Comings and Goings

This has been a week for good friends leaving. Uncle Brad and Aunt Janice dropped in on Monday while taking Marissa's stuff from FL to NY. I was sitting at a table outside Mario's Pizza in Arlington, looking down at my planner, and suddenly, plop “So, how's this internship going?” Behind me “Is this her?” in front “yeah, how are you?” I was surrounded unexpectedly by smiling family members who were either excited to see me or excited to meet me. Aunt Janice's family was there, whom I had never met, but who were the funnest people and so excited to be together and to meet me. 

Wednesday, my marine friend, Nathan, got deployed for a second tour in Afghanistan. Sunday, we had a party for him after church and he seemed to have a good time.Wednesday, my marine friend, Nathan, got deployed for a second tour in Afghanistan. Sunday, we had a party for him after church and he seemed to have a good time.

Maybe too good a time.

This was so awkward at first, I didn't even know how to hold it. Guns seem more of an insecure thing than a secure thing to me. I always think they might misfire. 

Nathan and the super nice Corry who hosted the party. Marines have the hook. When I sheepishly asked if Corry would open his house he was like, “Sure, my brother's a marine, anything for a marine.” Crazy. Corry is the owner of the civilian assault rifle above.

Gangsta signs from my roommate, Melinda, and me.

Nathan's Elders, Elders Yazzie and Norris.

Nathan and I while he took a break from grilling.

 

FSI interns Christina, Madeline, and me at happy hour at a Lebanese tavern with bottomless humus. Drool, drool.FSI interns Christina, Madeline, and me at happy hour at a Lebanese tavern with bottomless humus. Drool, drool.

FSI Interns Christina, Karin, Katie and I. 

This was new in 2011. Had a lot of great ideas in his quotes

Great idea with myriad applications, this is similar to what I want to work in!

This president (FDR) believed in hope, faith, and love. How blessed we were to have such inspired leadership during the Great Depression and WWII!

I think I've already blogged this, but it's the theme of my life! and I'll remember it better the more I talk about it, "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with STRONG ACTIVE FAITH." wahoo

One Degree

While I sat next to a former adviser to President Clinton on the

Middle East and schmoozed with embassy goers this week, I was
surprised and chuckled at the opportunities and fun of living in D.C.

On Wednesday, I went to an all day speaking event hosted by State’s
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) on Lebanon and how Syrian
instability is and will affect it. The opportunity to come to it came
through an email invitation from one of the students in our intensive
Middle East Survey class we had last week at my internship. I just responded saying I’d
like to go, put a bunch of obscure acronyms after my name, and I’m in!
I don’t think they care as much about the acronyms as they do about
the email domain, but it was cool nonetheless.

INR uses classified intelligence sources but they also congregate leading
experts to discuss current events and forecast a bit in order to obtain intelligence. They invite the public to come
question and participate. This event had a sense of urgency, because the night
before, 2 or 3 of the Assad Regime’s defense advisers were killed by
a suicide bomber-body guard. Then, after academic experts, former
ambassadors, leading commentators, and news anchors spoke
about everything from the local smuggling rings in their
native Lebanese villages to Hezbollah’s calculating takeover of the government
in 2006, someone checked their phone and saw that literally minutes before, an
Israeli tourist bus had been blown up on the other side of the world
in Bulgaria and Israel was blaming Iran. Everyone started saying,
“This is very, very bad,” and pulled out their phones. They then added this super current even to the analysis of Syria’s impact on Lebanon. It was so interesting to see that process.

Another cool thing was that the Ambassador for Syrian Transition came
and spoke to us as we ate the lunch the posh Army Navy Club catered for us.
His name is Fred Hof and after explaining U.S. foreign policy to us, very humbly and frankly asked if we had
any advice for him and that he was all ears for understanding the
Syrian fallout to its neighbors. I was wowed. If I had something to
say (and credentials to back it up wouldn’t hurt), I could have
contributed something that influences American foreign policy! All by
virtue of the fact of being in the right room with the right people and
with preparation (the latter I obviously lack). It wasn’t hard to get
that invite too, I think after I leave my State Dept. internship, I
can still access these kinds of events. It’s so cool!  It helped me
focus on my school work more!

Schmoozing at the embassy sounds swankier than it was. It was mostly
an excuse for me and four other intern friends to get dressed up and
have a classy evening that happened to include an open bar (important
for my friends ;) ). I got to be PRETTY!! The Czech Embassy hosted a
Red Carpet Event and asked everyone to dress up and come look at the
photography of a guy who photographs celebrities. Christina and I went
around and met the people there. I met a violin maker, a polyglot who
spoke to me in both Arabic and Spanish, a cable news anchor, a three
star general, and Miss Wyoming! Miss Wyoming was actually from
Maryland and was really interesting to talk with. She pointed me in
the direction of some good volunteer opportunities with agencies that
work in grief counseling for military families. I asked the general,
General Sims, what he missed most about the army and he said the
soldiers, the kind of people they are and how much they sacrifice.

Talking about these experiences on the way home from the embassy, my
fellow intern, Ari, commented on how we have been one degree of
separation from the President, the Secretary (of State), and others
through those we’ve met. That is true and interesting. I was told D.C.
is a town before I came here, and it feels smaller everyday. (I hope this blog post doesn't sound snoody. I don't mean to be and definitely don't feel like I have cause to be so.)

Nathan got the call this week that he'd be deployed to Afghanistan 1 August. That is soon. We're praying he's safe. He told me about what he's doing to prepare, both mentally and logistically. I'm excited for him and what he'll get to do and pray he stays safe. Last night, I youtubed a bunch of Afghanistan and Iraq videos taken by marines on patrol. I hope he'll be fine. :) Nathan said he's still going to be baptized probably around the same date, just a different venue. He's been working it out with his chaplain, and the Marines are sending him for a week to the place where service members in the Middle East and Central Asia get baptized apparently, the Red Sea! No idea why there, but I'm excited for him and he's excited too.

An office party we had at DLS for moving into a new office. A lot of the employees are Afghans and their food is soooo goood. drool.

A lot of us at the office DLS lunch. DLS is where we make language curriculums for for special forces.

Karen, Katie, Ari, Christina, and me at the Czech Embassy Red Carpet Event

I borrowed my roommates sparkly dress. I liked it a lot.

My fellow intern in Near East North Africa at State, Ariel

Me, a cable news anchor with an article written by him in the WA Post, and Miss Wyoming from Maryland

The Life as I Know It

This will be a short one I hope. Just a run down of my life and schedule right now: I work 10 hour days and have class or institute Monday through Wednesday, so I leave around 7 and get home around 10. I am used to that and like it, but in order to keep it up, I like having variety and relaxation on the weekends. So my Thursday through Saturday nights are free. Thursdays I've tried keeping open to go to missionary lessons with my friend, Nathan, and Sundays I go to church in the afternoon and usually some kind of food thing after.

This week, we had a work party at Diplomatic Langauge Services, DLS, my paid internship. We make language curriculums, so we have a lot of international people and hence international food. A coworker had just rented the nice basement in the woods of a guy with a PhD in religion and loves having guests and seems soooo respectful and Christian. I enjoyed the company and the meal. Here are some shots.



What Holly brought



What I brought



Kelly, Travis (husband), and Holly dishing up cuisine from Pakistan, India, Russia and America (or at least made by people from those areas)





More of my coworkers: clockwise are Atif and Julie who work on Urdu, Aida works on Russian, and Daniella does sound editing.



Me and the cool waterfall

The lonely well of the woods you have to go through fireflies to get through :) Magical! I wish I was the young grandchild of this family :)

This is my house if you already haven't google earthed it. I live with one other roommate upstairs, a temporary one in the basement, and our super nice landlady, Sharon, lives on the main level with her dog. I'm so grateful to have found this house and housemates. It worked out so well.

My house, I'm going to get all Anne of Green Gables on you and say I live up in the tower. You'll see why, it looks like a princess room that I then moved into.





Me talking on the phone with cousin Amy and my house in the background.

32 My grandma's princess room





The window reminds me of either a princess tower window or the window Joseph Smith was martyred out of, either or.





Notice my map wall. There used to be a classy and useless map of the Great Lakes there, but I replaced it with my touristy, marked up, DC/Arlington Maps :) :)

My marine friend, Nathan White, is getting baptized in August! I'm so excited and happy for him!! He came to church two Sundays ago after a 63 hour shift (can we think through the logic of of having armed, trained fighters with PTSD reporting to duty sleep deprived? Maybe that is unfortunately a reality in the field). He had a 13 hour sleep break and chose to come to church. Pretty cool. He was a little crazier than usual and shaking, so I fed him after.

As background, Nathan and I met on a Greyhound bus between Richmond and DC six weeks ago. I shameless eavesdropped on his conversation with a navy guy about some of his war stories in Afghanistan. He pulled me into the conversation, we talked the whole way to DC, mostly about Afghanistan. He invited me to breakfast and said I was busy. I legitimately was, church started at 1:30 and I wanted to shower and sleep a little before. Without premeditating anything, I invited him to church. To my surprise, he came, for all three hours, and enjoyed it and to be seeking answers. He met the missionaries later that week seemed to learn a lot and get more questions. He has read up through Jacob in the Book of Mormon and met with the missionaries for the second time three weeks later, some questions answered, and was invited to and decided to be baptized! He gets deployed on Jacob's birthday on the 15^th (or maybe before if he gets called up for predeployment), and he'd rather be baptized here than in the Red Sea with a branch in Saudi Arabia, so pray things work out.



Twinners Nathan and Amanda (Amanda is a good friend in the ward). They both have the last name, White, and both have Jewish ancestry. Cute :)



<>

Nathan and I. No skirt will keep me from climbing trees in the rain, it's unfortunate I started to split the seem though :)



Here's a humorous war story Nathan told while talking with a group of his “boys” from Elders' Quorum and others of us. Nathan said one time in Afghanistan, they had piled together all the IEDs, nitrogen fertilizers, and other explosives and bomb making materials they had found on patrol. No one wanted to wait for the bomb squad people (he said some acronym I didn't recognize) to come dispose of it so they decided to detonate it themselves. Sort of stupid, but sounds like fun, right? They went five football fields away, five, and detonated it. They saw a bright light, everyone had time to say, “Whoa,” and then a wave of heat and sound knocked them flat on their backs. All of them concussed, all of them bleeding noses, bleeding ears, and I think all them whooping because what came next was a big mushroom cloud billowing high in the sky. Their commanding officer, who I guess had left them alone for far too long, came yelling, “Was that a daisy cutter?” which is the bomb right below a nuke, “WHO ORDERED THAT BOMB?” The marines all said, “uhh, I'm concussed, I-uh-can't remember.” But the commanding officer thought it was really cool and just chalked it up to "accidental detonation" for when his superiors came asking. A superior did come asking. A colonel drove up, that's the rank right below a general for those less aware like me. “Marines. Was that you?” indicating the explosion. They all had to nod, that is if they could hear him through their bleeding ears. “I saw that from my tent....,” he said, “...That was awesome. You marines are all right.”

That does sound like soooooo much fun. I would have loved to be there, concussed ear drums and all, despite being FIVE football fields away. Hysterical.

more tree climbing in the rain

Storms and the 4th

This was a crazy week for weather in DC! Friday night I was coming

back from the temple to the surprising sound of strangers talking

together in the metro :) People were getting storm updates from each

other. When I got off at my stop, there was a beautiful downpour,

lightning, and thunder! I felt good about walking home and soooooo

excited to be in a storm! The lightning ended up scaring me until I

found a downed power line and, imbued with a mission, turned back in

the lightning to find and notify a police officer. After that, I

wasn’t scared. I took another way home and lingered with neighbors as

I saw how strong the wind must have been!

My landlady and roommate were gone, so I thoroughly enjoyed changing

into warm, dry clothes and eating tomatoes and toast while watching

the storm and the news.

Lucky these didn’t fall on houses.

Abby, my cousin, came down from NYC to help her brother, my other

cousin, Jon, pick out furniture for his new apartment.

We went to Arlington National Cemetery to see the Marine Sunset

Parade. My friend, Nathan, was in it somewhere, but we didn’t find

him.

Look how the Iwo Jima statue is larger than life and portrays

brotherhood and sacrifice. I’ve noticed Nathan frequently hits on

those three themes whenever he talks about the Corps, which is always.

I wonder if those are common themes throughout the Marines.

On the way to church, Abs and I rocking the 80’s look. A lady on the metro asked if we were

twins. She is, I’m not ;)

Fourth of July was grand. I substitute nannied for my friend so she

and her mom could catch a Nats game. The kids were cute and the house

was interesting. They didn’t have power, so were staying at

grandparents’ house. I spent naptime examining the photos on the wall.

The grandparents had pictures of them with Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld,

Dick Cheney, and every president from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush.

There were even a couple of Ronald Regan receiving kisses on the cheek

from their little daughters. Apparently, grandma had been appointed an

assistant secretary in USAID and grandpa had worked in disarmament

during the 80s. It surprised me that the grandparents are Jewish but

they apparently rub shoulders with the poster children forthe Neocon

Hall-of-Famers or Hall-of-Shame-ers, however you look at it. That

broke my traditional demographic assumptions!

Then Abby, Jon, Nathan, and I met up on the mall. I wanted to do the
traditional DC thing, so we waded through the hot humidity, went to
Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorials, the last
two of which are among my favorites here. It got finally got cooler,
so we camped out and talked at the WA Monument. I glee-ed for 15,
glorious minutes as we watched and felt the fireworks explode to music
on the National Mall! It was exhilarating, like being in the lightning
storm but without the nervous checks to make sure your hair isn’t
standing up, about to complete a circuit ;)

Nathan, Thomas, and I

Motto of my life

Oh America, Land of the Free 

To DC and Beyond!!

So much has happened and changed as I've come home from Jordan last Christmas, completed my last semester at BYU, and moved to DC for internships and grad school. I care about all of you and want to share what's been going on. Believe it or not, the following are abridged highlights and I wrote them in short chunks so you can read and leave for later as much as you like. I'd love to talk to any of ya'll about questions you have, so call or leave comments!:)

Me, Esther and Griffin Olsen, and Will Hussman. The boys were two of our TAs on the study abroad and all three plus our third TA are doing CASA, the best Arabic study abroad available to English speakers, that's what I'm told at least :)

This is Julia, my old boss at the MTC. She is one of a kind and so inspirational. 

-19-20 April – Graduation: Mom, Dad and Andrew came and it was great hanging out with them, I felt joyful camaraderie lining up with my friends from the Arabic study abroad, some of whom are now in Egypt with CASA, and how interesting to be basically done.

-21 April – Marathon and visiting Tyler and Casey for Conner's baby blessing: I ran it injured and came in at 3:55, I look how I felt, it was relaxing to hang at Tyler and Casey's house, Taigan is a ball of energy and loud noises :) and Tyler and Casey have made a great home together.

-May – MTC: I have loved working at the Missionary Training Center. My missionaries reminded me a lot, either directly or by just being them, that it is the best job ever. This is my last district. I love the missionaries so much and have the habit of EEEEK!-ing every time I see a pair on the street and have a huge desire to reach out and help them! :) I know the message they share is true and I am humbled by their selfless sacrifice to share it. I've been trying to help them everyday. My boss, who also was a missionary with me in the mission I served in, let me stay at the MTC indefinitely until I heard about a job in DC. She is so nice and because of that, I got to work through Friday and start work in DC on Tuesday. It'll be hard to beat going into a work everyday where you get to teach and bear testimony to called servants of God who want to learn and serve. It rejuvenated me everyday. I'm so grateful I got to work with those missionaries and all my coworkers too! That was one of the best and most instructive experiences of my life. It'll follow me forever.

-22 May – Moving to DC: I got accepted to a full-time, unpaid internship with the State Department and wanted to be able to at least pay for living expenses while working this summer, but didn't know how. I found out how when I called my old roommate and good friend, Rachel Ebeling. She was leaving her paid, part-time internship at Diplomatic Language Services (DLS), where she helped with editing the English portions of language curriculums prepared for the special forces. I applied, they accepted me, their schedule conflicted with the schedule the State Dept had for me, I emailed and emailed and emailed, finally, my State Dept. boss got back to me and kindly consented, “We can work around your schedule.” I told DLS, they said, “Can you be here next week?” The next day I had my ticket and the next week I was in DC sleeping on Rachel's couch!

 -25-27 May Memorial Day Weekend – NYC with Alison and Abby: Alison, a friend from Provo, decided on a whim to join me on my trip back East! We needed a place to say the first weekend, Memorial Day, and thought, “Why not stay with Abby in New York?” One bus ride later, Abs and I were reunited again! Abby tried to get me to kiss one of the many Navy guys in town for Fleet Week, Alison met a boy she likes, we walked everywhere in the rain and heat and loved it, talked a ton, and I got to see Lizzie pregnant. I love visiting NY because Abby is there. :)

-7-9 June – STERLING AND KIERSTIN AND FAMILY!! in Charlotte, NC: Sterling and Kierstin moved from CT to NC and the plan was for me to watch their three CUTE kids while they looked for a house. When I got there, they had just closed on a house, so we got to spend lots of time together, going to the NC museum, seeing their house and Mesha's future school, and swimming. I let Mesha and Griffin climb me like squirrels climb trees and Anya was as cute as (and resembling) a cabbage patch kid. I also really enjoyed just relaxing and talking with Ster and Kier. I also got to see Ameila Guffey, a sister from my MTC district and mission. That was a laugh filled night :)

Me and Amelia (Sister Guffey) crossing the state line into South Carolina and adding another state to my list.

-10 June – The Greyhound bus from Richmond to DC: I started eavesdropping on a marine and a sailor while waiting in line to board the third leg of my trip home from NC. I was eavesdropping because the marine was talking about his experiences in Afghanistan and I love hearing war stories. The marine's name is Nathan White and he's from Las Vegas. He sat next to me on the bus, I listened all about Afghanistan, he invited me to do something that day, I said I'm busy and with a lot of desire to invite and not much thinking, invited him quite fluidly to church that day. He came! All three hours, met the bishop, mission president, and missionaries, commented in both Sunday School and Priesthood. He had apparently been seeking to know more about God. He met with the missionaries that week and continues to investigate. I loved my time in Utah and my entire college and mission experience, but after seven years in Mormontah-o, I was so excited to be in a place without a majority church population and have more friends outside the church and more opportunities to share this gospel that's blessed my life so much.

A work party for a departing coworker. Great food and great people!

-Recently – at work at FSI: Getting to know my friends at work, I'm struck with oh how much the world needs the gospel. I've taken it's blessings as natural and for granted.

-Now – WORK IS SO COOL: I work two jobs, 50 hours/week, and take one class two nights a week for 3 hours at a time. Within the State Dept, I work at their school, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) with the Near East/North Africa section. This means that when we're not helping prepare syllabi for the classes our boss teaches, we are free to attend any class, which are all geared to train diplomats for their posts, and I usually attend classes for those going to the Middle East...do you understand how awesome that is for me?? I get to attend INTERESTING classes for free! It's learning without homework!!! It is wonderful. Even if I'm not listening to the authors of some of the coolest readings I had at BYU learning about Iraqi Insurgency and U.S. Counterinsurgency, the random people I meet everyday is just so stimulating in concert with the rest of my surroundings. Example: on the shuttle from Main State to FSI, I met a friendly army officer who works on Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan and Iraq. I peppered this friendly soldier with questions about what he's found that works and what're the biggest obstacles in getting PRT's to work. I then go to DLS where my editing work let's me listen to the news all day and hear about the environment in Afghanistan these PRTs are being implemented in, and then at night I go to my Peace Strategy and Conflict Resolution class and place this real time project in the context of past peace-making attempts and current theories. I LOVE this atmosphere and what I get to do here in DC!

-23 June – A Piece of Moment: Saturday, on a warm, slightly humid DC night, I was walking around the Washington monument at twilight, listening to a marine (Nathan) talk about how he deals with war, while glimpsing out of the corner of my eye a teenager getting her picture taken with a rainbow, gay-pride flag.... That's the context I live in! It's exciting and challenging and dynamic and always updating and changing. It's full of a dynamic mixture of unresolved social issues, real time politics that can be influenced, and war and current events, plus culture (I've been speaking Spanish everyday this week at work). It reminds me of the movie Forrest Gump where the viewer is plunged into the major social and political issues of the day through the music and characters' lives, however, this is the context of the 2010s and I get to live in it and feel like it's so accessible. I love it here!

I hope you all are doing fantastic and I'll start calling ya'll and seeing how you're doing. Thank you for all your love and for keeping me in touch with you and you're families. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! MWAH MWAH :)