the jerusalem story

let me tell you the story about me trying to get the heck to jerusalem.

i first heard about the byu jerusalem program in 9th grade when my friend told me stories of his sister who just got back from there. up until that point, it honestly never occurred to me that the jerusalem i read about in the scriptures was still a city. (ya. i'm retarded. shut it.) 

i thought about how cool it would be to go, but i didn't look into it until my first semester of college. i was so happy to find out that byu-idaho students could apply, too. but my happiness was crushed when i figured out it was $10,000. so i forgot about it and decided to go to china instead, which was a quarter of the cost. once, in china, we were talking about the places we want to go the most, and when i said jerusalem without even thinking, i realized how much i do want to go and that i could make it happen.

i got back from china and concluded that i probably should settle down and not take any more time off school. but i think it's pretty much a rite of passage for college students to have the travel bug, so i decided that this fall i would go to ukraine with sarah. long story short, it was going to be free (plus stipends) and i figured that i would be an idiot to pass up a free semester of travel with my best friend. i was really excited. but i started having bad anxiety about it. i just wasn't feeling good about it. so i cried and dropped out and thought of jerusalem. maybe i was supposed to go to jerusalem in the fall? i spent all winter working and working and working to save up money and then it came time to apply........and i didn't get in. and i cried. but the woman at byu told me to keep applying because it's all luck of the draw and since there is a high acceptance rate, my chances of getting rejected again were low.

so this summer, i applied to go this upcoming winter. perfect! i won't be in school anyway, so i wouldn't have to miss a semester! i was so anxious to hear back from them that for a week, i sat out on the sidewalk every day waiting for the mail to come. my mom was worried that i was getting my hopes up too high. the letter finally came and.......i didn't get in. so i cried. (this seems like a theme to my story.)

i wasn't sure if i could handle getting rejected a third time, but realized that i had to keep trying or else i for sure won't go to jerusalem! so i decided to apply for this summer. all semester long, i've been thinking of the deadline, november 28th. gotta get my application in by november 28th. last week, i went home for thanksgiving and started getting my application together. i checked again to make sure the deadline was the 28th and.......i had been wrong. it was the 18th. a week earlier. i had missed the deadline. so what did i do? i cried of course. i cried to my mom about how the universe does not want me to go to jerusalem. (i promise i don't cry a lot. i'm pretty sure most of my tears are jerusalem related.)

but my parents are superheroes and while i pitied myself and said there was nothing to be done and there was no use calling the jerusalem center, they called anyway and found out that since not very many people had applied and they didn't have enough people on the waiting list, they were going to keep accepting applications for the waiting list for another week. i faxed over my application yesterday and now i am on the waiting list. several people drop out every semester, so my chances are pretty good, but i'm not getting my hopes up.

right before i faxed in my application a few days ago, i went to devotional on campus and guess what the topic was? patience. the speaker (who is my old english professor) started off by telling a story of always wanting to go to jerusalem with byu. she saved up her money, applied, got accepted....and then the program was cancelled a few days before she left. she was devastated. but the program opened a year later and she reapplied. she got in and since the tuition was cheaper that semester, she had some money left over to go on another study abroad with the byu-idaho humanities program. the point was, she looked back on that experience and realized that her plan was different than what actually happened, but it turned out so much better for her. not that heavenly father particularly cares about where we travel, but when things don't go according to our plan, we need to have patience while his plan is being unfolded and be accepting of those changes in our lives.

i seriously just gawked at the big screen the whole time. i swear people always say that a talk was written for them, but you guys. this talk was written for me.

here's the thing. looking back, i'm glad i didn't go to ukraine or jerusalem this semester. i've had an awesome few months. i got to see ben for the first time in two years, i figured out my major, and i started dating a really darling boy :) all of which i would have otherwise missed out on.

so i'm not saying if i wait patiently, i'll get to go to jerusalem in the summer. maybe not getting accepted has been coincidence. or maybe it is part of his plan. i don't know. maybe i need to spend more energy on being patient and less energy crying. (ha. ha.) maybe i'll go and have a great life-changing experience. maybe i won't go and something better will happen. whatever happens, there's the jerusalem story. and i commend you for reading all of it.

the end (or not....i hope.)