Weeks 8 & 9 -- More of my Incredibly Awesome Summer

Am i really half way done with Jerusalem?? I cannot believe it. It goes so incredible fast. But i am enjoying every second of it. The more and more i am here, the more i love Jerusalem. Here's a run-down of my past two weeks!

Monday- Class and FHE. We are making a music video with our FHE group so be prepared for that to come out in a few weeks.

Tuesday- Class again... we do a LOT of classes if you haven't noticed... but after class and homework we got to go to the Light Festival in the Old City!!! IT WAS SO COOL. The old city is pretty run down so it was spectacular to see such modern technology in a place like this.

Wednesday- This day we went to Neot Kedumim. This was a biblical garden, seems kind of weird but it was probably one of my favorite field trips by far!! We got to learn about all the different symbols that are in the Bible: the fig tree, the almond tree, the well, etc.

One of my favorite symbols from that field trip was the symbolism of the shepherd. We got to actually herd some real live sheep and it was actually harder than I thought. We were put in groups of 10 people with about 20 sheep and we were given particular directions on where we could take the sheep. Some of the sheep were so stubborn and refused to move, others were running away, and some just went straight to the location. It was hard enough with 10 people, i can't imagine how much patience it would require for one shepherd alone to watch after all these sheep. This put a whole new twist on the parable of the Lost Sheep. God is our shepherd and he cares for each and every one of us. Sometimes God has to work with stubborn people, and sometimes he works with people who stray, but He is willing to come all the way back, in the sweltering heat to find the one who is lost. God cares so much about each and every one of us. This also reminded me of President Holland's quote that says, "Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with, that must be terribly frustrating to Him but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work." We then went and make a camp fire and made our own pitas from scratch, lentil soup, and caramelized seeds/nuts. It was delicious! And i love making camp fires!

After this we made our own drugs... oh i mean, Hyssop. Hahaha.  But we literally smashed up some dry leaves and put them in a small bag. Looked suspicious! But they are actually just yummy spices!

Thursday- Class again. And that night we had a Seder Dinner. For those who don't know: this is a Traditional Jewish dinner that is held once a year. It's all about the Exodus, the story about the Israelites come back from Jerusalem after being in Egypt, and the story of Moses. I won't go into all the symbolism because it would take way too long, but it was so awesome! It's a very structured meal and we got to sing a lot of Jewish songs.

Friday- After Class we had a roommate out to the city day. We try to do these a couple times a month. This time we went out and bought some cool gypsy pants. This was my first time encountering a very aggressive shop keeper. I just pointed at one the pants he had at his store and before i knew it was bargaining for these pants. He started at 80 shekels, i said 30. 70-35-60-35-50-35-40...he stuffed it in my bag and said 40 Shekels and left with my money to get change. I stood there speechless.. haha. Welp, i'm getting these pants. They're pretty sweet actually so i won't complain, but they were definitely not worth 40 shekels.

That night we had folk dancing with the funnest dancer. I LOVE DANCING so this was a treat for sure!!!

Saturday- Church is always so amazing. It's the day where i really reflect on my experience here in Jerusalem. They are my favorite days. I also love primary, we get the cutest kids in the world. I got to go to Relief Society in the 3rd hour. It's really cool how we have so many visitors from so many places around the world. Our teacher only spoke Russian and a bunch of the other members only spoke Spanish... so, the teacher spoke in Russian, Hannah translated to English, then Kathy translated from English to Spanish. BYU rocks for that reason- no where else do you get a bunch of returned missionary girls and boys who are fluent in so many languages.


And now the start of a veeeerrry long week of FINALS.
Sunday--- studied all day.

Monday--- studied all day. That night a bunch of us went and saw "The Fault in our Stars" in West Jerusalem. The movie theater was SO awesome and i got to wear my skinny jeans.. heehe... i forgot i have a figure.The movie was awesome too! I thought the overall message was so moving, to just love life and enjoy it! The boys said they didn't cry but pretty sure some of them shed a few tears! haha.

This ice cream at the movie theater was to die for

Tuesday--- studied but also took a break to go to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church of Mary. Luckily we had Hannah again with us so she could speak Russian. It was beautiful! This is the church in the Bible that has the Gold Onion looking things on the top it!

Wednesday--- Studied all day
* Palestine Test
* Old Testament Test
*Hebrew Test due

Thursday---- Studied all day
* Israel Test

Friday--- Studied all day
* Field Trip Test
* Old Testament paper due
After we finished out test, about 10pm, a bunch of us took the couches outside and watched the fireworks (not uncommon to see fireworks) and blasted country music! We also played some charades which was a blast!

Saturday- Again, another great Sabbath day! First of all i got to see the Richardson family which was so awesome! I love seeing people from home. I got to go to Marriage Prep which is WAY awesome! We have a couple who is engaged here (they were engaged before they came) and they have the BEST insight!


Sunday- Today! Probably one of the funnest things i have done so far! A group of us went and Hiked En Gedi. It's a hike right above the Dead Sea. It was about 110 degrees on a 5 hours desert hike but there were waterfalls and rainforests along our way! It was SO awesome. And we got to be at the Lowest point in the world!!

And we are off to Jordan tomorrow morning!! Have a great week!

Week 7: Water!!!!

Hello Friends! Thanks for reading my bloggy. Can I just say right now, this week was the BEST! This is already a summer that can’t be beat! It’s nice to be done with midterms and just party party party!! We have done some pretty spectacular things starting with the Hollocaust museum on Sunday. They have a Children’s museum at the beginning which was incredibly moving. It was a pitch black room with a bunch of lights so you looked like you were in space, and over the intercom the names and ages of the children who were killed during the holocaust were read. Pictures also flashed among the stars. It was like the Hunger Games… but extremely sad because you knew it was real. I was crying so hard I’m glad it was dark. That set the tone for the rest of the day as we went through this incredible museum that led you through the path of Hollocuast. It was extremely informative and moving. Later that day a bunch of us went to the Markets again in West Jerusalem, including the famous Ben Yehudda street. It was a blast!

 

This demonstrates the Zionist idea during the Hollocuast, that of fighting for what you believe and fighting against the bad stuff that has happened to them .

This is the opposite of the first, this is the idea of being passive and just letting stuff happen to you because it's God's will. Both opposite but both huge issues for the Jews during the Hollocaust and still today. 

The Markets! 

This is like the Betos of Israel. A falafel with french fries in it!

Monday we went to Tel Aviv and played on the beach. This was SO MUCH FUN!!! We got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea and play on the beach. We even rented out beach cruisers and biked around. Then a group of us went and got some delicious ice cream! SOOO GOODJ Every single one of us also got sunburned haha. Now we are all officially very tan!

They have these "big kid" play grounds that is really  just a gym in the park. It's hilarious! People actually go though. 

 

Tuesday we studied a lot. But in the evening a bunch of us walked down to West Jerusalem and ate at the yummiest waffle place in town.

Wednesday again was a lot of classes and then we went out and played again, this time we explored the Mount of Olives so just what was around where we live. There are some incredible things just about everywhere you go, there are also an incredibly large amount of different churches and religions everywhere you go. The first place we went to was the Church of Ascension, this is owned by the Muslims but where people believe Christ ascended to heaven. Next we found a Russian Orthodox church and watched part of their service. This was located in a convent which was very interesting to see. After we got kicked out (once they realized we weren’t part of their religion), we went and snuck into another church. Haha. Then we went to the tomb of the prophets where it is believed several prophets were buried. We had to walk through only with a candle, it was pretty awesome. That night we got to meet and talk to a Holocaust survivor, Elias Feinzilberg. He even had his number still on his arm from Auschtwiz. That really hit home after visiting the museum earlier that week.

Church of Ascension 

Russian orthodox Church 

Reflection of the stain glass windows- beautiful. 

All of us with Elias Feinzelberg (middle)

Thursday was another field trip and probably my favorite. We went to see the city of David, the first city that was built here in Jerusalem. Where the City of David was, is where the Temple Mount (Dome of the Rock) and the old city are today. It’s interesting to look at the oldest city walls and then come home and look out on those SAME city walls. We also got to walk in Zedekiah’s cave, a long, tight, low ceiling cave with water running through it. They build this as a water system in the David’s city during the reign of Zedekiah (David’s son) that flowed to a pool at the bottom. Luckily I’m not claustrophobic or too scared of the dark because we walked through a slit of a cave that had water up to my thighs. Some of us even turned all our lights off and did it in the dark. By far the funnest/scariest thing of my life. We also got to see the pool of Salom, which has HUGE significance in the scriptures. Found in John 7 and John 9 where Jesus put mud on the blind man’s eyes and told him to go wash off in the pool of Salom. Once he did, he was healed. Unlike many places in Jerusalem, we know for a FACT that this is the exact location of the pool of salom. After this blind man was healed he came back to his friends and it says he was unrecognizable. Do you know of someone who essentially partook of the living water of Christ and are now a completely different person? I know of certain people in my life who have had such a change of heart that they are different people to me. Overall, I hope I come back from this Semester here in Jerusalem unrecognizable. I hope that I can be changed here into a better person and continue to better myself when I get back.

all of us after the cave!!!! the water went up to our thighs. we were soaked

This is the pool of Siloam, where Christ put the mud on the eyes of the blind man. 

I thought this was awesome!! 

These are our chairs that looked like real pillows but they were made of concrete 

And to top off the great week we had an epic dance party!!!!!! I felt like I was at a stake dance again but it was so much fun!

Last but not least was Sunday- our trip to Eilat where we snorkled and had fun in the sun!!!!

This picture is priceless 

The group this semester doesn’t only study hard but we work out hard. We do running groups every other morning, cross fit three times a week and one of the guards is teaching a weight training class. The faculty told us we are the most active semester they’ve ever had. However, they did cut our ice cream to one bowl on Sabbaths, which stinks because we all love our ice cream! We still find our ways to get more… the cooks like us.  

Week 6: Markets, Midterms... and Caves

        This week is mostly pictures because I don’t have that much time to write and we pretty much just did midterms ALL week! We had straight 6 hours of class for 4 days in a row and I took 4 midterms! Also, I came down with terrible chills and a fever so that threw me off a bit. But we are DONE and boy am I ready to party.

Sunday was our free day. A group of us went and visited to Armenian church and went on the Ramparts walk. The Ramparts walk is a walk along the top of the city walls. It was awesome to see the city from a different perspective and to get a larger perspective on it all. It was awesome!! (I had already ran 7.5 miles that morning though so i could say i was EXHAUSTED) 

The Armenian church was absolutely beautiful, my breath was taken away. This picture makes it look bright but the inside was pretty dark. Oh and the smell... the incense. It's very interesting. 

A cute street we saw on our Ramparts walk 

A great group of friends on our walk

Some residence areas we also saw on the Ramparts walk 

       Monday was field trip day! We went and visited all the valleys of the Shephelah. We went to a lot of really cool valleys and views. My favorite was learning about the story of David and Goliath as we looked over the city of Elah. I don’t have too much to say about it except it was really awesome. At the end we got to throw rocks about David and Goliath, probably my favorite part!!

This place is a Pigeon House. They would store hundreds of pigeons in this shelter and use the poop from the ground to fertilize their plants. Gross, scary, and i guess pretty cool 

We got to go in so many awesome underground caves! Pictures don't do justice. All these caves are made out of chalk. It's crazy how they're still so strong. 

This was my favorite cave. It's out of rocks obviously, but it was HUGE!!!! And the acoustics were insanely good. 

here's my attempt to sling a rock like David... if the movie works, you'll see that i failed miserably. The rock went behind him, luckily i didn't hurt anyone. 

Friday night a bunch of us took the tram to West Jerusalem and bought the knock off food that they were getting rid of because it was almost the start of Shabbat (Sabbath). Jenny and I bought so many pastries and a falafel so yummy J I even got to practice some of my Hebrew words with the shopkeepers which was really fun! That night we had a movie night and we watched “Life is Beautiful”.

Studying, studying, studying.... at least my apartment is very peaceful! 

The Markets! And some yummy new treats. 

Jenny and i like a good falafel and "Jew"ce... ha, get it?

Hanging out at the JC is always a party! 

Today, Saturday (Sabbath), we went to the Garden tomb. I LOVE the Garden Tomb. The feeling that I have there is the same feeling that I get when I’m at the Sacred Grove. It’s super peaceful there, it’s a great time to reflect on life.

This is written on the inside of the tomb

Golgotha 

Have a great week J