FREE DAY Excitement

Today was an amazing and incredible day. After class was finally over (the end of our last mid-term), the JC felt like it took a breath of fresh air. Lunch was the celebration. I ate 2.5 bananas and that never happens but I love bananas so so much. Then after lunch we went to the Rockafellor Museum, ate ice cream, got James a falafel (a pita, with fried chick peas, pickels, cucumbers, sometimes lettuce, hummus or another dressing, and french fries ontop. It is great and delicious. Then we went shopping in the old city. I purchased a couple of shirts so I don't have to wear an EFY shirt every other day. I have decided I am sick of them. :) I found Harry Potter in Arabic!!!Pretty much everyone went out into the city. It was great because we weren’t in a hurry and we didn’t have anything to stress about. it was really fun because we didn't have to hurry back to the center and we didn't have to worry about studying. We had tons of fun walking home because we played football/catch with a tied bags with our shirts inside. I was the photographer for the day because Carlee didn't bring her camera. It was a new and fun experience. I didn't get any great shots but I had fun trying. It was amazing. On the way back to the center we stopped at a couple of stores. I had the find of the century. I bought a box of honey nut cheerios for 10 shekles or $2.50. I needed and loved this break and Jordan will be such a great get away from school.

Sedar Meal

We had a Sedar Meal and it was incredible. It started at 5:30 Pm and didn’t finish until 9:30. It didn’t seem like it took forever though. It was cool because Ophir, our Jewish professor, led the sedar. We each had a sedar book to follow along with. It definitely opened on the opposite side of books in America. We sang the table of contents through before we did each step of the sedar meal. There were a number of people that sang or read certain portions of the presentation. The funniest was when Sam and Archi made a rap about the questions and answers with numbers.
I sat with Trevor and Christiane and enjoyed getting to know them. Trevor is actually looking into optometry. Christianne is still trying to decide what to study. Right now she is an exercise science, Health and wellness, major. Trevor is a biology major so we talked alot about the different classes and professors to take. My highlight of the night was Trevor teaching me how to pray in Spanish. It has been so fun to practice that. I definitely need to learn more nouns though so I can pray for more things.
The meal was huge and I was stuffed by the end of the night. We had fish for appetizer. Trevor was nice and ate mine. Then we had a really hot soup. It was actually some really good broth with a little bit of carrots and celery. It would have been amazing if it had chicken, noodles, and crackers. Then we had a salad. Then it was the main course with chicken, a little cheesy broccoli, carrots, and fried mashed potatoes. I’m sure they weren’t very good for me, but I did enjoy them. We had a fruit cup and various chocolates for desert. Oh yeah and you can’t forget the four glasses of grape juice you drink through out the night. It was a really neat experience.
It did make studying extend to really late. But it was a great break. We were all dressed up in church clothes so you didn't actually feel like you were in the JC. It was so nice.

Bananas

I ate a banana for the first time since I left the states and it was heavenly. I freaked out at lunch when I saw them and I couldn't stop smiling for the entire hour. I went and found a fruit stand that afternoon and purchase five more. I love bananas and miss them so much. I wonder if they have bananas in Spain?

Hezekiah's Tunnel

We went on a field trip to David's city. It was the first city in the Jerusalem area. Everything else has expanded off of the city of David. We hiked through Hezekiah's tunnel. It was built by the people to connect the Gihon spring to flow into the city, under the wall to the pool of Silaom. It was fun because we were climbing through this small tunnel, I spent most of the time bent half way over with water at some points up to my thighs. Hense our lines in the picture. It was so fun. After you get through the tunnel it comes out at the pool. The Byzantine Chrisitans built a church over what they thought to be the pool but it is just a small portion of the pool. They have since excavated the rest of the pool. I got in a water fight with my roommates afterwards hence I am completely wet in the picture with Carlee. It was super fun. We might go through it again. It was awesome.

Olive Crushing

A few days ago we took the olives we picked from the center and crushed them like the ancient people would have. First you throw them in a pit and push a HUGE circular rock around. It mashes the olives to a mush and then you transport them to the juicers as I like to call them. There were two different types we used. You put the olive mush in baskets and then through a system of pulleys and weights the baskets have pressure applied and the oil runs out. It has to sit for a couple of days so the water and oil seperate. I guess if it is really pure it comes out in a red color.

Spain

I'm going to Bilbao, Spain. I report to Provo MTC on Feb 27th. I will be in Provo for three weeks and then will head to the Spain MTC. I am so excited!!!!!

Olive Picking

In ancient days they would beat the trees to get the olives to fall off. Our professors talked about this so much, we were all psyched to go beat the olive trees. It was slightly disappointing when we found out we were just going to pick the olives. We harvested the olives outside the JC but on its property one day and then next day we worked on the trees withing the center. It was really fun though to go out with all my friends, get dirty, and have fun chatting for a couple of hours. Missions have been the talk around the center because Sarah Johnson sent her papers in the same day as I did. She opened her call last night. She is serving in Paris, France and leaves Jan. 16th. I will open my call tonight and I am super excited about it.

There is a funny story about my mission call. I thought it would come sat. afternoon to my home in Boise. I tried to call my parents Fri. afternoon (my Friday night before I went to bed) but couldn't get a hold of anyone. During my night I get about 5 e-mails from my family saying my call has come and I should call them. This is about 10 PM their time but 6 AM our time. We don't have breakfast until 8 on Shabbat. Because I had not been able to get a hold of them the night before I woke up early 6 to call them. The entire JC was completely dead because no one would get up for another hour. When I called my family thought I was calling to open the call with them (because of all the e-mails they had sent telling me that was the plan). I think they forgot that I wasn't checking my e-mail at 5:30 AM. Funny side note, I didn't see those e-mails until 4 PM that afternoon.

When I called, they were so excited, they called both Matt and Amy on the cell phones before I could even find out what was going on. I had no idea that my call had already come. I know it broke all of their hearts that I was going to wait to open it. But I am excited to open it now. Well you got to love the time differences. It makes for funny stories and exciting events. I love that my family is so enthusiastic about me serving a mission. They are great and I can't wait to see them at Christmas.

Tel Aviv

After our Judism mid term twenty of a took taxis to Tel Aviv where we spent four hours playing in the Medeterranean Sea. It was awesome. The water wasn't cold and the weather was perfect. We had tons of fun playing silly games in the water. The best was when we played missionary tag for over an hour. It just got better as we played. It was really funny because slowly the circle would migrate and it would get to the point where the shorter girls would try and run across the circle but it would be so deep they couldn't touch anymore. It was a quite a work out and I am sure we looked hilarious. You feel like you are putting forth so much effort to run but you are hardly moving. It was great.

I went into my first grocery store since I was in the states and it was such a comforting feeling. We stopped at a place called Gelatos. They have the best ice cream ever. I think the states definately need to learn about chocolate. They had so many options and all these ice cream flavors of different candy bars here. It was heavenly. Also a great way to forget about a disaterous test.

We also had tons of fun burrying people in the sand. We burried twelve of the girls in a row. One guy, Craig dug a vertical hole to be burried in. It was so funny because once he was completely covered it looked like a head just popped out of the ground. It was really funny. We drew alot of attention as people would come over and take pictures of us. It was quite the adventure. We became more creative and when we burried the boys we made one a pbaraoh, one a mermaid, and another a strong man. It was a fun adventure.

Short Galilee Trip

We went to Galilee for a quick two day trip. It was so fun. We went to Meggido which is also the place of Armegedon. It was a key place to hold and thus a place of many battles. It switched hands frequently and thus was really cool to see from an archaelogical point of view. Pretty much all of our stops consist of old rocks or mountains/overlooks. Funny how that works. Nazareth was a fun stop. There are two churches to commemorate Mary the mother when she grew up and Christ and his family. It is interesting that Nazareth was not the ideal place to live and the people who lived there were all poor. One of our prophesors pointed out that Heavenly Father wasn't sending Christ into ideal conditions but was making him experience and overcome difficulties all the time. One of my favorite things about the a church there was it was covered in artwork from various countries. All I could think about was the excitement of knowing I could be called to serve in any of those countries.

There was a funny situation when Carlee accidentally ripped a little hole in the back of her pants. At the top of Mt. Arbel she fell off a rock and completely ripped the whole back side of her pants. I luckily had another pair of pants on the bus that she borrowed for the rest of the trip.

The culminating event of the trip was swimming in the Sea of Galilee. It is actually a lake and it was so warm. They received special permission to open it for us because it closed at the beginning of October. I have no idea why it closed because it was so warm I would have swam there in the middle of the winter. It was really fun. That night we had one of the professors who lectured about Revelations. It was pretty sweet. There is so much in the scriptures I wish I understood.

On the way back we stopped at Acco and Cesarea and they were really cool because they were so largely influenced by Rome and Greek that it has a strong European feel. There is tons of remains fully intact and it is an active dig site. I am really looking forward to when we go to Galilee for a week. It will be when we are studying the New Testament and we will have class two times a day. I am really excited for it.

MISSION here I come

I just wanted to let everyone know I have submitted my mission papers and I am super super excited. They should be processed this week and the call asigned on friday if all goes well. Then they will be sent out tuesday and I will just have to wait to see how long it takes mail to arrive in Jerusalem. My availability date is Jan. 7th but I will just have to see what the Lord has in store.

Judges Field Study

Yesterday we went on our field trip to study the book of Judges. It was really cool as we went to a number of key forts the Israelites had to conqure with Joshua. It is interesting to see how relevant the geography is to the stories of the Old Testament. My favorite thing of the day was going to the Valley of Elah and acting out the story of David and Goliath. Then we each had a chance to play with the slings. I started to get it down at the end because it is the exact same form as a tennis serve. The other thing I really enjoyed was unrelated to Judges but just something fun we do. We went and climbed around the caves of Michah aka the BYU caves. It was so fun because I haven't been in a cave for so long. We only had a little less than a half hour but it was awesome to just get dirty and go exploring. Some other places we saw were Beth Shemish where the ark of the Covenant came after the Philistines stole it, Azekah, and Lachish. A group of us at Lachish Fortress

Sunrise ontop Mt. Sinai

Reliefs in the temple. Check out the COLORS!

Tourist Police on Camels patroling the various sites.

Egypt Excitement!

Egypt, can you believe it? I am still in shock. It was quite an adventure. For one I thought Jerusalem was dirty but I was definitely corrected once we went to Cairo. The men all wear funny robe things and because it is predominately Muslim literally every women in Cairo had her hair covered. We went to Cairo and Luxor and had fun traveling there. We took the Luxor Express, a night train, to Luxor and a red eye flight back. We always had an Egyptian tour guide and security man with us. I guess it is law for Egypt. The security man was always in a suite with a gun showing on his waist belt while the tour guide looked like your typical tourist. I decided the Egyptians need to learn about deodorant. Your body would go in shock when you climbed on the bus behind them. They were really nice guys though.

It was amazing to see the pyramids. They are huge and it is incredible they were built so well to last. The Sphinx looks a little funny if you ask me, but that may be because the nose and beard are missing. Funny story is that the nose is in a British museum and the Egyptian government asked for it back. The British said no because if they gave it back then all the other countries would want all of their other artifacts back. That made me smile to think about. We also went on a camel ride. It was really cool but they are awkward creatures, how they look, move, and smell. :)

We also went to the Valley of the Kings and saw some of the tombs there. The tomb text or reliefs are so interesting and cool. They are painted with bright colors and tons of the colors are still there. It is incredible to think so many people put in so much time for a tomb. The temples on the East side of the Nile (tombs on the West) were huge and completely covered in reliefs. We saw some doctrinal debris in the tombs and temples. One professor described it really well by saying the Egyptians received so many keys of knowledge and not know which was right and not wanting to get rid of the correct key, they kept them all. We see bits of truth but overall they were quite confused.

We hiked Mt. Sinai, the place where Moses received the ten commandments (and many other events). It was crazy because it was my first sunrise hike. We got to the hotel at 8:30 PM and had dinner. Then we held sacrament meeting and finally got to bed by 11:30 PM. We then woke up at 1:00 to leave for our hike. It was really cool because it was a full moon so we hiked without flashlights. We arrived at the top about an hour before sunrise but once it came it was beautiful. I've gained a new image and perspective when anyone mentions the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. There really is nothing out there. It is crazy.

We were not able to drink any of the water there except bottled water. Luckily I didn't get sick although there were a few from our group who did. They usually forgot and eat something they were supposed to or just didn't care. I guess they cared afterwards but some people have to learn the hard way. Another unique thing about Egypt is that you have to pay to use public restrooms and frequently you have to provide your own toilet paper. I don't think I have ever seen such disgusting places as some of the bathrooms there. They honestly were holes in the ground. I learned to hold it for a long time at times like that.

It really was amazing to see so much history. One thing I loved was we had a couple of sessions where our Old Testament professor would talk to us for an hour on subjects like the facsimiles and other cool things like that. I love brother Draper. He is so knowledgeable and willing to share what he knows. My bus buddy and friend, Carlee Painter, gets car sick so I was lucky enough to always sit in the front. This meant when ever I had a question or down time I could ask Brother Draper anything. It was great. I also had a lot of time to think on the trip with all of the driving we did. It was neat to learn so many things. I feel like I grew so much in the last week. The trip was incredible but I was definitely happy to be home at the JC.

The border crossing was ridiculous and took hours for us all to get through. It did mean I had time to go and play in the Red Sea. Because we were so far behind schedule from the border crossing and traffic, the bus driver received permission to take the shortest route to the JC, which is through the middle of the West Bank. So now I can say I have been to the West Bank too.