Primary!

~ Highlight of the Day: Teaching four lovely little 7 and 8 year olds about telling the truth :) ~

 

I have been officially called as a Primary teacher! I've taught Sunbeams (4 years old, or 5? ) before, for maybe 2 or 3 weeks, but that was ages ago, so I'm a little rusty. I'm sure I'll catch on quickly though :)

 

This truly is an inspired calling. To be perfectly honest, sitting in an auditorium is synonymous with sleeping as far as I'm concerned, and when you add the whole terribly-sleep-deprived thing in there, there's just no hope for me. But there is no sleeping in primary. You just can't do it. There's so much energy and so many wiggles to go around that it would take a miracle to sleep through any of it. So there you have it - I will be mentally attending my church meetings from now on. . . even if they are on a 1st grade level :)

 

As for addressing some of the recent world news you all may have been hearing and wondering about. . . We've heard of demonstrations in the city, but we have not seen any. Yesterday we had a very lengthy discussion with our Palestine professor about it (we all had a lot of questions), and we were cautioned to stay out of the city (it being Friday and all). We went into the city today without any problems, and we aren't expecting there to be any trouble while we're on our Turkey trip. They've asked us not to bring anything Israeli with us (which is a great excuse not to read my Israel readings :), but I though that's what our plan was from the first anyway.

 

They're keeping us informed, and we're being sensible about it, so life's pretty normal.

Well, as normal as life can be when you're planning on watching the BYU vs Utah game at 5am and then flying to Turkey :)

 

I may be able to post while I'm in Turkey. It depends on if my roommates bring their computers, and if we can find internet. . . We'll just have to see!

The Sabbath

~ Highlight of the Day: That big glass of water I had after hiking to Gethsemane and back on a Fast Sunday. . . Saturday* ~

 

Today I:

 

 went to ward choir

 looked out at the city of Jerusalem during sacrament meeting (no big deal :)

walked to the Garden of Gethsemane

walked back from Gethsemane

survived the walk back

had the best ice cream ever

wrote 3 letters

and

played an intense game of catchphrase

 

And tomorrow I will make it to the Hebrew University and will post pictures. As long as I can convince two other people to come with me. . .

 

*We have church on Saturday here. It felt just like a Sunday except I had to keep fighting back the panic of having none of my homework done. I have an entire day tomorrow! Woohoo!

Going, Going, Gone.

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting to visit with the sister missionaries at the LDS Washington Temple Visitors Center ~

So my Longwood internship is over. I am really not very happy about leaving. If I wasn't headed off to Jerusalem I probably would have found a way to stay. But it's been a good three months.

I turned all my stuff in, even my garden pass and name tag. I'll probably be reaching for my scissors and pruners for another month or so. . .

I've found that I sigh a lot after leaving places and people I love. I've been sighing the whole way down to Virginia. . .

Big, deep, 3-months-is-just-too-short-and-4-months-will-seem-even-shorter sighs.

So. Much. Food.

~ Highlight of the Day: Condensing the whole Book of Mormon into just 3 hours ~

So here's a Watermelon Update, which will morph into a General Garden Update:

My watermelon scaffolding is about the only thing in my garden that's not overgrown and fallen over. Every single one of my tomatoes have found the ground much more appealing than the lovely open air. It's like I have a carpet of tomatoes everywhere. Ug. But they're still spitting off little tomatoes, so I can't tear them out just yet. Today was a big harvest day (mostly because I've not been in the garden for a while. . . ) Here's what I got:

Peppers I don't know how to use,

more zucchini,

lots of tomatoes, both ripe and unripe. . .

and more peppers!

I also harvested some Kholrabi, which I still like even though I've had it for lunch going on several weeks now.   (do you like my sock/work boot tan :) How am I even supposed to eat all of this stuff? I won't be lacking in veggies any time soon, that's for sure!

I don't know if you can even recognize my garden in all that jungle, but I promise you it's there! Don't worry though, it'll get better. I'm passing on my garden plot to the other Production intern, and I'm going to try to not leave it a mess. . .

I got off to a good start today! It's really not that bad, but when everything is so overgrown already, adding a few weeds to the few open spaces makes the whole place messy.

Look! You can see my artichoke and one of the remaining kholrabi! I used to have two artichokes. . . not sure where the other one got to. . .

Busy Day

~ Highlight of the Day: Discovering that ginkgos make beautiful carving wood ~

Today I did a lot.

I went to my first All Staff meeting.

I explained Temples* and General Conference*.

I watered a bajillion salvia while wearing awesome sunglasses.

I learned how to recognize the mosaic virus in cannas

I got chocolate milk at a local dairy

(it was 5 minutes away,

it took us 40. )

I sent important emails.

I swept our nasty floor, and lots of spiders.

I ate dinner with 5 British, 1 Japanese, 1 Korean, and 1 American.

I taught someone to play three chords on the ukulele

(I bet you can't guess which ones :)

I did the dishes.

I asked "how do you play Cricket?"

I tried to understand Cricket. . . I'm not sure I do yet. . .

I stayed up way too late, and then decided I wanted to still post something.

*Temple: LDS building dedicated as a House of the Lord, has the Angel Moroni on top.

*General Conference: Big church wide meeting held every six months in which the Prophet, Apostles, and other leaders of the Church speak. In other words, my two favorite weekends of the whole year!

Food, Food, and . . . More Food

My milk has gone buttermilk on me twice now. I need to figure out how to prevent it, since my amount-of-groceries-bought to time-till-next-trip ratio is a finely tuned thing, and having half a gallon go bad suddenly throws it all off. So this morning I made two large batches of buttermilk pancakes. And now I'm up to my eyeballs in them.

This would be enough to feed my family of 4 guys and 3 girls.
So I'm looking at breakfast for the next two weeks here. . .

I have a theory about chocolate chip pancakes, by the way. I hypothesize that chocolate chip pancakes are healthier for you than just plain old pancakes. Here's why: plain old pancakes must be eaten with something, mainly syrup. Chocolate chip pancakes, however, can be eaten by themselves. So we're comparing the consumption of syrup to chocolate chips. I don't know about you guys, but syrup just seems worse for you than chocolate. . . so I only make chocolate chip pancakes :)

After I finished piling up a mountain of pancakes, I made avocado pie! It was my turn to bring something for "munch n' mingle" after church, and avocado pie is the perfect thing for several reasons. First, it's super easy, provided I have all the ingredients. I can really just throw it in the blender, scoop it into the crust, and put it in the fridge. Second, it's not brownies, chocolate chip cookies, or store bought, therefore it's impressive and shows off my homemaking skills to all those attractive eligible bachelors :) Third, it requires no baking, cooking, microwaving, or any other type of heat, so the house stays cool (as cool as a house that just had a zillion pancakes cooked in it can be)

 

Isn't that just the prettiest colored pie you've ever seen? I think I'll serve this at my wedding. . . :)

I also checked out the garden today, and ate my first tomato! It was delicious. I can't wait for more. And the zucchini are getting ready to be harvested, which is good because I just can't remember to use the ones I get from the store. I threw out yet another produce bag of zucchini-turned-mush this morning. So sad.

Anything For Air Conditioning

~ Highlight of the Day: going to the Washington D.C. Temple ~

I like cars, and driving, and long road trips. I am perfectly content to drive for hours and just look out the window, and when it comes to what I drive the bigger the better :) But recently cars mean only one thing to me. Air Conditioning. Oh sweet air conditioning!

Today was especially great. I got about 6.5 hours of air conditioned driving in, and then several hours in a lovely, air conditioned temple. The Washington D.C. temple, by the way, is huge and absolutely beautiful, with well designed, extensive grounds. Rarely will I admit the grounds of a temple come even close to the Seattle temple's grounds, but I think Washington D.C. scored a pretty close second.

 

Welcome July! It's nice to have you with us. . .

~ Highlight of the Day: Talking for nearly 2 1/2 hours this morning with one of my best friends :) ~

So I woke up this beautiful Fast Sunday morning to this:

That's two pies, one tin of muffins, one loaf of banana bread, and one pan of extra chocolatey brownies. . . If it wasn't for a good long phone call I may have gone mad.

And can you believe it's already July?! I'm almost halfway through my internship. My sister's turning 16 in two days (gasp! oh no! :). I'm going to be in Jerusalem in less than three months. And I still don't have a single ripe tomato . . .

To The Ohio. . . and Back Again

Friday night I left with a group of 60-some young single adults on a bus bound for Kirtland, Ohio. About 15 hours of driving, two hotel breakfasts, three slices of pizza, two chapters of 'O Jerusalem', and one testimony meeting later I was right back where I started! Well, maybe a little more sleep deprived and spiritually fed :)

We first went to the Kirtland Temple:

Did you know the walls used to have more of a blue hue
 to them, the roof was red because of whatever they
dipped the shingles in, and the doors were
 an olive green? It's hard to imagine. . .

Yeah. I wore my neon yellow Gravely shirt :)

The Community of Christ did an excellent job of the tour and history of the place. It was interesting hearing the stories without the usual Latter Day Saint lingo.

After visiting the temple we drove the short distance to the LDS Kirtland visitor center, where the saw mill and the N.K. Whitney store are.

 I remembered most of the tour (led by the wonderful sister missionaries :) from a family trip several years ago (especially the sawmill, cause it's so cool!), but this time they told us the story of Orson Hyde, the man the Whitney's employed to watch the merchandise (their upstairs storage was worth something crazy, I forget how much). He had thumbed through the Book of Mormon, read some verses, and declared it a fraud. For the next year or so he preached against it, until one day he felt a 'prick in [his] heart'. So he actually read it, found it to be true, and was baptized.

This is where Orson Hyde slept with the inventory
 on the second level of the N.K. Whitney Store

Here's the cool thing - He was then called on a mission to the city of Jerusalem. His companion gave up and turned back before they even got out of the United States, but he continued on and served for three years as the only missionary (as far as I know) the church has ever had in Jerusalem. There's now a garden there named after him, and when I'm there in the fall, you will see pictures of it :)

My ukulele has now been to the beach.

We wrapped up the day with a little Lake Erie, which was great once we found it (we detoured to a ranger station and a water treatment plant first. . . )


I came away from this trip with a deep sense of gratitude for the immense sacrifice the early saints suffered for their faith. If I were asked to sell all I had, my business and/or home, to help pay off a church debt, would I do it without doubt or hesitation? Would I stay stalwart in the face of immense physical trials? Even when those trials take the lives of my loved ones? I am in awe every time I try to contemplate the strength of will and testimony the early saints must have had. We owe so much of what we have today to their perseverance. So 15 hours of bus time, two sack lunches, two really late nights, and one rainy Sunday morning later I have a greater respect for the faith of those who lived my church's history, and a resolution to try a little harder to be a little better :)