Jerusalem book

So, I did not go to the JC in 99, I went in 2000.  But I just published a book about my semester there and am trying to get the word out.  Here is the press release for the book if you are interested!  Thanks.   Erin Tolman   Remembering the Holy Land: Erin Tolman Releases A View of Jerusalem   December 2, 2008 – Even eight years after returning to the United States, the view of Jerusalem’s Old City from the top of the Mount of Olives remained vivid in author Erin Tolman’s mind, as did the sound of gunfire and sirens which marked the beginning of the Second Intifada in September 2000.  Unable to let the memories remain only in her journal, Tolman wrote a series of thirty-eight vignettes describing her semester as a student at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies and titled the collection A View of Jerusalem.   The Holy Land is a place of spiritual and historical significance to millions of people.  Tolman, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and as a young college student of history, witnessed the sacredness and the violence which exist side by side in Palestine.   A View of Jerusalem begins on September 29, 2000 when Palestinian rioters and Israeli police clashed in the Old City and sparked a brutal conflict which lasted for years.  While Tolman and the other 175 students at the Jerusalem Center remained safe during the following two months, their study abroad experience changed dramatically at that point.    After opening her account with this historically pivotal day, Tolman contrasts life at the Jerusalem Center before and after the violence begins.  She visits the Garden Tomb, floats in the Dead Sea, walks on the Temple Mount, and describes the daily routines of the Jerusalem Center.  As hostilities erupt and continue, Tolman is able to explore parts of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt until she and the other students are sent home a month early and the Jerusalem Center closed its doors to students.  Those doors remained closed until January 2007 when forty-four students returned to study at the Center.   Steven L. Elgan created pencil drawings to accompany ten vignettes.  Among the illustrations included are The Jerusalem Center, The Dome of the Rock, St. John the Baptist Church, and the Church of Beatitudes.   A View of Jerusalem was published by Wordclay and officially released on December 1, 2008.   For more information, please go to A View of Jerusalem’s website at www.byujc.org

Amberly Draper Dattilo

It has been so fun seeing what everyone else has been up to, so I thought I would write too. I met my husband, Wil Dattilo, my senior year at BYU. We were married my first year of law school--we graduated at the same time and moved to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas so that Wil could do Teach for America. (Right on the border of Mexico and next to South Padre Island, it was amazing). He taught middle school science and I worked as an assistant attorney general for the state of Texas doing consumer protection and public health law. We moved to Houston a year and a half ago so that Wil could start medical school at Baylor. I am at home right now with our hilarious 2 and 1/2 year old, Owen, and our sweet 7 week old baby, Isaac. (Who was born the week of a hurricane and my husband's med school finals, whew!). I keep busy taking care of my boys and am in the process of starting a small law practice doing estate planning and business law.

I have wonderful memories of our semester in Jerusalem--it is so good to hear about what is going on in your lives!

Amberly Draper Dattilo

Angie Miller Wyatt

I have really enjoyed hearing from some of you! Can you believe it has been ten years? BYU Jerusalem was such an awesome experience. I feel so lucky to have had that opportunity. So this is what I have been up to....After coming home from Jerusalem I graduated from Ricks and worked as an RN in Provo. There I met my husband on a blind date. We were married in 2002 and now have three beautiful children. McKenna is 4, Ava is 2 and Jacob is 5 months. After living in Provo we moved to Pocatello and then Omaha where my husband attended Dental school. We now live in Kimberly, ID (near Twin Falls) and have enjoyed being close to our families. I worked in the float pool as a nurse at hospitals in Pocatello and also in Omaha but now just enjoy being at home with my kids. I do a preschool swap with my two girls and also a music class at the church once a week. I love to teach my kids and watch them learn and grow. As a family we love to be together and discover new things. We are hoping to get more into hiking and camping now that we are back in Idaho. Hope you all are doing well and that we hear from many of you soon!

Rachel Hicks Barth

After coming home from Jerusalem, I lived with five Jerusalem Center friends while we all attended BYU. We had some fabulous times together and managed to keep at least portions of our roommate group together until we all got married or graduated. I got my degree in International Studies with a minor in Near Eastern Studies. I started teaching social studies (mostly World History and Geography) at a residential treatment center for "at-risk" boys in Provo and I have been working there ever since. I teach students with emotional and behavior disorders who live at the school while they get treatment. It has been a great job for me and I've had a lot of interesting experiences.

I met my husband, Aaron, while working at my family's ranch in southern Utah. We were married four years ago and managed Regency apartments for 3 years before we bought a home in Lehi last year. We love traveling, and our favorite trip so far has been our summer trip to Europe. Jerusalem is up on the top of our list of places to go, so hopefully we get to go back there someday. In the meantime, we enjoy making frequent trips to Disneyland to get good use out of our annual passes.

It has been so great to read about what all of you are doing! Thank you for putting this together. I still think about Jerusalem all the time and how grateful I am for the time I spent there and the people I met. I hope you are all doing well and that we are able to get together soon.

Jerusalem

Here's an article about the Jerusalem Center. I think it might bring back some memories for all of us. Thanks for the link Shanda!

http://newsroom.byuh.edu/?q=node/1907

Matt Hughes

I'll just give a quick run down of what I've been up to since 99'. After Jerusalem I went to Utah State and spent about 5 1/2 years there. I graduated a few years ago with a degree in history, and after graduating I moved back to Salt Lake to look for a job. I got a job working for the Church and a couple months after that I met my beautiful wife-to-be while interviewing her for a position. Fortunately for me she was offered the job and a couple months later we began dating. I married Ellie Wolf on May 10, 2006 in the Salt Lake Temple. Six months ago we had our first child, a sweet little girl named Claire. At the moment I'm still working for the Church and enjoying being a father. Being a father is the greatest thing I've ever done in my life and we're looking forward to having more children some day. I'm also looking forward to reconnecting with those of you I have lost contact with. I regret not keeping in touch with very many people from Jerusalem. I'd love to hear from any of you. My email is mibshughes.dontaddthispart@gmail.dontaddthispart.com (to email me remove the "dontaddthispart"s out of the address, I'm trying to avoid spam at all costs). Take care and I'll see you at the reunion! Shalom!

Heidi Frazier Robinson

This is Heidi Frazier Robinson.  The last 10 years of my life have been great, and not at all what I expected them to be.

The summer after Jerusalem I went to Honduras with Brett Villinga and Joe Plicka as part of a Microcredit organization.  We worked most of our time there, but got to do some great scuba diving off one of the little islands and visit some of the ruins there.  When I came home I decided that I wanted to serve a mission and was called to the Brazil Ribeirao Preto mission.  I went back to BYU after my mission and spent the following 2 summers in Mozambique, a Portuguese speaking country in Africa, working with a Dutch nonprofit organization during the day, and taking classes at night in Mozambiquian literature, art and history.  I got to travel around to different countries in Africa and fell in love with each of them.  I saw some of the most beautiful places and had a hard time coming home. 

 I’ve had a bunch of interesting jobs since I graduated – working at a treatment center for women with eating disorders, teaching English in Taiwan, and working at a wilderness therapy program for at-risk youth.  That was an amazing experience – I worked there at the same time as Hailey Budge, my JC roommate, and I met my husband there.   Isaac and I have been married for 3 years and live in Gilbert Arizona.  I got my masters in Elementary Education and have been working as a 5^th grade teacher here, until our son was born last year.  Right now I am staying at home with Eli and we’re hoping to move to the Pacific Northwest soon.  I’m excited for a Jerusalem reunion, I think about our experiences there all the time.  We have a blog at robinson3.blogspot.comwith more family pictures.

Katie Rosenberg Ellsworth

This is such a great idea. I have been wondering what everybody has been up to. As for me, I graduated from nursing and went to work for Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo for a year. I returned home to Rigby and married my high school sweetheart, Brent, in the Idaho Falls Temple and we just had our 7 year anniversary. We have 2 children, Mikayla and Kye who are almost 5 and 2 years old, and I currently work in home health while my husband is finishing the Physician's Assistant program at Idaho State University. We live in Rexburg right now but hope to move after Brent graduates. Hopefully the reunion will come together, it will be great to see everyone again!

Angela Bingham Tomlinson

Hey everyone! It's me, Angela Bingham, now Tomlinson. After Jerusalem, I finished up school at BYU-I. In June 2000 I began working as a RN down in Provo. I reunited with a hometown friend-now sweetheart--Moe (Morgan) Tomlinson in January of 2001. On June 29, 2001 we were sealed in the Logan Temple. What an adventure our life has been since then!

In our married life we have lived in Logan, UT, Tremonton, UT, Jerome, ID, St. George, UT, Vancouver, WA, and Lancaster, CA. We have moved a total of eight times! We now have three wonderful children: Kenya Ilene turns six on September 21st, Naomi Elizabeth turned 4 on July 2nd, and Micah Preston turns 2 in March 2009. The family picture was taken in July of 2008.

Moe finished up schooling at USU in December of 2004 in the flight technology program. Moe has been a pilot since 1998, and a first officer pilot with Skywest Airlines since May of 2006.

I am currently working one 8 hour shift a week on a Behavioral Health Unit, yes that's right...I work on a locked down pyschiatric unit and absolutely love it! BUT I love being Mom the most. Life is good for us...there is NO WAY I can tell everything that has happened in the last 9 years...

We, Moe and I, just barely hiked Mount Whitney in 12.5 hours total on Monday, thus the picture! We try to go backpacking together at least once a year. I still love traveling by the way, but it's different now that I have children. We still take advantage of the flying benefits that come with being employed by an airline though!

I do have a blog, but it is private--I guess working on a pysche unit has made me a little more cautious, I have no problem with inviting my Jerusalem friends, I just need email addresses...

Hope all is going well in your lives...the funny is that lately I was having a great desire to reconnect with everyone from Jerusalem, but didn't quite know how. Then my mom ran into Angie Miller now Wyatt, and thus I now have a way! Thanks ladies--you were inspired! I vote for a ten year reunion!

Jerusalem Video

Hi guys,

Thanks for putting up the blog. I think it would be a great idea to get everyone together again after all these years. There are some people I have lost contact with who it would be great to see again. Right now I don't have the time to write up a paragraph and send some photos but recently I discovered that someone put the video that Ryan and Jenner made of our trip on Youtube. I thought you might be interested in putting it on the blog. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AUfw5ofIYY

Talk to you later.

-Matt Hughes (aka Mibs)

Matt Orton

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest;

Thank you Angie and Shanda for putting this together. It is so good to hear from everyone and how you are doing. I miss our Jerusalem experience and those Sunday field trips.

After graduating BYU I was recruited to work for Boeing in Seattle, WA in procurement and I have never left since. I had never been to the Pacific Northwest before, but fell instantly in love with it. I love the fact that you can be at the beach along the ocean one minute and in a short drive you can be at the top of the mountains in pine trees and glaciers the next. Everyone is invited to come and visit at mro38@hotmail.com.

My wife and I had both already graduated from BYU and were working when we first met. I was in WA and she was working in SLC. I was able to convince her that WA was better than UT and we were married that next year in November 2002. We have since added Seth to our family who is a busy two year-old and we recently found out that # 2 will be joining us in March 2009. More photos are available at: http://allaboutortons.blogspot.com/

Jerusalem was such a defining moment for me. So many great memories. It is my goal to one day go back and visit with my wife.

Keep those posts coming and if anyone has some good Fall Jerusalem 99 photos they want to share, lets see those too.

Matt Orton

Jennifer (Longmore) Bryce

After Jerusalem and graduating from the Ricks College Nursing Program, I worked in Provo at Utah Valley Hospital for a year. I then served a mission to Guatemala where I was the mission nurse in addition to being a regular missionary. After my mission, I returned home to Idaho Falls where I worked as a labor and delivery nurse for two years. After that, I decided to teach English in China through the ILP Program and ended up with Desiree (Harrison) Funk as my roommate. (She and I only kind-of knew each other in Jerusalem, then randomly ended up as roommates in China a few years later. What are the chances?!) After that semester, I returned to Provo where I met my husband, Jefferson Bryce. He had just graduated and helped start a company that does online reservations for bed & breakfasts. That was fun because until we had our first baby, we got to do some traveling and stay at some fun bed & breakfasts. We now have two girls. Hannah is almost two years and Leah is two months. We live in Payson and love it here!
I attached a picture from Leah's blessing, but we also have a blog with lots of pictures. It is www.jbrycefamily.blogspot.com. Hope everyone is doing great!

Linda Gregersen

The last 10 years of my life have been unusual, not exactly what I expected, but adventurous and educational, so I can't complain!
Shortly after Jerusalem, I graduated BYU, and went to Spain for a couple of months to work as a nanny on an organic farm on a little island called Mallorca. There, I discovered a passion for everything organic and have since become a bit of a health freak/new age hippie. (I still bathe, though, and shave my armpits.) Over the last few years, I've been traveling to Costa Rica during the winter to cleanse/fast and practice yoga at a rustic little jungle resort on the Nicoya peninsula. If you'd like to check it out, visit www.sunvacation.org. I'm going to be there from December to the end of February this year, and anyone's welcome to come for a visit! I'm including a few pics to tempt you. :)

Traveling has been a big part of my life over the years. I went to Africa a few years ago and did a humanitarian trip with a great group of folks. We helped build a school in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. That website is www.reachthechildren.org if anyone wants to know more about that organization. We visited orphanages, went on a safari and worked very closely with the locals. They were beautiful people. I highly recommend going over. I've since been volunteering with the African refugee community in Salt Lake. I didn't realize there were so many of them here. It's kept me pretty busy.

Currently, I live in Salt Lake. I've been into real estate investing for about 8 years now....had a business with a partner buying, fixing and selling houses back when the market was good for that. Now, I have a few rentals, and I sell properties locally as an agent. I live not far from downtown in a my own little house with a garden and really crappy grass I can't seem to get green. Any ideas?

I'm not married or divorced; no kids, but would like to start on that path. Until then, I have a the sweetest little dog who I spoil rotten and love like a child. :) He's so much easier than a child also. Is it really necessary to upgrade, I wonder? lol. I did get laser surgery on my eyes many years ago, so if you remember me with black rimmed glasses, they are no more, and my hair's gotten quite long. Other than that, you should recognize me!

I hope you are all well. I look forward to hearing about your lives and seeing your pictures.

Wishing you the best.

Linda Gregersen

See if you can find yourself & leave a comment when you do!