I'm an uncle!

This is a photo of my new nephew, Nathan Dustin Bunderson,
born July 25, 2011, in Houston, Texas.
Seven pounds, eleven ounces.
Don't mess with Texas!

The Galilee (Part 2)

July 18th (Mon)- Today we started the intense field trip portion of our trip to the Galilee, where we stopped going to class and just did field trips all day! Ouch. I'll be dead by the end of this as you can see. We went to Mt. Tabor which is a possible place for the Mt. of Transfiguration. It was cool cuz they had 3 chapels on top for Moses Elijah, and Elias, in honor of Peter's request for tabernacles. Then we visited Nain where the widow's boy was raised from the dead. Then we went to Megiddo. It was quite big and quite neat. It was basically lots of ruins on a Tel. (A Tel is a mound that had been built up over time.) We went to some springs called Gan Hashelosha and swam for a while. Little fish bit our toes and ate all our dead skin on our feet. It was ticklish. Not really painful at all. Back to Ein Gev.

July 19th (Tues)- We went to the Upper Galilee. First we went to Hazor. Joshua had burned it to the ground in his day. Joshua's main conflict in the North was here. Then we went to Tel Dan and we brought my friend Dan in the class. He and I are the only ones who have places named for them!!! I conquered Troy and he conquered Tel Dan!!!!!! We hiked through a nice area of forests and trees and streams and rivers. Then we reached a big alter area on a hill. We saw a Middle-Bronze Age gate that Abraham likely came through. We went to some Springs called the Banias (no swimming this time). Then we went to Nimrod's castle. Named for the mighty hunter. It wasn't built for him or built any time when he lived. We stormed the castle with our toy shields and swords. It was huge. We had lots of time to explore it. Back to Ein Gev.

July 20th (Wed)- We went to Chorizin, Sepphoris, and Akko. It was super humid today. I was tired, and I honestly don't remember much of what happened during the morning hours. Akko was boring. We went to an overlook at the Meditterranean Sea. As I was wading, I got stung by a sea anemane. Back to Ein Gev.

July 21th (Thurs)- We left Ein Gev first thing in the morning. I was so sad to leave. We visited Mt. Carmel where Elijah went and had his adventure with the Priests of Baal and the Alter. We visited Haifa which had big scenic Bahi Gardens and a cemetery. Then to Ceasarea. It was super hot and big and had a theatre, and a chariot horse race track thing. We did piggy-back races with the little kids. Robert and I tied for first place. We did a review for the midterm (which I didn't do too shabby on the next day) on the way back to the J.C.!!!!!

That was our fun filled trip to Galilee!!!!!

The Galilee (Part 1)

Well, here it is . . .

The event you've all been waiting for!!!

The GALILEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I'm going to do a Day by Day run through of what happened on our super great adventure!!!

July 11 (Mon)- After getting packed last night, we got up super early and left on our trip to Galilee. We left at about 6:30, so needless to say, I don't remember the journey much.
We stopped at an Ancient Roman City named Bet She'an. They have all their old Roman cities as National Parks which is rather odd. Our next stops were the Nazareth Village, the Church of the Synagogue, and the Church of the Annunciation. Nazareth Village was a little village/visitor's center place that they had in Nazareth to try to give people a feel for how exactly Nazareth was. They had weaving, and wine-making, and a fake little tomb, and sheep, and lots of things like that. We went to a cliff top on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, that conveniently I can't remember the name of. I was really awe-struck to see all the area of where the Savior walked and performed his ministry. Then we drove around to Ein Gev. It is the little resort town where we stayed for our 11 day journey.
Ein Gev (pronounced 'En Gev') is a super great place. The resort we stayed at was right on the beach. It was really neat. It was basically like dozens and dozens of little 3 room, 1 story apartments scattered around the grass on the hill above the beach. Kinda reminded me of San Diego. I was in apartment 133. Scott Rowley, Drew Pearson, and Jarrette Lever were my room-mates. Thankfully in Galilee we got internet.

July 12 (Tues)- We have a restaurant in the main building where we have all our meals, buffet style (pronounced buff-et). Breakfast was superlicious. We went swimming this afternoon. A bunch of us from the classes strove our hardest to be as dangerous as possible. We succeeded in making 3 person tall pyramids. After making very dangerous human towers that could only be rivaled in their stupidity by the Tower of Babel, we did backflips off of each other. We had a fun FHE campfire fire-bon thing tonight. Jarrette is the man and does a whole bunch of fun camp songs.

July 13 (Wed)- Today was a great field-trip day with one glitch. I lost my camera. Thankfully it was about 5 years old, and thankfully everyone has their pictures on the computers at the center that I can get, so I can find all the pictures I lost and more. My room-mate is letting me borrow his old one for the duration of the study abroad, so hopefully I can just get a new one when I get home.
Well on our trip we took a boat across the Galilee. We saw a museum about an old boat that they unearthed at the Sea of Galilee. Then we went to the Church of the Beatitudes, where I lost my camera. I know exactly the 3 possible spots I lost it, but when I went back with several class-mates and faculty members, I couldn't find it. So that's a bummer in the unfortunately area of the miserable spectrum. We also went to Capernaum and saw Peter's house. We visited Tabgha. We also visited Church of St. PEter's Primary. And Bethsaida (very short stop down by the Sea.)
We finished off the day by having a general gospel discussion at the Muhlstein's who happens to be the best teacher in the world. It was really good.

July 14th (Thurs)- We had class today. We went on a fun hike today with a local tour guide. I couldn't remember his name, but he asked us a lot of riddles that were nifty. We had dinner at a fish restaurant in Tiberius.

July 15th (Fri)- We went on a Field Trip to Gamla and hiked a lot as we saw the old ruins of houses and a synagogue and where they had battles. We also visited a placed called Kursi which was by where the Savior cast out the Devils into the swine and they ran into the Sea. Chadwick's class this evening.

July 16th (Sat)- Breakfast. Then Church which was in Tiberius in the little chapel which had a great overlook of the Sea. It was a testimony meeting. We visited a local baptistry. We had a devotional tonght back at Ein Gev. It is so great to learn about all of these various things that happened in the Savior's life. They are so neat. Especially to see them where they happened.

July 17th (Sun)- Class for 3 hours and the rest of the day was a free-day. When I say class, it means New Testament. Which is great thanks to the Muhlstein's who are the best family ever, save mine.

Bethlehem and Herodian

Yesterday we went to the Herodian, which is Herod Antipus's summer home area. It was really good. It was big enough to explore and run around but small enough that Herod was able to walk from one end to the other in less than an hour. (okay exaggeration). But his swimming pool was about 4 times as big as our house. Yeah. I was jealous. It was huge!!! We hiked up the hill and saw his huge tower/castle thing. We explored the tunnels. That's always fun.

Then we went to Bethlehem University. We talked to the Muslims and Christians who were there. They were really nice. They got along pretty well. And they hate checkpoints. That is basically a consensus.

We visited the Byzantine Church where Christ was apparently born under. The church was built right over the grotto where they think Christ was born. It was really spiritual. I bought a couple nativity ornaments that I think would go well on a tree. Not sure where else they would go.

It was a great field trip. Even our security guard was tired by the end of it, and he is as strong as an ox.

We went to the Eilat the day before yesterday. That was a student planned field trip out to the Red Sea. We went snorkling. That was super fun!!!! I am very glad that we did it because inhaling salt water is basically a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was really fun.
That is basically all our adventures of the past two days. That and I got a movie called the Presige that arrived. Christopher Nolan seems to love choosing Christian Bale and Michael Caine for his movies. It is a rather uniquely strange film.
Bye until next time. Only 2 finals left here this week.

Yad Veshem

Today we went to the Yad Veshem Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was a great field trip. At the same time it was very sad to see. The museum was great. We walked around outside and saw a few different buildings with memorials and exhibits and things. Unfortunately, my camera decided to run out of batteries just then. We couldn't take pictures inside anyway, so I didn't miss much. It was very sad. It was a good thing to remember. So it doesn't happen again.

We also went to Mount Herzel. That was a nearby mountain of granduer with lots of IDF soldiers on it. There were lots of memorials there as well.

Learn loads. Loved it.

It was great.

Jordan Trip

Hello again blog . . .

How are all of you???

June 20th (Monday)-
-Today was a wonderful day. We got up early and drove to the Israel/Jordan border. Made it across okay. We visited Mount Nebo. It was where Moses looked into the Promised Land, but never got to see. After that short jaunt, we went to Madaba and saw a Greek Orthodox Church with a mural mosaic map of Israel on the floor. Then we visited Herod's Palace at Mecharous. It was up a giant hill about 20 minutes or so. Our hotel our first night wasn't too bad. It was simply very small roomed and the restaurant was 4 floors below us. That meant we had to walk up/down lots of stairs. Dan is my room-mate for this trip. It was super hot all night long. And the water pressure was non-existant.

June 21st (Tuesday)
-We had breakfast in our little basement restaurant. We visited Petra today. For y'all who've seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the treasury of Petra was the spot where Indi went down the Canyon of the Cresent Moon to find the Holy Grail. We visited some big Tombs and a Monastery. And a Byzantine Church and a Temple. We went to the Belvue Hotel tonight in Aman (the capital city of Jordan). That is a famous hotel. Dan and I were up on the 8th Floor. More stairs. At least they had many elevators. That was nice. Dinner and Bed.

June 22nd (Wednesday)
-We visited a citadel this morning. The Citadel of Aman was great and had so much wonderful stuff to it. It was big and had enough room to run around to our heart's content. We then went to the ancient city of Jerash. If I thought the citadel of Aman was huge, then I was mistaken. This one was gigantic. I got dehydrated and almost died (well not quite) but I was thirsty. There were so many columns and big ancient structures. My buddy Jarrett sang an awesome song in one of the big theatres. It was so neat to see. We explored the city. Got ice cream and milkshakes. Then we had dinner. Bed.

June 23rd (Thursday)
We visited a large theatre this morning. Then we went to visit the Jordan River. It was about a billion degrees Celsius (which in Fahrenheit is practically 110 degrees). It was wonderful to see the place where the Savior was baptized. It was very moving. I don't think there is anything quite like it to sit on the banks of a river you have heard about your whole life and remember the experience of your own baptism as you picture the Savior getting baptized.
Home to the J.C. (Jerusalem Center for all you Americanites).

Catch-up Time . . .

This post is for me to catch-up on my blog.
We have been doing lots of school-work and mid-terms and things like that.

We went on a field-trip on sunday to a very special place called . . .
Well, I don't remember where it was or what it was called, but I just know that it was neat. We first went to a shepherd place where we shepherded sheep. It was really neat. We got water out of a well, and other nomadic stuff. Made me grateful for a big giant castle on Mount Scopus.
We did other nomadic things. Well maybe not nomadic, but certainly primitive. Primitive, but much better than I could do without technology.
And I ran on a hamster wheel . . .

We are getting ready for our informal talent show. This is really going to be a hi-light of the semester. My FHE group is doing a movie-preview skit, with me being the announcer voice guy. That will be lots of fun.

I wish to enlighten my fellow facebook people about my blog, so I'm going to send out a FB message to all my friends about my blog soon.

Turkey Trip

I've been thinking a lot about Basketball and how it relates to the gospel.
The Savior is our coach and we are the athlete.
At first we don't even know the rules of the game. We are kind-of like new members of the Church or non-members. The Lord lets us know not to double-dribble and not to walk out of bounds.
Once we learn the rules, the counsel changes. Then we learn how to improve our game. We learn how to dribble, pass, shoot, and score. The Lord keeps adding elements to help us grow. "Try to dribble with your left hand." or "Try to do a no-look pass." Some days the Lord will have us practice alone. Other days with the team. But always pushing us to help our game grow more dynamic and creative. Until we win . . .
What is the difference between our good selfs and the best we can be, is how well we implement the second aspect of counsel. We might feel clumsy at first trying to dribble with our left hand, or shoot with our left-hand, but we will improve. And win . . .

We had a great time in Turkey . . .

Sunday: We flew into Turkey out of Tel Aviv and traveled with our Tour Guide named Buelent to the Cartoon Hotel. It really was called that and had lots of Mickeys and Goofys and other cartoon characters around. Robert Hickman was my room-mate. He is such a kind-hearted and humble individual.

Monday: Buelent is from Istanbul and had a good accent, but not too thick, and he was very funny. We went to the Blue Palace and the Blue Mosque. We also went to the Grand Bazaar, which happens to be the largest shopping center in the world.

Tuesday: We visited Troy today. I went back to conquer my kingdom. And I prevailed. What that means is that I got a picture in front of the wooden horse. We stayed in a city called Cannakale. It was really neat, mostly because it had a large wooden horse right by a basketball court. We played with some of the local kids out on the court late in the evening (and right when we got there). It was such a neat game.

Wednesday: We visited Assos and Pergamum and Asclepion today. Those are old cities that Paul and others went to visit on their jouneys around as they did missionary work. Lots of Roman theming and lots of columns and pillars and temples and amphitheatres.

Thursday: Visited Ephesus and Miletus. More of the same. We went swimming at our hotel this evening. We had a small earthquake and it was neato. Cool as can be. a 5.9 right in our area. My bed shook. I thought it was me shaking, but it was actually the hotel room.

Friday: We visited some Hot Springs and drove to Bursa.

Saturday: We drove a lot and finally got to Istanbul in the Evening. Our plane ride was great and late and I slept through most of it. We got to the J.C. on Sunday morning at about 3:00.

Musings of my mind . . .

Church was fun today. Bro Ohman is such a power house. I want to be just like he is and soon as possible.

Something I was thinking about is how the Lord is able to take away our burdens and make them light, no matter the size. Still am not quite sure why I give myself more to do and set myself goals that are beyond the ability of anyone to accomplish . . . maybe I enjoy growing and stretching myself.

Another thought bouncing around inside of me is what David Walley said on my mission. He defined Patience: the Christlike Attribute in a marvelous way. He said Patience is finding peace in the present. Finding peace in the here and now. Why should we wait for the Millennium for that, when its possible to achieve it now? The Spanish word for 'Patience' is _______ (insert it cuz I don't know it) something that means Peace Science (or the Science of Peace). The Savior's defining and all-encompassing qualities are love and peace, an indescribable emotion that transcends the mortal and exalts the individual to a higher plane of understanding. One may wonder just how the Savior could possibly love us so much? I've wondered that, but even more I've wondered how I can love others in that same way (at least to the best of my feeble abilities)?
My other thought on the subject is that in order to find peace, we need to rid ourselves of contention. Contention is of the Devil, so is worry, so is doubt. Since I stopped worrying about how well I do on school assignments, my grades have generally gone up, and when they haven't I've had a clear view of what I need to do to improve.

The other thought I had was to try and see everyone else as my example and to see them how Christ sees them, and I'll progress much faster, but I guess that's partly selfish (so fake it til you make it). Seeking to glorify others is much more rewarding than anything that is self-glorifying or gratifying.

And Humility I'm learning is not self-debasing in anyway, nor is it the absence of a self-exalting attitude, but rather it is an eternal dependence on our Savior and a proper and whole view of who we are. We must have a correct view of ourselves if we want to run the race of life to the best of our ability and to help others reach their full potential. Someday as Latter-Day Saints we will simply be able to let our light shine in full . . . to allow our very countenances to shine forth the gospel we live and love, and by so living, purify every soul we come in contact with. I had a small taste of that on my mission.
The ability to enlarge our hearts is a two-fold battle, physical and spiritual. Our diligence is affected by the physical, but our charity is affected by the spiritual. Once we learn to enlarge our hearts enough to encompass and balance both, we will permanently be on the road to exaltation.

Fear is the most disturbing emotion there is. It clouds judgment, stops us from even trying to reach our full potential, and keeps us focused inward. Doubt and fear are not attributes of Christ.
They are lies of Satan. So is despair, so is disobedience.


And now onto the day as it was today. Breakfast . . . Church . . . jammin' on the Ukuleles with Kori and Krystalee and others . . . and Dinner. Is it possible to be addicted to food? Yes!!!
I wish basketball was an approved Sabbath Activity.

And we watched the Ten Commandments yesterday!!! Fun Fun Fun!!!!

Wednesday

Yesterday, we had an exciting chance to go to David's Citadel. We just did it after class. It wasn't an organized field trip, but we had a great time and learned a lot on their audio tour. It was really fun. I enjoyed it. And stuff.
Other than that . . . we have just been having class. Normal as can be.
Bro Judd is our Old Testament teacher and he is full of great stories and awesome advice. I feel like I really relate to him well.
Jeff has got to be one of the awesomest and funniest religion teachers ever born. He is just a testimony of fire and full of that same rambuncious joy and humor that Dad has.
We had a Brother Pieper of the Seventy come and visit us at dinner yesterday.
He was really spiritual.

That's about all the news and we are going to have some great forum thing tonight by some important person from Palestinian government, so that should be interesting.

Yesterday was Monday

We had the chance to go on a series of field trips yesterday. Well, only two I guess. We went on a Jericho field trip in the morning. It was great. We got to see Elisha's Spring, Wadi Quelt (a giant overlook with a synagogue in the bottom), as well as Jericho and Herod's fortress and Roman bathhouse. It was spiffy and wonderful.

In the evening we went on a walk to the West side of the city. It was the Israeli independence Day Celebration, so they had a lot of concerts going on and stuff. It was neat. Then they had a giant firework display. It was awesome. Life is going well. Keep praying hard for me.

Love you guys.

Troy

Today is Sunday, Yesterday was the Sabbath

We had the opportunity to go to church yesterday, which was a really enjoyable experience. Jeff Chadwick gave the Sunday School lesson and did an amazing job. It was incredible. He is so smart and humble and a great example.
Today was a free-day so we went on a big field trip into the city and had the opportunity to visit the Dome of the Rock!!!! It was so neat to see. It is definitely one of my favorite places in Jerusalem. It is the giant golden dome of profound size. We also went to the YMCA bell tower. It was wonderful. It was big and catholic and such. We tried to visit a government building in West Jerusalem, but it was closed.
We saw David's tomb and also the Upper Room where they had the last supper. It was a super day. We have to visit a whole bunch of places in Jerusalem and write reports on 7 of the places we visit. That makes our field trips exciting.

Wish me luck.

And I hope Grandma Terry is feeling better. Send her my love.

Wailing Wall

I hope that you guys can read this and get a sense for amazingness by looking up pictures on your own. We went to the Wailing Wall tonight. It was so enjoyable to see all the Jewish people welcoming in their sabbath, saying prayers, being jovial and simply loving one another's company. We joined in some of their dances. It wasn't that hard. Everyone linked arms and went in a circle, while singing (kinda more like chanting.) The Jewish people and their faith in amazing.

The Wailing Wall is also known as the Western Wall. It was their Shabbat. We put little prayers in the wall. kinda reminded me of the temple prayer roll.

It is neat because the Lord has really been increasing my capacity to learn since I've been here. I love my classes to death. They

Fun, Fun, Fun

Yesterday was really busy. Lots of classes. Lots of Homework.
We did go on a tour of Hebrew University Campus.
It is pretty cool.

My Modern Near Eastern Judaism class is interesting. But it has a lot of reading. We had a Jew from Boston named Ophir Yarden who teaches it. He's does well at explaining all the history and stuff.

Judy Goldman, another Jew, teaches our Hebrew class. We are starting to learn the alphabet and different phrases.

Jeff Chadwick's class is basically awesomeness at its height.

I've really been curious if we really are much closer what we see our potential as than we realize. Maybe with the Lord's help we can even surpass that perceived potential. I really enjoyed Pres. Uchtdorf's talk in Priesthood Session. I'm going to read it again.

Have fun in America.

Field Trip Day

Today we had the opportunity to go on a Field Trip around the city. We went in buses to various places.
St. Augustine Victoria Chapel was a old church that Kaiser Wilhelm built around the time before World War I.
We went to one of the potential burial spot location things of Samuel the Prophet.
It was a mosque located on top of a synagogue. Talk about weird. It was neat though. We got to wear Jewish Kiepas. Those of the little small hats the men wear.
It was a fun field trip.

I got to know Mitchell's MTC comp Jarrett Lever. He's a cool kid. He's a linguistics and Portugese Major.

We had FHE tonight. That's about it. Lots of Homework.

Sunday, but not the Sabbath

We had our first day of classes today.

Old Testament with Brother Judd for 2 hours and then Ancient Near Eastern Studies from Bro Chadwick for 2 hours.

It has been a long morning. Unfortunately we aren't allowed to play basketball super early in the morning. I've been getting up early all the same. Life is good.

We had a busy morning.

This afternoon is ours to do studying and other stuff.

Making lots of friends.

Have fun at Church everyone.

Shabbat

Today is the first Sabbath here in Jerusalem!!! We had sacrament meeting. I had the honor of preparing and blessing the Sacrament. I almost fell over on the table which was semi embarrassing. No one really noticed except for me.
Church was good. My room-mate Jefferson spoke. My other room-mate Andrew taught Elder's Quorum.
We went on a walk down to the Garden of Gethsemane. It was really nice.
The 16 who finally arrived were very happy to get here. They had to get caught up on some stuff today.
Fenton Hughes from my grade at Timpanogos is here. And a Jarrett Lever who was my cousin Mitchell's MTC companion is here as well. Both of them are all-stars.

That's all for today . . .

Day 2

Well classes have started.
Sort of . . .
And the 16 missing persons finally arrived.
We went on a tour of Jerusalem today. It is magnificent. I was really impressed by the Old City. It is part of West Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is the Israeli side and West Jerusalem is the Palestinian side. The Old City has many impressive sites including Dome of the Rock and Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That is where many people think that Christ was buried.
We had a great breakfast. French Toast, eggs, and the like. All meals are done cafeteria style. I met Jeff Chadwick. He's cool and seems like a great teacher.
The 16 missing students who apparently had to sleep in JFK airport on the floor arrived today.
They were happy to be here.
That's all for today.

New Arrival

This is Troy Terry, humbly reporting to the world about the wonders of the Jerusalem Center.
It is enormous. Never in my entire life have I seen such an awesome and enchanting building. The stone archways give the building an ancient feel and a smooth look. To enhance our first night in the center, besides having a scrumptuous meal and an astounding tour of the center we were treated to a rare opportunity in the Holy Land: a thunder storm. A real THUNDER STORM!!! How could such a magnificent event take place in the driest of dry places on this globe. Suprisingly, the climate was much different than what I expected. The first thing I noticed after getting off the bus was that the climate was not Arizona/Southern Utah typical. It was anything but. It was almost like a mixture of a temperate forest and a tropical coastal feel. That may be in part due to the fact that they were soon to have a thunder storm.
My plane flights were uneventful, but one of our groups that was going through JFK airport got stranded and they (6 students) were stuck and had to stay the night in the terminal. We were told that they would arrive tomorrow.

Getting Packed . . .

So life is odd. I have to get packed to move out of my apartment complex and then I have to pack for the Holy Land. Does the rush never end?

Getting started . . .

Hello everyone, This is Troy Terry. I am going to the Jerusalem Center this year during the Summer of 2011. I am making this blog to post pictures and other stuff related to my experiences in Jerusalem. I hope that I can bring the Holy Land a little closer to home with this blog. Hurrah for Israel!