Our new home

Soooo.... we made it!!! We are now living in Amman, Jordan. (I realize its confusing that my husbands name is Jordan.. so from here on I will refer to him as Jord... :)

WE LIVE HERE. !!! still trying to wrap my mind around it.. :)

We got to Amman on Thursday on a delayed flight at about 1:00 am. Before we got here we had a raffle with all of the other couples to see who would get the nicest biggest apartment, for some reason I thought we were supposed to guess a number between 1-100 so i guessed 26 when in reality it was 1-1000... haha so yeah, we didn't win.. Anyway! We arrived at our apartment and it was honestly a lot nicer then I had anticipated. 2 bedroom, marble floors, and even a TV! We were so exhausted we threw the sheets on our bed that we brought and passed out at about 3 am. Without a chance to sleep in we were up at 7:30 to get ready for church Friday morning. Church is on Fridays in Amman. We survived our first taxi ride on the way to church, and when I say survived, I mean BARELY survived. Seriously, there are absolutely no rules while driving in Amman. People are weaving in and out of lanes laying on their horns, there could be three lanes merging into one lane at 40 miles an hour while turning onto another street. It gives me a panic attack every. single. time.

Church felt like home. There is incredible leadership and members here in the Amman branch. The BYU students were more than half of the congregation, we felt that everyone was really excited that we were there. We had English sacrament meeting and then Jord got asked to go participate in the Arabic Sunday school while I stayed in the English one, and then we had priesthood and relief society. After that we all went to the Arabic sacrament meeting and then had a fireside, orientation, and a shwarma lunch provided by the branch. It made for a spiritual, exhausting Sabbath.

We went back home and got a little more settled in our apartment, unpacked, cleaned a little, and got used to some of the changes from American apartments. The water for each apartment is kept in a tank on the roof of each building. So if you run out then you have to have water delivered and have your tank refilled, which is really expensive. Because of this we are not allowed to drink tap water as it is sitting under the sun all day, and we have to use water VERY sparingly.. I'm talkin like.. in the shower get wet, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water on, rinse off, turn the water back off.. etc. There is a small water heater in the bathroom that we turn on to get hot water and then turn it off right after you shower.
Also the plumbing is a little different here.. we are not allowed to flush toilet paper, so ill let you do the math on that one.. 
Overall its actually super great here, and SO beautiful. All of the buildings are sandstone and seem to go on for miles and miles.

On Saturday there was a barbecue at one of the foreign service officers house for the branch at the US embassy. We had HAMBURGERS. It was the first time I actually felt full in 3 days. It was really fun because Jord and I got to pick the brains of people with jobs that we are interested in. We had a great time.

Sunday was the first day of Jords classes. He left early and then all the wives of the program came over and we planned what we are going to do while our husbands are in school and studying all semester. Orphanage trips every Sunday afternoon.. cooking classes on Tuesdays.. book club, Arabic classes, bible study with the branch, and gardening with handicap children. 😊 Seriously the best  vacation I could ask for!

Overall I feel pretty safe here in Jordan, I can tell people are staring at me a lot, especially when all of us wives go out to the market together, but I've never felt legitimately scared. (that was for you mom)
As a woman in Jordan, you aren't supposed to make eye contact or smile or shake hands with a man. That goes against everything I know, so in taxis I have to literally concentrate on not looking into the rear view mirror at the same time the driver does. ha ha ha

Last night we had the opportunity to visit one of Jord's families good friends that lives here in Amman. The dad actually lived with Jord's dads parents as a foreign exchange student for years and years in California. Such a small world!  They were incredible hosts, and treated us like family. I couldn't count how many times he said "My home is your home". We had SO much food, I've never been so full in my entire life. Meat kabobs in pita bread, hamburgers, salads, and juice. And then we had chocolates and cookies, and THEN they served us cake and herbal tea. I could hardly breathe by the end. After we visited for awhile we went upstairs and met his mother, she remembered Kurt's family (Jords dad) very well and is very Facebook savvy so she snapped a few pictures of us all together:)

We've almost been here a week now and I'm starting to get used to the constant honking, the call to prayer that blares through the streets and the beauty of this country.I can't WAIT for the adventures that await us here.

Thanks for reading! Until next time!