Week 5:Roasting Marshmallows on the Roof and McDonalds

The Payne family isn't truly happy unless a fire is involved, and marshmallow take it to a whole new level!

Last Saturday we roasted marshmallows on our roof. The kids loved it! 

This is where living in a cement house is nice! I would never build a fire on top of a house in the states! 

Hyrum really liked his marshmallow. 

Hannah roasting hers. 

 Katie is a good helper with Hyrum. He really wants to touch it.

 The sunset was so beautiful that night. I wish I'd been able to capture it better. 

 Hyrum's favorite place to be is outside! He cries when he's not allowed out.

The only problem with fires here is that it is hard to find wood in Jordan.  

Last night we went to the City Mall. It's huge! I've never seen a place with so many giant malls. While there we went to McDonald's for dinner.  We've tried quite a bit of Arabic food, but sadly the spices are not to our liking.  I'm not usually a fan of McDonalds, but holy cow was it good! 

We get a lot of attention where ever we go. The workers there treated us like royalty. They brought us extra chairs, a high chair, balloons for each of the kids, and a stack of little activity books for the kids. 

After, we got the kids each an ice cream cone. Hyrum loved his. I know big surprise!

 Messy Michael! 

Hannah won for the messiest!  

The ice cream was like whipped cream.  

It was interesting to see an Arabic version of Mcdonalds. The uniforms for the women included hijabs (the head scarves the women wear). 

It was a fun evening. There are so many neat things here, but I find I miss America!

Week 4 Adventures- Ikea and Madaba

This week I needed something to keep the little kids happy while I home schooled the older 4 so I made a blanket/ table hammock. Hannah loved it. Hyrum not so much. 

This was just a pretty bird I saw in our yard.  

We have several "pet" cats. Hyrum likes to sit on the kitchen counter to see them. This is Dotty, one of the regulars (they come even though we don't feed them). 

 So I've always wanted to live by an Ikea store and never have, until now. I never thought my first time would be in the Middle East! I just think it's funny. 

We went after work on Tuesday. On our way out we saw that they had cheap ice cream cones (Sadly there's no good ice cream in this country). Josh got some cones and coins. Then you take them over to a machine. You.You put a cone in the holder, put your coin in, pick your flavor, and it raises the cone, fills it with ice cream and lowers it back down. The kids loved their ice cream before they even tasted it (Actually it was so awful this ice cream-aholic couldn't eat it, even though I was quite desperate).  My kids however do not have developed taste buds yet and thought it was great. 

Hyrum loved it, as you can see. 

On Wednesday after lunch we went to Madaba. We loved it! First we went to The Church of The Apostle. It's from 578 AD. The mosaic inside were very cool. 

Our guide would spray water on the tiles and it would bring out all the color.  

 You can see such a difference between the wet tiles and dry. 

The family after our tour at the entrance.  

We found this little streets full of shops that looked neat. We loved it! People love our big family here. They all tell us we are like them. We are planning on making a mosaic and needed to buy some tile. We were directed to a shop where an old lady helped us. She showed us what to do also. We enjoyed looking at all the mosaics in her shop. I love how friendly all the people are here! 

The Church in Amman

The Sabbath day is on Friday in Jordan. Our branch meets in this building. We have the whole 1st floor (in America it would be the second floor. The first floor is always called ground floor, and the next the first floor.) We park under the building and take the elevator. The kids love it! I love that as soon as the doors open it looks and feels like an LDS church. There are about 60 people in the branch. We have a lot of BYU students here until December (probably 50-60 more people). We meet from 9:30- 11:50. An Arabic branch meets right after us. Josh and I both got callings on our first Friday here. I'm in nursery, and Josh is the Gospel Doctrine teacher. We both are enjoying our callings. I went from a nursery with about 30 kids and 6 leaders to a nursery of 3-6 (2 of mine, and 1 that's not really old enough). 

I love that the church is as strong as it is in a country that doesn't allow missionaries. Even though Jordan is a country that is not hostile to Christians, life can be very hard for Arabs who join the church. I admire the strength of the people who are willing to give up everything for Christ. It makes me stop and think about how deep my dedication is. I've never had to choose to follow Christ over family, country, marriage, or even death, It makes me so sad that many of the middle eastern countries will not allow their people to convert to Christianity, if they do they are killed. I love our Savior. I hope someday the people through out the middle east will know what I know.