Church in Amman

I have an important announcement to make: they do, in fact, sell peanut butter in Amman! !الحمد لله  They are really small, but it looks normal!  (Now if there were only some Thai food, right? haha)  

So a cool story from yesterday: there's a local guy named Omar that helps out with our program.  He came over and we talked to him for a bit.  We know enough Arabic and he knows enough English that we got by.  Mostly he was helping us with our Arabic.  You see, at BYU we study Egyptian Arabic (amiyya) and proper Arabic (fus-ha).  However, they speak a different dialect here in Jordan.  So we get made fun of a lot.  In Omar's words: "No! Egypian Arabic=False!"  Speaking Egyptian is like unto speaking like a hick (no offense to my redneck friends!) ;) while speaking fus-ha is like speaking ultra proper.  So he was helping us navigate the new dialect.  He is originally from Iraq but left due to the war.  It's an interesting experience to have something like the Iraq war become something real as I meet those personally affected by it.  The reason I mention that is every once in a while he would throw in an Iraqi word, just to confuse us even more, hehe.  After about 2 hours, my brain felt like it was going to explode!

Today was my first time going to church in Jordan, and it was sweet.  We meet at the Church's community and cultural center in Amman.  Before today I'd been there once before, a year ago, for a fireside given by the Branch President.  In fact, it was during that fireside, in that building, that I felt prompted to begin studying Arabic.  Kinda cool, huh?  [FYI any non-LDS readers, the next few sentences will be confusing.  Bear with me!]  Apparently there was a big regional conference this past week where Elder Holland (one of the current apostles) came and reorganized some of the stakes in the Middle East.  So in out meeting today we had the Stake/District Presidents from Jordan, Saudi Arabic/Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Israel.  Kinda cool, huh?  Plus we had the Area President because the Branch Presidency got rearranged.  The branch is actually pretty big, at least 100 if not more.  For Sacrament and Priesthood, everyone met together.  Everything was in both English and Arabic.  For our closing song, everyone sang "I Stand All Amazed" in Arabic.  That's my favorite hymn anyway, and it's just as touching and beautiful in Arabic.  Needless to say, it was a very special experience.  After church we had a linger-longer, which was nice because I was really hungry.  I was humbled as I tried my Arabic with some of the members, and we met some of the other interns here for the summer.  And as we were leaving, the unexpected happened... it rained!

Today for dinner we went over to our neighbors home for an amazing meal.  I think they tried to make an American meal for us: chicken and rice... with pita.  The mom kept checking that we eat that type of food in America.  It was really good, and once again their generosity and hospitality abounded.  We brought over some Arabic pasties (SO GOOD!) to contribute to the meal.  Then we digested as we watched some soccer and... you guessed it: Sylvester Stalone!  I can't wait to bring my family here (soon? pleeeease Dad? hehe) and introduce them to my new friends. 

Any day now I should be leaving Amman for the desert!  I'm anxious, excited, nervous.  I'll keep you posted!  But for now, ma'asalama!

يرمي