Charity

     After a wonderful Sacrament Meeting (worship service of the LDS Church) and Sunday School, we had a combined lesson with all the church members in the congregation here in Amman. The lesson was given by our Branch President (name of the a lay minister in the LDS Church over a small congregation) on charity. Charity is a difficult concept to define we read in the Book of Mormon that "charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him" (Moroni 7:47). As we heard that scripture read today in church, Megan leaned over to me and commented about how it is interesting that we have to be "possessed" by charity and not to possess it. 

     As I think about what charity means to me I reflect on the meaning of that word in Arabic. In Arabic the word for charity, or love for our fellow men, is صدقة (Sadaqa) which is closely related to the word for friend or friendship. Building on that, I think that it's appropriate to say that we need to be "possessed" of a feeling of friendship for all of our fellowmen. At times it is difficult to have those feelings when I'm surround by a new culture and people. But I can safely say that overall I feel a greater love and friendship for the people of the Middle East. And that feeling of صدقة is the most valuable thing that I've gained from this study experience in Jordan. I'm grateful for the knowledge of Arabic that I'm gaining, but I'll be forever changed by living among the people of Jordan.

"Welcome to Jordan, Where Life's Good"

When we landed in Amman on August 30, 2011, I stepped off the plane and into what initially felt like a different existence. It was a similar feeling to being a brand new missionary, but with a significant difference: when I was a missionary, I was in a semi-familiar environment (having served in Long Beach, California) and the "new world" feel was resultant from a role change I personally had made. Coming to Jordan there were things that I had to change about myself, but this time the new world feeling was almost exclusively coming from external sources. Having never been out of the United States until about two weeks previous to our arrival, I was operating on a ridiculously limited frame of reference when I had imagined what it would be like here. I'm sure that in future blog posts I will discuss some of the things that are different than what I thought they would be like.

After we arrived, we waited for enough people in our program to fill the bus that was waiting for us and then we drove through the night streets of Amman. I felt like a child - completely dependent on Josh and the other Arabic-speakers with us to even know what was going on. I had the window seat, and I opened the window and let the new air flow in. I looked around as we drove to our apartment. Of course the signs and billboards were in Arabic, but there were some that had English on them too. I haven't seen it since, but a big white lighted billboard caught my attention as we drove by. I don't have any idea what was being advertised, but it said in large, clear black English letters: "Welcome to Jordan, Where Life's Good." I just glimpsed it long enough to read it, but it has remained imprinted in my thoughts since then. My racing mind settled as I thought on that and let it seep into my heart: Life is going to be good in Jordan!