Last Supper

Jessica here--U.S. correspondent and Jen's oldest sister. Most of these posts will be written by Jenny, e-mailed to me, and posted onto the blog, but she asked me to post some pictures from her "last supper." And since she can't e-mail pictures at the center, these could be the last Jenny pictures for a while, so soak up some of that Jenny sunshine while you can!

The day before she flew out to Tel Aviv, she and Mom attended a five hour meeting on campus with the group. They covered...well, everything! It was five hours, after all. Afterwards, they came over to our house and I had the privilege of cooking Jenny's "last meal" before she left on her adventure.

(Besides Ellie's adorable, cheesy pose, don't you totally love the "halo" above Jenny's head from the plant light? Appropriate, no?) I decided to go with a French dish, Lemon Roasted Chicken with Croutons. Seemed worthy of a last meal. Isn't it beautiful?

We had it with a green salad with a honey lemon dressing and garlic mashed potatoes:

We were going to make Elephant Ears (a French cookie made out of puff pastry) for dessert, but ran out of time because she still had a little bit of last minute shopping to squeeze in before her early morning. So Jenny, remind me when you get home that we have to make Elephant Ears!

Goodbye is always hard, but knowing where she's going and how excited she is makes it hard to be anything but excited for her! She should have made it to her destination yesterday, so hopefully we'll get to hear from her soon!

The Jerusalem Center

Brigham Young University's Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies is located in East Jerusalem between Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives. My group consists of 80 intrepid undergraduates students. We'll be taking a full load of coursework--Modern Near Eastern studies, Ancient Near Eastern studies, Old Testament, New Testament, beginning Hebrew/Arabic (I chose Hebrew because I heard rumors of a friendly instructor who loves to sing Hebrew hymns), and Fieldtrips (yes, that is the title of the course. I'm pretty sure I haven't been on a real fieldtrip since gradeschool, and I'm hopping with excitement!).
Just a few fun things about the Jerusalem Center:
*We celebrate Sabbath on Shabbat--that's Saturday. Sunday is our day off.
*We have weekend movie nights at the center. The premiering shows include Moses, Aladdin, and other American films set in the Middle East. Strange that we should watch American movies when we could walk outside and see the real deal, but I think I'm already a fan of this cheesy tradition.
*Tuesday-Friday are class days. Mondays are all-day fieldtrips to visit the sites that we've been learning about. Talk about integrative learning! :)
*Aside from our time at the Center, we will spend a week in Jordan, a week in Turkey, and a couple of weeks along the shore of the Sea of Galilea.
*The plane ride to Tel Aviv will be approximately 24 hours including layovers...a fine way to celebrate my first time on an airplane.
*Absolutely no proselyting at the center...but we'll try to keep the light in our eyes, as Elder Faust suggested.