Last Day, Sad Day

Sadly but truly it has come. It is my last day here in Jerusalem and it is a sobering thing. We all joked that Jerusalem was crying for us because it has been raining all morning and the fog is so thick, when you look out the window, all you see is white. I have officially had my last breakfast at the JC and soon I will be turning in my linens for the last time.
Last night we had our slide show and it was a good reminder/realization for me to see just how much we did here in the last 4 months. I have learned so much and experienced even more. It has been an incredible experience and I am so glad I had the opportunity to be here. I never dreamed this time would happen. I am super excited to see my family and to be home for Christmas. The count down is 5 days till Christmas but it doesn't feel like it here in Jerusalem. Normally it is around 50 degrees on a cold day, everything is turning green and it doesn't feel like Christmas. I can't wait to see snow. I am really hoping for a white Christmas. Things are great though.
While packing yesterday, I experienced something others talk about all the time but I had never personally experienced before. While packing I found 100 shekels (like $25). I never lose money and it was such a happy surprise. It does add a little twist because I have to spend it all today. To add to the situation it is a Muslim holiday and so half of the city is closed down. But I imagine I can spend it just fine. I can't wait to see everyone. Pray for clear run ways and then once I am home it can snow. :) Merry Christmas everyone.

Last Shabbat

Poor Shannon, a friend of mine from the JC scratched her cornea and she has an infection in her eye now. It is so sad because she has been in the hospital for the last four day. It is miserable to be in the hospital, worse to be in an Israeli hospital, and unbelievable to be in the hallway of an Israeli hospital. That is definitely the case for Shannon. We went to visit her Friday night and Carlee and I felt really bad for her. Everyone speaks Hebrew so she doesn't understand a word. She is left by herself and she can't really sleep because they wake her up every hour to put in drops. So we came up with a fantastic plan.

Carlee and I decided to spend Shabbat with her. We got special permission to take a ton of food from the cafeteria (this normally isn't allowed). We would miss both lunch and dinner and we were taking food for Shannon too because the hospital food is nasty. Then we packed the entire world with us. We took uno, my laptop and some church movies, scriptures, the ensign, food, and more food. It was great. It was nice because we kept her company and just really enjoyed ourselves. It was also nice because I came to realize that there couldn't be a better thing for me to do on my last shabbat in the Holy Land. I went out and did what the Savior would have done.

It was also really cool because we went and had sacrament meeting in the hallway. It was really a spiritual experience. Pres. Hayes presided and Karey conducted. It was really funny because he welcomed us all to this remote meeting of the Jerusalem Branch. It was really neat to see the men act using their priesthood to bless the sacrament for Shannon to partake. Then we all shared our testimonies, one of the girls sang a hymn and it was a really cool experience. I felt so privileged to be there.

It was really fun to hang out with Shannon all evening. A group of students came around 7 and visited for an hour and then we all had to go home. I am so grateful for the experiences I have had out here. I am grateful for my testimony and I am excited to come home where I can share it with others.

Funny Story

I had a restless night last night. I had a ridiculous dream and I hope you have a good laugh after reading it. First off I have to mention I haven't refereed a soccer game since I was in high school. But this dream completely stressed me out all night. I dreamt that the head man over referee's was going to observe me. It was just a terrible experience all the way around. I first off couldn't find the field so I was late. Then when I was there they made me ref a U7 game, the youngest kids. I usually refereed U10, U12, or even U14. I had a sideline person who was a certified referee and they thought they were all that. The head man pretty much had already decided I wasn't a good referee. No matter what I did, I couldn't convince him that I was a good ref. It was a miserable experience. He gave me a good report and I received parent complaints too. I was just so stressed out, because I am a good ref. Luckily my roommates got up at 5AM and so I did too and the dream was over. It is a joke that this would stress me out, but it really did. Just to set the records straight, I never received a parent complaint and all of the head ref's loved me. I hope you laughed a little because I am still cracking up that I dreamt this and that it was such a stress for me. Life is good though. There is a crazy insight into my life and dreams. :)

Galilee

Galilee was amazing and I absolutely loved it. The atmosphere there is so peaceful, relaxed, and refreshing. It was incredible because there are palm trees around the kibbutz we stayed at. The sandy beach next to the sea of Galilee with a calm breeze. It was fantastic. We had a bon fire every night and on the last night, it was a class party. We made smores, played games, and ate way too much junk food.


Our schedule consisted of classes every other day and field trips on the off days. We would have three hours of New Testament and one hour of archaeology. Then we would spend all afternoon doing our homework on the beach. It was so nice. A real break. Our field trips were by far the highlights. The first day when we drove into the Galilee we went to the most northern part of Israel. The best stop of the day was 1.5 hour we had to play at Nimrod's castle. It had no religious significance but it was so fun. Honestly who wouldn't have fun exploring an old castle.


The next field trip was a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee. At first they fed the sea gulls, played music, and we hung out. Once we were in the middle they stopped the boat and we had a lesson about Christ's ministry in the Galilee. It was neat because second half of the signs like this only in Israel trip we were given time just to ponder. I suddenly realized that this was Christ's mission. It was neat to think I have visited where Jesus was born, where he died, but now I finally was seeing where he did the majority of his teaching. It was his mission, just like Spain will be my mission. It got me so excitement for chocolate goodness excited for my own mission. It will be amazing.


Funny story. I don't know what it is but I seem to tear a lot of clothes when I am on the study abroad programs. See the cute pink shirt I was wearing in the picture above. I wore that shirt all day because I wanted to dress nice, especially because that night we were going out to a restaurant. Well I had some time that afternoon and I walked along the beach. Carlee joined me and eventually we ended up skipping and throwing rocks. We were playing a hot potato sort of game and I got hot so I pulled off my jacket. She stood there staring dumb founded at me. I couldn't figure out what she was looking at. She pointed to my arm. I had ripped a whole in the middle of my sleeve along my bicep. It wasn't as long a seem either. I laughed so hard. I was somewhat sad because that was one of the few shirts I had planned on taking home. I guess not anymore. :)

Mt. Tabor was an exciting adventure. We had to leave at 7:30 because there was only 1 bus for both classes to coordinate with. We arrived at the catholic church right at 8:00 when it opened. It is atop Mt. Tabor which is the place they believe to be the Mt. of Transfiguration. I guess another tour group had scheduled the church and so we went to a tent like area next to the church. It was freezing outside, especially with the wind blowing. We were out there for at least an hour as Bro. Draper lectured. Then towards the end of his lesson, the storm suddenly picked up out of no where. The rain came pouring down and was leaking throughout the tent. People started screaming, jumping up to move to new spots, etc. Essentially bro. Draper decided it was hopeless to try and continue his lecture. Once the taxi's arrived, we had to make a run for it. We were soaked as you can see in the picture. I was wearing my khaki pants and the entire front side of me was completely see through. Thank goodness it wasn't the back side, right? It was so fun.

It was no amazing to spend so much time where the savior taught the people. I loved the time to ponder, study his teachings, and to read Jesus the Christ. It was amazing to learn how Jesus' mission was so much to get the people to understand how much he loved them and was reaching out to them. He just wanted them to repent and to accept him as the Messiah. Here is an example of the beautiful sunsets we were privileged with every evening. It was fantastic and of course as always I learned so much in the formal and informal teaching moments.
The last day, before driving home, we stopped at a cemetery in Haifa. It was where the first two converts to the church from the Palestine mission were berried. They were Germans living in Haifa. I guess the missionaries had a lot of success with the German people in Palestine. There were also two graves there for missionaries who passed away while serving their missions. It is interesting that often we may not understand what the Lord's mission is for us. For these young men it was to be buried here in the Holy Land. Israel decided they would allow the established churches, like the Jews, Muslims, and Christians to have a presence in the Holy Land, but they would not allow any new churches. When they were building the Jerusalem Center, people tried to claim that we were a new religion trying to make our presence here. The church used those two graves to show that our church had a presence here in the Holy Land before Israel was even a state. How cool is that. The Lord really is watching out for his church. It is amazing.
I am sorry this is so long and I haven't even written a quarter of what I was able to experience in the Galilee. It was incredible and if I were to come back to Israel, I would definitely stop at Jerusalem, but I would want to spend some time in the Galilee.

Thanksgiving

I began thanksgiving in a sobering way. We visited Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum, here in Israel. It gives you a lot to think about and a lot to be grateful for. Then I spent the afternoon doing a little homework and napping. I missed the usual Briggs basketball fest. My committee was in charge of the Thanksgiving program after the meal so I spent the last hours before the feast working on that. Surprisingly things went well, better than I could have planned and they last longer than I ever expected.
We had our feast at 6:15 and it was great. The turkey was good, they had American gravy. The stuffing was homemade and delicious, the mashed potatoes well at least we had them right. The desserts were presented in such an artistic way, it was so cool. I just tried a little of them all. they were a little more out there type things, not your traditional pie and ice cream. It was delicious all the way around.
Our program was so fun. We started off with a Jeopardy game that everyone got really into. Then there was a turkey noise making game. It was my favorite. I could not believe how into the guys were. Then we had the teachers do it. It was fun to see them all embarrassed and much more reserve then the students. We did a thankful game where there was little papers people had written what they were thankful for. One by one we took out what we could live without until you have one paper left. We decided we couldn't live without laughter. Then Craig finished it off by singing a song about gratitude. It was a pleasant evening.
Sadly it didn't last. We had to take care of business afterwards with a Galilee orientation and then homework for our classes the next day.
I will be in Galilee starting Sunday for like 9 days so if you don't hear from me, that is why. It should be great. It is hard core New Testament all the way. We have two two hour classes each day with field trips in between. It should be a unique opportunity to get to study the New Testament in the Galilee. Things are great and I am loving life.

Walking where Christ Walked

Today I walked where Jesus walked and it was AWESOME! We first went to the Kotel Tunnel which runs under/along the western wall. It was cool because we learned about the building of the walls, how to recognize the original walls, and the destruction of the temple and the wall. They do have many original stones and a cool fact, each is slightly smaller than the one above so it slowly gets skinnier. It was a freezing cold morning because the wind was blowing and it was sprinkling off and on all morning. I didn't pack very many warm clothes either. We also went to the Temple Mount Excavations- the Ophel Archaeological Garden and that was so cool. They dug down to Christ's time. We explored the west wall and the south wall which is actually where the entrance was during Christ's time. I am standing on the original rock ground at the exit of the temple mount during Christ's time. This is where he spat in the ground to make clay and placed it on the blind man's eyes and told him to wash in the pool of Salom (which I have been to) and he would be healed. Crazy cool isn't it? I love being here and not only learning about Christ but getting glimpses into his life. The grounds here were so peaceful and I absolutely loved it.

After our Herodian Field Trip we had a free day and it was incredible. We went meandering through the Old City. I did a ton of shopping but my high light was buying a sweatshirt which I so desperately need. I am super excited to wear all of my sweaters and coats when I get home. Don't worry, it is not nearly that cold here but it will be in Idaho and I am excited for it. So I played in the Old City all day and had a blast. We went up to the top of the tower in the Lutheran Church and it gave an awesome view of the city. I can actually identify buildings now. It was a fun 170 steps up one continuous spiral limestone staircase. We like to call those unintentional workouts and I love them. Plus you didn't get all sweaty because it is cold outside. :)

After we did our shopping, we pulled out a guide book and would randomly flip to a page to find something to see and we kept picking by chance sights we have already seen. It surprised us at how many places we have actually seen. It was a stupendous day!!!!

Floating Fun!!!

We went on our Herodian Essene FT and it was way cool. First we stopped at Masada which was a Jewish community built at the top of a mountain. It is about a two hour hike up the mountain but thanks to modern technology, we rode a tram up :). The Zealots lived there and were the last hold out when the Roman's invaded Jerusalem. It was a large city and it has a sad story. The people were extremists and rather than become slaves to the Romans, they killed off the entire community.

We also went to Qumran where the dead sea scrolls were found. There wasn't really much to see but it is cool to say I've been there. We also went to Ein Gedi nature reserve which was really cool. In both the nature reserve and Qumran, it was the area that David fled and hid in the caves to escape Saul. Ein Gedi was a fun hike with cool waterfalls.

My favorite stop of the day was the Dead Sea. All the rocks along the shore have salt crystals all over because the water is composed of 30% salt. It was awesome to climb in and when you lift up your feet, you don't have to tread water. You just float. You can't actually put your feet down either, they just pop up. The salinity caused my leg to sting the whole time but it was an awesome experience anyways. So I floated around the sea and it was incredible. I love our field trips and all the things I get to see and do.