Separation Wall

First off, I've got to say that I was looking through my earlier posts from the beginning of this semester and I have gotten so much better at my posts! So much better. Much better quality, better pictures, and better writing. I'm just saying.

We had class this morning for four hours and after that we had a field trip to see/learn about the separation wall. The separation wall is the wall (duh) that encloses the West Bank from the rest of Israel. It is a pretty big source of conflict for people out here. The guy who came and talked to us works with the US government in Israeli relations. He was really smart and I liked how up front he was about issues in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. So straight forward and blunt, but it was really refreshing to hear about. So without further ado, here are some pictures of the mighty separation wall.




Also, here are some obvious pictures that every single BYU Jerusalem student must have. And here are mine.



Tonight we had the informal talent show, which of course was hilarious. We are all convinced that no semester has ever had a better talent show, but I bet they think that every semester. People here are so talented and funny! I laughed the whole time. At the end we all jumped up on the stage and had a dance party. When it was coming to an end I sat down and watched everyone for a minute and I remember thinking that I was probably going to cry myself to sleep that night because I was was so overcome with the unity of our group. Cheesy, I know, but it's going to be hard and a huge adjustment to come home and not be around these people 24/7! These are relationships that I think will last for a very long time, we have been through so much together. There are so many great people here. I couldn't have asked for a better group.

All Things Denote There is a God

"And then Alma said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God?
And he answered, Nay. Now Alma said unto him: Will ye deny again that there is a God, and also deny the Christ? For behold, I say unto you, I know there is a God, and also that Christ shall come. And now what evidence have ye that there is no God, or that Christ cometh not? I say unto you that ye have none, save it be your word only. But, behold, I have all things as a testimony that these things are true; and ye also have all things as a testimony unto you that they are true; and will ye deny them? Believest thou that these things are true?

"But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."










Think about what's around you that points to God. There is so much, we just have to open our eyes and recognize them more.

Christian Quarter Field Trip

Today was a good day, not much happened. I had a New Testament test this morning, and lets just say, I'm really glad it's over. I then had two hours of Ancient Near East in which I somehow I got really sick/allergic during. It was a miserable class period to say the least. But after class got out I had lunch and linen exchange and then I was out of the center! Me and a few girls tried to go to a dress shop (or more like a mall with a ton of dress shops) but to our great disappointment everything in West Jerusalem was closed due to Passover. Who would've thought?

I had a different experience being out today. Today was the first time I went into the city without having a guy with me (or with my group). We were getting a lot of cat calls and harassment from the boys and teenagers on the street. I mentioned this and how I thought it was more than usual and one of the girls told me it was cause we didn't have a guy with us. And then it made sense to me! But seriously, it was kind of out of control. At one point a car with two boys pulled over and asked us if we wanted a ride. Um, no thanks.

Anyway, let me tell you about my field trip yesterday. We went to some of the churches in the Christian Quarter of the New Testament. It was strange how churches that you pass by every day kind of pop up out of nowhere when your attention is actually directed to them. The Old City is just PACKED with churches, you seriously don't even notice them.

The sites were all kind of the same to me. One thing I did learn was that the Holy Sepluchre really is the most accurate site of Christ's Death, burial, and resurrection. This kind of rocked my world. I always believed the Garden Tomb was the most accurate, but The Holy Sepluchre has archaeological evidence to back it up. When I heard this I didn't want to believe it (and I still don't want to). The Holy Sepluchre is so dark and gloomy and not conducive to the spirit at all, in my opinion. Apparently that's why the church suggests the Garden Tomb, because it's a place where the spirit can be felt and you can have peace. So what's what I will stick to for now. While we were there there were priests reading from the Bible for Passover. That was something cool and unusual to see that doesn't happen every time you're there.



One of the places we went to was a Franciscan Convent. Here I met Father Angelo, who is an amazing person. He has an incredible story, he was a rich international banker with houses all over the world and he left them all to serve God. He is the only Franciscan Monk who will give tours to Mormons.



This convent also has a hostile connected to it for the pilgrims who come to the Holy Land. When Orson Hyde came to Jerusalem he stayed at this place. They have a door in the church with carvings in it where Elder Hyde carved his name. Cool!


We went to a Russian Church in which girls were not permitted to go inside without skirts, so they supplied skirts for us. Stylish! This church was cool, but the most amazing part were the paintings. They were so beautiful and portrayed the Savior in a light that I see him in. They were not dark or stained with incense. They were just beautiful.



At this church there was also what's called the eye of a needle. So whenever you read in the scriptures about how it's harder for a rich man to enter into heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. Kind of changes things, doesn't it?


It was a good half day and I came home with enough time to do homework and rest for the remainder of the day.

City of David/Palm Sunday/Singing in the Streets

You might be thinking to yourself, "that is a very packed title to a blog". And I'm telling you yes, yes it is. And that is because I had a very packed day with many various activities.

The day started out first and foremost by visiting Schindler's grave. That was really cool, I was kind of expecting a high and mighty tomb stone or something but it was actually very simple and humble, which I liked a lot. I put a stone on his grave, which is the custom here rather than flowers.



Next we went to the City of David. I finally got to do Hezekiah's tunnel!! Everyone else did it earlier in the semester but I missed it because I was late for the field trip and got left. But I finally got to do it today, with my head lamp and all! So exciting.



Hezekiah's Tunnel is a tunnel that Hezekiah made to divert the water from the Gihon spring to prevent the Assyrians from poisoning or blocking the water in case of a siege. It was built very quickly and you can tell by looking at the sides of the tunnel that these people were in a panic, just hacking away at the sides. As my friend Jonathan (aka Bible John) said, "You can almost see how they were saying 'Freak, the Assyrians are coming! Freak, the Assyrians are coming!!'"

When we got out of the tunnel our pants were soaked to about mid thigh, but we pressed forward. We went and saw Area G in the City of David which is an archaeology dig site. It was actually pretty cool, from one spot you could three places of evidence of different time and different people. You could see a Jebusite layer, a Nehemiah layer, and a layer from King David's Palace.

We then went to the Pool of Siloam where Christ told the blind man to wash to be healed. After that we started heading back to the center but on our way back we stopped at Absalon's Pillar and Steven's Church. This picture of me is me inside of a cave in Absalon's Pillar. We had to go down what we called the "birth canal" which is literally a tiny hole in the rock that you shimmy yourself down into and to get back up someone has to pull your whole body weight to the top of the cave. Kind of intense and I skinned my elbows doing it (first timer). But it was fun being inside a big structure high above the ground.




When we got back from the center I had about 45 minutes to rest from the morning and then it was time to go and celebrate Palm Sunday! Which was AMAZING! We walked up to Bethany where the path of the savior was to be reenacted of the Triumphant Entry. There were so many people there, a lot of them bearing palm tree branches. The Palestinian families were on their roofs watching the passerbys. The walk was very, very slow with so many people. I actually ended up bailing early because I felt like I got the gist of what was going on and wanted to go home and actually read and ponder the story rather than walk the route to Jerusalem. On my way back to the center I came upon some police officers on some very large horses that I enjoyed very much.




My favorite part of the day, however, came at night after dinner. A group of us went downtown to West Jerusalem for my friend's birthday. I don't know how this idea came about, but we decided that since we didn't want to pay money to buy ice cream we would just earn it in the city. And we did. We had various musical instruments and we sang and dance and ended up making about 125 sheckles, which is equivalent to about 33 American dollars. We did good! At the end of the night we ended up buying two tubs of ice cream, sitting in a huge circle in the street, and passing around the tubs until everything was gone. So much fun. I ended up learning that the universal equalizer songs are "Leaving on a Jet Plane", "Ain't no Mountain High Enough", and "The Piano Man". While we sang these songs we got a huge crowd of people singing with us. Turns out that Jewish people also really enjoy "Popcorn Popping". Funny Mormon culture.

I met a lot of interesting people in between acts that I was in. I met one man that loves the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He requested that we sang "Come, Come ye Saints" and we did for him. He also asked if he could do his own musical number, and we let him. We also met a fellow musician who plays her harp every night to earn a living. She also plays her ukulele and we sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad" while she played for us. I think it made her night. We met a guy named Alex from South Africa who jumped up and started singing with us. We met another guy who was dressed in drag and claimed that he was going to a drag queen show but when he showed up it hadn't started yet so then he was "stuck in public" looking how he did. So funny. One man we were talking to was asking about our religion (I think, he was really hard to understand) and got very upset when we said that we couldn't talk about it. He was asking for a Book of Mormon and just wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm pretty sure he was rather drunk though.



After we reaped the rewards of our efforts we came back to the center. And now I'm done writing this blog. Time for bed.

Final day of Galilee--March 25

Today was our final day in the Galilee. We packed up our stuff, checked out of our bungalows, and were on our way. Of course we couldn't just go straight home to the center though, we had to pack our day with sites to make every second count.

First we went to an ancient city called Sephhoris. Aka another Tel. Another citadel. Another cistern. But this city had amazing mosaics. In fact, the mosaic pictured is nick named the Mona Lisa of Israel, and you can probably see why. Absolutely incredible. I'm actually reading a historical fiction book about Joseph and Mary right now and it mentions Sephhoris a lot in it. So it's kind of cool that I can picture the place.


After Sephhoris we went to Muhraqa which is the traditional site of where Elisha mocked/rebuked the priests of Baal. This site had beautiful gardens and was really beautiful.



And speaking of gardens, after Muhraqa we went to the Baha'i Gardens. Which were incredible!! Baha'i is a very interesting religion. Their beliefs are pretty much any truth. They believe that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, for instance. They believe in Joseph Smith. They believe in anything that has truth and goodness. We were joking about how we wanted to join that religion just to be sure that we had all of our bases covered. But really, such a cool religion! I would love to research it more and learn about the people, because up to this point I had never heard about it.


These gardens are the grounds for the Baha'i temple. They usually have a beautiful shrine on the gardens but when we went it was being restored so it was looking a little ugly.

We then went to the Templar Cemetery in the German colony in Haifa. At this site there are two LDS members burried. We learned about the first missionaries in Israel, one of which was Elder Spori (yes, the very Spori from the Spori building at BYU Idaho!). So that was cool to learn about. What a hard and intimidating job, bringing the gospel here way back when. But there were missionaries here at one point, that is crazy to think about!


Then we got on the bus and we all pretty much passed out on the way home. It was so good to be back at the center. Everyone made a mad dash for the laundry room, it was insane! It's crazy that Jerusalem feels like home and everything else is just a vacation.

Galilee was a great trip. A really good experience. The Galilee has beautiful sites and a beautiful spirit about it. I loved it and will always treasure the feelings and the things I learned while being there.

Galilee Day Nine--March 24, 2010

Two days ago I impulsively poured water on a boy in my group so that it looked like he wet his pants. The next morning he chased me down before breakfast and dumped a whole coffee pot of water down my front. I had to go to breakfast like that and had to go on my field trip like that. So...I got him back.



As you can see I got every pair of his pants (which he brought much more than I did!) and soaked them in the crotch and put them back for him to wear. So funny. But now I'm terrified about what he might do to me next.

This day we went to Akko which was a crusader's city way back when. We walked through the dungeons and through secret tunnels. We walked along the Mediterranean Sea and then had some free time to explore the Old City of Akko.




After we left Akko we hiked up to Mount Arbell which overlooks the whole area of Galilee. From that point we could see the geographic extent of the Savior's ministry. It was absolutely beautiful and well worth the hike up even though we were all very tired at the end of the day.

Galilee Day Eight--March 23, 2010

Today was a beautiful day full of very beautiful things. We were outside for all of the day hiking through the forest of northern Israel. Before I came here I would have never believed that Israel would have forests and landscapes like I saw today, but it does. Ant it is so pretty and unexpected. We started off our day in Tel Hazor. If you don't already know, a tel is a mound that has layers and ancient cities built on top of each other. At the beginning of the semester when I learned about these I thought they were so awesome and cool! Now every field trip we go on we see tels and they all look alike. Needless to say we are all pretty sick of them. So Tel Hazor was another tel, with another cistern, all the same. But at Tel Hazor I started singing "High Open Places" (like the Dixie Chicks Wide Open Spaces) to describe how ancient kings would place alters in high places, such as Hazor. So I got the inspiration to film a "music video" there with the tweaked lyrics. Starting at that site we did a music video at every site for the rest of the day. Which was actually really funny and we had to get really creative to make the lyrics fit each site.



After Tel Hazor we went to Tel Dan, which is actually much different from Tel Hazor. Tel Dan is beautiful! We hiked through the forests where there are springs, streams, and creeks everywhere. It was so green and really pretty. Dan is in the Old Testament and is the northern most part of the Kingdom of Israel.




From Tel Dan we hiked up to some waterfalls. The "Dixie Chicks" did a music video which was really funny. When we were done filming I was walking back to the bus and some young guy wanted a picture with me...I just walked away but thought it was funny. I thought to myself "he must think I'm a real celebrity after that music video". But not really. At the Banias waterfalls we were also able to partake of some of the delicious apples of the Golan Heights. These apples are kind of a joke amongst the students because our Islam teacher once mentioned how good the apples were in Golan Heights and he kind of raved about them. So I was excited to finally see how good they really were. I was pleasantly surprised.





After enjoying our delicious apples we went to Caesarea Philippi where the keys of the kingdom were promised to Peter. This was a really pretty site. My teacher actually took the picture that is in the back of the Bible and he showed us the pot he was standing at when he took it. This was a good place to sit and ponder the Priesthood and how it blesses my life.



Next we went to about the coolest place ever! It had no religious or spiritual significance, in fact we didn't really get much information about this place. It was the end of the day, the last site, and they pretty much just let us go and explore however we wanted to. This site was called Nimrod's Castle. I think it was a crusader fortress. But anyway, it was awesome. A full on castle set on cliffs. Seriously, straight out of a movie.





When we got back to Ein Gev we ate dinner and then had a class fireside. We had a devotional that was really good and then we made s'mores and scones. People told stories (I told one about when one of my friends had a funny encounter with Sinbad at Disney World) and we just grew together as a class. It was a good time. After that I went straight to bed, so exhausted, once again, from a very long day from being in the sun, thinking, and learning.