Week 3: Synagogues, rocks, and propinquity

     Every week just keeps getting better and better. It feels like I’ve been here for three months already but it’s only been three weeks! Wow, this is the best. I have had some amazing experiences thus far. Here’s a summary of my week. 

     Sunday- Free Day! A bunch of us went to the Israel Museum. They have some of the oldest artifacts ever to be found there. It was huge and absolutely beautiful. My favorite was the Jewish section. Their rugs, and art and clothing and pots and everything is so beautiful. I am amazed at their ability to create such beauty in the world.  Here are some of my other favorite works from the museum!

 

I think these are very beautiful classical sculptures. It's just amazing how these people could carve out of marble! 

A recreation of the Temple Mount during the time of Herod (2nd time the temple was rebuilt) 

A color wall that i was obsessed with! 

Later that day Jenny, McKenna and I spent time with grandpa in the city! It was such a blast like always with gramps. My roommates loved him too because he’s just amazing and can seriously make anything possible. We had some fun adventures that day. If you really want to hear details on that you’ll have to ask him or me in person J We traveled to a lot of fun places though and finally ended up in the Armenian quarter where we walked down a very quiet street and just sat and thought for a second about everything. It was so peaceful. I felt the spirit so strong today. I love the gospel. I love that I am a part of this church because I am SO Happy. I am grateful for the knowledge that I have about God’s eternal love for his children. I love all of God’s children, including the Jews, the Muslims and just everyone else. This trip has really led me to deep thoughts about my testimony and my religion.  

Monday was field trip day! We went to the Israelite temple and Beersheba. Both just a pile of rocks that we studied for a couple hours. But very significant rocks!! Haha. The Israelite temple was especially amazing because this was a temple build, used and buried after the Israelites left. They buried it very neatly. They didn’t just throw dirt in, but they laid down the pillars and carefully filled it in with dirt. That was very symbolic of their respect for their temple. We also got to stand in the Holy of Holies. Probably the closest thing we will get to standing in a Holy of Holies. I could seriously write forever on the history and scriptural references but that would bore the reader and I just really don’t have time for that!

McKenna and I at Tel Arad 

The next place we went to was Beersheba. It was extremely likely this is the location (or close to) the location where Moses lived when the Lord visited him and told him to take Isaac to the mountain to sacrifice him. We had to wear hard hats because we got to go underneath the city and see the well they dug by hand! It was amazing. 

Bailey and I with our fancy hats on! 

Going underground to the well 

Good times with good kids! 

A great portion of the rest of the week was spent inside the JC studying. Yeah, sometimes it’s difficult to study but it’s worth it. I learned a great deal about creating a balance between an exegetical and eisesical method of studying the scriptures including the principle of propinquity. Don’t worry about it, Brother Belnap just assigned a paper that seriously took everyone twenty hours to write. But it was indeed helpful in my life so that’s good!

Besides the homework I went out one day and played soccer with some Muslim kids, that was way fun! They loved us and one of them really wanted me to add him on Facebook haha. A bunch of us girls also went to the mall in between classes. It was nice to just get out and spend some money on new clothes. You don’t realize the limited outfit choice here, but I would say it is a humbling experience. My favorite part about the wall was the pastry shop! I found a delicious muffin thing that ended up being a warm lava cake when I cut into it—heaven!! We also went to a Jewish Synagogue service for Shabbat. Listening to them sing and recite passages was very beautiful! This was an orthodox/feminist synagogue so it was very interesting. The men and women are separated as they would be in an orthodox meeting, the rituals are the same, they practice with preciseness and exactness, but what was different is they would switch off between a woman and a man leading the service. It was an overall life changing experience spiritually from me. That I could go into great detail as well if I had time!

Sunday night frosting fight!! 

I could write much much more but I’ve got to cut it short. I leave for Turkey in the morning (that would be 3 1/3 hours from now!!).

Stay tuned for some SWEET pictures from Turkey!!!!