We made it! My body is still trying to figure out what time it is over here (10 hour time difference than AZ) but everything is just peachy or khowkhy in Arabic. We're all settled into our apartment, have gotten semi-familiar with the area, and got to meet the Jordanian saints today!
A few Amman observations:
1. The weather right now is pretty comparable to AZ, a little less hot (I think) and a little more humid, but not too far off. Not surprisingly, there's lots of the same plants growin round these parts: palm trees, jasmine (like that big bush we used to have in front of our house, Madre), pomegranate trees, and FIG TREES! (The figs here are soo good.)
2. Traffic is straight crazy. There's no lanes and it's just a big kinda free for all which is super entertaining and fun to watch until you realize that's your life you're free-for-all-ing with, but it's fine. Drivers here are super alert though, which makes sense cuz if you're distracted/don't pay close attention, you'll be as crashed as a crashed thing faster than you can say a fast thing. (That was for you, Toolson). Their road system is also muy complicado and trying to navigate your way around the city is an adventure to say the least.
3. Most people here are super welcoming towards Americans. Not gonna lie, I'm a lil biased because I'm slightly obsessed with Arabs (surprise) but you start talking to them and they're always like, "welcome, welcome!" and they're just so happy to answer all your language/dialect questions and try to offer you free taxi rides (we pay for everything for sure but the gesture is still very sweet). I JUST LOVE THESE HUMANS OH MY WOW.
4. Their sewer system stinks (pun intended if you want it to be) and so you can't even flush toilet paper...there's a lil trash can by all the toilets so you can dispose of your paper goods after usage, gross. But hey, when in Rome...
OK LEMME TELL YA ABOUT CHURCH TODAY, YOU READY?!
First off, we got dropped off at the wrong spot and had to walk a fair bit to find the kinisa (church) but we found it, so that's good, and then we had Sunday school aand Relief Society (all 3 branches were combined today so everything was in English and Arabic) and then we had Sacrament meeting last and a happy little (jk nothing about Arabs and food is little) munch (more like stuff) and mingle. Okay back to Sacrament meeting. Singing hymns in Arabic? So awesome! Also way tricky cuz the music and the words are on separate pages. Hearing the Sacrament prayers in Arabic for the first time in an actual church meeting? Yeah that was by far the highlight of my week. I definitely got emotional. Before this whole Jordan extravaganza, I'd only met 3 Arab Latter-day Saints, and they're all recent converts I taught and baptized. My heart has been waiting and looking forward to meeting other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and finally being able to do that today was a dream come true. I'm so so excited to get to serve in The Church here and if I don't ever come home, you'll probably know where to find me. After the block and all that jazz, some of us decided to walk home instead of taking another taxi since it was only like 2 and a half miles back to our apartments, and uh...well we ended up splitting up cuz some of us wanted to check out this cool Mosque some dude on the street told us about and half of us got a lil bit lost and took a definite 2-3 mile detour and the other half got picked up by a member and one of our student buds and made it home like a hour before the other group. You'll never guess which group I was in but hey, it's all about the experience, right? and we got to see lots more of the city which is always super bueno.
Welp, classes start on Sunday (our worship day/church is on Friday's here) and I'm getting nervous excited and it's gonna be great!
I think that's sufficientish for this week's update. مع سلامة
Favorite word of the week: نوري (no-ree) which is Amiah (Jordanian dialect) for like "sketchy" kinda like how we'd use "ghetto." Like, "dis Egyptian rap is supa noree yo." So there ya go, 10 points to whoever uses it this week in random conversation. Lols
1. cool graffiti
2. that Mosque we got lost for, yay
3-4. Arabic hymn book
5. walking home from church
6. met up with an old TA of ours last night and got to see some of the city with her and meet her family, she's leaving back for BYU in a couple days
A few Amman observations:
1. The weather right now is pretty comparable to AZ, a little less hot (I think) and a little more humid, but not too far off. Not surprisingly, there's lots of the same plants growin round these parts: palm trees, jasmine (like that big bush we used to have in front of our house, Madre), pomegranate trees, and FIG TREES! (The figs here are soo good.)
2. Traffic is straight crazy. There's no lanes and it's just a big kinda free for all which is super entertaining and fun to watch until you realize that's your life you're free-for-all-ing with, but it's fine. Drivers here are super alert though, which makes sense cuz if you're distracted/don't pay close attention, you'll be as crashed as a crashed thing faster than you can say a fast thing. (That was for you, Toolson). Their road system is also muy complicado and trying to navigate your way around the city is an adventure to say the least.
3. Most people here are super welcoming towards Americans. Not gonna lie, I'm a lil biased because I'm slightly obsessed with Arabs (surprise) but you start talking to them and they're always like, "welcome, welcome!" and they're just so happy to answer all your language/dialect questions and try to offer you free taxi rides (we pay for everything for sure but the gesture is still very sweet). I JUST LOVE THESE HUMANS OH MY WOW.
4. Their sewer system stinks (pun intended if you want it to be) and so you can't even flush toilet paper...there's a lil trash can by all the toilets so you can dispose of your paper goods after usage, gross. But hey, when in Rome...
OK LEMME TELL YA ABOUT CHURCH TODAY, YOU READY?!
First off, we got dropped off at the wrong spot and had to walk a fair bit to find the kinisa (church) but we found it, so that's good, and then we had Sunday school aand Relief Society (all 3 branches were combined today so everything was in English and Arabic) and then we had Sacrament meeting last and a happy little (jk nothing about Arabs and food is little) munch (more like stuff) and mingle. Okay back to Sacrament meeting. Singing hymns in Arabic? So awesome! Also way tricky cuz the music and the words are on separate pages. Hearing the Sacrament prayers in Arabic for the first time in an actual church meeting? Yeah that was by far the highlight of my week. I definitely got emotional. Before this whole Jordan extravaganza, I'd only met 3 Arab Latter-day Saints, and they're all recent converts I taught and baptized. My heart has been waiting and looking forward to meeting other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and finally being able to do that today was a dream come true. I'm so so excited to get to serve in The Church here and if I don't ever come home, you'll probably know where to find me. After the block and all that jazz, some of us decided to walk home instead of taking another taxi since it was only like 2 and a half miles back to our apartments, and uh...well we ended up splitting up cuz some of us wanted to check out this cool Mosque some dude on the street told us about and half of us got a lil bit lost and took a definite 2-3 mile detour and the other half got picked up by a member and one of our student buds and made it home like a hour before the other group. You'll never guess which group I was in but hey, it's all about the experience, right? and we got to see lots more of the city which is always super bueno.
Welp, classes start on Sunday (our worship day/church is on Friday's here) and I'm getting nervous excited and it's gonna be great!
I think that's sufficientish for this week's update. مع سلامة
Favorite word of the week: نوري (no-ree) which is Amiah (Jordanian dialect) for like "sketchy" kinda like how we'd use "ghetto." Like, "dis Egyptian rap is supa noree yo." So there ya go, 10 points to whoever uses it this week in random conversation. Lols
1. cool graffiti
2. that Mosque we got lost for, yay
3-4. Arabic hymn book
5. walking home from church
6. met up with an old TA of ours last night and got to see some of the city with her and meet her family, she's leaving back for BYU in a couple days
