EGYPT!!

                               A million hours in a bus and we are finally here!

                              The pyramids at Giza

                              Nothing like a nice, warm camel smooch!  But- hey, thanks for the ride!

                          The Nile River

                                Me and my girls explore Cairo!

                                         The "Ladies Room" in Cairo

                 Into the tombs!

                              Valley of the Kings ( and sporadic jumping tourists...)

Still Short

At one with the universe...

Karnak( you've seen this in James Bond...)

                                             My sweet ride...

                        Sunrise from the top of Mt. Sinai...."High on a  Mountain Top...."

    

                              Thinking of you Sophie!  My juice box and teddy bear...

EGYPT!!

WOW where do I begin! I guess with day one?  Ps: I have seen 2 of the 7 wonders of the world in 1 week!

1-  We began the trip very early with a beautiful sunrise followed by a few hours of driving! We soon arrived at the Bersheba tel ( a tel is like a mound that has just layers and layers of civilizations/cities under it.) we saw a well that Abraham dug, it was SO deep! It was interesting to see how small peoples living quarters were. This was quite a small tel and yet a whole city lived here.  -More driving- then we arrived at the wilderness of Zin. I can not believe that people actually survived in these wildernesses! There really is NOTHING! –Bus- we were greeted at Avdat by some corny modern art of a camel train.  This is literally in the middle of nowhere , so thank goodness for the spring located near by and a huge water storage in the middle! Here there were many caves that were previously used as tombs but were later used as homes for many. We explored through them and they kept going on and on. They were all connected by small holes. We arrived at a Kubutz (sp?). now these are neat. The people are really living the law of concecration. They all live on the property and their earnings are evenly divided. They are so giving, it is a wonderful thing to see.

-> thought from Elder Oaks Conference talk “real love does not support self destructive behavior”

 2- I literally walked over the boarder today! It was pretty intense. We honestly we drove until sunset where we got our first glimpse of the pyramids. Our whole bus was yelling and laughing and jumping around. It was a beautiful sight. We threw our bags into our rooms then headed off to the sound and light show at the pyramids. It was quite hilarious because of how intense they tried making it. I really enjoyed it because… I have read about these things my whole life and here I am looking at them face to face. We then had a very relaxing night. So I decided that while most 20-25year olds would usually be partying and getting drunk, us BYU kids are playing ninja games haha

-> best line from the show… “man fears time but time fears the pyramids” (say it in a really low, slow, scholarly intense voice J)

oh and we drove under the Suez Canal. So I didn’t really get to see it, but I was there!

 3- Today was a busy day! We started off by driving to the pyramids. I can not believe that humans built these. They are HUGE! I mean our buildings are pretty cool…and big but we have machines… these were people carrying these stones and making it work! Wow  Once we got there we began our journey into the middle pyramid. We walked down a steep tunnel 3ft by 3ft for quite a while. (I felt bad for all they boys who are over 6ft. I am 5ft and I was uncomfortable!) we finally arrived at Hefron’s tomb (correct me if I am wrong) I stood inside the tomb. We sang “High on a mountain top” this was incredible because we are in this tiny tiny room and we are just belting it out! It echoed so much and was very powerful! (I swear all BYU kids have incredible voices) We headed off to Memphis (the old capital of Egypt) Here we saw a HUGE statue of Ramses the second. This man had abour 54 wives and over 200 children….yeah. -long bus ride- We also went to the Step pyramid (Saqqara) today. This pyramid was used at Memphis’s cemetery. One of the girls got all dressed up in Arab attire and rode some donkey. They guy was running away with her which was funny but we were a little nervous. We arrived in Luxor at our hotel late! We stayed in large very nice bungalos!

 4- This could be considered one of the best days of my life! It began like any other. Waking up in a bungalo in Luxor, Egypt and heading to the Valley of the Kings.  The tombs we were able to see were Ramses 9^th, 3^rd and 1^st. They blew my mind away! The hieroglyphics were so detailed and many still had the actual paint still on them. I cant even imagine how much gold must have been in these tombs. I love trying to imagine 3000 years ago, the people who painted these. I wonder what their thoughts were. We made our way over to King Tut’s tomb. (we later went to the Cairo museum and saw all the gold that was in his tomb… crazy amounts!)  We saw his mummy (which I loved) I was a little upset because they had all of his body but his head and feet covered. I can not believe that he came to rule at the age of 9! (hear that sophie girl, what would you do if you were a queen right now?) We headed to the first female pharaohs funerary temple. She was a way bossy lady! She sent her son away so that she could be the Pharaoh. He had his revenge though, he literally tried erasing her from the map (according to the plaque by her mummy, ‘in the Cairo museum’, she was obese and had horrible teeth) We weren’t able to go ALL the way into the temple, just up into the court yard and the more open areas. We saw this cave which is called pit tomb 33. It is where the mummies and scrolls of Abraham and Joseph that Joseph Smith purchased were found. Then we got onto a sail boat (called the Golden Joy) on the Nile (that is in my back yard) We arrived to find camels waiting for us! I got a really big one named Zoro and we went on a “camel safari” I feel a lot more in control on a camel than a horse. They are pretty chill where as horses are jumpy. We had a beautiful ride back as the sun was going down. We all sat on the bank of the Nile and watched the sun set. A lot of us wanted to go to the Souk which is like a total tourist market place. So 6 of us thought it would be fun to take a carriage ride to get there. We worked out a price, then headed off. There were three to a carriage. After quite some time we began to get a little nervous (we were told the Souk was realy close to our hotel) I realized that there were no white people around, and we were winding through small dumpy neighborhoods. We finally stopped at a small papyrus shop and our guys were asking for more money. I walked up to the front with every ones money, shoved it in their face and said take this or take noting but we are leaving now. He took the money and we bolted out of there. Alex has a mind like dad and he was keeping track of where we were located. He safely got us to the souk. We ran into a bunch of BYU students who thought the souk was scary and we informed them that we had just been abducted and walked through ghetto Cairo by ourselves. (sorry mom J but don’t worry I am safe I just wish Jessie had been there with me)  Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any better I hear that there is a dance party. It was a great end to a great day!

 5- Today we woke up and took a lovely boat ride down the Nile and arrived at the Karnak Temple. I felt like I had just entered Giant land on Nintendo 64! The Columns took 9 people linking arms to fit around just 1. Interesting fact, to build these columns so close together they built all the bases, then filled the place with sand and kept building up and up and up! While emptying out the sand they would carve the hieroglyphics. It is amazing what these people did. Tutmoses’s obelisque is 21 meters and it was all one solid rock! The thing was covered in gold and silver on top to spread the “sun” (sun god) all over the world. We then took carriage rides to the Luxor Temple. I was a little scared because of my previous experience with these carriages. This was quite similar to the Karnak temple, it was huge and had so many hieroglyphics. One thing pretty interesting about this place was that it was covered up for a while and while it was there was a mosque built on top of it. They had no idea they had built over this huge temple. Also there was one place where they had a Catholic looking fresco over the Egyptian ruins.

-> changing the environment doesn’t change your heart, but it does open your eyes

 6- train time! So we got on a pretty…nasty train. But I loved it so much! We got our rooms and it was tiny, had stray hairs everywhere, and stains…. I of course climbed literally into this little compartment up on the roof. The boys filmed a murder mystery which we will be able to view soon! After dinner the bus people came and folded the “beds” down. We all tried sleeping and woke up to them at 3 am knocking so loud on our doors and saying “one hour till breakfast!!”

Today we saw a bunch of churches! All of the structures had a lot of meanings which was very cool.  Off to the Cairo museum. This place is HUGE! We only saw a few rooms but even that was just amazing. My favorite thing was probably the statue of a pharaoh Rahot and his wife. He is not wearing his head dresses or anything like that. He is super dark and she is really white and their eyes look like real eyes… it was so interesting to look at! We also went to all the mummy rooms but of course all of their bodies were covered. They had an animal mummy room which was soooo cool! There was a 15-20ft alligator… yes you heard me right 15-20ft!! I stood there for about 15 minutes just jaw dropped! It was out of control huge!. I cant believe how they mummified things and especially why they would mummify animals there was also a fish from the Nile that was 5ft… as big as me! I went to Hard Rock café and we had a huge dance party up on the bar with all of the workers. We went to a market place that was really sketchy then fell asleep. We went to Cairo Citadel and the Muhammad Ali Mosques. We got to take off our shoes and everything. We had more bus time.

 8- Mt Sinai! So we were told that the bus was leaving at 3am. They must have just missed our door because we woke up to my friend Anna banging on our door asking where we were because it was 3:10. Ali (my roomie) and I jumped up as fast as we could, threw on as many layers as I could, and ran to the bus. I rode a Came named Wiskey up about 2/3’s of the way there. It was amazing (besides the fact that my camel driver wrapped the rope around the camels neck and left us) The stars were so bright and it was very peaceful. I got off the camel and didn’t have enough money for my camel driver he ran after me but I was lucky and had some money at the bottom on my back pack! I hiked up stairs and stairs and stairs… I don’t know if you can consider them stairs but they were …rocks. I made it to the top just as the horizon was lighting up. We all bundled together and sang hymns. The sunrise was spectacular. We walked down the stairs and had a little testimony meeting. My teacher is amazing. He pointed up that we always go UP to commune with God. There is a point where we need to come down but we should always have the thoughts and feelings we had when we were UP. I am not so great with words but I hope you get it. Also Kate, a friend of mine, bore her testimony on how God ALWAYS keeps his promises, and It is so true. Things will most likely be on his time but thing will work themselves out. We just need to have faith. I realized that I didn’t need to hike mount Sinai to know that Moses is a Prophet, or see Gethsemane to know that Christ suffered there for our sins. I, as well as most everyone, get those small conformations when we are alone, pondering our scriptures, or praying.

 -I never had a huge desire to come to Jerusalem but day by day I realize how much I really needed to be here. I was meant to be with these people and I was meant to be having these experiences. Whether I wanted them or not I need them. This is the most amazing experience ever. Mom and Dad I don’t know what I would do without you. Thank you so much for allowing me to have such a wonderful life full of so many experiences.

SHOUT OUTS!!!!

ALI -> you have been such a good friend for soooo many years I love you girl thank you so much! Susan Spaff ->thank you for your emails I love you and your spunk! Keep writing I love the emails! Mikey/Ash/baby- ahh I can not even begin to tell you how excited I am for this little family to begin. You two are so perfect for each other and I am so glad you are my sister Ash. Mikey I have always looked up to you! Thank you for being such an amazing example to me! Nat Pat and Eliza - I loved talking to  you girls! Thanks for the love and support and thanks for dealing with my little outbursts of testimony on the phone J Celeste - Happy birthday! It was so nice talking to you! I love you so much! Grandma and Grandpa Bourne- wow Cynthia thank you so much for your thoughts they really comforted me. Thank you for your love and support! Mom and dad- WOW! what more can I say thank you thank you thank you!

On a happy note, Sunday we sang “Love At Home”. As it is our families tradition I was singing “there is beauty all around when there is no one home” my room mates laughed- but it is just how I sing it.

 We were able to hear from a Holocaust victim, my life is changed.

He grew up like anyone, a loving father, mother and family. He was the eldest and at a young age volunteered (or was sent) to go work on building roads connecting Poland to Germany and Russia etc. after a few years he went back home only to find an empty house. His father died of hunger (I assume he gave his portions to his wife and children) the rest of the family, along with friends and neighbors were put in lines. They laid down in a huge trench row by row and were shot in the back of the head. He passed around a picture of him and his family. I couldn’t help but look in their eyes and wonder what they were feeling as they were forced out of their house. I wonder what his mother told her little daughters and how the teenage girls felt as they knew these were their last few moments. This man told us that he knew he had to get back to work. (reminds me of Dad. Crazy strong man) he worked and had a few times when he was going to be put into the gas chambers. The first time he told the lady who was taking names that he would save her the trouble and not go. ( he used his humor to literally save his life) he did not know at the time, but after working in the coal mines, they gave him soap to wash off with. This soap was made from the oils and bones of the burned Jews. He was such a strong man and kept telling himself that “Hitler will die and I will live.” He also reminded himself that “tomorrow will be better” as well as “God will get me out of this.” Here he is today. He married another Victim and they had three beautiful children. He never got mad at his children for complaining (like saying" look what I went through") He wanted his children to live their own lives. I can not imagine what he went through.  He showed us the tattoo of his Aushwits number. I was almost in tears the whole time because I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the life I have been able to live. I am so grateful for the people that have come into my life and have taught me so much. Mom and Dad, you have given me so much and I want you to know how truly grateful I am.

Jericho fieldtrip:

The field trip that we took this week was such a fun and interesting one. We drove through the Judean wilderness out to Jericho. Our first stop was a beautiful monastery up on the cliffs of the Mount of Temptation.

All around there were holes in the cliffs.   These holes are where hermits lived. (I was quite jealous) So we hiked up to the monastery put on our scarves and walked around. There were so many people worshiping there. There is the actual (haha of course it isn’t the actual) stone that Christ was told to turn into bread.

 It was pouring rain which is wonderful because Jerusalem is in a huge drought.  

There was a beautiful muddy waterfall flowing off the cliffs. Our next stop was the actual (really this time) Tel (mound) of Jericho.  It looked very small but after walking around it seemed a little bigger. We saw all of the layers of different cities.

 There were peacocks and I LOVE peacocks! So I tried getting a picture with them...

 Down a 20ft cliff we saw a big watch tower.  It was fun to see how different civilizations have built over all of these cities. We then saw a really big tree which they didn’t tell us much about. I do know that it is in Luke 19- a man couldn’t see the Savior so he climbed up the tree. We then made our way over to Herod’s Winter Palace. 

 After that we went to a look out point where we could see Jericho to the right, and Jerusalem to the west and the Judean Wilderness going on and on. (there is a pic in the scriptures of that exact look out point)

 It was fun and we tried singing a hymn, but the guys there were trying to mate their donkeys so it was a little…loud…Anywho. 

We are all just getting ready for Egypt. Preparing our bodies for the sicknesses we will experience. I can’t believe that I am going to Egypt! Dad will you give me more detail quickly as to what you want/need and how I go about sending that? Or I could just bring it home and send  it form the center. I am not sure if I will have internet because I am not taking my computer but keep the emails coming.

Oh Emily! I must tell you. While I was in the airport I saw the blonde chick from 30 rock! Oh it made me so happy and I thought of you.

So I just thought I would let you all know that my Middle Eastern Studies teacher is CRAZY oh my gosh I can’t handle it. I just laugh inside and he snaps his fingers at us for no reason and he is …crazy, wow.

 Me and my beautiful roomies (r-L Lacey, Me, Ali, Leslie)

 FunnY roomies

 Michael, my FHE dad J love him

Church of the Holy Sepulcher ( there was a stone covered in oil and people were rubbing their scriptures all over it and they were rubbing it on their faces

GUMMIES!

 Pizza oven for dad

 This night we went to the old city and got gelato for Anna (for her birthday) It was pouring rain and we  had a huge dance party in the rain.

 Me and Ali, we are basically sisters

The Garden Tomb

 Me and my best friend Eric and his stretchy face!

We're off to Egypt! Talk to you next week!! Love, Katie

WRITE TO ME!!!!!

 I will give shout outs like emily… shout out to my mommy! She is probably the only one on the blog and the only one reading my letters so gold star for you!!! Dad I love you too! Thank you for the words of encouragement! Oh also Natalie, Eliza, Susan Spaff, Jac and my cute dance students! Feel free to send me emails at dance_freak03@hotmail.com

Wow I can’t believe it has only been one week since I have been here. It has been a quite eventful one at that. I guess I will begin with the wonderful things that have been said to me by the locals…

“do you need a husband?”

“ You are worth 10,000 camels”

“ You are worth 50,000 camels” I liked the higher price J

“ I feel like I want to eat you up” that was from one of my good friends eric. (good thing I brought my perfume. Everyone loves it because most people smell gross J)

“ Do you want a boyfriend?”

Well I thought they were quite funny. So Sunday, which is really like a Saturday (because Saturday is our Sabbath) we woke up and walked 5 minutes over to the Dome of the Rock. (yeah no big deal, 5 minutes away) The building is spectacular! The blue stone, along with the Arab writing and the Golden dome with the sun shining off of it is truly breath taking! The girls had a little shopping spree and I will admit I am the best barterer in the group. I know we get ripped off anyway but I get everyone the price they wanted.  While I was doing my thousands of pages of reading it finally hit me, the connection between the story of Abraham and Isaac and God the Father and Jesus Christ. The wording is so simple and easy to understand. The Lord speaks to Abraham and he says “here I am” then Issac speaks to his father Abraham and he says “here I am”. I couldn’t help but think of when Christ was on the cross. Talking to His Father, and knowing that His Father was saying “here I am”.

Our field trip for the week was to get us well aquainted with

Jerusalem, we went to about 5 overlooks. Seven Arches Overlook, Augusta Victoria Tower (I felt like the hunch back by all the bells), Haas Overlook, Elias Monastery (we overlooked Bethlehem and sang “far far away on Judeans plains” it was beautiful), and Nabi Samwil (it has ruins from way back in the Midevil times that I walked through with some girls. This is where they believe the prophet Samuel is buried. We were able to see the tomb, the girls have one section and the boys have another)

So here is a crazy story! I was standing in the Old City deciding where

we should go next when I said “I need to buy a guide book” out of nowhere this hippie girl was like “do you want mine? I am leaving and don’t need them anymore.” I graciously took them vowing to myself to pass them on when I was done using them. On our way home back to the center we ran into some of the kids in the neighborhood. We were asking them their names. I was the last one with them when this little red head girl ran up to me hitting me as hard as she could then spit on my face. Now some may be asking how she could spit on my face (she was about the height of a 4 year old) but the combination of me being really really short and the fact that she was up on the curb made the spit fly right smack on my face. I didn’t know what to do so I just turned around and crossed the street. Now I am sort of afraid of small red heads J I hope Karoline (my little cousin) wont spit on me.

The homework load here is insane! We have literally hundreds of

pages of reading daily. You will usually find a ton of kids in the study rooms and the lounge area passed out with their books hanging off their faces. We get quite exhausted but try really hard to get the work done. So to relax us all and to get an outlet, some guys got really big speakers from the center security and we had a dance party! It was really funny because it is BYU and on this study abroad we aren’t allowed to even like hug each other. They turn their noses up on human contact so all of us were like napoleon dynomite dancing. It was quite entertaining. My dance teachers would have been proud. side note…our snack shack is called THE DAN JONES. We had quite the dedication where the real Dan Jones gave a speech. I don’t think I have ever laughed as hard as I did that night (and I have laughed a lot in my life)

Spiritual thought… As I was reading through the story of Joseph in the

Old testiment I realized a wonderful insight to trials. Joseph looks back on his brothers selling him, his brothers are very sorry and feel guilt. Joseph looks at them and says “what you did was meant to be bad, but God meant that action for good.”  Looking back on my trials I have had I see how I thought they were so bad. Then I look at the person they have shaped me into and I know that God meant those trials for good. We all need to recognize God’s hand in our every day lives and thank him for the amazing blessings he gives us. Like the sun shining on our faces, or clean water, or a loving family. I am personally so grateful for everyone who has been there for me.

Bette, I know that you are still in the hospital. I am praying for you. I

love you so much (you too bubba) thank you for all of your love and support.

Well it was an amazing week. We went to the Western wall to welcome

the Sabbath. They were singing and dancing in circles, it was wonderful! I felt really cool and put a prayer on a piece of paper and put it in the wall. We are home now and I have loved reflecting on this glorious first week of being in Jerusalem! We are now going to have a huge sardines game followed by watching the Prince Of Egypt to get ready for our field trip to EGYPT in 1 week!

So much love your way!

.:/Katie

GETTING TO KNOW JERUSALEM!

At the beautiful "Dome of the Rock"

My first view of Jerusalem as we drove in from Tel Aviv...

From the 7 Arches viewpoint...

View of the city...

With some buddies in front of the Jerusalem Center

My little room at the Jerusalem center.  Oh, that's Lawrence, my teddy bear...(Hi Sophie)

"Oh Little Town of Bethlehem..."

I'm trying to learn to love cats- for Nate and for Bette...

Quiet time in the Garden of Gethsemane...

Overlooking the city...

My new lifelong friends...