Winding down...

This week has been the week to check stuff off my list of things to do while still in Jordan. Which is good because time is definitely winding down at this point. I have to visit all the restaurants, the sites, get all the final shopping done before time rapidly runs out. I have eaten at a lot of my favorite restaurants again as well as tried some new things. This past week I tried Turkish food and it was......different. It was a giant potato (of Claim Jumper's or Joe's BBQ proportions, so bigger than a normal dinner plate or my face) stuffed with all things delicious. Although I don't know if they were necessarily delicious together, per se. There was this pea/carrot/white gravy soup thing that served as the base with corn, olives, chicken shwarma, ketchup, mayonnaise, and other things I cannot recall at the present time. It was like a gigantic glorified potato salad and big enough to fill you up for the rest of the day.

After so much starch from the potato, Ben, Isa, and I had to go try donuts in Jordan to add some sweet to our diets. We went to this place called Donut Planet and sampled the food there. It was quite superb. I got an éclair and it was everything I was hoping it would be. All the rest of their donuts were pretty good as well, albeit they were stuffed with something. Apparently, just normal donuts here are weird so they stuff them. The maple long john donut was stuffed with blueberry filling, the chocolate long john was stuffed with raspberry filling, etc. Not quite the normal American way, but not bad.

I know this week that I said I wouldn’t spend too much money on anything….well that was a little foolish of me to say. I finished up souvenir shopping this week by buying scarves for a vast variety of people – work colleagues, friends, teachers, etc. Plus I had to pick up some kuffiyas for some guy friends, I did have help getting them all bargained down to a much more affordable price. I hope everyone likes what I get them. I am trying to pick out things that would suit people’s tastes, but you just never know. I do have to say the gifts here are cheaper by a lot than the USA. That is, if you aren’t buying electronics. Electronics here are much more expensive and I am not sure why. Not as good relations between Japan/China and Jordan as between the former and the USA perhaps? That would be an interesting research paper topic for the future if I get the time.

Other adventures and grand happenings of the week? Let’s see. The new building , “center”, of the LDS church was dedicated here in Amman yesterday!!! How cool is that? They had a big district conference to commemorate the event and people came from Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt to see the building. I think they were all a little bit jealous and wished that they could have similar constructions within their own countries. However, the timing is not quite right for it. Too much war and instability and uncertainty to keep up weekly membership, but as one of the speakers said yesterday, “Jordan is an island of peace and prosperity in a sea of raging conflict and instability.” See? I always told all of you all that Jordan was safe. The talks that were given were spiritual and uplifting. Arabic is such a beautiful language and things can be conveyed through it in a much prettier fashion than sometimes than English. After the conference, the Church catered lunch for us – maqloube, rice, laban, hummus, baba ganoush, pita bread, and the ward members brought cookies. What’s a grand meeting without food after all?

The night before, there was fireside where one of the Lebanese members shared his powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon. He brought up a really interesting point that I had never considered. The Book of Mormon uses the phrase “river of water” instead of just “water”. Americans would have understood “rivers” to mean “water” because the vast majority of rivers in America are always running. However, in the Middle East you have to specify a “dry river” or a “wet river” depending on the time of year and its location. It is similar to Arizona in many respects where rivers only really have water a select few months out of the year and the rest of the time they are this weird, barren ditch or gulch-like construction. He said Joseph Smith could never have known this distinction that is common for people living here to make because New York has so much water year-round. It made perfect sense to him though. His main point was that the Book of Mormon is the foundation of our testimonies and gaining a spiritual witness of it is the only way to know the Church is true. It was very powerful address to listen to.

The Saints in the Middle East are filled with so much faith. It never ceases to astound me. Despite the enormous challenges and stigma attached to being a member of the church here, the people are faithful and strong. They serve missions, strive to find anyone they can to marry in the temple (the temples and the eligible bachelors/bachelorettes are extremely limited to say the least), teach amazing lessons, and rely on the Lord in so many more ways than many of the people I know in the States. It has been a tremendous faith-strengthening experience to live here and witness the example of a very religious people and culture as compared to the secularism that is present in our current Western lifestyle. One of my speaking appointments this past week we even talked about our beliefs about animals. We both agreed that animals are one of God’s sacred creations and have a spirit and deserve to protected and treated with respect. At the same time, God gave them to us and it is ok to eat them and keep them as pets as long as they are treated with the dignity and respect that creations of God deserve. Let me tell you, that was an interesting conversation to have in Arabic and one I greatly appreciated. Muslims have such strong faith and find it so easy to share their beliefs in all that they do and say. I hope to be able to do the same thing in my life when I return to the USA.

Last night, an entire Muslim family came to dinner at our apartment. We made them pot roast, baked potatoes, and salad. They were fans of the potatoes and found the salad good. They had a hard time with the pot roast though, haha. They don’t usually use knives here to eat with and pot roast usually requires a knife to cut it into manageable pieces. They struggled with that concept as well as the flavor and the texture. The son thought that it tasted too much like tuna and not enough like cow. I guess that is what happens when your tongue is accustomed to the rich variety of spices that accompanies every meat dish here. Everything is always popping with flavor and color. Our meat seemed pretty bland to them in comparison. We had soda floats for dessert. They found the root beer to taste way too much like medicine. Also, we had to reassure them over and over that root beer is, in fact, non-alcoholic. They only took a sip each of that. Instead of the traditional American rootbeer float, they opted for Pepsi floats or Dr. Pepper floats. Those were a big hit and they all enjoyed them after getting over the stigma of mixing a soda with ice cream. They also brought a delicious apricot/blondie type bar with them and we feasted on those as well. It was a lot of fun to treat them as our guests instead of the other way around.

All the fun of testing starts this upcoming week, so pray for me if you would. I have my OPI on Wednesday night. That tests worries me about all the other ones. It is just straight speaking and has a huge impact on half of my graded classes here on the Study Abroad. I just have to be able to talk in paragraph-long discourse as well as keep the verbal system under control. Both of those things are easier said than done, for me at least. I am practicing though and praying that things will work out. This upcoming week is our last full week of classes (no Thanksgiving break for us). Then we have three days of classes next week before having five days of testing. After that, we leave for Palestine/Jerusalem the very next morning and spend two weeks there. I am so excited for that trip if I can just make it there. Although, I am getting incredibly sad about all the people that I will miss here. I plan on finding them all gifts (from my American bag of tricks that I brought with me) before the end. I just hope that they appreciate them and that Facebook will allow us to keep on being friends long after I am living back in good ol’ Provo, Utah.