The Perfect Day

Every day I say "Today was the best day ever." Today was such an incredible Sabbath. It started out getting ready and laughing with my 3 amazing roommates- I am so blessed. Kaitlin always makes us laugh, Rachel is so sweet and genuine, and Jess says that funniest things and is definitely not a sheltered wierdie :) We went to breakfast and I had some delicious fresh fruit and Jerusalem whole grain cereal. Then we went to choir practice where we sang a beautiful arrangement of "High On a Mountaintop" for the prelude. In preparation for the sacrament we sang the song "Thy will, O Lord, Be Done" which is hymn # 188 if you want to read it. It is a beautiful hymn and even more beautiful to sing as I looked over the city where the Savior lived. Sacrament meeting was amazing. One of my favorite thoughts was a scripture shared in a talk Romans 8:16-17. We are all children of a Heavenly Father! I know it!
Primary was incredible-thank you to everyone who gave me help for sharing time- I used everyones ideas! I love children so much, they were so involved with the sharing time and gave me insights I had never thought about, we even learned about the "grass plates"
I also gave a spiritual thought for our primary leadership training, one of my newest favorite scripture stories is of Joshua (after going to Jericho and seeing where the walls fell down). Joshua 1-6 is some of my favorite scripture. I shared the scripture in Joshua 1:9 about the Lord giving us the strength that we need to fulfill the callings we are assigned to. Then I talked about the Savior blessing the and praying for the children one by one in 3 Nephi 17. I just love primary so much!
After the meeting we went to the Garden of Gethsemane and I sat there for almost an hour thinking about how blessed I am.
Then we came back to eat dinner outside overlooking the city, did our visiting teaching, got hometaught, packed for Egypt, and ended the night with Catch Phrase and a whole lot of laughing. I love my friends. I'm so excited for Egypt-hopefully when I get home I'll be able to put some pictures up.
Thanks to everyone that sent me an email! It always makes my day to see emails from people other than my professors who are just sending me assignments. I love you all! I know my Savior lives and I know that he loves me and all of you! Have a wonderful week.

Pictures to go with Jessica's Post

Help!

I've decided that I get more nervous speaking in front of kids than I do in front of adults..thats probably not good considering my major. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't be so nervous if I knew what I was doing. I conducted primary today and we had some leftover time in senior primary so I had to improvise for about 10 minutes (which seems like forever at the time!) I felt so awkward but one of my friends who is a teacher noticed that the kids all stopped talking and were just watching me while I was at the front- I was glad he noticed that because I sure felt dumb. Anyways, primary has been fun. But I need help because I have to give sharing time next week "I know the scriptures are true." I'm so nervous! My supplies here are limited but I want to make it fun for the kids and interactive. Any ideas for me?

On a side note, today is the Sabbath and we went as a group to the Garden tomb. While we are almost positive that we know where Golgotha is, we are not sure whether or not the tomb is the actual spot.but it was still amazing. The tomb we saw is empty and the tomb he would have been in is empty because He is risen! I love the spirit that is brought through music. We had the opportunity to sing some hymns while we were at the garden and it brought so much peace and love into our group. I know that the reason I feel so incredibly close to all these people already is because of this mutual bond and spirit that we have. I just love everyone here so much and the experiences that I am having. We also had a chance to go the Western Wall last night (stones from the Herodian people still make up part of the wall) to be with the Jewish people while they worshiped at the start of the Sabbath. Look up pictures of the wall-it's incredible. Everything here is.

Help me with ideas for sharing time if you have any- I would appreciate it! Tomorrow is our field trip to Jordan and a week from tomorrow we will be in Egypt!

Jerusalem

I don't have a lot of time to be on the internet, but we have some down time now without enough time to go into the city so I figured I should do an update. Jerusalem is amazing! I can't believe that it has only been a week since I've been here. So much has happened, I'm not going to even attempt to talk about what I have seen and the things I have learned. If you have specific questions about anything email me at jessbass91@gmail.com, I would love to hear from anyone and everyone :)
But I wanted to share some of the things that I learned in my Old Testament class yesterday. First of all, the teachers here are all incredible, they know so much about this land and are so eager to help us learn and get to know the culture and people here. Anyways, we were in Genesis studying about Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac. Before class started, Brother Muhlestein asked us to write on three separate sheets of paper 1) our greatest desire 2) our greatest ability 3) the most important person to us. He gave us the definition that an Abrahamic sacrifice is being willing to give up what means the most to you besides the Savior. He said that if there is anything we put out trust in besides God it WILL fail us. Therefore, God, because he loves us will help us to put him first in our life by making sacrifices. Then he asked us to hold out our pieces of paper for someone else to randomly select for us and that would be the thing we would have to give up or sacrifice. Mine was the opportunity to become a wife and mother. He said that even the most worthy goals and things that align with the doctrine of the church are sometimes asked to be sacrifice in order to put God first. I'm realizing now that writing this isn't nearly as powerful as when I heard it in class. But as I sat there thinking about what it truly means to put my Heavenly Father before every other person and goal I realized what that means. I know that sometimes we have trials and obstacles put in our way that are only meant to make us better people. We may not always know the reasons for the trials we go through, but we have to trust the Lord and put him before everything else in our lives.

I love you all! I'm having the time of my life and I am so grateful for this opportunity.
On a side note, not only do we take religious classes here but we are also being taught by an Israeli and a Palestinian to learn both sides of the political debates here. We are also taking a geography and history class about this land. I am loving all of my classes and especially the time I have every day to explore a new site in the old city. This is a wonderful place!
Oh, I was also called to be the second counselor in the primary presidency here. I'm still learning my responsibilities, but I'm really excited for it! Our primary president is the director's wife and she is so helpful in getting me adjusted to this new assignment. We have about 30 kids that are in the Jerusalem Branch of the Israel district. As I sat in primary last week listening to the sharing time I had a newfound appreciation for all my primary leaders that were patient with the rowdy kids during sharing time.

Isn't this great?

If you receive the New Ear each month, this should look familiar. Brandon and cousin Ryan were both attending conference for their first priesthood session. Jeffrey has since passed 8 years old and was there for the first time at the conference center. And we were attending for the first time since the mission and had our first mission reunion (our new favorite holiday...and it comes twice a year!) The boys ran into Roy Matsunaga, a former assistant from the AMM. So glad a real photographer was there to capture the memory!

Because I love my mom....

I'm posting on the blog. So here you go mom, love you!

I've decided that college is a love/hate relationship. I love my roommates, baking, meeting new people, boys, late nights, student wards, my apartment, football and all the other BYU sports, and having the opportunity to go to the most amazing university in the world (at least in my opinion). I dislike (hate is too strong of a word) midterms, grocery shopping, drama, boys, cleaning, and long days at the library. But I mostly just love college. Sophomore year is even better than I thought it would be. I knew that we would eventually make new friends (since all our boys are out serving LDS missions) but I didn't realize we would get to know such great people. Our ward is fantastic-every Sunday we leave church saying "that was the best Sacrament meeting ever". It just keeps getting better. I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to study abroad next semester in Jerusalem. I am so excited to go, especially because my best friend, Kaitlin, will be going with me. But it's going to be sad to leave this great ward! I'm so blessed. Here are some of the highlights from the last couple of months.

Our ward Halloween roller skating party with some of our first and best friends.

Totally out of my comfort zone but it was so much fun. The boys did a great job of staying in character all night and making Zoe and I feel more comfortable.

Zoe and I as old ladies

roller skating

My beautiful roommates-kaitlin, zoe, me, ashley

Dad came to Utah for business and I convinced him to come to Provo on Saturday. We went to lunch with some missionaries (sad we didn't get a picture) and he got to come to the football game! It was so much fun.

Some of our "San Diego boys"

Happy Halloween!

"I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble comes looking for me." HPotter

Dwight Schrute:	Jim, could you please inform Andy Bernard that he is being shunned?
Jim Halpert:	Andy, Dwight says welcome back and he could use a hug.
Dwight Schrute:	Okay, tell him that that's not true.
Jim Halpert:	Dwight says that he doesn't actually know one single fact about bear attacks.
Dwight Schrute:	Okay. No. Jim tell him bears can climb faster than they can run. Jim! Tell him!

"Did you burn your nylons?"

I was reading in Isaiah this morning and thought about that question. (Bear with me, and I'll make the connection.) Funny question. Funnier that so many people are interested, but after 3 years in dresses, closed toed shoes and nylons, people have been asking. And while I didn't have an official-nylon-burning ceremony, it was wonderful to toss most of them into the trash and snug back into my jeans and t-shirts with absolutely no socks at all, my toes finally set free to get reacquainted with the carpet, grass, sidewalk and anywhere I want to wander. But I didn't get rid of all my nylons and still make occasion to wear them; most notably to the temple*.

At general conference, 5 new temples were announced. As always, it was thrilling, especially when the Tijuana temple was mentioned and there was a noticeable murmur of approval in the conference center congregation. Temples are coming closer to every people. I love that I can drop Jeffrey off at school and then be in the temple in 15 minutes. It's wonderful to go and see the parking lot full, the halls packed yet reverent. I just love that I can make the temple a regular part of my week. But with more and more temples, and more opportunities to be in them, I don't ever want that experience to become common.

In our world there are many people who hold nothing sacred and almost nothing is sacred to everyone. Temples are different. Temples are sacred for my people as are the things associated with them: our relationship with Christ, marriage, family, covenants with God. (To better understand our belief of temples, visit this link or just ask me.) Attending the temple represents the pinnacle of my worship of, dedication to, and love for Jesus Christ. It is the closest I come to Him. I want to feel the difference when I walk through that door-every time. And so, I want to make those occasions when I go 'holy', set apart, or in other words, sacred.

The beginning of this post started out light hearted enough, but it's turning into something else. And I don't want to be disrespectful with a topic so important to me and to many others by the associations I'm making.  I do want to point out that there are things I deliberately choose to do to help make preparing and going to the temple something special, something different. I wear my best Sunday clothes, including my nylons. It's not that I think everybody should do it or it's wrong to go if you don't have the 'right' clothes, but it's something for me. There are certainly other ways that I prepare myself to attend, but it's these types of conscious choices that help set the tone for me, that help me say to myself, this is not an ordinary thing you are about to do. This is extra-ordinary.  After all, it is the fulfillment of prophesy. And that is the connection back to Isaiah, who prophesied about temples in our day, or the mountain of the Lord, and standing in Holy places.

Isaiah 2:2 And it shall come to pass in the ^alast days, that the ^bmountain of theLord’s ^chouse shall be ^destablished in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all ^enations shall flow unto it.
3. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us ^ago up to the^bmountain of the Lord, to the ^chouse of the God of Jacob; and he will^dteach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of ^eZion shall go forth the ^flaw, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

(*or for a baptism or taking the sacrament-anywhere a sacred ordinance is being performed)

3 Questions

Here's the plan:

September 1st. I've been studying a few random scriptural topics the last few weeks since I finished The Book of Mormon. I reread Sister Julie Beck's talk from last Women's Conference (Fantastic!). I'm anxious to again pick up with The Book of Mormon cover to cover so I'm taking her challenge- Read it from cover to cover while searching out 3 questions:

1. Who Am I?

2. What are my responsibilities in the house of Israel?

3. How do I fulfill those responsibilities?

I've noticed that many blog authors have 'give aways' of things they love. I love The Book of Mormon.  So that's going to be my give away. When I'm all finished (in a month or two or three), when the book is full of my notes and thoughts, I'll give it away. I don't know if anyone will want it with all my scribbling, but time will tell. 

...and even if I can't give it away, I'm excited for me.

And for those of you who have never read it, you don't have to wait that long. Give me a call and I'll get you a copy asap and you can read it with me. 

Famous last words

*And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.

So perhaps this would only be considered famous to a select demographic, but everytime I read this, I get so excited. Of all the people I want to meet in life, Moroni is high up in my top 10. (Does anybody else have a top 10?) What an amazing life-before and after.

I love the personal insights he gives of his own life. Some of them just make me anxious to read more. For example:

An epistle of my father Mormon, written to me, Moroni; and it was written unto me soon after my calling to the ministry. And on this wise did he write unto me, saying:

Think about it. He is completely alone. The only people around want to kill him and anyone like him. He saw his entire civilization self destruct. His father was killed and any other family/friends he may have had. He has the incredible, heavy responsibility to care for and protect this sacred record and there are definitely forces that oppose that charge. Certainly he had the help and companionship of the Holy Ghost, and he had the writings of the prophets for his friends. And he has us. Us.

He knows us. He's seen us. He cares about us. He's worried about us. And so he writes to us. And this is what he shares. "This is a letter from my Dad that he wrote to me. He wrote it soon after I was called. This is what he said."

A letter from his dad. Probably one he read over and over again. It was certainly sacred to him. And he wants us to have it, too. A voice from the dust. More than any other author in The Book of Mormon-or any other book-when I read his words I have the impression that I'm reading letters from my friend, and I can't wait to shake his hand. 

'Til we meet again!