Asuncion Paraguay, Here I Come

I GOT MY MISSION CALL!!!

ASUNCION, PARAGUAY MISSION

REPORTING TO THE ARGENTINA MTC ON OCTOBER 9TH


AM I STILL ON CLOUD NINE??

YES!!

My friend Josh hugged me right after I hung up the phone with my family.

This was how I felt.

 All of the JC Premi's (all six of us---and now 3 of us have calls)

The JC group that was there when I opened it.

Me and one of my best friends here Jessica Smith (And Ben in the background).

My friend Jordan who loves to play "to the sea" in the Agean (and then he would dunk me in the ocean) picked me up and said "to the mission field" and spun me around.

 Then we took a bunch of pictures and it was super fun.

It is so cool that I could open it somewhere so beautiful and so close to where Christ had his mortal ministry.

After I opened it up, I came out here and looked out at the city and processed it.  This is later, but this is the spot where I really felt like this mission call was where I needed to be.  Looking out at this beautiful city.

Me and one of my roommates.  She is going to Korea and I am going to Paraguay.  She opened her call the night before I opened mine.

Day of Omar

So on the day before we left for Turkey, we went into West Jerusalem for a Jewish celebration called the Day of Omar.  We asked our Israel teacher about it and it is a celebration that commemorates a day of the Bar Kochba Revolt that went well.  Or something like that.  But it was more of a cultural celebration than a religious one.  Basically, what happens is the little boys find twigs and sticks and branches and anything else flammable and they build these ginormous piles of sticks.  They do this for weeks.  Then, on the night of the day of Omar, they hurry like crazy and you see little boys running everywhere, pulling off big branches, blocking traffic to pull big trees across the road, and make the bonfires as huge as they can.  And then they light them all and by this time all of the community has gathered around and there seemed to be one older guy in charge of all the little minions.  Then they light them up and it is amazing.  There are huge fires all across the cities in the little public spaces in the Jewish parts.  All of the community sings and dances (well actually just the men sing and dance) and it is a huge party.  We kind of just wandered around West J until we found these Jewish guys from New York and they took us to the mother load of the bonfires.  We talked to them while they walked to show us where to go and it was so interesting to learn more about why they were coming to visit and how they feel about Jerusalem.  We stayed out till midnight, but it was sooo worth it because it was one of the most culturally enriching experiences I have ever had.

Me and one of the smaller bonfires.

 A bonfire just getting started,

 Two of the little boys that were running around everywhere building up the fire.

 The community comes out to watch.  It is very much a family holiday.

 The bonfires were like 10 feet tall.

 More of the little boys running around.

 I tried to do a panoramic shot to show how there were like 5 different fires going in this little park.

 Some boys from our group dancing and singing with the locals.

Turkey Day #6 and #7

DAY 6———————————————

Today we went to Sardis and learned about Tabitha, a woman from Sardis who is also the only women in the Old Testament that was explicitly referred to as a disciple of Christ.  What did she do to gain that title?  Basically she was the one that took care of all the widows.  She made them clothes, which in ancient scripture is indicative of identity. (God gave Adam and Eve clothes when they left the garden of Eden to mark them as His and as Gods now that they knew the knowledge of good and evil—this is an example of the identity that comes with clothes.  Another is the story of the prodigal son when the father gives his son a robe and thus gives him back his identity and status as a son.)  Anyway, the one group of people who did not have any say or identity in the public is the widows.  And this woman noticed these widows and loved them and acknowledged them in the society.  Bu then Tabitha got sick and died, and then in Acts 9:36-42 Pater came and resurrected her from the dead.  Anyway, she is a really inspiring New Testament figure that we never hear about, and she lived in the place we visited!

Then we went to the gymnasium of Sardis, which is where all the boys would do oil wrestling.  It’s pretty self explanatory, especially because in Greek gymnasium literally translates to something like “place of the naked boys”. But then these boys needed some way to wash off all the oil, so they would have built in baths.  This is where the “turkish bath” came from.  These gymnasiums.

Me and my friend Jessica love to go skipping so we started skipping through all of the Greek ruins we went to.  We call it "skipping through Greek acropoli".

 Ya know, just taking a bath like an ancient Roman.

Also here we found a flock of lambs, and we got to hold them.  It was a super cute baby lamb.

Later that day we got to go to a famous silk market.  It is in Bursa, Turkey.  This bazar was more like a non touristy bazar so it was cool seeing what the locals were shopping for.  One odd thing . . . I swear every other store was a engagement ring store.  Like really, it was worse than Provo.  So my astute cultural analysis is that  . . . a lot of people get engaged in Turkey?

DAY 7——————————

Lots of driving today.   We also went to Iznik, the tile capital of the Ottoman Empire.  There is so much beautiful tile there.  Basically all the mosques have this gorgeous tile on the walls, and it is all made in Iznik.   Speaking of mosques, we went to a smaller mosque/museum here. The city was also very non-touristy so we got to walk through the streets and little shops, and see a real Turkish city.  Some of my friends got this soccer ball sized loaf of bread for 1 1/2 Turkish lyra (like 75 cents) and I got a whole huge ice cream cone for 75 cents.  We walked along the dirt roads, exploring for a half hour.  I loved it so much.  Then we left for the airport and flew home!!  We got in about midnight to a sea of cars and policemen because . . . for the next two days we are next door neighbors with the pope!!

The tile is amazing here!!

 Me and Christina at the mosque.  It is the first mosque to ever have an indoor fountain actually.

 Even the garbage cans in Iznik are decorated with tile.  These guys take their tile seriously, I am telling ya.

 Turkish toilets.  Ye hah!!  Yes, I did use one. 

Turkey Day #5

Today we went to Ephesus!  It is another huge Greek acropolis.  This is probably the biggest Greek acropolis we have been to.  We went there in the morning when there are not that many people there and it was really gorgeous.  The coolest thing there was the library.  It is huge and they have built up the front part of it.   It really amazes me how amazing humans are when I see these ruins.  They had figured out so much, learned how to create so much.  It really bears testimony to me that we are the same species of people as our Heavenly Father.  We are all Gods, and like our Heavenly Father, we naturally strive to learn knowledge and create things.  We are all Gods, and Gods create.  That is what they do.  And that is what humans have been doing since they came to the Earth.

 Ancient toilets.  Apparently they would have a servant sit on them to warm them up for the upper class people that used them.  Talk about a bench warmer.

 I go to school at the library of Ephesus!!

 This is the picture of Ephesus in the Bible.  Check it.  It looks just like the Bible pic. 

 And then some random Asian man got in our picture, but I didn't notice till I saw the picture a couple days later and was like "what the heck!?!"  It is so funny.  You can kind of see him running over in the other picture.

Then we went to a village/greek acropolis called Priame. I was introduced to one of the most beautiful chapters in the New Testament here.  I am sure I have read it before, but this time it really hit me.  Prime was right next to the last city Paul taught at in the Asia Minor, so it was here that we read about and discussed Acts 20.  This chapter is one of my new favorite chapters and my friend Jason Grover was telling me that he read this on his way home from his mission in Moscow and it made me realize that this is an amazing mission scripture because this is how missionaries must feel at the end of their missions, especially in countries where people yell at them, slam doors in their faces, and tell them to go home.  Which is probably most missions.  It is Paul’s last speech to the saints in Asia, and it is so powerful.  It is in this speech that he explains that he has done all that he can do.  He kept the faith, he went through persecution after persecution, he taught them the gospel out in public and in their homes, he had given his life to the ministry of the Savior.  He had loved them with all his heart, and now we was going “bound in the spirit” to Jerusalem, trusting the Lord knew what he wanted him to do there.  He does not know why he is going, but he expects the spirit to testify of the gospel’s truthfulness, and also much persecution, because this has been what has happened in every other city he has visited.  He tells them that he knows that this is the last time he will every see them, and then as a final testimony, he declares to them once and for all that he is "pure from the blood of man”.  He is clean, and can boldly go to the throne of God because he has done everything God had asked of him.  Paul was a phenomenal man.  He was a man that had changed his life, and had come to know who God was, come to know who he was, come to know what God could do with a man, and come to know that he was pure.  This is my ultimate goal.  To be able to say this.  That I had spent my life in the service of God, strived all my life to do God’s will, endured with patience and humility the trials God had put in front of me, and on my deathbed can say with full confidence that I am pure.

After Paul says this, he says a final prayer with the saints and then they “all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more.  And they accompanied him unto the ship." (Acts 20:37-38)  These people had so much love for Paul.  While going through the various places Paul went on his last mission to the Asia Minor, I have come to understand and love Paul too.  He wasn’t the Nephi or the Captain Moroni.  He had been a persecutor of the Christians, he had done bad things in his past.  But yet when he was converted, he spent his life making up for it, and as we can see in Acts, he kind of always felt that his greatest testimony was his life.  That if he, a humble servant of the Lord who was clearly very imperfect, can do what he does, can keep the faith, can fight the fight, so can anyone.  So can you.  I will forever be grateful for the example of Paul, and I think that during my mission I will read through Paul’s missionary journals often.

Turkey Day #4

Today we went to Assos, which is a Greek acropolis.  It was the most gorgeous thing in the entire world.  This is also right where Paul was teaching in the New Testament.  I loved walking around the ruins, and then sitting down and pondering for a minute.  Apparently there was a time when Paul was teaching and then the ship went from Trios to Assos and he walked it on foot.  And we don’t know what happened on that roughly 3 day journey but we can imagine that he had a lot of thinking to do because this is right before he preaches his last sermon in the Asia Minor in which he testified that he would not be coming back again to the Asia Minor, sails to Rome, testifies there and gives his amazing last testimony and is stoned. This is probably where he realized that his work was almost done, that his planned trip to Rome wasn’t going to go how he expected.  Maybe he even knew that he was going to his death?  

As you can see our days are so crazy I don’t have time to even think about a mission call, but then I read my scriptures, or sit down for a quiet moment and I realize how bad I want my mission call.  I know with my entire being that I am supposed to be going on a mission now.  I was worried that I would not ever have the confirmation that I really needed to be on a mission because I have just always wanted to go, and as D&C 4:3 says, if you have a desire, you are called to the work.  But now I have had so many experiences that have helped me know that I, specifically, am needed to preach the gospel to a certain group of people.  And now, with this testimony of the gospel, and a testimony of my mission I just really really really really really really really want to just know where I am going.  It is cool because a couple weeks ago, even one week ago, I did not feel ready.  I just wanted to have a firm testimony of the divinity of my call, that I can know it is from God.  And now I think I do.  I know that God is sending me where I need to go.  So now it is just a waiting game.  And I am going crazy just writing about it so I am going to stop now.  I will tell you when I get it.

Assos

Next we went to Pergamon, which was a huge Greek acropolis.

The auditorium.  It was huge.  Two of my friends raced to the top and they were exhausted when they got to the top.  Talk about running bleachers!

The Library of Pergamon.  This was the third largest library in the world at the time and contained something like 2000 scrolls.  

You can't see super well from this picture, but Jessica laid down her scriptures on the top, and we were joking that we were taking the gospel to the Gentiles, because this is one of the cities that Paul preached in.  So we are actually pointing at her scriptures.

Then we had a super long drive in which I wrote this entire thing for the past four days . . . . . 

Then we got to the hotel, which was actually an all inclusive beach resort at Ephesus on the edge of the Aegean Sea.  That night we went to dinner with a huge buffet (and I had these African banyais that were divine—little balls of honey syrupy goodness) and then we went and played around/dipped our toes in the Aegean Sea that we weren’t allowed to swim in after dark.  Naturally the water from dipping my toes in went almost to my mid thigh, because you know how dipping your toes in the ocean works.  Haha, actually I was reenacting the slow motion Chariots of Fire with my friend Jake Slater and I splashed in the water a lot.  That is why my pants were wet.  But it was really funny.  We also played the “When I think of” game with Chelsea and Jenny and Jessica Smith, and that game gets really funny.  On the way up from the beach to my hotel room I got in the elevator with two of my friends (Ben Lenhart and David Banta) and this Turkish man.  As we are going up the man turns to me and says “Did you see the belly dancers tonight!?!”.  I laughed and said “Uh, no, I must have missed them”.  Ben then got out of the elevator, trying not to smile, and David stayed with me and kind of walked me to my room which turned out to be a good thing because this guy apparently is staying in a room near mine.  It was really funny because the one hard and fast rule that they made after last semester was that there is NO dancing in Turkey.  I feel like I am in the middle of footloose or something, but that is a serious matter here.  Apparently they have more than one incident with the Turkish men and us “loose” American women.  So there is No dancing and No taking Turkish baths.  So it was funny that he asked me about dancing because the Turks love dancing, and the kind of dancing they do isn’t Western line dancing, that’s for sure.

Turkey Day #3

We went to a World War I sight today.  I have always found WWII history to be incredibly interesting and the whole period of it to be an era . . . maybe not one I would love to live in, but . . . an era I would love to go and watch the people in.  I think it is incredible the pulling together, the trust in God that occurs when there is a huge war.  My thoughts on World War I were always that it seemed like a kind of pointless war where millions died in horrible ways (gas, trench warfare, etc).   But it had never really internalized the losses that it caused.  Until today.  We went to Anzac beach, which is the beach where the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) tried to break the lines into Turkey so they could capture Constantinople (the capital of the Ottoman Empire at the time) and weaken the axis powers and be able to better supply Russia with needed supplies.  This battle went on back and forth for 6 moths in various campaigns until the Allies gave up and stopped trying to infiltrate the beach.  The casualties were 200,000 for each side and the death toll was over 50,000.  

There is a cemetery for the Austrailian and New Zealander soldiers here in Turkey, and it is so beautiful.  Really the whole battle site is beautiful.  I have always found that a little ironic.  Gettysburg is these gorgeous green hills, here there is a gorgeous view of the Agean sea, and this is where humans showed their worst side.  This is where millions died for reasons that did not matter even a decade after the war was over.  

We walked along the beach, and I talked to Dr. Nickels (the resident doctor at the JC who went to West Point) about how most people just say the death toll of the battle, but really the casualties are the real cost because that is the number of lives affected. But really if we are counting number of lives affected, the toll would be almost innumerable because of all of the mothers and children and wives affected when their husband or son or father passes away or comes back with life changing injuries.  And even the soldiers that return unscathed have emotional burdens they will carry for the rest of their lives.

Then we went to a cemetery of the New Zealanders and Australians.  It was so beautiful, and so awful at the same time.  There was so many beautiful epitaphs on the tombstones that really testify to the horror of war.  The feeling that I got from them was the feeling of trust in God.  These people were devastated at the losses of their loved ones, yet found peace in knowing that God is all knowing.  That even when they do not know all of the "whys" there is a God that does.  

"Greater love hath no man than this. For God, king, and country"

"They never fail who die in a great cause"

"Our loved son and brother.  One of the best.  God gives his beloved sleep"

"A place is vacant in our home which can never be filled"

"We have eternity for loves communion yet."

"The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away."

"Our hero.  A faithful son and brother,"

"Nearer my God to thee."

The cemetery at the shores of Gallipoli.

The gorgeous memorial to the soldiers buried there.  This was written by the general that emerged as a military genius in this battle.  He later unified Turkey and became nicknamed Ataturk (Father of Turkey).  He was like their George Washington, but way more important than that because he was so recent.  The Turkish people love him.  The plaque says . . . 

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives,

You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.

You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

Ataturk, 1934

Seeing all these quotes makes me even more grateful for the knowledge that I have that not only do we have a God that loves us, and knows the whys, but that he has made a way that all these people will see their sons again.  As we look at all the war and violence in the world, and I certainly have been exposed to an area in the world where war and conflict is part of daily life, it is hard to imagine a world without any war.  But the great promise of the millennium is that there will be a day in which we will experience perfect peace.  It is hard to imagine what perfect peace must feel like.  For sure there would be a lack of war, which would be amazing in and of itself.  But even more wonderful, there would be no more fear in the hearts of men.  This is what is so different from current time it is almost incomprehensible.  There will be no more fear in the world.  The light of Christ will banish all feelings of anxiety, filling the world with happiness because God has come, and the biggest war there even has been, between good and evil, will have been one.  And when that great and last battle is over, there will be no more wars to fight.  Only victory to enjoy for the rest of forever.

Then we went to the ruins of Troy.  To get to Troy though we had to pass the Dardenelles and we took a ferry over.  The funny thing is that I was wearing a full skirt this day and the ferry ride was very windy.  My skirt almost flew up a couple of times so my friends Sarah and Jessica rubber banded it.  We were all dying laughing.  We couldn’t decide if it was better to risk the skirt pulling a Marilyn Monroe or to rubber band it and have *gasp* my knees showing. 

There was also a LOT of bus riding around this day.  Like 4 hours of it. 

TROY!!!  So Troy is actually like 8 different Troy cities, and if the Trojan War happened, it would hae been on the 6th Troy.  Unfortunately, archeologists have left the site all mixed up, so there are ruins from all different time periods here.

 I am on the top right.

These are the professors and service couples at the JC.  They are all hilarious and it was fun getting to know them better during the trip.

Me and a random puppy we found it Troy.  We called it the Trojan puppy!!  I was taking a picture with it, and then it came closer, and bit my skirt.  So we decided it was a real Trojan puppy because it was an aggressive skirt chasing puppy!! 

At a rest stop I heard some of my professors talking about how legally, they couldn’t have the students swim that night unless their was a certified lifeguard present but that shouldn’t be too big of a problem because some of the students were sure to be lifeguards, and I overheard them and casually said ”Oh, I am a lifeguard”.  And thought nothing of it until on the bus when they were telling them the rules for that night, and said “If you want to go swimming, there are two rules.  You have to be in the roped off sections, and you have to have Liza with you.  Shocked, I looked up as the entire bus looked at me.  Then getting off the bus at the hotel, all the people on the other bus were suddenly extra friendly and jokingly asked if I wanted to go swimming.  This is when I realized that out of the 72 kids there, I was the ONLY certified lifeguard.  I have never made 71 best friends so fast.  EVERYONE wanted to be with me.  At first I was a little stressed out, but then I just laughed that little Liza was the one in charge of saving all of these big tall boys, and decided to just enjoy the experience.  So when I came out onto the beach by our hotel I triumphantly declared “Let us swim!!!!” and everyone waiting at the beach clapped and cheered and we all ran into the water.  It was super cold in the Aegean Sea, but it was one of those times when you are laughing and splashing and playing frisbee and swimming around, so we really didn’t even notice.  Two of my friends, Ben and Jordan, started playing this game called “To the Sea” where they would tackle all the people standing waist deep in the water if they looked dry.  But soon everyone was wet so they would just "to the sea" random people.  They even “to the sea”ed one of our professors.  Haha, I love our professors.  They are such hilarious people, and very young at heart.  And I did not actually have to save anyone so all was well.  Again, long but amazing day.