important nothings

2011-06-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Cami is doing a BYU travel study abroad in England right now and met up with Emma in London last week for P-day! Here are some of the pictures.

With all of Emma's companions: Sis A, Emma, Cami, Sis K, Sis F

2011-05-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

Bringing Oregon to England

Nigerian party with investigators

2011-05-16T12:00:00.001-07:00

Cute Sri Lankan girl from her area

2011-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

Emma with her last companion and an elder from the district

2011-05-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Emma with Sister L and Sister K

Update on letters

2011-01-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

Sorry friends of Emma, I just posted a lot of letters and pictures I've been hoarding due to a combination of laziness and lack of time. I hope you get a chance to read some of the letters. There are a few pictures posted as well and if you don't have a lot of time I suggest you read letters #15 (she's training), #13 (funny English ward). Or look through the pictures posted.

Missionary Letter #15 (January 6, 2011)

2011-01-11T11:48:00.001-08:00

so biggest news of the week!!!!

there are two new sisters coming in.
sis g--she's only been out for six months-- is training one! AND opening a new area!!! and sis k and i are training the other one!!!! what the heck?? how cool is that? we're the only ones training this transfer and we were all together! we had president's interviews yesterday, and he was just like, "yeah, i really trust you guys." isn't that so cool?? and sis k has only been out eight months, so it's not normal that she would train. and guess what? ours is from burma!!! she only speaks a little bit of english, comes from a tiny village and has never been in weather below like 85 degrees. haha! wow! can you believe that?
so we have to go to a training meeting on wednesday, and then, i get to be the one walking into that room singing the second verse of called to serve! good thing sis k will be doing pretty much everything and i just have to speak the best english and know the area.

i went into london on thursday and friday to switch and then switch back. isn't that crazy how much we go in? i went to ilford, which is in east london, and it is just full of people from india, and other places too, and english people as well. but it's the highest baptising area in the mission, and so it was fun. it was cool to go to a new area and see how different things can be. people weren't only in a rush all the time, but they'd stop and talk to us. people were willing to come and meet with us so easily! i couldn't even believe it. like 9 out of 10 people would talk to us, while here in canterbury it's like 1 out of 10 or 15 people that will talk to us. i'm glad i'm in canterbury though where we can go out into the country as well. i did feel like i would serve there sometime though. it would be nice. then i'd get to teach so much. i felt that way when i went into london centre though too, so i think i just get excited when i visit an area. haha.

well, i've been thinking a lot this week about how jesus teaches in the new testament. and about that one part, where he's teaching people from a boat in the sea of galilee. and his disciples come and ask why he teaches in parables, and he says, "he that hath ears to hear let him hear" and about how some people are listening, really listening, and some people just are not. i feel like that's how it is here, too. we tell hundreds of people the same thing and most of them aren't listening, at least not listening to hear, but a few of them do understand. a few can see beyond the parable, beyond what we teach and see why it's important. and then what do we do? well, all we do is invite them to "come and see" just as the saviour did. i like that. just that we're saying to come and see. we're not trying to force them to watch something, but to just come with us, and they can see for themselves. i think it's interesting too that i feel like it's like, first you hear--that's our job, to say something they can hear--then we give them the choice--come--and they have the choice to see for themselves. anyway, some things i liked.

Missionary Letter #14 (January 3, 2011)

2011-01-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

so mom asked me about english people and their accents and if you just forget. and that is how it's been like the whole time, that i don't even recognise that they're saying funny things because it all already seems normal! haha. so i have to kind of watch for it and then think, "okay, that is NOT normal." like the congregation all having their input in sacrament meeting? i had to remind myself that that wasn't normal. haha! and i wrote another one yesterday from church. the bishop was giving the lesson in relief society, and he talked about goals and things, but he started off with a story that elder ballard gives about a husband and wife who want to get a divorce, and the story starts out with the judge saying, "what are the grounds of divorce?" and as soon as he said that, this old, hilarious lady in the ward who is always telling us the gossip in the ward and things burst in through the doors (we were in the chapel) and she just walks in and says, "men" and doesn't even smile and just goes and sits down. sis g and i were laughing so hard!! haha! and the american students. and then the english people just laugh a little quieter. it's like they love being clever, but they don't just laugh at what someone says, the goal is to up them after kind of, instead of in our family where we laugh for a while and then think of something else to say. haha!

on friday there was a memorial service for this 97 year-old woman from the ward. i had to play piano again because no one is in town that usually plays! but i knew what the hymns would be before hand so i practiced. the closing was nearer my god to thee, and since it's an easy one, i played it an octave higher and added some little frills on the top hand and some arpeggio type things on the bottom hand and played that for the last verse, and like everyone there told me how pretty it was! "it was like she was just going off into the stars" people said. and some of them started crying. it was cute.

well, we got half the day on new year's eve off and new year's too. sis g rented TEN movies and we watched all of them. haha! it was out of control. including hannah montana and camp rock 2. we watched the climb like seven times. haha!

well, yesterday, it was cool because we had two investigators at church. literally it feels like a miracle anytime an investigator comes to church. ever. yesterday this guy that we taught for like two months but we haven't heard from him this entire transfer came. he would never come before. we couldn't figure out why. he just wouldn't come. but then yesterday he was riding his bike to the train station, which is near church, and he just felt like he needed to go to church! so he just showed up!! what in the world??? it was so cool! so anyway. that was kind of a huge miracle.

anyway, this friday, i'm doing a workover in ilford! yay! so that's like the highest baptising area in the mission (it's full of immigrants--especially africans) and so that should be fun. just for a day. and then transfers is a week from wednesday! i'm gonna be so sad if sister g leaves. we're already making up a handshake for when we see each other later. it's to the justin bieber song. haha! oh man.

love you all so much!

Missionary Picture #4 (December 29, 2010)

2011-01-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Zone picture with the sisters in their Hula outfits.

Missionary Picture #4 (December 29, 2010)

2011-01-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

Testing out Sister G's ATM card after hours.

Missionary Picture #3 (December 29, 2010)

2011-01-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

Emma with her companions outside Canterbury Cathedral

Missionary Letter #13 (December 29, 2010)

2011-01-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

so sis g kept having problems with her debit card and it not working, for like a month and a half, and she got permission to call home and call her bank in hawaii and everything, and we could only call them at like 10 at night because of the time difference and so finally they were like, "okay, go check and see if it works at an atm" and so we called the zone leaders to ask if we could go to check her card. so anyway, on monday sis g could finally go shopping!
we had boxing day off on sunday as well. so we had another christmas sacrament meeting. and guess what happened? a fair amount of people were out of town, so before it started someone came up to the front and was like, "can anyone play the piano?" so of course i raise my hand. (of course?? i never did that at home.) anyway, so got to play for them! i've been practicing hymns though between lessons, i'm so much better at playing them! yay. we were singing number 211, which like no one ever sings, and so basically no one knew it, and a member of the bishopric came up in the MIDDLE of the song and was like, "could you stop right there, that sounds terrible." haha! so then he was like, "could you at least TRY to look happy while your singing? that sounds awful." and then all these members of the congregation started to break out and be like, "we don't know the tune! if we could sing it to a different tune we could--" "we don't know it!" and finally someone was like, "number 201! let's sing joy to the world!" i was cracking up! all these english people just discussing all of this. and i just stopped playing and listened, and then when she said that i just turned back around and started playing. hahaha! it was hilarious.
our heating went out on monday morning, and they have to wait for shops to open again next week because guess what? england tries to make every excuse to take time off work. haha! so we have to wait for the shops to open so the landlord can order a part and then we have to wait for the part to come in. so we have an electric heater, which we all sit next to, and then we're okay at night and he's bringing a space heater. but for some reason there's enough hot water for one person to take a shower a day. so i had taken a shower on saturday, and then i didn't get a chance again until this morning!! and now i probably won't shower til saturday. so that's not too fun. we drink a lot of tea now and bring our duvets down while we study and eat and everything.

love you all so much!

Missionary Letter #12 (December 20, 2010)

2011-01-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

guess what?? we're in LONDON AGAIN!!! guess who just went to the V&A and bought her belated birthdya presents because sis j doesn't like shopping and now she's not here! and i went to laduree in harrod's. oh my gosh. i like london. i hope i get to serve here.

we had a freak snowstorm on...friday i think?? sis g was totally freezing and so was sis k, so i was stopping everyone we saw so we weren't wasting time of being out in the freezing cold. haha it was funny. and then we heard church bells ringing a ton so we were like, what's going on?? turns out there was a wedding!! but it's this church that's near our church, it's where sir thomas more's head is, and at the intersection, it was basically at a stand still. so, of course, we decided that this is perfect because people can't get away from us!! so, we went up to a guy who already had his window rolled down and he was just like, "go on then, i've got nothing else to do. can't go anywhere." perfect. bored people who can't get away. we only did that once though. i thought it was pretty funny. but anyway, back to the wedding, they had rented this big old double-decker red bus for the wedding party, but they were taking FOREVER to come out. and of course my comps and i wanted to see her dress! duh. so we waited and talked to people across the street where we could watch. and we saw all of these girls dressed in tiny short skirts and dresses and the most ginormous heels. and it was freezing and snowy! and i hate it when girls just look absolutely helpless walking and they're dressed like that. anyway, the bride's dress wasn't that pretty. funny that we all wanted to see though. well, just kate middleton better have a gorgeous dress.

okay, fastforward to sunday. everything stops here when it snows. i think it's just an excuse for people to stay in, really. it snowed like six inches maybe? church was reduced to sac meeting and there were eleven people there. everyone just took turns bearing their testimony, and i talked about how God knows how to give us good gifts, and that the best gift is that of the atonement, which allows us to change. i got pretty emotional. but then b bore his testimony for the first time (we had just had a lesson about missionary work and about bearing your testimony to strengthen others and everything and he said he wanted to bear his) and it was so powerful, i was just smiling the whole time and crying a little bit because he really had changed his life and seen how the atonement can change him. he's so good. can't even believe it.

i've been studying a lot about how i can fulfill my purpose here in the best way that i can. i feel my desires changing and my heart turning more toward the lord in a less martyrous way. i feel happy as i do what i know i should and i feel the love of my heavenly father. i'm starting to really like being a missionary i think.

love you all with all my heart! wish i could write more but i had too much fun reading your emails.

love,
sister emma

Missionary Letter #11 (December 13, 2010)

2011-01-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

i had woken up that morning with a sore throat so i felt pretty awful the whole walk over to see j. i knew i was feeling so bad so i went into the bathroom and prayed that i'd be able to make it through the lesson, especially because i had kind of taken the lead in planning his lesson. my companions were like totally not there because they were feeling awful as well. i was able to make it through the lesson, and listen to him the whole time, esp because he talks for a long time and takes a while to get out what he wants to say, so if you're not focusing really hard, you get lost. anyway, i was like the only one who could follow him, i answered his questions, we finished the lesson, and as soon as he was gone i was like laying on the ground next to the heater and it hurt so much to talk! it was so crazy. then we went straight home and tried to do weekly planning but we were all so sick. and also the kind of sick where just your whole body hurts. what do you think happened?? then sis k woke up the next day with a fever of 39 degrees c, and i was feeling really awful as well. we went and taught a lesson and then came back home because sis k couldn't do anything. we just like slept all day and hung out in our room. it's so annoying being sick on a mission. so that was thursday night and friday. then i woke up on saturday morning with a fever of 39! and we called our zone leaders and asked if they could give us blessings. then we taught a lesson and came home and slept.

later we heard banging on the door and what a welcome surprise!! mother's package with christmas festivities came!! so that was so good to have when we had to stay in or we'd get more sick, but we had already been sleeping all day! so what did we do?? listened to the really good mix, my comps love it, put together the paper tree, cut out snowflakes, ate oreo balls, read the christmas letter, talked about how the handwarmers you sent me were the same kind that sis k destroyed! so that was so fun! and so timely!

but yeah, mostly these past few days have been my comps and i laughing so hard that we all just start having fits of horrendous coughing. yaaaaaay. hahaha. it's pretty funny.

christmas here is cool. i think it's the victorians who made christmas tacky. typical. haha! but i mean just with like tinsel and just like the type of christmas tackiness you see sometimes...? anyway. so, it's pretty fun. i was going to send you christmas crackers, but they put like the dumbest things in them! like finger nail clippers and hairties. i was hoping i could find some with chocolate. nope!

love,
emma

Missionary Picture #2 (December 6, 2010)

2010-12-17T12:46:00.000-08:00

Missionary Letter #10 (December 6, 2010)

2010-12-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

a few nights ago, the night after sis k got here, she was showing us these hand warmer things that you put in boiling water to heat them up. and so she put them in the boiling water, forgot about them, and went to bed. with the stuff still on the stove. then i wake up to the morning alarm, get out of bed with my duvet around me and start praying that i can wake up. i hear my companions talking and sis g goes downstairs. i smell something funny. they keep talking and i'm like, why are they talking instead of praying?? then sis g comes and taps me on the head and is like, "what are you doing??" turns out, it's 11:47 at night, the smoke alarm went off! sis g fixed it, sis k woke up for a sec, asked what the smell was, and if the window could be opened. and i'm just saying my morning prayers. hahaha! can you believe that?! we've been cracking up ever since. i just roll on the ground and start praying. my goodness.

so last week we had to come up with a zone challenge. did i tell you we told everyone that they had to sing at one house when they picked a street? so anyway, we were doing that last night, and we just kept singing at a lot of houses (in three-part harmony. yay!) and the first house just said thank you and closed the door when we had barely started. what? we didn't know what to do! they even had christmas lights up! then another house with an old lady told us that it was too early for that. what? it's december! tons of people have christmas lights up! then we went to another one with a young mother who was excited and ran upstairs. we thought she was going to bring some people down to listen but she got some money to give us. and we were like, what the heck? we don't want money. so we talked to her for a bit. then we went to another house and he tried to give us money too! so we asked, okay, why do people think we want money? is that what people do here? apparently 12 and 13 yearolds do that! how dumb is that! they like ruined caroling so we can't even go around singing. so dumb. we might carry around a sign that says, "we don't want money" or something.

today at zone meeting they asked us to do a special musical number "with a twist" so sis g showed us a hula dance. paha! so we're doing that in a few minutes.

i feel like the most i've learned here is the universality of the message of the restored gospel. helps me to not be apologetic because i'm not saying anything that won't help them if they want to find what will truly help them. and of course that it's all about their choice. so that's good to remember when we have things happen like george. boo! hope you all have a wonderful start to the christmas season!

and goodness the ducks goin' to the natty!!! that's SO COOL. i'm jealous i'm not there! that must be so fun!

love you all so much! happy christmas!

The Ducks would be the University of Oregon football team that are going to the National Championship game. We're real excited Duck fans!

Missionary Letter #9 (November 30, 2010)

2010-12-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

it's transfers this week. sister g and i are staying in canterbury, but we're getting ANOTHER sister! her name's sister k. she's so cute, and she was trained by sister j as well! she's from japan and is tiiiiiiny. perfect for that japanese family we can't communicate with. i liked having just one comp, i have to say, and was looking forward to it, but i don't know. i guess this is what the Lord thinks is best right now.
k, cool story: we were waiting for a bus one morning and this old lady comes up to us and is just like, i didn't know there was a church here! she went for a while in london, never got baptised, but her daughter did! then she came to church on sunday! a very interesting woman. kinda weird, but she's cool.
sis g was cracking me up on thanksgiving because she read pres monson's talk about being thankful and it said good always outweighs the bad. so she wrote down everything she WASN'T thankful for and then wrote everything she was thankful for! and of course the good did outweigh the bad. so if you're ever being really real, it'll always be good, you know? dwell on the bad a ton isn't real either. anyway, i thought that was hilarious. it's something that at first you might be nervous to do. but that's dumb, because then that's saying it's a possibility that your life really is awful. haha! well, as long as you do the second part with a thankful heart.

things are good.

love,
sister emma

Missionary Letter #8 (November 22, 2010)

2010-11-24T07:35:00.000-08:00

in london!

well, we just dropped off sister j at the mission office. pretty sad. she's been so good to me and sister g and i miss her already. we're at a little dingy internet cafe and then we're going shopping or going to the national gallery?
also there's like no harry potter mania whatsoever! so disappointing. but we were riding a bus on friday and all of the sudden i thought, i think everyone i know has seen harry potter now. it was funny.

we're teaching a bunch of people from nepal. they all live in this one house, and five of them just gather in to listen to us when we come. they're so nice. there are like four nepalese people that have been baptised already this year. but soon we can have a whole nepalese branch! haha jk. but two of them came to church and the baptism yesterday! so that was cool. they seemed to really like it.

pretty much it. really good week. hard to go back to non-special weeks. hoping that sis g will not get transferred next week.
next monday i'll have been a missionary two months! wow. feel like i haven't done anything. it's been good. hope you all have a good week and a good thanksgiving! pet ellie for me.
love you all so much.

love,
sister emma

Missionary Letter #7 (November 15, 2010)

2010-11-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

well, it's been a great week!

we're really excited because this is going to be like the best week ever. and the best week ever for a missionary to leave! sister j is so lucky. slash she so deserves it. but we have dinner appointments FOUR DAYS this week. that never happens! one of them is because i said to this lady in the ward, "this week is the last week you can have sis j over." it was the right type of person to say that to though because she loves us and loves church and everything, but she's like kind of fussy and like gets mad at us but at the same time loves us. anyway, it was perfect. sis g was so proud of me. "that's my daughter!" so anyway, meeting with b three times this week, sis j is playing violin for his baptism (she's a violin performance major at utah state) so i'm really excited for that.

last week we went finding on tuesday with another sister for a workover, and i feel like i learned so much from her. she's swiss, and the whole time she was just like giving compliments to people on their clothes and finding other things like that, and just being so friendly and sweet and then people would listen to her when she would share her own experiences! it was so cool. so i really liked working with her.

yesterday we sang God save the queen!! how long have i been looking at that in our hymnbook and never sang it???? so that was kind of fun.

this is sister j's last week! can you believe it?? i've only had her for less than a month and already leaving! my days of training in the mtc and now are just getting cut like no other. but i'm sure this week will go by so quickly because of it. BUT cool thing is that we take her to the office on monday next week in london, so we get to spend the rest of pday in london!!! woohoo! OH. saddest thing: apparently every missionary gets to see the lion king once while they're here. so obviously i thought, well, lion king is just an adaptation of hamlet. so...i wonder if i could see shakespeare. and THEN i realized that the globe theatre is on the OTHER SIDE OF THE THAMES. aka, it is in the london south mission. hahahaha. not like it would have worked anyway, but. i get to catch glimpses of it when we drive to the office so i guess that will have to do.

love you all so much! thank you for your letters i love you!

love,
sister emma

Missionary Letter #6 (November 8, 2010)

2010-11-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Well, first of all, i think i chose my mission plaque scripture before i forget. k i really like john 21:15. (So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.)

so i have no idea what it's like brazil, but the people we've met here from brazil are always SO nice and SO friendly and not like mean and are always interested. uuuuuuuh, are you KIDDING me??? anyway. we also knocked on this lady's door this morning who was so excited to see and and was like, i'm christian! i'm so happy to see you! would you like to come in for tea! it's just so important for my sons to know that jesus atoned for them! all this stuff like that, but making it very clear she's very apart of her own church. but we're going to go on thursday because she said she'd read the book of mormon. it's so nice to talk to people like that. who care. so many people just don't even care, it's ridiculous.

okay so there are a ton of young single adults who are students at kent university, and like ALL of them are lit/creative writing students. gaaaaaaah it kills me! haha. i keep asking what they're studying. this one girl is studying the romantics so i was talking all about it to her and told her to watch bright star. and then i was like, is this allowed? ha. oh man.

we also went to these two sisters' house. a spinster and a divorcee. they are the best ever. oh man. one of them owns guinea pigs that are like her children. she showed us tricks where she'd put a carrot in her mouth, lay on the floor, and then the guinea pig would come get it! anyway, we practiced giving pass-along cards with them, and they were so hilarious. their house looked like it hadn't gotten anything new for like fifteen years. everything was vhs, and old movies like free willy, and then the posters they had in the room were like of horse heads and stuff. and they insist on showing every missionary that comes this video of their dad with a wig on just saying a load of nonsense and they think it's so funny. oh man, they're so good. loved going over there.

thanks so much for all of your emails and your prayers! i'm happy to be here even though sometimes it's hard not to think of all of the other things i'd rather be doing...hahaha. i'm starting to stop looking forward to any "me" time i can have. i'm not here to have "me" time. there's not really time for me to just escape into my brain and think about things that i wish i could be doing. instead i have to think about how i can get to know members better, how i can engage someone on the street, how i can serve my companions. anyway, obvious things, but hard to do and remember to do.

i love you all so much and thanks for your emails and prayers! it's been a good week.

love,
sister emma

Missionary Letter #5 (November 1, 2010)

2010-11-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

so i've already contacted a few people in french! what the heck? so i've added five minutes of language study to my personal study every morning. we met someone last week from france and i was just frozen while my comps looked at me. didn't say anything. and then a few days ago, we met this girl from morocco, and i started speaking french to her and honestly when she was responding to me i was like, "is she speaking french?? i can't even tell because i'm understanding" and then i'd listen for the individual words and she was speaking french, and anyway. it was so awesome. and then we met another family from france the next day and i started my little street contact in french once we found out they were french, and i was putting sentences together more easily than i've ever been able to before. how cool is that?? it was so awesome.

we went to this couple's house who got baptised a few months ago and they're from like kuwait or something? anyway, they'd speak arabic to each other and i was so excited of course. why am i obsessed with jerusalem? i'm so annoying. anyway, by the end i said to them, "shucran!" which means thanks, and now when i see them i say "marhaba!" haha. the extent of my arabic vocabulary. so cool though.

last night we went tracting foreeeeeeever and it was pretty awkward because people thought we were trick or treaters. not quite. my trainers kept making fun of me because we had a good view of the cathedral and it looked so pretty with all of the mist around it and everything. ah, love that cathedral.

most of the people we're teaching aren't english, they're immigrants. a few are, but those are rare. and they're boys. i wonder if that's a trend, like if elders teach more girls. seems like it would make sense, but anyway. oh yeah! we met this japanese man and he couldn't hardly speak any english and we just showed him a picture of christ and i said, " we, teach you? about christ? tomorrow?" and then we met him the next night at the train station and he followed us to the church and showed him finding faith in christ and we're giving him a book of mormon in japanese tomorrow. we can hardly communicate, i honestly have no idea why he followed us. haha so hilarious! anyway, asians are the best because they lilke never flake on you. so awesome.

can't believe ducks are #1! that's so awesome! yaaaaaaaaay.

sister emma

Missionary Letter #4 (October 25, 2010)

2010-11-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

CANTERBURY!!!! i was so excited. we got to the mission office, we had some orientation stuff for a while and then they brought us to this room where we had a couple people talk and we hadn't met our trainers yet and i'm just like freaking out. then they tell me and my companion-for-the-day to sit with two seats in between us, and then we each had a seat on the other side. click. i'm gonna be in a threesome! didn't know how i felt about that. but then we were singing called to serve, and on the second verse all of the sudden it was way way louder and we turn around and all of our trainers come walking in!! my trainers find me and hug me while we're singing and then we finish the song. i was just smiling like the biggest idiot for the next like three hours. especially when i was like, "where are we going???" and sister j told me canterbury! yaaaaaaaaay. so i live in canterbury now! as in the canterbury tales as in chaucer as in i see the cathedral everyday. i told her last night while we were tracting that it was the city set on a hill that can't be hid because it was all lit up! i really really like both of my companions. this is sis j's last transfer. she's actually leaving a bit early to be home for thanksgiving, so not even a whole transfer left. she's not trunky at all and i've learned so much from her just this week. sis g is from hawaii and she's only been out two transfers. it's the best because we go out contacting and somehow i end up hardly stopping anyone because there's two of them...oops! i am trying to work on that though...but even when i do stop someone, i say a couple of things, ask a couple of questions, and then sis j comes in and makes things actually relevant and helps them understand why this is possibly something they might be interested in. haha! it's pretty funny. but anyway, i like do nothing but both my comps are so nice that even when i do the tiniest little thing, they're like telling me how great of a job i did. haha!

sis j asked me last night what my biggest surprise has been since i left the mtc. i guess it's that people actually do listen to us. not like a ton, but we meet a few people everyday who actually do care about this stuff, who actually have been searching and actually do want to know. it's so weird!

thank you thank you i love you so much! it's been a really good week. thank you for all of your prayers.

love you!

cheers!

sister emma

ps it's freeezing here. not even that rainy, just sooooo cold. okay, don't say anything cam and lauren. hahaha

Missionary Picture #1 (October 19, 2010)

2010-10-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who served in the England London Mission and she sent me this picture last night she found on Facebook. Emma with her trainers! Wahoo! She's got to be the cutest dressed sister missionary ever. I was wearing Eddie Bauer and Lands End at the beginning of my mission. What a geek!

Missionary Letter #3 (October 18, 2010)

2010-10-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

i have ten minutes to email because we're not sure if i'll be able to email tomorrow because we're going to our missions!! baaaaah! i'm going to my trainer!

one more tracting thing, sis c had to pee sooooo bad and we were just in a neighborhood. so we went to this little drugstore and there was no bathroom, and the store owner wouldn't let her use her bathroom in her home because then she'd have to close the store. haha sis c was sooooooo desperate and this little chinese girl came walking into the store so sis c asked if she lived nearby and if we could use her toilet!! haha! it was so hilarious. the cute little chinese girl was just like, uh, no...but sis c was so desperate she was willing to do anything. haha we ended up going across the street and using her toilet. her english wasn't very good, she was there for school (we went to lancaster) and so we talked to her for a little bit, gave her a book of mormon, and told her it would help her with anything she needed help with and gave her the church address. i don't think she really understood what was going on. we just kept handing her passalong cards and pamphlets and things. hahaha. woops! then sis f, a sister in my district, was like, "hey, bladders convert" and told us a bunch of stories like that. so awesome.

loooooooove,

sister cutie

Missionary Letter #2 (Oct 13, 2010)

2010-10-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

oh gosh then we went contacting on friday in manchester. most stressful thing of my life. especially when they're like, talk to everyone, talk to every single person you see. so i'm like totally stressed out the whole time and i had to go up and start pretty much every conversation because sis c was really scared. i was like hey, i thought YOU were supposed to be the bold one. i guess one of us had been planning for reality and how scary it would be, and the other one had no idea how scary it was actually going to be. haha.

today we did a church history tour and saw where the first people were baptized and where the first missionaries came, and then we went to a tiny town that's where the painting above mom and dad's bed is. it's the cutest little town that this lord has made everyone preserve so there's no electricity. reminds me of the cotswolds. we'll have to go there when we come back. but a ton of people were baptized there and heber c kimball was talking to joseph smith about that place and joseph smith said that some ancient prophets were there and they blessed that land! how cool is that? it was so peaceful and nice, it did feel sacred. it was such a beautiful little town. everything stone and a little church and ivy growing on the houses and things. i was like, oh yeah, this is why i love england. wish it was possible to serve in places like that. probably not.
it's been nice weather here, so during exercise we get to go outside and play football. yesterday i almost headed it! woo! i played defense like the whole time but then i started like actually running up for offense too and i kicked the ball into the district leader's crotch. uuuuuuh woops! haha! and then i ran round the track and there was a dead rabbit on the trail. pooooor peter rabbit :(
an area seventy came and talked to us and gave us a fireside on sunday. it was so good. and then afterward he came around and shook all of our hands and he said to me "you have a nice aura about you. families will love you." isn't that cute? so hopefully families will love me! gosh. i had to say the closing prayer for that too but then it was okay.
well! i'm starting to feel okay about being here! i leave the mtc on monday because there's some kind of conference for mission presidents. only a few more days here!
love you all!
sister Emma

Missionary Letter #1 (Oct 6, 2010)

2010-10-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

Preface: Lauren here (Emma's favorite sister). I have hijacked her blog and added myself as a writer so that you may keep up with her mission. We don't have any pictures of her yet but when we get them, I will post them. And just as a little background, Emma entered the Provo MTC Wednesday October 29 (the same Wednesday as me, just five years later, I might add...), she was there for two days before learning her visa came through and was on a plane to England Friday October 1st. This is her first letter from England. Enjoy!

okay, so got here on saturday and was just toooootally wiped out. like i was walking around like a zombie because i was so dead. people kept asking me if i was okay, but i just knew that i'd have to sleep and then i'd be fine. a couple who works at the mtc here picked us up at the airport. we were pretty out of it by the time we were in london and before we went to manchester.

there are 26 missionaries here right now. 11 sisters and 15 elders. apparently it's the biggest group of sisters they've every had, so that's kind of cool. there are people from all over the world here, two from the netherlands, a few english, a girl from pakistan who is one of my roommates, two beautiful swedes (of coooourse) and some others too. oh! one from italy and another from POLAND!!

we're going contacting in manchester on friday, so that's scary. i'm starting to freak out less though, so that's good. yesterday in class i was like, oh my gosh, i don't have to go to school. i don't have homework. i just get to study the scriptures and have gospel discussions and teach people that is so awesome!

i was looking at scriptures yesterday and jeremiah 16:16 talks about the fishers and hunters, so i was like, i think the fishers came 150 years ago. we're hunters who have to look in the mountains and search under the rocks. but our teachers tell us that we're a baptizing mission so we should think that we can baptize. anyway, i'm getting excited and not freaking out so much. it's good to be here. all of the sudden it's real and it's not so intense. just starting to be good and hard work and normal life.

i love you!
sister emma

Leave a comment if you want and I'll make sure Emma gets your love notes. And, if you're wondering why Emma would be so excited about someone being from Poland, it's because I served my mission there. Though I think the Pakistani sister is way more exciting.

chaaaaaanges...

2010-09-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

i'm flying to the provo mtc.

TOMORROW!

so i have to get packed
climb spencer's butte one last time
watch glee
get ice cream at prince puckler's
eat the most delicious salmon dinner eeeeever.
get set apart
say goodbye to mother, father, rachel, and ellie
say hello and then goodbye to jess and cami and grandma and grandpa
and try to find a couple of friends who are still in the mtc...
oh yeah and packed. that's worth saying twice.
and i'm blogging about it?

and had another senior photo shoot with rachel today...yeeeeah.

ps as soon as my visa comes i'm out of the provo mtc and on my way to the preston one.

love all of you so much! i'll see you in 18 months!

after weeks of saying goodbyes

2010-09-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

i'm getting closer to saying my last goodbye for a while

except for i emailed my travel person at church headquarters and she said my visa hasn't been issued yet. sooooo...awesome. starting to wonder what's going to happen to me.

there are a few possibilities:

a. i'll get my visa magically on wednesday and go to the preston mtc on thursday as planned.

b. i'll be sent to the provo mtc for a week or maybe all three weeks.
i. they'll call tomorrow and tell me i have a flight on wednesday instead of thursday. awesome.

c. they'll make me wait another week in which case i will go to salt lake for conference with my family.

d. as a loyal friend promised me, i'll be reassigned to boise. gooooooooood.

in the meantime i am shopping for suitcases and my mother is letting down the hem of skirts and rachel and i are planning how we can fit all of our favorite cafes into the meals of my last couple of days. my dad and i are going golfing today, ellie and i are going for one of our last runs together, it is finally sunny outside so i'll probably lay out by the pool while i read preach my gospel. and every night is squeeze-as-many-movies-as-possible-before-they-are-forbidden night. so far it has been: bright star (about john keats. veeery good.), robin hood, coco before chanel (i keep thinking about this one. SO GOOD. actress from amelie...so enough said), and casablanca. i'mma miss all this.

my favorites of rachel's senior picture shoot yesterday:

my fave:

one more thing, my mother has offered to post my weekly emails, or at least parts of them on my blog. maybe even pictures...is that of interest to anyone?

pretty farewell party. pasties, tea, roses, pretty linens and macarons.

2010-09-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

thanks family for a fun weekend! yaaaay.

jess and michael wedding preview

2010-09-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

such a fun day.

love you jess and michael!

airport: the means of uniting them

2010-08-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

eh... or us? i don't know.

first thing's first. apparently from the evidence below, i'm the only one who thinks i'm funny. no surprises there. thanks for the courtesy laughs, family.

2nd, my mother looks like her sister vicki when she wears these glasses:

aaannnd, kind of important, my sister cami came home from an 18th month mission in finland. we came prepared to make cami's entry as triumphal as elder kessler's (if you haven't seen saturday's warrior, curse thee) by making a banner she could run through!

please note jess' face. and if you already have, note it again.

happy happy reunions:


please notice here that every person is smiling while they watch cami hugging rachel. which is so awesome! but even MORE awesome is that no one in my family or the friends that came to greet cami on thursday know who that short, dark-haired woman is. second to the right. but she's just as excited. Boom!

one more thing: cami kept staring at jess, rachel and me because we were being just a LITTLE bit loud and giggly because we were so excited. apparently finnish people don't act anywhere close to as loud as we did unless they are drunk. sometimes i love that about the u.s.. and usually it's always.

i only wish lauren could have been here. but we can only look forward to reunions next weekend. dee dee dee!!!

also! thanks hemsleys and lymans for the pics!

ironic.

2010-08-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

i liked "into the wild." im glad i don't like it this much.

music in the car.

2010-08-20T02:00:00.001-07:00

i'm to the point where i can pretty much hum the note of the next song in the gap between songs for all six of the cds in the fancy cd changer in my mother's mini van. i love that. it's like a genuine relationship between driver and cds that no ipod with shuffling abilities and song ADD could match.

plus it's stressful to get in someone's car and they hand you their ipod and you try to read their mind for what they want. no, i like listening to cds over and over again until the season's changed and it's time for new music.

South by Oleg Yakovlev

found here

goodbye beautiful clothes,

2010-08-19T11:58:00.002-07:00

hello frumpy sister missionary.

You're welcome, jess and rach for good clothes.

also, found this when i googled "sister missionary lds"

hahahahahahahaha

i'm so excited.

on sunday i remembered:

2010-08-17T16:35:00.001-07:00

this place in paris:

which sells these:

has a location here:

in london.

best. news. of my life.

love this gorgeous victorian crap.

2010-08-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

WILLIAM MORRIS

I <3 YOU

how often do you get out of housework by doing calligraphy?

2010-08-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

only when hundreds of wedding announcements need to be addressed

and you've been practicing your cursive since a year ago spring

when you went to wordsworth's house and saw his journals

and decided that if ever another person looks at your journal,

you should have pretty handwriting.

a little bit embarrassing? yes.

turned out i was really just investing time

into a skill that would be useful in the future?? YES.

this one is also only half a joke. we're really sending it

engaged!!

2010-08-05T16:34:00.003-07:00

well okay, not me.

i'm going on a mission, remember?? ANYWAY.

we took engagement pictures for michael and my sis jess about a month ago. and when i say "we" i mean my mother hit mosquitos off of my arms and fixed jess' hair while i took pictures of them.

my mother and i were sort of the artistic directors of the shoot, and well, as a result, a significant amount of what she's wearing is mine. haha! black and white dress, flower in hair, white shirt, earrings, lipstick.

michael's clothes are all his though.

yay! come sep 4 we'll have ourselves a partaaay! woooh!

for more info go here! to their wedding site.

this is what goes on at my house.

2010-07-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

jess and i are home basically by ourselves this week. mother and rachel are at girl's camp, father's at work. usually we are either yelling (usually instigated by me) at the top of our lungs (not at each other, just yelling random things loudly) or singing (usually instigated by jess) with each other. funny harmonies or just singing so so cheezy, or making up new lines to songs, and then just cracking up afterward, and then when we're done laughing we keep going. i heard this little beauty just now while she was putting raspberries in her cheerios. she was singing it to the tune of this video below, from my fair lady in her best cockney accent. haha!

all i want is a raspberry

to make my breakfast so yummy!

so big so round so sweet

oh wouldn't it be loverly

lots of cereal for me to eat

and i'll add a big red treat!

my goodness. we need to get out of the house.

sweet

2010-07-28T09:17:00.002-07:00

(found here)

that's what the first blackberry i've had this season
plucked straight off the pokey vine
tasted like while i was running yesterday.
so sweet and juicy,
and perfect whilst running on a trail in the woods.
and then i obviously needed to have another one,
even though the pickings were slim
because it's early in the season.
but the second one was sour.

a superlative.

2010-07-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

because i almost always hate them.

but i decided

that a potential husband

not liking goat cheese

could quite possibly

be a deal breaker.

image

flowers again!

2010-07-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

this weekend's project was turning this bathroom full from the shower to the door with flowers, into over sixty arrangements

the bouquet and the transportation in this ginormous van, where i thought i was going to have eighteen heart attacks. good thing after the first time when the arrangements started falling over, i caught them, and my dad drove even more smoothly for the rest of the thirty minute drive out to the venue

because i was worried about these guys:

but you have to understand that i lost sleep over:

a. the engineering of these centerpieces

b. how the heck i was going to have time to do eight of them

c. their transportation.

they made it!

the centerpieces that seemed to go on forever. there were twelve of them:

the arch that became an entire family effort:

my dad wired all of the flowers at the top, jess made a million arrangements in little glass, hanging jars, rachel and i were sticking flowers every in every gap and putting rose petals everywhere, and my mom helping my dad know where to wire and putting flowers everywhere:

beautiful bride and her dad (and another arch decorated by some angel relatives of the groom ):

jess, me, rachel. pretty good considering five minutes before the wedding started, all of us were covered with lily stamen, and we were all sweating in the 95 degree heat and changed into these less embarrassing clothes:

success! and even though it was a lot of pressure...i think i'd rather be making these everyday than most other jobs.

so...anyone getting married soon?

eight days after the day i really thought it would come...

2010-06-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

i was very surprised when i opened my call on thursday night because i was called back here:

to the england london mission! i still can hardly believe it.

here is the uk:

according to this breakdown of the island, england london mission is mostly east anglia, and then the southeast part of the southeast region, plus london. i just read some things about it and apparently it's mostly rural (surprise), is flat, and is essentially a huge bog! yay. my middle school was built over a bog.

this is kind of the only region that i have not really been to at all--the east anglia part, so that's cool.

honestly, i was pretty surprised that i was called to go somewhere that's been kind of the focus of my studies for my college life. i was expecting anything that would be
random, that i had no connection with, like most people who open their mission calls. but, this is so good too.

so. back to western europe for the fall?

i realized i never finished reading this:

2010-06-24T22:03:00.000-07:00

which is unfortunate. so i am reading it now, highly enjoying it while i picture these two beautiful people:

i also like to read my own name over and over. it's mildly exciting.

the results of freaking out:

2010-06-17T14:49:00.004-07:00

25 hours of work later:

when i look at certain parts of the window i think either of harry potter seven read in jim dale's voice, or the lord of the rings.

and i'm about to get on a plane to go back to the forest like this and see this girl:

as well as the rest of my fam :)

freaking out.

2010-06-10T10:34:00.003-07:00

the sisters as missionaries!
jess in malaysia; cami in finland; lauren in poland

i didn't understand how nerve-racking it is to wait for a mission call until it was me. my spring term has suddenly been surprisingly low-key, and as a result, i have nothing to keep me distracted from thinking about my call day and night. on monday night i sat on my couch with my guitar because i seriously couldn't figure out what to do with myself and i was freaking out.

solution: yesterday i rode my little bike to the glass store, bought some glass, rode myself to the stained glass building and drew out a new pattern and cut up most of my pieces while i listened to harry potter or talked to my mom or rachel. for seven hours.

i need complete focus or i will go crazy.

i just fell completely in love

2010-06-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

with this:

found here

oops.

best weekend in the bay area

2010-06-06T18:49:00.003-07:00

last weekend i went to the bay area and saw some friends that i haven't seen since the vienna airport or outside of the jerusalem center where we were sobbing at two in the morning and we drove away in our buses into the abyss of the night.

and then we met up in the sunny sunny land of the bay area where street photography is fun again:

also, i knew i was obsessed with mary, but i didn't know she was in like every picture i took of our friends:

eating our weight in chocolate at victoria's dad's chocolate factory:

fascinating conversation at the beach in carmel:

mmm. great weekend. thanks friends!

i couldn't be more proud if i were my mother

2010-06-05T13:36:00.005-07:00

i fulfilled a life goal. i have a piece of art that i've done hanging in the hfac right now! our stained glass class has a show there right now and everyone was required to have a piece in the show. kamryn and i joked about the way we talked about getting our pieces finished to people who aren't in our class. "oh i have to finish this because it's going in a show tonight..." as snobbishly as possible. haha! little did they know...

Here was the inspiration for my piece:

which is from here:

which is on this:

it didn't quite turn out the same. so it's "loosely based" on the original design. ha. i realized that some things work better as tile than stained glass and i had to make a lot of adjustments. plus it was my first window...anyway. here it is:

i'm famous:

roxanne's wedding!

2010-05-31T20:54:00.006-07:00

yay!

i just wanted to show you how some of the flowers i did for her turned out! one of my favorite if not my favorite wedding i've ever been to! roxanne and sam were so cute i couldn't get over it, and i had fun helping set up and be a part of the wedding. i love that girl so so much.

here's her bouquet and his boutonniere:

yay!

other beautiful things from the wedding:

love love love

all images are from fabulous alpha smoot photography
where you can see the rest of the wedding

also, i wrote this the night i got home from roxanne's wedding, and well, i'll just post it here if anyone is interested. i read an essay my professor wrote the other day, and he formatted it kind of like this and it made reading it so fast. so. we'll try that:

Roxanne got married today.
I thought about the first time we walked around a small town together in the Lake District
and one of the last days in London when we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum
and we looked at the jewelry exhibit and discussed each ring excitedly,
deciding if we would ever wear it for our wedding ring.
I remembered visiting together a dozen antique stores and rummaging carefully through the stalls on Portabello Road looking for just the right gifts.

I thought about this while we drove to the Manti temple
and I watched the rolling brown and green hills
and I sat next to cupcakes with melting blackberry frosting in the cold, spring sun for the reception later that night.
I wore a yellow bridesmaid’s dress and a white fabric flower in my hair.
So did the two girls in the front seats.

I actually felt kind of awkward today because I liked just watching Roxanne.
Of course everyone was watching her because she was the bride.
But it was the type of watching that you do when you’re watching TV.
Not usually when you’re watching real life and it’s odd to stare.
I guess it’s less weird to know that she’s a dancer.

When she’s smiling you can feel the smile all the way through her clapping hands,
and when she laughs her whole body laughs with her,
and when she’s excited you can see it down to her feet jumping up and down.

While I watched her dance with her new husband for the first time and then with her dad,
I remembered the way she danced as we walked through fields of yellow flowers
and long grass in Dorset,
both our hands skimming over the top of the grass in the bright, spring air.
We were both without any attachments, really.
Free to talk about our weddings in abstract, non-committal ways.
Free to do whatever we liked, to travel the world,
to assert all of the independence we could ever want,
to work and to live and adventure with each other and with ourselves.

But tonight was the first time she wouldn’t say goodbye to Sam,
and I swallowed a bunch of times—tried to swallow that lump. I watched her from my table as I swallowed a piece of wedding cake instead.

It still looked as though she were laughing
though her face was only smiling
her hips swaying to the music as she gently helped her partner around the dance floor.
She was twirling gracefully,
her gown that reached right below her knees wrapping around her legs,
and her gray, antique wedding shoes helping her glide along the floor.

brilliant ideas:

2010-05-24T09:39:00.003-07:00

I just had one.

I want to go here

and have some butterbeer for my 21st birthday.

anyone want to come?

Why I love being back in English classes:

2010-05-15T10:52:00.005-07:00

-original thought is appreciated

-original writing is too

-teachers want to hear what I think. not just repeat what they think

-there is no one snapping in my face telling me that i should know the seven straights in the middle east.

-jokes that are dorky outside of english classes are not dorky inside of them.

-often, treat sign-ups are passed around to keep everyone alive

-there's always a break in a two and a half hour class

-i get good grades.

what i forgot about english classes:

-there's always that one girl who always happens to have a really annoying voice that sits in the front row about three desks from the right and makes five comments every class. i think she actually isn't aware anyone is sitting behind her.

-i get really nervous making comments and somehow i forget how to breathe and swallow while i'm talking. yikes.

-the five token boys in the class who make sure they talk in their deepest, most masculine voice when they give comments, and make sure everyone knows that they are speaking for their entire sex...

-english majors.

best english class ever.
(on the banks of Loch Lomond)

we're studying king saul right now

2010-05-11T12:46:00.003-07:00

and this is all i can think of:

they're a british group acting out the death of saul in a roman town in the galilee area. please notice the umbrellas used as swords

2010-05-02T23:06:00.002-07:00

I can only say these things for a little bit longer before they are obsolete. I have gotten back to the US recent enough that the places I've gone this year are still relevant...

so. bragging rights end now.

transatlantic flights taken this year: 6

borders I've crossed: 11

months I've spent in the US: 2

types of money that have been in my wallet: 7

flights I've taken in the past year (about): 35

that is a lot of hours of being in the airport and in planes...

everything I can possibly think of saying sounds trite and stupid. so.

YES.

2010-04-25T08:14:00.002-07:00

I went to bed last night at 9:00 on accident. "Wake me up in an hour" I told my mom, and then I felt like I had been hit by a bus and I went and climbed into my own bed and woke up at 4:30 this morning. I couldn't sleep.

Naturally I went to gchat and found another who was suffering from jetlag! Lovely. She ended up calling me and we had a beautiful chat as the sun rose for her in Arizona over the desert, and for me in Oregon over the enormous douglas firs. Just a few days after we watched the sun go down every night for four months over Jerusalem.

Love you Anna!

(picture of Anna taken by me at the Tel-Aviv beach at sunset)

happy easter

2010-04-04T09:08:00.004-07:00

palm used for palm sunday outside church of the holy sepulcher

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:

With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.

With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

-Easter Wings, by George Herbert

a pleasant surprise in a forwarded email from my mother:

2010-03-30T11:39:00.004-07:00

Dear Emily:

I am pleased to inform you that you have won honorable mention in the Vera Hinckley Mayhew Creative Arts essay contest.

You and a guest are invited to the English Department Awards Banquet, Tuesday, March 30, 2010, at blah blah blah. Your achievement will be recognized that evening and further details about your award will be given to you at that time.

Kindly RSVP. Please let us know if you require a vegetarian meal or have other dietary needs. We regret we will only be able to seat guests who respond by the March 22 deadline.

I congratulate you on receiving this award. We look forward to honoring you at the banquet.

Sincerely,

(the chairman)

Dear Chairman,

I regret to inform you that I cannot attend said banquet due to my current whereabouts in the holy land.

Sincerely,

Willow Calling (my pseudonym for the contest. i was pretty proud...)

why i know i'm actually five years old:

2010-03-02T06:50:00.001-08:00

when i hear the crinkling of plastic and look over and hope so badly that it is candy.

midterms suck in the jerusalem center too.

2010-02-27T11:25:00.004-08:00

we all wish we were back here:

this is from the border of egypt.

i'm pretty sure i could be on a fieldtrip indefinitely. or atleast the rest of my life.

everyone told us we would get sick from eating the food...so we bough snickers and sprite and cheerios. and we heard we'd run out of money, so we got a ton of one dollar bills. then i got too confident, ate the food one morning...and the next night on the way back to jerusalem...without giving too many details...mmmmmmmmmmmm

me: (so tentative to professor...) um...i have pharaoh's revenge...how much longer to jerusalem...?

professor: (turns to other professor in front) did you hear that?

other professor: yes i did. (to me) are you okay pulling off to the side of the road?

me: yes, yes. i really don't care.

the bus pulls over. i run out. success. i come back, look at both professors, who snort, silently laughing while i sit down in my spot with unimaginable relief.

aren't you glad i disclosed that to the entire blogging world?

ukuleles taking the world by storm...

2010-02-21T11:56:00.005-08:00

elissa (the girl on the far right) and i have single-handedly convinced a bunch of people at the center that they should play uke! what?? some of the them are the type of people that are always like, "i always wanted to learn to play guitar," and now they're like, "well, maybe i'll just play uke..." and then other people see elissa, and of course that makes them want to play because they realize it's awesome...

also, i played my sis cami's song "black sheep" that she wrote last year before she went on her mission to finland in the formal talent show. it's one of my favorite songs on the album she made before she left, and i basically wanted to bring her ukulele here to jerusalem so that i could learn that song...mmm anyway, so, after a lot of wishing i hadn't signed up at all, and after sound checks where it was like one of those dreams where you open your mouth and try so hard to force something, anything to come out, and nothing does...it was bad. not to mention i'm pretty sure i looked like a freaking deer in headlights that were an inch in front of my face. but that was during the soundcheck. but then prayers were answered, i cracked a few jokes, and i enjoyed myself up there. anyway...pretty fun! i wish i could figure out how to put her song up here! does anyone know?? if you want the song, please email me and i will send it to you.

for now, i will tempt you with pleasant lyrics:

there are sheep in line,
one is darker than the rest
she hopes they won't confine
her from the herd.

she says i spend much time
thinking about what they say to me
i can't get it out of mind

over again, why can't you think of me as your own
think of me as your own
can't you think of me as your own
think of me as your own

when a man with stick walked over
told her she's not alone.
i choose who is in this fold
and you are in it too.

think of me as your own
think of me as your own
think of me as your own
.
.
.

sort of famous bodies of water:

2010-02-16T11:40:00.002-08:00

felucca rides on the nile in luxor. this is when we were sailing up stream. i love this picture:

this was taken while i was on a camel: this kid steered our boat and every girl on the boat wanted to take a picture with him. so, of course i was too embarrassed to get one.

the red sea: greg, me, andrew, jeff, elissa, gretchen, ron. three people decided to jump into the water and got grounded on a free day when we got back to the center. it was so warm...i sort of wish i would have. but, yeah, i was still a bit sick......

(thanks for this last pic gretch!)

Sinai!

2010-02-15T02:14:00.003-08:00

So...everyone who's been to sinai at 2:30 in the morning freaking freaked me out that i was going to be freezing. SO.

I wore:

1 pair of cotton socks
2 pairs of wool socks
1 pair of smart wool pants
1 pair of jeans
1 pair of wind pants
1 t-shirt
1 non-cotton longsleeved shirt
1 fleece
1 sweatshirt
1 leather jacket
1 camel's wool poncho
1 camel's wool scarf
1 really warm hat
and a windbreaker just in case in my back pack.

friends...i was not cold sitting there waiting for the sun to rise. but i really don't think i needed to use so much space in my luggage for that...woops! look at my elephant feet in the first pic.

but i took a camel up part way, which i wouldn't take back no matter how many times people told me it was a cop-out. i loved leaning back and staring at the sky. i may or may not have started crying until i realized brittney's camel in front of me kept farting and the bedouins kept using gross slurping noises to control the camels. but besides that, nothing beats seeing the silhouettes of camels on the ridge, moving slowly and steadily forward, and looking at the silent, clear night with my head craned back. Thinking of God, and that at least a few times, He had been here.

after climbing down sinai at st catherine's monastery: me, lindsay, gretchen

on top of mt sinai while the sun was rising. (thanks for the pic ron!)

not at sinai. but i love this picture (thanks to ron again...he's kind of a good photographer.). my roommate lindsay. who i rely on too much socially, physically (as in i almost slip and fall ALL the time), and she takes my candy away when i buy it so i don't eat it all at once.

temple at karnak

2010-02-11T12:38:00.002-08:00

something you HAVE to do if you ever go to egypt.

deal?

so, i know this is kind of an old song, but oh my oh my. this is what i listened to while i was at the temple at karnak. mmm. listen while you look at pictures.

sorry michael!!! credit to him for this song too :)

(thanks to elissa for this pic!)

this place really is amazing. and i always try really hard not to use that word if i can help it.

guess it can't be helped.

you know pretend swearing?

2010-02-09T13:46:00.003-08:00

where you say the first part of the word and you don't finish so it's like it doesn't count? and for some reason it's really funny. today i tried to do it and failed.

lindsay piling huge amount of salad on to her plate in the cafeteria at the center.

me: lindsay, that's a big a-- salad. short pause. wooooooooopppsss

it seems like everywhere i go the sky is falling, and the concierges all meet ya with a frown

2010-02-07T07:00:00.006-08:00

what i didn't stop listening to the entire time in egypt:

thanks michael b!

pyramids! i read lauren's post about seeing the pyramids for the first time and i didn't even realize how excited i would be to see them! a few people saw them way in the distance on our bus, and the professor just kept saying, "there straight ahead! 12:00!" which doesn't help at all when you're on the seventeenth row and 12:00 means the back of someone's head. so we were all craning around trying to see, and finally, seriously after a long while, glorious pyramids were beheld by all.

we went into the great pyramid the next day, and when we were taking pictures there, i got three different headpieces put on to my head to take pictures. woops

natalie, gretchen, me, lindsay. thanks for the pic gretch!

making a pyramid at the pyramids. so fun

peace in the middle east! thanks to lindsay for the inspiration

gretchen doesn't like this picture. but i do

just trying so hard to be cami

2010-02-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

she's in finland for about seven more months.

i miss her

black and white, or color?

2010-02-05T12:48:00.000-08:00

had to antique it. it's a CAMEL in the judEAn WILderness

2010-02-04T12:50:00.001-08:00

just trying to carry on the legacy

2010-02-03T03:31:00.006-08:00

Cami: winter 2008

the original

lauren: summer 2008

me: winter 2010

bedouins.

2010-02-02T12:58:00.002-08:00

got off the bus to see the judean wilderness overlook and Bedouins were there, selling jewelry and things and they stayed near us the whole time. one of the small children's ball rolled all the way down the valley and he started crying. it was very sad. then when we were getting back on our bus he started asking for candy.

look how cool of pictures they take:

how to solve the palestinian/israeli problem.

2010-02-02T07:50:00.002-08:00

don't mean to go all political on you or anything, but i think shakespeare solved this problem for us about four hundred years ago. romeo and juliet. duh. just have some high-status people get married. hopefully they won't have to die, but that's how to solve a feud. duh.

don't really know why i'm smiling...

2010-01-31T03:00:00.000-08:00

in front of the judean wilderness where people (man in the good samaritan, a bunch of prophets, and not to mention the son of God) have died or all almost died trying to cross it...woops!

that's more like it: pain

outside of the monastery at jericho. yeah yeah...kennedy and i basically wanted to take a picture of us with headscarves on...

freaking love the palestinians for pictures:

2010-01-28T13:48:00.000-08:00

love the kids that pose for me:

more children:

picture deserves it's own post:

2010-01-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

gotta love this kid who stopped his horse when he saw my camera while he was walking down the street--trotting next to traffic--so he could pose for me. this is the street that goes from the jerusalem center to the old city and west jerusalem.

church of the holy sepulchre golgotha

2010-01-25T12:18:00.000-08:00

(the site of christ's crucifixion is disputed between being here or "skull hill" which is next to the garden tomb...pictures later maybe...)

picture taking buddies those first few fruitful days:

2010-01-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

lauren from vegas who also i shared hostel rooms and food and coaches and plane rides and essays with in england

ron who is from portland, shares my thinking that maybe oregon is really the promised land, and is fearless jay-walking, having spent eight months in napoli--oh yeah, and two years total in italy.

buses always make me want to go to sleep.

2010-01-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

first field trip!
side note: somehow i feel like all of the pictures of me looked better in paris...i'm convinced that it's harsh lighting here in the desert. plus i don't have clothes from zara to keep me company :(

viewpoint of the old city. (obviously i'm the view)

kailee and i on top of a church bell tower overlooking judean wilderness and...other places too

lutheran church with bell tower:

on a hill overlooking bethlehem. lindsay is my roommate in the middle throwing down the peace signs. marissa shoulds stop looking cute. she's on the other side

by bethlehem...maybe this is what it looked like when the shepherds were shepherding...?

barracks (i just spelled that "baracks" for some reason...ha) or something like unto it that were used by the jordanians in the war

western wall pics

2010-01-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

before sunset:

a random day not on shabbat, looking through the fence:

my roommates, corina and lindsay

lindsay and i having to share a chair to watch the men because they were all dancing and singing, while the women were mostly praying. except for the american jewish girls there for birthright

my favorite picture of the semester thus far that i talked about before:

2010-01-18T04:41:00.006-08:00

so lucky. i have no idea how everything else is blurry except for that child and his face. i'm in love with this picture. i took it at the western wall while we waited for the jews to welcome in shabbat.

also, it looks like a lot of the next posts will be weighted heavily on the photo-side... hopefully that's okay. if i have anything brilliant to say, i will let you know. haha

Shabbat at the Western Wall

2010-01-15T10:05:00.002-08:00

I will have pictures soon. One of which I can't stop looking at, so yeah. you should all be excited.

So awesome to go, except the men's side looked more fun while they were dancing and so happy for shabbat. I said "shabbat shalom!" to a random woman, and she said it back. we found some american girls there for birthright who showed us some songs and we held hands and went around in a circle and pretended like we knew a tiny bit what we were doing as the sun set and the whole open area was so charged with emotion. Then Lindsay and I were seriously TICKED that we hadn't gotten any candy while we were out in the city. we SPRINTED and got some at the last second. so worth it. candy already gone.

oh hey!

2010-01-12T07:41:00.005-08:00

So I wrote my family's christmas letter this year, and I haven't hardly talked about the fam yet on this thing, so this could be a bit of an introduction. Also, I liked it, and a lot of you are not on my mother's christmas letter list. (Corrine, don't laugh at me. Laugh with me please. please.) Also, don't miss the pictures i posted in the post below just because this post is long.

Dear friend,

I sit in the bedchamber of my apartment, fourth floor, back right room, in the 11e arrondissement of Paris, composing this letter in response to the news I have received as of late in our family. After spending a significant amount of time in England, my friends have told me I have acquired a manner of speech similar to the Regency Era. Although I cannot hear it myself, I only know that my friends think so. The weather is presently quite dreadful, but I assure you that yesterday was indeed a charming day. As it was my last day in Paris, the sunny weather and blue skies were a pleasant surprise whilst I strolled for the last time near the river, telling myself I was silly, scarcely holding back tears. As I have related to you in previous correspondence, I have very much enjoyed living here for the duration of the season.

Although congratulations are in order for the reception of her driver's license, I must give my condolences to Rachel. While her license means to her that she is now free to roam around the relative area of Eugene, most prominent is the fact that she must now drive herself to each engagement and other errands, spending all too many hours watching the road, while before she could employ herself with other amusements whilst riding as a passenger. I also look forward to her performance as the Sugar Plum fairy in her youth ballet academy's performance of the Nutcracker. I have often remarked at the gracefulness of her feet and the easiness of her smile.

And Lauren, how I long to see her. Why, it was only the other night when I corresponded with her and we spoke of both our homecomings. Can you believe it was just this last Spring that she completed her studies at the university? And we were all so thrilled at her accomplishment, although I must say the commencement ceremony was rather dull, but charming, nevertheless. And now how inconvenient that she lives in Washington, D.C. But I suppose if she says it suits her, then it is for the best. I daresay she may live there for quite a while, seeming to enjoy its diversions and company. I suppose I shall just have to devise a way to visit.

It is strange to think that Cami is just a few hundred miles north of me, enduring few hours of daylight this season in Finland. How she does work so very hard as a missionary there. Why, she has been there a full six months! I am delighted to hear that she continues to work on her proficiency at the guitar, and has been to such exotic places as the North Pole. How I am excessively diverted by her stories of teaching, meditation and service.

I do believe Jess and I stand on opposite sides of the world. How very strange, really. I fancy she is amusing herself and everyone in the vicinity whilst she rides her bike in water reaching her thighs. Fancy opening your door to a missionary and seeing them drenched from head to foot? But I dare say the exotic Malaysians are quite accustomed to such attire. Although I do miss her dreadfully, it is nearly four months until her return, which brings comfort to my poor mother. Jess seems to be working tirelessly and has become quite attached to the Malaysians.

I am glad to hear my mother has once again taken up the post of seminary teacher for these few years. Her nights are cut short as she prepares lessons and teaches those dear high school children. I can't wait to accompany her on her promenades about the hills and trees with dearest Ellie, our lovable canine companion these past two years. Why, it was only last summer when we went on runs on Prince Edward Island with father, Lauren, and Rachel as well. What a charming trip that was. I think of it quite often.

Father continues to be busy, so I hear. Although he does seem to invent time to idle around the golf course on occasion, between working and being the dearest of fathers. When I was lately in London as part of my stay in Paris, he and my mother accompanied me to the countryside, where we enjoyed lovely strolls and tea with clotted cream and scones. I cannot remember a more pleasant time, nor a place I would rather be.

The hour is half gone! I must away to the airport. I await the Christmas season, which I trust will be very enjoyable although it will be quite some time before a reunion with each family member. I am glad to hear of those we have been able to form more intimate acquaintances with, as well as those with whom we have just met. I await your reply, but until then, I bid you a Happy Christmas. Or as the French say it, Joyeux Noël!

Emma

black & white and antique: the way to make any picture in the old city look legit.

2010-01-11T05:47:00.002-08:00

so. here's the deal...which half of you already know because you have been at the jerusalem center...

pictures take forever to upload at the center and lauren was really nice to help me last post, and this post i am at hebrew university, where my online picture thingy is NOT blocked. but, these trips won't be THAT frequent, so i'll have to post smaller pictures and you can click on them to look at them bigger!

but for now, indulgence is in order for some of these huge pics...(yep mommy, pics.)

at dome of the rock:

old city streets:

some cool graffiti and some dad getting his trash kicked by his children

roof of a building in the old city

prayers stuck into the western wall:

so, pointing my lense at children. my favorites:

hebrew girls learning to pray at the western wall:

at the western wall (it's behind me):

yep, i was following them around:

cutest palestinian kids that waved and sang to us and asked us our names and told us they loved us. cutest. children. ever.

palestinian kids dancing during a soccer break or something. we watched them conspicuously from the rampart walls for a while:

more palestinian children/teenagers:

pretty girls in the group:
i'm thinking of selling this to canon.

Old City Pictures

2010-01-08T13:58:00.003-08:00

that's what this post is.

i went with two other people who had huger cameras than i and we meant to go together so we could take pics.

unfortunately, i think three hundred million people had the same idea before me. palestinian children know how to yell, "no picture!!!"

we had fun taking turns taking pictures of narrow alleys and getting out of each others way, and apologizing for stepping into shots, and sprinting to catch up or wait, and staying in too tight of a group because we were scared but we were also claustrophobic.

on the upside, a merchant told me he loved me.

weird things, exciting and smart things.

2010-01-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

photo by Camilla Combs, used without permission...I found it on my computer when I was cleaning my desktop...this is in Dingle, Ireland.

one weird thing: I am wearing a watch. I haven't worn a watch consistently since I was in about seventh grade. I did not wear a watch last semester and basically relied on the metro to know what time it was. And when it was really necessary and I was somewhere other than the metro, I would ask strangers. It seems weird now that I can know what time it is any time I want. I have found myself looking at my watch all too often. We'll see how I feel about this whole watch thing in a few months. But, I decided that it is part of my new year's resolution to become a responsible adult. The two most prominent features of this being that I keep a clean room, and keep control of my finances.

one exciting thing: I should have written this on life time goals, but I've always wanted to have a flexible enough schedule to give up my ticket on a flight and get a free flight somewhere else. And it finally worked out! At first I thought I would be spending the night at a hotel and flying tomorrow morning, which would seem pretty awesome to have my own hotel room, but I got a later flight instead, which is less lonely. So I spent a lot of time in the Las Vegas airport, and had kind enough grandparents to come pick me up at 10:45 pm (thanks!) and now I am trying to figure out what to do with my now $244 of Southwest money! Yay! That means a trip to a wedding if someone gets engaged, or maybe I can go to Yosemite with my family, or maybe even visit a sis in DC or a basically sis in NY! the latter would require more amounts of money though...so that probably won't happen. But isn't that exciting?? I got to watch how seductive the Vegas Phantom of the Opera show is over and over, and I got to sit next to a weird lady who drank two cups of coffee with three packets of sugar and two packets of cream in each one, and drink water in between and did weird hand things. it was kind of scaring me.

one smart thing: with a lot of hours to kill at the airport, I figured out that I have taken almost 30 planes in the past year. That's a plane a day for a whole month if some of you can't do math--that's kind of a lot, right? I realized that getting a good night's rest before a flight really isn't that advantageous. Waiting at airports and in airplanes really sucks, so if you're fully conscious, the only advantage is that you can fully appreciate your sucky situation. Because you really don't need brainpower to do anything at airports, I've found it is nice to be in a kind of daze the whole traveling time. Then you sort of don't realize that time is passing because you're basically asleep on your feet, and then you don't really remember how much time you killed looking at pictures over and over and putting people's names on all of the pictures with the "names" application on iphoto... Plus it's way easier to sleep on the plane.

I am turning into an old lady

2009-12-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

-i have to take stairs one at a time.
-i keep falling over because my dad says that i some kind of cold virus in my ear. this means that when i move my head too fast, i get really dizzy because my inner ears are too busy fighting a virus to keep me balanced. this happens every time i switch cheeks on my pillow when i am asleep. doesn't that sound like an old lady problem? all of the sudden i am sympathetic to old people who loose their balance, it's actually a lot easier than you think. i fell over today while i was bending down trying to pet my dog.
-i put all of my letters in a pretty box/tiny trunk old-looking thing that rachel gave to me.
-i had fun cleaning my room.
-i started trying to learn how to play the ukulele like this old man in my home ward who plays every guitar-y type instrument.

I'm one year older. or maybe forty.

so happy new year everyone! glad i could read about most of your lives. (not trying to sound creepy.)

there is a bag of frozen pees on my knee.

2009-12-28T18:05:00.000-08:00

that's why you are not seeing pictures of sunriver, the place we go with some families that is next to a big ski resort. we come here for the snow, because we usually don't get snow in eugene. i went snowboarding and the snow was very ICY instead of wonderful like it is in utah. i fell on sheets of ice and fell squarely on my knee. it is huge and puffy, and i feel like naming that swollen area of my body that jiggles a tiny bit when i walk and makes me go up stairs only stepping up with my other leg. YES.

but here are some pictures to make you smile:

from nottingham. yes, THE nottingham:

thank you tourism industry:

thank you rioters who prevented me from seeing the robin hood statue:

thank you rioters from the seventeenth century who burned down the castle and only left this part of the wall here:

yes

2009-12-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

So...today Rachel and I decided to have a photo shoot.

2009-12-23T21:53:00.006-08:00

I made her bring her point shoes.

Rachel is my little sister who is sixteen and makes me nervous when she's driving but I try so hard not to act nervous and try to be supportive because I hated it (and still do hate it) when my sisters get nervous when I'm driving. But she actually is a pretty good driver. And she's kind of good at ballet. Today in Eugene it was freezing and foggy, and we had talked about doing a photoshoot yesterday or the day before or something. We decided it would be really great to take some pictures in the fog, so I made Rachel wash her hair and change her clothes after we went running and I also made her bring some old point shoes. We both felt awesome because we felt like Rachel was a real model, braving cold and discomfort like the models on ANTM. Her fingers were so numb that it was almost impossible to tie the knots on the ribbons of her point shoes. And her toes were completely numb. But it was so much fun I think for both of us to pretend we were at a real photo shoot! We were so cold at the end that we jumped into the car and then jumped into the hottub. mmm

And also, I was taking pictures of Rachel, and I think I may have said at one point: "Rachel, I am so jealous that you can make your body do that!" and then I remembered she has been practicing making her body do that for about the last eight, nine, ten years? or something? Take a look...

Thanks for a fun day Rach!

clear skies and a wheel to sit behind

2009-12-19T13:16:00.003-08:00

on monday, all of my friends had finals or studying monopolizing their lives, so i decided to strategically run into people in the library. i couldn't believe i couldn't find anyone i knew on all five floors, and usually i see way too many people i know there while i am dressed in sweats. (mother-this is not that often.) anyway, so i settled down behind a table, pulled out my computer and earbuds, and settled down with a furrowed brow to...write on my blog. yep.

when i woke up tuesday morning, i decided the library was out. and when i walked outside on to 500 n, it was the most beautiful december day, and i seriously was skipping down the sidewalk, smiling so huge because it was so pretty. i could finally see the mountains and the sky, and the snow was still white. i made whitney go on a drive up the canyon with me. my grandparents were so nice to let me borrow their huge white van! i missed driving while i was in paris. the metro is fun, but public transportation starts to get annoying sometimes, and i was starting to want to be able to drive places when i wanted to go there...it was nice.

also, lucky whitney for being with me in pretty places when i have my camera. people will think i'm obsessed with you or something...

(yep...that's my jacket.)

also, look who greeted us on our way up to sundance. I don't think i've ever seen this many deer in utah ever:

8 months is way too long

2009-12-18T06:57:00.003-08:00

at least that's what i thought when i got to utah on saturday night. on sunday morning, the sidewalks were built up with slush and water and snow and i had decided to wear some really great heels. good idea. i ended up almost completely soaking my favorite heels, getting roxanne's car stuck because i couldn't make it over a giant puddle, and staring at a puddle for a long time before sam, roxanne's sam, came and lifted me over the puddle as he had been doing with roxanne while we walked to and from the conference center. later that day, i walked around on 800 n for a long time trying to get to the sidewalk because it was slushy and puddly everywhere, and i seriously couldn't even get to the sidewalk. i don't know if i've ever made a worse fashion practicality decision...have i?

how???

don't worry! i still thought eight months was way too long without being here. the last time i saw the lady above, we were saying goodbye in dublin. the last time i saw roxanne, we were saying goodbye in rome. some people i had seen for the last time in london, and all of my other lovely friends, i hadn't seen since APRIL, beFORE i went to England! EIGHT months. there were a lot of glorious reunions. i wish that i had cute pictures of all of them! but alas, you can't really take good pictures of having fun conversations and laughing and eating on the couch of people's apartments, can you?

and this last week, all of my luggage, a large suitcase, two overly stuffed carry-on-sized bags, and one huge study abroad backpack barfed all over whitney's house. isn't she the greatest.

it's great to be back in the states!

some things to drool over...

2009-12-14T15:19:00.003-08:00

chatsworth

my favorite estate i've ever been to.

i guess some people think it was jane austen's inspiration for pemberley

and they used it in the 2005 film verion of pride and prejudice.

i've never seen a place so happily situated

the only sad thing was that it was having restoration work done:

i did my best with my imagination to make it go away, as well as using the cropping tool on iphoto. but really, it was a good thing that the grounds were not under reconstruction. now that would have been a real misfortune. would it not?

had to get some documentation that i was there.

I will be on a plane in 12 hours:

2009-12-11T11:43:00.004-08:00

(pretty song, correct emotion.)

i don't know how to get this video of it off...but here it is again.

so, just really quickly,

2009-12-04T23:42:00.005-08:00

--------------------------------->

why do over half of you think i should get married already?! that was supposed to be the joke option where only like one person votes for it and then it's awkward and i feel reassured after feeling sad because of the fact that half of everyone i know is getting married.

but, since it is apparently happening quite soon, can i please wear these shoes?

mother?

Lunch today:

2009-12-04T16:37:00.003-08:00

last time for something like that. how sad.

i wish i could figure out a way to bring one back for you, mother.

So, the writing's dumb, but this is my final photography assignment, and I like these pictures.

2009-12-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

I think that when you visit Paris, or any other city for a short time, it changes you, if even just a little bit. The longer you are in Paris, you start to notice how the people who live here, and the people passing through, change the city, leave their imprints on the walls and the streets and the trees and the dirt, painting the city with stories and lives, passion, change, and melancholy as well. There is a vibrant amount of emotion I think that courses through Paris because of those who live here.
Parks especially have a special power here I think, where the actions and thoughts of children are limited only by the piercing eyes of their parents, where mothers and fathers take great care in the safety and amusement of their children, where friends can sit and talk over their troubles no matter their age, and always, people seem to love who they are with, because no one is really forced to go to parks. It is somewhere to go when you have no work or errands, where Paris has less pretenses, and where a lot of good things happen.

This is my wallet.

2009-12-04T06:28:00.004-08:00

My real wallet died a few nights ago. Jess brought it back from Spain when I was a sophomore in high school. I am now a JUNIOR in COLLEGE. It was a cute wallet. I stopped using it after SIX people in my group got their wallets stolen. And when the stitching was falling apart, and pieces of leather just started coming off. I think its bath at Sty Head may have expedited that poor, pink leather wallet's death. After its funeral, I just started putting everything in the pockets of my purse. And then that purse's zipper died which made me paranoid, so anyway, I am down to this. Digging out cash from a plastic bag. It's pretty awesome when I go to buy something and the plastic corners stick out of my purse. Everyone should get a wallet like this.

Back to England Tomorrow!

2009-12-04T06:06:00.005-08:00

Packing right now, and these will be the only things in my blue study abroad backpack tomorrow when I head to England:

one short-sleeved shirt
one long-sleeved shirt
one cotton dress
black tights
sleep shorts
t-shirt to sleep in
two pairs of underwear
one sport's bra
one journal
two pens
one novel
passport
ipod
debit card
one small bottle shampoo
deodorant
one toothbrush
one camera

and that is IT. marshall would be proud. maybe. but seriously. it's a lot less than it looks, if you think about it.

i am wearing:

wool socks
chacos
black skinny jeans
brown shirt
zip-up hoody
leather jacket
scarf

when I was at Wordsworth's house, Dove Cottage, last Spring in Grasmere in the Lake District of England, our tourguide showed us the tiny briefcase Wordsworth would take when he was traveling for sometimes weeks all over Europe. Apparently he basically only brought a change of shirt and writing paper. I thought about doing that, but I don't think Corrine's family would really appreciate that. Or mother may disapprove. With reason.

Back to England I say! With a new pair of Chacos strapped to my feet, the same smart wool socks, and a study abroad backpack comfortably on my shoulders!

okay okay okay okay okay

2009-12-01T01:05:00.007-08:00

sorry mother
I know you were just making a joke that I took to heart just because it takes a bit of time to write out these little posts and it takes a bit more to upload photos and and arrange them just so. So actually it is a bit of a time investment and that's why I was a little bit ticked. It reminded me of that one time after I got my ACT results and was ONE POINT away from having a full scholarship, and I only got a half scholarship, and you said, "you just lost yourself nineteen hundred dollars" because you thought it was hilarious! And I did not. And I thought writing that on the bottom of my post was hilarious. And you did not. So mother, I am sorry. Very sorry, and maybe the reason I get so upset about these things is because they are usually true. Yep, I did lose myself $1900, and yes, my blog really is not that important. So I am sorry for writing that because I love you so much and I know you were making a joke!

And I promise to write about you every post for this whole month of December even though my blog doesn't really matter. Which I know. And knew even before you told me :)

Starting today.

My mom (and dad) brought me here when I think I was six...? Maybe five, or maybe seven.

We spent a couple of days in the Loire Valley in our wood-paneled chrysler van, going from chateau to chateau. I even remember climbing out of the car to go to Chambord and telling my dad, "I don't like these kind of days when we drive in the car for a just a little bit and then get out and then have to get in and out again." I remember my dad looking at me so confusedly, like "you don't?" and all I could think was that it was obvious that I would rather either stay in the car most of the day and sleep/watch the landscape, or walk around most of the day. It was a hard transition to do that all day without getting exhausted. But give me a break. I was only six! And as soon as I got inside the chateau, I'm pretty sure I loved it. But this chateau, Chenonceau, was my favorite, and has been since.

I went to it on Saturday by myself. It took about eight hours of travel time total, but it was really fun, and I like riding trains, and I was trying to say goodbye to them. I wrote in my journal and read my book and listened to my ipod and I really loved it. I got to the chateau and it was rainy and cloudy. I went to the maze first, and I could see over the hedges this time. There was no reason I would hit a dead-end this time, and the obstacles happened to be trying to get around enormous puddles rather than trying to find my way to the middle. I remember it was actually difficult last time. Or maybe that was a different maze that we did that was actually hard, but my mom was nice and let me choose which way we would go, or would let one of my sisters choose while I followed, my long straight hair bouncing up and down while I probably chased after them giggling hysterically the way little kids do in that navy blue sweatshirt I had gotten in Switzerland. What ever happened to the sweatshirt, mother?

I do remember that after a while I was hungry and I was ready to go, so I came up to my mom and said something annoying like, "mommy can we PLEEEEASE gooo...." and mother was just looking at the chateau. I think Cami wasn't happy about something. I can't remember what. So Mother was waiting until Father was done talking to Cami. The sun was setting over the chateau and I looked at her looking at the chateau, and I could tell that she thought it was really really beautiful. So I looked at it too, looked at the beautiful arches over the water, and it's reflection, and I remembered to myself that this was the most beautiful chateau I had ever seen, with the yellow light on the wall of the chateau and the orange sky reflected in the water.

It was about fifteen years later when I came again. (Isn't that weird that I can say "fifteen years later" and it's legitimate? Old.) I couldn't spend very much time in the gardens, but I had given myself about five hours to be here, which was kind of a long time. And the entrance fee was eight euros. I ended up sitting in the hallway over the bridge and writing in my journal for a long time because it was so rainy.

I looked at the windows in the hallway and remembered how last time I was here I was not tall enough to look out and see out of the window without jumping, or I may have made that up as I sometimes do with my memory without realizing it.

And my mom came and picked me up when she saw me jumping and said things like, "look! there's the river, and you can see the gardens over there, and there's the island in the middle of the river," pointing out each of those things with her eyes at my eye level. And then our whole family, all seven of us walked down that black and white tiled hallway, or maybe we were running again, like I saw all of those little kids doing on saturday, or maybe we were hopping from black square to black square, but we were probably making the museum people nervous like we usually did, all five of us who were age eleven or younger, but we liked being in chateaux, because I think all of us could feel like princesses, looking out the windows imperiously and sauntering down the stones stairs with our arms outstretched like ballerinas.

salt lake parents.

2009-11-30T10:51:00.007-08:00

Kent looking for a place to eat. Pam and I waiting for the verdict.

I can't remember, but I think the first time I met Kent and Pam, it was the fall of 2008 and we were at Jane's house--their house. I can't quite remember why. But I do remember that Pam ended up telling us stories in high school when Jane was low, and she gave me a couple of snickers candy bars for emergencies. I took these candy bars very seriously, and when Jane slept through classes whether on purpose or not, I would throw these chocolates at her, yelling, "Jane! Are you low?!" and some of the time she was, but sometimes she wasn't. Either way she said she wasn't low, so I just assumed she was low at all times unless she had just eaten. I was very angry to come back to the apartment one day and see that the plastic bag I had put the snickers in and labeled "for emergency use only" was gone. Along with the chocolate. Jane had gotten hungry.

Anyway. Jane's parents were in Paris this last week, where I took them to some of my favorite places.

surprise surprise...where did we end up, and what did we end up drinking. Kent doesn't even like hot chocolate that much, but he still drank some. And Pam and I finished off his portion.

h-core travelers.

We sat and talked about a lot a lot of different things, and we all got mad together at someone who I am irritated with, and we talked about relationships, and about that one time last winter when Pam promised Jane something if she did something, and then when I did that same something, that weekend I was at Pam and Kent's house and I was having a breakdown and I was feeling numb and Pam just talked and I listened while I sat at the kitchen bar and Jane and I exchanged lots of smiles while Pam cooked some onions that sizzled, and I watched them get clearer while I told her about another friend of mine who was struggling with other issues and she told me her experience with those issues. But the main point is that I could just forget, try to open my eyes wide enough to make a well for my tears to stay in, to try not to make my voice shake, I could just drink in all of the emotion, all of the experiences she had had, and nod my head, wanting to stay in that warm, red kitchen in Salt Lake where we were making pizza and never go back to my cold, white apartment where all I had to eat were eggs and cereal. And Kent would chime in from the table.

We did that again here in Paris, the topics jumping all over the place, but I talked as well, and we talked about Europe, and they both liked talking to people who were here, people who spoke English, why they were here, what they were doing, and we talked about Jane and ate, and ate some more, and Kent was calm, very calm as we shopped and as we ate, and polite and kind and easy. On friday when I was waiting for the RER, I got a phone call, and I heard Kent's voice saying "Bonjour!" to me, and I listened to his calm, friendly voice asking where I was, what I had done that day. I remembered when we went to the Orangerie and the Cluny Museum and he listened to my unoriginal ideas that came from sitting in those places for a long time, and when he waited for us while we shopped, or even waited in line to pay for something while we went across the street to another shop. We talked about where we would meet to go get lunch, and that Pam was currently shopping and then they would head to the Saint-Chapelle where I would meet them, and he told me he would pay for lunch. Such a sweet man.

Don't look at my face please.

I am skyping my mother, and she just said: "Emma, do you think anyone really cares about your blog?"

My mother. The one who birthed me. Who has given me my life and that is the last time I am ever mentioning her in my blog again.

to jumpstart the christmas season:

2009-11-27T11:35:00.000-08:00