Authentic Persian food, story telling and singing the Farsi version of 'Happy Birthday' were all a part of the Farsi classes' dinner at their professors' house Wednesday night.
Hooshang and Mary Farahnakian, who team-teach two Farsi classes at BYU, decided to host the dinner.
The dinner is an opportunity for the students to practice the language in a traditional Farsi-speaking home, Mary said.
Farsi - also known as Persian - is the language of Iran, it is also widely spoken in Afghanistan and parts of Oman, United Arab Emirates and Tajikistan.
While it is an indo-european language, in the same family as English, it is hard because it uses Arabic script writing, said Broc Parker, a Farsi student majoring in business management.
'The class is fantastic,' Parker said. 'Hooshang and Mary are the best teachers at BYU.' The Farahnakians grew up in Iran, but fled the country to the United States when the revolution broke out in 1981.
Hooshang was not allowed to leave Iran, so he escaped to Turkey where he was put in jail and given the choice to go back to Iran or stay in jail in Turkey - he chose jail in Turkey.
Because he had no passport, Hooshang could not flee to America to join his wife and two sons. The family contacted Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was able to bring Hooshang to the United States as a political refugee.
The Farahnakians moved to Provo because a BYU professor had spoken in one of Hooshang's college classes in Iran. Hooshang had been curious about BYU ever since.
'We came not knowing anything about the LDS religion or culture,' Mary said. 'We found our Lord here at BYU.'
The Farahnakians converted to the LDS Church and now both teach at BYU.
Hooshang teaches Farsi classes with Mary, who is a professor in the theater and media arts department and designs costumes for the department.
The Farahnakians used their experience with the language to help the church translate October's general conference into Farsi.