Trip 2: Petra-fy me!

Petra was pretty cool! I especially liked it because it is unlike anything I have ever experienced before. It's basically this huge ancient city carved into rocks with a few free-standing rock buildings. You hike around to whatever you want to see. We did one long hike up to the monastery of Petra. It was pretty cool, but even more than the monastery itself I liked the view from various rock hills surrounding it. The picture above used to be some royal tombs, and the one below is us in front of the monastery.

More tombs...the one on the top is the first cool formation that you can see on your walk in to Petra.

    

People were selling things EVERYWHERE! I can't count how many stands like the one below we passed. Some of it was expensive (made more so by the fact that we were obviously tourists of course) but some of it wasn't too unreasonable. It was barter central for sure...and I am proud to say that we didn't buy anything for what they told us it cost initially! There were also a lot of people trying to offer donkey rides along the different hikes...donkeys were everywhere! Some of the people that were in charge of them were just kids, as were some of the people taking care of the makeshift shops.

A LOT of donkey ride salesmen approached us, and Josh finally found a way to make them be quiet! One young man came up and asked us "Biduk jahash?" (Do you want a donkey?). Josh responded "Ismii Josh." (I am Josh), but he said it in such a way that he made it sound like "Ismii jahash." - I am a donkey! The guy had the most fantastically befuddled look on his face...he just stared at us as we walked away, and then we heard him telling his friend. BAHAHAHA! It was priceless!!

The top two pictures above were taken in a church in Petra that BYU is excavating. It had some awesome mosaics running the length of the "chapel" area on both sides. It was cool to see some work of fellow BYU-ians. The third picture is of a temple that is being excavated by another university (Brown University, I believe). It was pretty cool too, not to mention HUGE!

We had a friend take this picture but I was getting tired of the same old, so I suggested that we jump up and Josh say "Pe" and I say "tra" in this photo. So we went over there, got the go-ahead from our photographer, and when we jumped I mouthed my "tra" at the same time that I heard Josh voice his "Pe". I BUSTED UP LAUGHING SO HARD!! In my mind's eye we were just going to mouth the words but I had failed to specify that to Josh, who wasn't too crazy about shouting out "Pe" but decided he would do it with me anyway. It actually gave me a cool insight on communication...it's very helpful to mentally take the other person's perspective on a regular basis to see how you can improve you communication not only in specific situations but also in your overall communication relationship with that person.

I wish we had gotten a better angle on this picture, but THIS MAN IS LAYING IN AN INDENTATION IN A CLIFF WITH NOTHING TO STOP HIM IF HE FELL!!! This is one of those things that is completely baffling and awe-inspiring to see someone else do but that you would never want to do yourself! Most of the people who work in Petra are Bedouins...they live a more rural lifestyle and mostly keep to themselves. Some things about that lifestyle appeal to me - mostly its simplicity. I feel that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to life a simple life nowadays.

So although we passed on the donkeys, we did end up riding camels for a bit! Josh talked the guy down to a pretty good price, and he talked to him and got to know him during our ride and the guy gave it to us cheaper than he had said. That's one thing that I love about the people here: many people seem to value interaction with an individual more than they value money. It's amazing to me and I am 100% a fan! It's not even uncommon for people to give you things for free if you are friends with them (Josh has had that happen several times, where he made friends with a shopkeeper and then tried to buy something from them and they always want to give it to him for free).

So that's Petra in a nutshell...I'm really glad we went! Afterwards we splurged and got some yummy Swiss ice cream at a nearby hotel. While eating there we met this really cool lady named Denise and exchanged email addresses. God definitely puts us in the right places at the right times :)

Trip 1: Kerak-anack!

We have taken a few trips lately and they have been somewhat tiring but really fun! This past weekend marked the beginning of a holiday here in Jordan (the Eid), and Josh has only one daily class this whole week instead of the usual four per day plus individual speaking and writing appointments with the teachers. For the holiday, people are supposed to (if you have enough money) sacrifice an animal. You divide the meat of the animal into three categories: worst meat, good meat and best meat. The worst meat you keep for yourself and your family and you eat it that day. The good meat you give to your relatives and friends. And the best meat you give to the poor. I like the idea of sacrificing from our abundance to help those in need. However, I am also glad that there are other ways to do it besides slaughtering an animal for those who are less inclined to do so. The male half of our apartmentmates benefited from the tradition though - he got invited to go eat camel with a friend!


Anyway, about our trips! Our first visit was Kerak, a Crusader castle from the Middle Ages that has been taken over by different people from time to time since it was built. It's pretty cool...there are a lot of spots that have just breathtaking views of the surrounding city. Part of it kind of just melds into the modern city: check it out!

  

   

 

A Historic Day in Jordan!

Today was a fantastic day at church. We went to the Amman 1st branch (small congregation) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was the first worship for the Arabic language branch of the Church here in Amman. All of the worship meetings were held in Arabic. One of my favorite parts of the services today was the Sunday School lesson. In the lesson the teacher quoted this scripture from the Book of Mormon, "For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding" (2 Nephi 31:3). It was such an amazing experience to be present for the first worship services of the Church to be held completely in Arabic in Amman.  It's exactly as Daniel said in Daniel 2:45, the kingdom of God is rolling forward as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands and it will someday fill the whole earth.

Complaints and Patience

One of the most important things that I have learned so far from being married to Josh is that complaining is such a waste. It sucks the energy and drive and happiness right out of you and makes it hard not to be miserable! Josh is the best example of this (of not complaining, not of making one miserable) that I have ever observed in my life. That fact was brought to my attention again as I was looking through our pictures from our two-week Spain trip that we took before we came to Jordan. I noticed several photos connected to instances where I was (sadly) less than patient and complained either vocally or just in my mind, while on the other hand Josh would just smile a little, take it in stride, do what he could, and choose to be happy.

So here are a few pictures and blips of memories from Spain along those lines:

In Spain we were trying to be thrifty and so we bought some stuff for breakfasts and lunches at the grocery store. They had these "juice milk" boxes, which sounded gross until I tried one and found that they tasted surprisingly good. So when we went back the next time we got more, and I chose a flavor called "Cirtus Blend" or something like that. It sounded good at the time (I was thinking "creamsicle in juice form" in my mind), but I was SO WRONG! It was basically the flavor of two parts grapefruit juice and one part watery milk...blech! I couldn't even get more than two sips of it down, but before I could toss it Josh reached over and chugged the rest, even in spite of my firm declarations of the disgustingosity of the stuff. The next day he drank another, and the next day another without any complaint. I was grateful that they only came three in a pack, but even more grateful for what I learned from him and those three juicemilks.

We had been walking around all day and it was really hot. We were debating whether to go home or see one last thing, and decided to walk up to this Egyptian temple that had been brought to Spain stone by stone and rebuilt there. (We thought it would be kind of cool, and in some ways representative of the fusion of our two lives and paths of interest: a building from the Middle East in Spain.) When we got close, we found ourselves at the bottom of what in my mind qualifies as a VERY LONG flight of stairs. I looked at it and just thought "Really? Are you serious?". (This is may or may not be in part due to the fact that he is in much better shape than I am, but...) after a quick water break Josh just kept walking and started on up, and since he was holding my hand up I went too. Maybe it seems like a little thing...and it is...but it is definitely something I will not forget. I am glad we both have things we can help and lift the other in.

You are looking at "La Muralla Arabe," which got me really excited when I saw it on our tourist map of Madrid. At the time I thought that "muralla" meant "mural," and so I was expecting some great masterpiece of Arabian-influenced artwork. We wandered for a while in search of it, dodging a wedding and cars driving too fast on narrow streets along the way. No one seemed to be able to tell us where it was, and we ended up at the bottom of a big hill only to be told by a passing couple that it was near the top of that hill we had just descended. I was frustrated and tired (again :) and Josh suggested we take a rest in a garden we had passed. I was too stubborn to do so until after we found the Arabic Mural though, so we kept on. Eventually we got here, and we read a faded plaque that proclaimed this to indeed be "La Muralla Arabe." It was Josh who figured out first (the non-Spanish speaker...embarrassing! :) that "muralla" actually means "wall" - we were in fact looking at a very old wall remaining from the Arab occupation of Spain! I was frustrated, but Josh wanted to go down and look at it and we ended up really enjoying ourselves as we sat in the garden inside the wall for a bit. It was a lesson to me on how to make joy and good memories out of unexpected events.

I think there are different brands of people when it comes to complaining, or to making any choice between right and wrong. "Good, better and best" doesn't just apply to decisions, but also to the motivations behind the decisions we make as well as how we choose to react to the circumstances we find ourselves in, no matter their source. It's interesting to me because I don't think that the reason for doing something wrong matters as much as the wrongdoing itself, but the reason for choosing to do something right does matter as much as or more than the rightdoing itself. I feel much better equipped to make more "best-motivated" decisions and have more positive reactions because of Josh and our three-and-a-half months together so far. ALRIGHT MARRIAGE, WOOHOOOO!! :) 

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!