem.
Petra?  Amazing. Literally, incredible.  The park looked just like southern Utah, minus the incredible treasury and monestary.  I'm thinking of writing a letter to Govenor Herbert and suggesting to commision an artist to do carve a treasury in the Narrows. 

I thought I'd save the best for last....Jesse was there.  And he was there with me.  It may or may not have been a highly emotional experience for the entire group.  He was at our hotel in Ammon waiting for me and I was on the second bus to get there.  All of my friends were just lined up waiting to see our reunion and brother huntsman was playing a lot of sappy love songs on the bus.  When I saw Jesse standing there, I started to cry and ran off the bus and we had the sweetest kiss I think we've ever had.  We were together walking, talking, and laughing all that evening in Ammon and the only way to describe the date was beautiful.  I haven't felt that happy and elated since the day we got engaged.  The evening was wonderful as well and I loved every moment being with him.  Everyone has asked if it was hard to say goodbye.  Ya, it was.  It was hard to walk away from the love of my life, knowing that it was just as hard for him to be separated.  But today I have felt peaceful, knowing that we love each other and are trying our hardest to be there for each other and become better people as we are away.  I love him so much and can hardly wait to be married to him for eternity!

I have 2 weeks in Jerusalem, and then 2 weeks in Galilee, and then 2 weeks back in Jerusalem, and then we are getting married in the next 2 weeks.  I couldn't be more blessed. :)

bah mitzvah, Zak, and I can't drink this :)

Lindsay, Loran and I went into the city today and went over to the wailing wall and saw a couple of bar mitzvahs taking place.  My grandma Gerber phrased it perfectly when she said that Jews know how to party!  

  

Everyone was so happy and it totally reminded me of my brother Owen, who is also 13.  I think Mormons should do something like this, because it would be another excuse to celebrate!

There are two rival olive wood stores:  Jimmy's and Omars.  They share a monopoly on Mormon tourists.  Personally, I think I like Jimmy's better (mostly because the subject of the carvings make me laugh a little bit, like the Adam and Eve statue...I don't think a typical Mormon would put that one on display).  Today, we chatted with an older gentleman named Zacharias or Zak and he was extremely talkative.  Fotunately, his english was flawless and he was very open minded, yet proud to be a palistinian.  He was the guide for the Glen Beck tour and thought that the mormons that were in the group were fantastic, delightful people, but it made him sad that they were being led astray.  I hope to run into him again.  I had mentioned in our conversation that my fiance was studying in Amman.  I also may or may not have bragged about him being on the Volleyball team... :)  Jimmy's nephew was working at the store and mentioned that he had recently graduated from the Jordan University in accounting and was trying to get a scholarship to a gradschool in America.  Please pray for all of the students in the middle east that they can find work and that their economies will improve.

My favorite part of the day was when we went and visited a woman named Samah (Sam), whom we had met last week.  She is great!  We sat and talked with her for a long time and she just told us story after story and made us feel right at home.  She poured us tea and it we didn't know exactly what to do, so we just held it for a while and then finally told her that we don't drink tea, because of our religion.  She thought it was weird that we couldn't explain our relgion to her because then there would be no way for us to bring people into our relgion.  We explained that was the reason we can't talk about it in Jerusalem.  She was cool about it, but she told us that she had a lot of mormon cousins in the states and that she thinks that our religons are basically the same.  I had the best time talking with her and am happy to be making friends over here.

the other blogs

Sometimes it is really helpful to have close friends with blogs because they also share an account of what is going on in your own life.  Once again, if you want to know what is going on in my life (only interesting and with pictures)  Whitney's blog is probably the most accurate. 
Professor Huntsman's blog is also a great resource. :)  If you want to know about the most wonderful person on earth check out Jesse's Posterous. 

Finding Joy

Sometimes, we waste time on blogs.

Sometimes, we find cute things that we LOVE on blogs.

Sometimes, we find helpful tips on blogs.

Sometimes, we find things that change our lives on blogs.

There is a girl, and I don't even know her name, that has changed my perspective of my life.  She keeps one of the best blogs around.  This blog is all about how she has chosen to develop her skills and talents while she and her husband are separated by war.  As Jesse and I have now been separated for a solid 4 days now, I'm hoping to become more like that cute girl.  Positive, happy, faithful, fun, talented, smart.  I am practically packed for Jerusalem and getting more and more excited.  This is going to be a wonderful time where I can really focus on becoming a better me.  A better student, friend, daughter, sister, and especially, a better fiance for Jess.  I'm so lucky to have found the wonderful guy he is and I'm even more lucky that he asked me to be his wife :)

Things are greener in Chicago

Time Line

 A lot of people are asking the same questions, so I figured I could just let you all know now what the deal with my life is.

Last day of work: August 9th
Last day in Provo : August 11th
Drive to Chicago: August 12th
Fly back to Utah: August 22nd
Fly to Jerusalem Center: August 30th
Field Trip to Turkey: Sept 17th-25th
Field Trip to Jordan: Oct 24th -27th (yes, I will be able to be with Jesse while in Amman!  yay!)
Field Trip to Galilee: Nov 14th -24th
Turn 20:  End of Nov
Fly home to Utah:  Dec 16th
Jesse home to Chicago: Dec 23rd
Jesse and I reunited: Dec 26th
Go through the Temple: Dec 28th
Get Married in the Salt Lake Temple: December 30th!!!!!!!
Utah wedding reception: December 30th
Chicago Wedding reception/open house: sometime next spring :)

A pretty exciting next 4 months, wouldn't ya say? :)

2 Things

1.  Jesse Foster Thomas and I are getting married December 30th.  (Change of plans, I know, but the temple was closed on January 13th.)  We are so stoked and having a lot of fun being engaged.  The plans are coming together and we a so excited about starting our new lives together.

2.  Jerusalem:  Wow! In less than two months, I will be seeing this day in and day out.  

I'm thrilled to be studying where Christ walked and learning so many new things and experiencing a different way of life.  And to answer many questions, yes, I am wishing that Jesse and I could do this together.  I'm not thrilled about being away from him for 4 months, but we should see each other twice while abroad.  He will be studying the amazing language that is Arabic in Jordan for four months.  I never guessed that Humdudalah would be such a large part of my life.  

Plans with the Jesse

We finally have a date!  January 13, 2011 in the Salt Lake City Temple.  We are really excited and can hardly wait!  We are starting to plan everything and it is going pretty good.  These are the colors that I am thinking

Some Red and Grey

A little Red and Green 

A little Vintage

A little Woodsy

A little Wintery

A little artsy fartsy

A whole lot of me and jesse

The most wonderful place on earth

I seriously can't wait for the big day!!!

Love you boy :)