This quote by an apostle made me cry for the first time in 6 years.  I was flying home from the center at which he spoke these words, leaving forever the program to which he was referring: the BYU-Jerusalem study abroad program.  I plan to really take his words to heart in as many ways as is constructively possibly.  The first is a list I plan to continually update, a condensed list of Things I’ve Learned Whilst in the Holy Land.  

For an intro to the program, this post is a nice way to launch into things.

Some of my favorite places we visited are the Dead Sea, the best-preserved Roman city outside of Italy at Jerash, the world renowned wonder of the world–and famous place in Indiana Jones lore–Petra, my 2nd favorite Roman city of Beth She’an, the much-changed city of Bethlehem, and then there is, of course, EGYPT!

But the most important thing I will take away from my experience in the BYU-Jerusalem program is definitely the spiritual principles that have embedded themselves in my heart.  Some of those include the power of money over one’s heart, the power of a positive attitude even during the holocaust, the ENORMOUS confidence that I can and should have continually in my life because of the promises and power of God, and the danger of complacency creeping into our lives so as to become blind to our spiritual stagnation, how personal revelation can become a reality to anyone–even myself,  how to cope with satan-sent frustration, and the total victory of Christ over death–and how that means that any tragedy is not only temporary but also ultimately unimportant… because He lives.

Stay tuned… I have a lot more to share about what this summer means to me.  In the meantime, though, below is an interview of me giving my thoughts on the program as well as a playlist of videos I took while there.  For a complete list of videos, visit our semester’s dedicated youtube page, http://www.youtube.com/BYUJ2010