ISRAEL TRIP first 2 days.

I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW FLIPPIN AMAZING THIS TRIP IS.

Okay let me start from when we left...

We woke up about 4:30am yesterday and left what has been our home for the last 4 months. It was bitter sweet, but mostly sweet... ha ha just kidding I will miss it. But I was just so stinkin excited for Israel that I didn't have time to be sad!

We started on the road and crossed the border from Jordan into Israel which in and of itself was very interesting. Everyone got through fine, a few people got pulled in to be questioned before they could get through, and one guy in our group whose dad is from Russia and mom is from Iran was questioned for, I kid you not, 5 HOURS. We left him there at the border and moved on to the rest of our day ha ha.. (he met up with us later)

Its so crazy that it is only our second day and I am still having a hard time remembering what we did yesterday.. that's how much we are covering and doing on this trip. GAH! so amazing.

Okay so our first stop was King Herod's empire which  was massive and has been inhabited but many groups of people since then.. It was built up on this huge mountain side and we took this cool huge ski lift type thing that held 80 people up to the mountain and looked around. OH also it is said that the place we went was where there was a huge group of people that was being cornered into this palace and instead of being slaves to the people attacking they all committed suicide.. kind of eerie I know..  but anyways. It was very interesting and also provided a absolutely breathtaking view of the dead sea.

Here are a few pictures of it...

After that we headed up to the hotel where we were staying.. I forgot to take a picture of it :( but it was these fun little hut things. I can't believe how warm it is here. It has been mid 60 and sunny!


Okay on to what we did today.. Today we woke up at 6am and headed out to start our day. We went and saw some ruins of King Hisham's Palace which was massive and the mosaics were beautiful.

Then we went to Mount Temptation where Christ went after he fasted for 40 days and was tempted it looks over the city of Jericho, it was beautiful and up in this mountain there was like a full on cafe and hotel and beautiful monastery built into the mountain.

Mount of Temptation

overlooking the city of Jericho

Next we went to where the dead sea scrolls were found.. If you don't know the background of this story it is really quite fascinating.. basically here is the rundown..
Once upon a time there was a group of men that were trying to purify themselves and wrote everything down on scrolls and lived up in the mountains.. one day a man named John came and asked to join their group and worked for them for a few seasons..  then he left them and years later the group heard that a man name John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod and they wondered if it was the same John that worked with them years before.. anyways hundreds and hundreds of years later there was a shepherd throwing rocks into a cave and heard a loud crash and went in to the cave and found these scrolls hidden in pottery vases that were from this group of men hundreds of years earlier.. they found entire chapters of Isaiah written on these scrolls.. pretty fascinating.
anyways they found scrolls in tons of caves all over this area...

Yawning looking at the caves where they found the dead sea scrolls because i'm just THAT tired.

 It would be hard to pick a favorite part of today.. but I really really really LOVE  TEL AVIV. I can't believe how CLEAN everything is! Seriously. You will probably hear me say that a million times my first few weeks back in the states. ha ha  I've learned so much today about the Israel/Palestine conflict that I'm not going to even begin to go into in my blog, because this is a blog of my life and happiness and not politics :) Anyways, we were told to spend an hour walking around down town Tel Aviv and ask a few people why they were living in Israel and what brought them there, and ask them about their stance in the Israel/Palestine conflict and whether they were for the 1 state or 2 state plan..

We walked into this amazing bakery with real white bread and donuts (which I haven't seen in 4 months) And asked the lady running the shop these questions.. She was happy to tell us where she was from that she was born and raised in downtown Tel Aviv and then we asked her the latter question.. she got very serious and said that she didn't want to talk about it.. we told her that we were so happy to be in her country and that we were student studying from America to try and cool the air.. It was an interesting eye opening experience.

Tel Aviv feels like LA.. It is right on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea, the sunset was incredible tonight. I couldn't stop staring at how clean and big the sidewalks were..We are now staying in downtown and we have had incredible food and met beautiful people. I love adventuring with my love and partner in crime. We have had the best of times together so far this year. My heart is full thinking about the end of the year and the things we've seen and done together.

Here are a couple videos we took today and yesterday... hopefully you are able to see them I don't know if i'm uploading them right..This one is of walking through Tel Aviv tonight.

Thank you for reading! I will be posting every day to try and keep up with everything we are seeing.

:)
Love Kenz.

Burr. burr. burrrrrrrr.

Hello friends and family!

What an INCREDIBLE WEEK!! Not only is it already 1/3 of the way through November but the weather has officially gotten chilly and I'm experiencing the city in an entirely different way. Like instead of plugging my nose walking past dumpsters sweating in a t'shirt... I walk past dumpsters plugging my nose in a sweatshirt and shivering..
ha ha but seriously experiencing the weather change here has been really cool :)

This last weekend we went up to Ajlun with the rest of the BYU students and it was one of my favorite field trips so far.

Our first stop was this awesome castle. It felt way more like a castle then ruins because it was in very good condition and was so fun to explore. The weather outside was really foggy and rainy and misty and made it feel very authentic and dark age-ish:)

After the castle we went on a really long walk along some beautiful country side containing the 3 most important crops in Jordan, olive trees, pomegranate trees and fig trees. We literally were picking figs off the trees and eating them right there! The walk was so beautiful and would have been a lot more romantic if some of the knuckle brain students wouldn't have been playing kick the  can the whole time... Regardless, I tried to soak in the moment as much as possible.

we wuv eachovers 

Look at that view!! so beautiful. 

After the castle we made our way to an olive press where they extract olive oil from the olives.. WOW so many time saying "olive".  Anyway... when we heard we were going there for some reason I imagined a  white haired man squishing olives with a wooden contraption.. but that was definitely not the case.. Here are some pictures from the factory.

really blurry picture of the factory..

This family's entire livelihood was from these olive trees. so humbling. 

OKAY now to my favorite part of the week.. we had a very special visitor in Amman last night..

ELDER HOLLAND. you heard me .. ELDER HOLLAND one of my heroes. And even more so after his visit. I felt so lucky to be there.. there were only about 100 people in the meeting.


Okay let me start from the beginning..

So they told us that the doors were going to close 5 minutes before it started so we were supposed to be early.. as luck would have it traffic was INSANE. like insane insane. And there would no taxis to be found, so we forked out 10 bucks for an Uber and got there in plenty of time :) WHEW!

As we walked into the chapel I was surprised to see Elder Holland sitting right by the door in the pew where the person handing out programs usually sits welcoming people.. as luck would have it.. again.. the district president came up to talk to him right before it was our turn and we didn't get to shake his hand..

We were seated in the 2nd row and I watched as he made his way up to the stand, he went up and set down his scriptures and then came back down to welcome people and shake hands.. He came up to me and Jordan and I could just feel the love radiating from this man. He said, " You two are sitting awful close to each other" and smiled. I said back " Even after two years of marriage!" :) he laughed and shook Jordan's hand and then shook mine. I looked directly into his eyes as he asked how I was doing, I replied that I was so happy to be there. He then did that handshake thing that you do right before you fist bump someone with me and smiled and said thank you for coming. life made.

The meeting started and his wife wasn't there but we had heard that she was coming with him... the district president announced that the 3 wives that came were all stuck in traffic together. About 10 minutes into the meeting right before the first  speaker they all came walking into the chapel and everyone stared as they entered, Sister Holland said "We love making these types of entrances"  and everyone laughed. I LOVE her.

There's so much to say about the rest of the meeting but I don't know where to start. So all I will say is this. I KNOW that God lives and that He send His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us and to teach us the perfect example of how to live. I also KNOW that he has a Prophet and Apostles here on the Earth today to teach and guide us. I'm so grateful for their guidance and love for us.


These are the super sneaky pics we took of him because we weren't supposed to take any with him in the chapel.. whoops :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!! CHURCH IS TRUE!

OCTOBER

I can't believe I didn't blog the ENTIRE month of October! GAH! I'm going to try and do a quick catch up post but it may be mostly pictures...

I promise this blog wont only consist of entries that say "Sorry it's been so long since I've written"  like every sing journal entry of mine in the past 5 years.. come on, I can't be the only one...

This month consisted of a LOT of planning, counseling sessions.. with my husband being the counselor.. trying to remember how grateful I am to be here and then being insanely busy planning the branch Halloween party. Not to mention the countless movie nights all the wives making breakfast and hanging together, weekly orphanage trips and weekly scriptures study with some of the RS plus date nights, rainbow street, one too many trips to the Middle Eastern version of Buffalo Wild Wings, and LOTS of stinky taxi rides.

The Mosque right by our house 

The beginning of the month we got to go to Wadi Mujib which was INCREDIBLE. It was basically a hike to a waterfall but the entire hike was in 2 ft of water or more.. There were rocks we had to climb up that had water pouring over them there were ladders, and ropes to climb. It was so fun! The way back down was fantastic because it was the current so we got to float in the areas that were deep enough.

We also got to go to the owner of the travel agency that we through's house. Originally  he had just invited Dil and his wife (our program director) to dinner but then he extended the invitation to all 60 of us students. It was so fancy! They had a POOL. (unheard of for over here)

A couple weeks ago we went to the Dead Sea which was insane. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to float because my entire life I've been only "skin and bones" as my family would say and have never been able to float in water.. but boy was I wrong. As you walk out into the dead sea, right when you wouldn't be able to touch anymore your feet pop out of the water and you just start bobbing! if you try to go on your side your body will flip around and turn you on your stomach. It is IMPOSSIBLE to drown in the dead sea. I  shaved my legs 3 days before we went and after a couple minutes of being in the water my legs just started to burn like crazy because of all the salt in the water. It was NUTS!

After playing in the dead sea for about an hour we went up to the fresh water pool and had to relearn how to swim. HA.  After swimming we had a huge lunch at the buffet at the resort..
Funny thought.. in America everyone goes up to the buffet 2, 3, maybe 4 times before they are done eating.. apparently this is just an American thing because we got such funny looks for going up even just a second time.. whoops.

We covered ourselves in mud from the Dead Sea and let it bake on and then washed it off. Our skin was sooo smooth afterward. 

the resort and view of the dead sea

Oh I forgot we also went to the Jordan river where Christ was baptized. No one knows exactly where it was along the river but it was still awesome. The river was surprisingly.. filthy. It looked like mud,, but it is also where the branch does baptisms for new members in the ward.
It was funny one of the kids in the primary said to one of my friends..
"Guess what. I was baptized in the Jordan river, you know who else was baptized there? Jesus!. oh, and my dad."
ha ha so awesome.

Lastly for my October post was the Branch HALLOWEEN PARTY!! boy was this an event.
I was in charge of it and it turned out to be very stressful if you don't have a car to go get things, don't know where to find things, and don't know how many people will come.. but I had SO much help from all of the students in the program that it ended up being a huge success!

da spook alley 

some cool kids

Thank you for reading! I will be better about posting this month!! Less than 2 months! WOO HOO!

Is this real life???

This past weekend was an incredible, exhausting, sometimes scary, more fun than disneyland DREAM.

I'm not sure if what happened last weekend was actual real life or if I was having some out of body Walter Mitty experience. I had to keep pinching myself.

So in my last post I told you about Petra and how amazing it was. I should have a shirt that says "I SURVIVED Petra" because I probably walked 15+ miles in 100 degree dry desert weather. I've never been so tired in my life. Especially because the night before I got ZERO sleep thanks to a very protective dog outside.

So the day after petra we woke up about 7am and made our way downstairs for breakfast, and I've gotta say, Jordanians do a lot of things right.. but breakfast is not one of them. I dreamed of a big stack of pancakes that morning but was sorely disappointed when my only options were runny scrambled eggs, and hot dog chunks with a large glass of Tang to wash it down. (I know I know.. there are kids starving in Africa..) I will stop complaining. After breakfast we packed up our things and left the hotel to make the drive to Wadi Rum desert. Upon arrival we were told we would be taking jeeps to our camp site.

These are the jeeps..

ha ha a little ghetto but JUST AS AWESOME. Driving 30 miles through luscious orange sand and incredible mountains was unreal. Our caravan of "jeeps" reminded me of those movies were there's a little sad village in the middle of nowhere and all the bad guys come on pick ups and jeeps to terrorize the town. I felt like I was in a movie. It was amazing. Although I would like to think that instead of terrorizing villagers we would be handing out cotton candy or spreading Christmas cheer.

We made a few stops on our drive through the desert, one at these sand dunes, a couple at different view look outs and then one where we had a picnic of pita, bologna, nutella, and mushy bananas. ha ha it sounds pathetic, but because I didn't eat much for breakfast ANYTHING sounded good.

We pulled up to our campsites and I don't think you could even really call it a camping. It was like LUXURY camping. I couldn't believe it, in the middle of the enormous desert was this amazing little set up. There were showers, air conditioners, there was WIFI FOR HEAVEN SAKES! We were so spoiled. We got settled into our little love shack and then prepared for our camel ride.

We rode an hour out into the desert on camels and it was SO FUN. Getting up on the camel was wayyy scarier than I anticipated, when they stand up you feel like you're going to fall off the front and then immediately after you feel as if you going to fall right off the back! ha ha you really have to hold on tight. I was screaming and yelping ridiculously and then for the next 10 minutes I listened to the 3 Arabs leading the camels mimic my girlish squealing.... awesome.

Our camels took us into the desert and we watched the sunset, it was surreal. (Wow, if I had a penny for every time I said "surreal" I would copy and paste it a million times) ha ha.. lame joke.
But seriously it was incredible. We snapped a bunch of pictures with the camels and the sunset.

these camels were all up in my biznas the ENTIRE time. I had constant hot stinky breath on my arm.

camels are really stinky

"Hey Jord I want a pic with my camel" ... ahh not too close not too close

this camel has some SASS. too cool for pictures

camel kisses

 After the camel ride we had an amazing dinner and were served a gourmet meal cooked in a hole in the dirt. No really, they cooked it in a hole in the dirt, and it was the best meal I've had so far in Jordan. We had amazingly tender lamb, chicken, rice and an assortment of salads and breads.

We went to bed in our little cottage and woke up ready for another amazing day. We took the bus about 40 minutes to Aqaba.  Our time out on the boat in Aqaba was a DREAM. We danced to my favorite play list (yes I made the entire boat listen to my choice of spice girls, Jessie McCartney, and a plethora of other fantastic hits) jumped in the incredible blue water of the Red Sea snorkeled and saw tons of fish, beautiful reefs, and even a sea turtle. From our boat we could see the countries Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. We enjoyed a BBQ on the boat and partied all afternoon. It was seriously the most fun I've had the entire time. I want to go tomorrow, and I want to fly my entire family here to experience it with us. 

our boat

still can't believe where we are

That's it for today! thanks for reading! MUAH!