Yeah!

I'm coming home!!!! In two hours!

Coming Near the End

Shabbat Shalom!

Well, today I woke up with the sad realization that today is my last Sabbath day in the Holy Land. It hit me hard today sitting in sacrament meeting overlooking the city, that my time here is up. And it was a very sad reality to come to! I definitely have mixed feelings about coming home. Today we sang "God be With You 'til we Meet Again"......torture! mean! I cried through the whole song. Jerusalem is so dear to my heart, it'll be hard to move on back to reality with the possibility that I may never see this place again. It has been a life changing experience for me.

Also hard for me today was to leave my nursery children! When I got released from my calling I shed a tear (just call me an emotional wreck). These children really are so sweet and I have enjoyed learning from them by teaching them the simple gospel truths every Saturday.


"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

For the Son of man is come to save that which is lost.

How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the nienty and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.

Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish."

I think this is my ultimate favorite scripture when it comes to children, and especially when it comes to my major and my future career. I have enjoyed growing closer to Christ by serving his innocent and pure children this semester.

This whole semester has been so incredible, I can't put the feelings and change I've felt in myself in words. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to learn in Jerusalem.

Graduation Party

Last night I had the honor to attend the Jerusalem Center dinner for graduates. Some students put together this party since people who are graduating this semester are missing out on all of ths parties and stuff going on at BYU. Somehow I was qualified to attend this party.

We all found our own "caps" to wear, some went all out and even found gowns. Caps were made out of kippahs, boxes, scarves, and cardboard. I wore my Egyptian headdress that I bought in Egypt. I knew it would come in handy some day!


We ate separate from everyone else in our lounge, formally known as "The Dan Jones". We made a "procession" to the cafeteria where everyone could admire our caps and gowns and be jealous of the graduating (or close to graduating, in my case) students). We all shared what we were planning on doing with our lives after graduating.

After we ate our dear Brother Whipple who is here on a service mission spoke to us. The first slide of his presentation looked like some kind of painting, and I thought he wsa going to give us some kind of "just like this painting, life is only what you make of it" type of speech. But I really should have known better. Brother Whipple starting talking to us about how the painting was actually done by a cat, and unbeknownst to us there is actually a market and culture of paintings done by cats, otherwise known as non-primate art. He went way back and showed us pictures of cats from Egypt and other ancient cats. At first I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not, so I was trying desperately not to laugh. Which of course made my laugh even louder and more embarrassing than normal, which led to me crying from holding it all in.

According to Brother Whipple these two cats (whose names I can't remember but I do remember that they some kind of chinese influence) are the dynamic duo in the cat "non-primate" painting world.

The only time Brother Whipple cracked and laughed was when he was telling us the story of "Bootsie" and how he came into being an artist. Just like any other genius artist, Bootsie encountered tramatic experiences as a young kitten, including being neutered, left by his family when they moved, and getting is his tale stuck under a car. But he rose above it all, according to Brother Whipple, and came out victorious.

Brother Whipple, completely straight faced.

Eventually we all realized (after many confused looks at each other) that it was a joke. But joke or not, the presentation lasted for 35 minutes! And the whole time Brother Whipple kept a straight face. So funny. So random. Definitely a graduation commencement speech I will never, ever forget.

Volcano?????

Oh, hey Iceland Volcano. So, potentially bad news (on so many levels). A volcano errupted in Iceland, grounding all flights in Europe and the Middle East. Since I am in the Middle East, that means that there is a chance that I may not be able to fly out next week! It could be cleared up by then (optimistically thinking). This issue could be cleared up within days or within weeks. So I will try not to be too dramatic about the matter and just hope that it will clear up. I love Jerusalem but I am ready to come home. This could throw a real wrench into my plans of starting school on Monday. But again. Think optimistic thoughts. Pray for the volcano to stop errupting/for the skies to clear up!

Shukran!!!

Masada and the Dead Sea!

This past Sunday we went on our field trip to Masada, the Dead Sea, En Gedi, and Qumran (Where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). Here are some pictures and high lights:

I think I've seen this once. Supposedly it's about 7 hours long, so I'm sure I didn't see the whole thing, but I remember it. But then again, who wouldn't be able to remember 1,000 Zealot Jews committing suicide while 15,000 Roman Soldiers were bringing down their fortress?

Mighty Masada

We had to take a tram up to the top. It kind of reminded me of the tram at snowbird. It was super high up!

Me and the view of the Dead Sea from the top of Masada. You can't really tell from the picture but it really was pretty in a red sand deserty kind of way.

Who knew that Masada has the largest cistern in Israel???? Well, it does! We were stoked to see yet ANOTHER cistern. Look at that excitement.

You can find this picture (or one very similar to it) on the Masada brochure.

And now on to the DEAD SEA!

Here we have it. The Dead Sea. Yes, you really do float. It's so crazy! You can be completely "standing" in the water without touching the ground. A group of us even played a game of go fish in the water. The Dead Sea was so fun, it rocked my world.

This is Steve floating in the Dead Sea. And just to clear everything up, yes, he is wearing a swimsuit.

And of course we had to play with the Dead Sea mud.....

The black mud compared to my extremely white skin is almost alarming! Good thing summer is just around the corner.



After the Dead Sea we went to En Gev which is a nature preserve with lots of waterfalls. It was really pretty, we hiked around a bit. Unfortunately I have no pictures of it due to my camera getting killed by the Dead Sea. But this site was where David had the chance to kill Saul while he was "sleeping" (but in all reality, I've learned, Saul was actually going to the bathroom in the cave, not sleeping). We then went to Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, which was kind of interesting.......if it weren't after a very long day and I didn't smell like sulfur and have other issues, it probably would have been great. But at that point I don't think I have ever been more disinterested in something. EXCEPT for I learned a cool connection between Joseph Smith and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently the Scrolls use a name for Moses that doesn't appear in ancient scripture until Joseph Smith translates the book of Moses. That's pretty awesome! I love learning about connections like that.

So, the Dead Sea....CHECK! Masada....CHECK! Good day and a fun field trip.

A Bit More Jordan...

Just a little bit more Jordan for you!

Here is an example of Jordan propaganda. Man, they love their king! Even at the baptisimal site of Jesus they had a Mosaic of the King. I think it's funny and endearing.

Dan Jones bought this picture of Cramer from Sienfield in Tel Aviv one weekend and brought him to Jordan. We have been passing the painting around by leaving it in random bags, etc. Somehow he ended up with me in Jerash. It was really funny trying to explain to the Jordanians who he was. They were so confused, and a few merchants even took the painting from me and started evaluating the craftmanship of it. It was really funny. These girls wanted a picture with us so I decided to invite Cramer along as well.

While we were Jerash, which is the best preserved Roman City in the Middle East, we got to see a little Roman skit and see a little bit on how their army worked.

Horse Chariot! I couldn't talk the guy into letting me drive the chariot, even when I tempted him with a dollar bill....I'm kind of confused as to why I'm so much bigger than this guy in this picture, but oh well.

A Little Taste of Jordan

Marhaba!

I got wireless back, yay! Here are some pictures from Jordan explaining a little bit about what it is and what we did. It's hard to say everything that happened because it's finals week and I come home next week, so I want to take as much time as I can to be in the city. But here, as the title shows, is a little taste of Jordan. Enjoy!

Here is a bedouin boy I met in Petra. While I was looking through my "Israel" tour book he saw a picture I was looking at of a boy and girl on a camel, and he said that they were in his village. So cool! Bedouins fascinate me; in Jordan they are permitted by the government to live in Petra. I met a few Bedouins who were actually born in the caves in the canyon. Yikes, and cool? I guess?

Here's a peek at the Treasurey trough the slot canyon.

This is the Monestary in Petra. Apparently in the Indiana Jones movie there is a scene "inside the monestary", but really I climbed inside and all it is is a cave. I'm glad I could experience the Monestary to bust that myth.

Trying to be Indiana Jones in front of the Treasurey in Petra. Thank you Courtney, Kennedy, and Kinzie for adding a little somethin' somethin' to my picture. Otherwise it would've been BORING.

Jordanian soldiers at the Treasury in Petra. I really love this picture, and I especially love their pointy helmets.


Bedouin girl in Petra. I'd like to play this second picture off as this girl just liking me and talking to me, but I can't lie, she was really just trying to sell me stuff. She was so cute; it was hard to turn her away!

Bedouin boy in Petra

Look, it's Petra! Pretty incredible.

Turkish Bath--Before. Looking and feeling pretty good!

Turkish Bath--After. Good cultural experience.

Here is yet another castle! It is called Shobak castle and it was a crusader's castle. No spiritual significance but it was still really awesome!

This is at Mount Nebo where Moses saw the promised land. It is also believed that Moses may have been translated, or "buried by the hand of the Lord." This is me tying a piece of toilet paper on the tree, which is a symbol of my being there at that site.

This may or may not be the most famous Mosaic ever (Madaba). It's an ancient "map" for pilgrims to get to Jerusalem.

Frumpy frump frump

I have returned from Jordan, but unfortunately our internet priveliges have been limited so I can't do good posts with pictures and all of that jazz. So i'm going to hold off on posting about Jordan because it needs pictures to explain how amazing and beautiful it was!

So for now I will vent a little bit and perhaps at the end I will tell you the list of things I have going in my journal about funny things in Jerusalem/random things I do not want to forget.

First off. Middle Eastern food. Getting so old! What I would give for some Taco Bell or even a can of pringles, anything! One day in Jordan we went to a restaurant for lunch and it was really nice, they made the pitas on the spot and you could watch them, but I sat there while everyone else dug into the pita and hummus and the questionable give-you-sickness salad, and I almost wanted to cry. And then when they brought out the veal and lamb kabobs (what's with the fascination of eating baby animals here??) I was finished. I just ate pita, imagining that there was refried beans and chips and salsa on the table in front of me. But when we went to the Amman branch for a meeting with the district president they made us chocolate chip cookies and gave us OREOS. HIGHLIGHT OF MY MONTH!

Next venting thing: my clothes! Believe it or not, wearing the same seven shirts over and over again has worn on me. I dread getting dressed in the morning. Oh wow, I'm afraid I'm sounding like a snob, but it's so true. I promise I'm not THAT vain, I have made it almost four months without really complaining. And to blow dry and straighten my hair....to curl it! Ah, what joy that will bring me.

It's funny because I think back to when I packed (and Tom and my mom can both confirm that this is true) I think I about lost my mind. For some reason I thought that I'd be perfectly fine with three pairs of pants and seven shirts for four months. And I definitely didn't need a blow drier or straightener (even though I'm glad I didn't bring one, it'll make me appreciate them so much more when I get home!) Oh, and not to mention for some reason I went crazy and thought that I couldn't bring my real razor so I brought ten disposables. Haven't had a good shave in a very long time. Cut myself every time.

But, this is all very worth it, because I love Jerusalem. And I love Jerusalem for these reasons, which most likely won't make sense to anyone else but when I look back on this later I will smile and laugh and have good memories.

- Ashura, ashura, ashura! which means ten, ten, ten! They always yell it in the Old City markets
- "Yella!!!" which means "hurry it up!"
- "For you, Mormon, I give you good price" which is what pretty much every merchant says to us.
- "Oh, Mormons, we love you! All the way to Jerusalem!" sung by a merchant in the Old City to the tune of "O, come all ye Faithful"
- "You are the most beautiful virgins!" said by the same merchant who sings to us
- "Thank you very cluth" said to me by an Israeli police officer after I told him thank you for letting me through a barrier on Good Friday. I wanted to tell him that the usual response is "you're welcome".
- Huka. Huka is a pipe/machine type thing that people in the middle east smoke with. It is so so bad for you, worse than cigerettes, but I LOVE the smell! I can smell huka from a mile away.
- Whenever a cell phone goes off I still automatically think it's a student's phone and I get nervous for them unti I realize that none of us have cell phones!
- In Jerusalem when you hear a gunshot or something like that you just keep doing whatever you were doing and pay no attention to it. Where in the United States if you were to hear a gun shot you'd baricade yourself in your house and call 911.
- In Jerusalem it's totally acceptable to hiss and meow at the stray cats.

Here is a short list of things that I have thought of. But there are so so many more and I always carry around my journal in case I think of something else that I don't ever want to forget.

So there you go. My scattered thoughts on Jerusalem and such until I get wireless to update you on Jordan. I hope everyone's doing well and is ready for me to come home soon!!

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter!

This morning some of us got up with the call to prayer at 4:30 to go to the 6:30 Easter service at the Garden Tomb. We walked in the dark with the security following us in the cars all the way to the Garden Tomb.

We got there at 6:00 and there was a huge line. I sat in line and read the story of the resurrection from John and Luke. I also read 3Nephi 12 when the Savior appears to the Americas, which was a really good experience for me.

When we got in the garden of the Garden Tomb it was packed with benches and chairs. The people poured in, but unlike the festivities of Good Friday everyone was very kind and courteous in their maneuvers. I found a seat right in front of the pulpit which was carved with the words "Jesus is alive".



The service was awesome. There was a band set up by the Tomb that turned out to be a Christian rock band. The service was so awesome, we sang and volunteers from the Garden Tomb spoke about Christ and the resurrection. I thought the messages were very nice and celebrated Christ living again. I loved being around people, who although they were not of my religion, were good people trying to live good lives. I loved it. Afterward we talked to the volunteers at the Garden, one in particular being Roy from England who gave us our first tour of the Garden Tomb. He is a good guy and I'd say that he is a friend of the Mormons.


The band members with some Asian women who would not get out of our picture.

Our friend Roy

We left the Garden Tomb after the amazing service and headed over to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to try to get into High Mass. We were there about an hour early. We got to watch the Armenian service and listen to the priests chant. We saw Father Samuel once again and this time he personally let us up onto the balcony. We were up there for a good twenty minutes this time but we had a big group that turned out to be a irreverent and we got kicked out. (It really bothers me when we get privileges from the Priests and Monks who trust us and people don't respect their holy places and other such things. But anyway...) When then stuck around in the crowd but it was just too much to wait for an hour or so, so we left with the intentions of seeing what was going on at other churches.




But once we were out we just tried to find somewhere to eat, since none of us had breakfast or lunch. We got some decent falafel and then headed home.

Tonight we have conference and I'm really excited for it. I think it'll be really nice after participating in other religions' activities today to finally listen to and learn from something that I know is true and from leaders that I sustain and support. It will be so refreshing!

We leave for Jordan tomorrow for four days. Exciting! I don't even know what to expect at all, but it will be a grand adventure.

Today I challenge you to take a minute away from the day and to find your own quiet time to celebrate Easter in your heart. I know that Christ came to this earth to live a perfect life for us, atone for our sins, die for us, and live again! This is the miracle of his plan for us and his perfect all encompassing love. Seek feeling this love for yourself and I know that you will. Happy Easter!

Good Friday

Good Friday, indeed! First off let me start by asking: was it good as in everyone was nice and kind and Christlike to each other? Not quite. Was it good in terms that most turned into crazy people and pushed and shoved others to get what they want? Yes.

Now, this really was a very fun day for me. But I did think it was a little ironic that a day celebrating Christ could turn so many of his followers into mad men. I will explain what I mean throughout this blog.

So, we are usually not allowed to go out into the city on Fridays unless it is between the hours of 3-5. Friday is the Muslim holy day and so things in the city can sometimes be a little intense while they're worshiping, but once they're out then we can go in. But for this day we got special permission from security to go out in a large group with our teachers to walk the Via Dolorosa to commemorate, with other religions, the walk that Christ took this very week thousands of years ago.

There were a ton of people, the city was packed. The police were out in full force and they had a lot of streets blocked off. Good thing we've been living here for three months and know the back streets to get to places. We used this knowledge and skill to avoid crowds and get to where we wanted to be. But anyway, we all met near Lion's gate where the Via Dolorosa started, where Christ was convicted.



It was interesting to see all of the different groups of religions. The BYU students walked with the Franciscan Monks. Almost all of the groups carried crosses. I saw one troubling display of a small group walking with a man painted in blood, wearing a crown of thorns, and carrying a cross. They were carrying speakers and blasting music. But to my surprise, this was the only reenactment that I saw, all of the other groups had crosses and that was mostly it.


Like I have said in a previous post, the Via Dolorosa is the road that Christ walked from where he was convicted to where he was crucified, where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands. Along the way the groups stop and stations that recall what Christ did at that point on the road, such as fall for the first time, cry for his mother, etc. This road was absolutely packed yesterday with tourists all leading into the same place. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher (pictured below).


My little group decided to stand on the side of the road and watch the groups go by. We got interview by a film crew. Here is a picture of my friend Taeler getting interviewed (I tease her and tell her that this picture would be much better if her eyes were open, but I guess it's still an alright picture). We then moved to the roof of the Austrian Hospice to get a better view. But once we realized that most groups were the same and nothing really exciting was happening, we decided to try to get ahead of the processions and get into the Holy Sepulcher before anyone else was there.


Ha Ha. This was a completely failed attempt. Of course the church was filled wall to wall with people with a huge line of tour groups poring out of the doors. We decided that since there was only three of us that we could justify sneaking in, and we did. We got yelled at but we just kept pushing through the crowd. There were three of us and we literally had to hold on to each others backpacks to stay together.



Once we got in we headed straight for the Sepulcher. This is where things were really crazy. People were pushing and shoving to get their way around. I can't say that I was perfect, there was a time when I wanted to put up the old lady in front of me (because I didn't have the heart to run her over) and move her out of my way. There was a line to get into the Sepulcher with hundreds of people standing in it. The police shoved their way through the crowd to form the boundaries of the line. This was insane! I saw police officers and monks alike just shoving people. They would place the metal fence and then just push whoever was in their way with it. People were falling over and falling into each other. I guess you've got to do what you've got to do? We were pretty close to this mob-like scene so we got away into another crowded place before anything big broke out.



Once place that we moved to a woman randomly just started screaming. Kind of scary, I think everyone knows that you don't scream in an extremely crowded building unless something is actually happening. I don't know if she was filled with the Holy Spirit or whatever, but a monk came out and put her in her place. He stormed towards her yelling at her, pushed her over and threw a chair at her. We were also very close to this incident and Corina, Taeler, and I all looked at each other like "did that just happen??"

Since three bickering religions are all in the Holy Sepulcher there was a lot of hostility even between the priests from the different religions. On normal days they pick petty fights, such as "this step belongs to the Greek Orthodox because one of our priests is sweeping it" to priests literally drawing lines between their separate chapels and pushing their boundaries, like Kaitlin and I did when we shared a bed growing up. That's really how it is. I didn't have the privilege to see it, but many students who braved going into the Holy Sepulcher saw some fist fights and other skirmishes go down between the priests. Kind of silly. But anyway, I think you get the gist of the hostility and violence that was going down in the Holy Sepulcher, the holiest place in all Christianity, on Good Friday.

Now, we're not stupid. We knew that a group of three girls could get to places where normally people couldn't get to. And we used this knowledge to our advantage. We met a priest named Father Samuel who we became friends with. We asked him if he would let us up on the balcony of the church (which is gated off from the rest of the church) and he told that the priests were having a service in a chapel on the balcony but if we came back in twenty minutes he would let us up. By twenty minutes we didn't know if he meant "twenty minutes and I'll be here to help you" or "twenty minutes and I will actually be gone from this place" cause when we fought our way back Father Samuel was no where to be found. But we threw his name around a bit and finally a priest reluctantly let us up.

While we climbed up the stairs we were literally pushing our way through the group of priests that were just let out of their service. It was so cool. They surrounded us. We got to the top and pushed our limits a little bit by trying to go further before getting chased down by the priest that let us up. He was not very happy with us at all. But we got to stay up in the balcony for a good ten minutes where were could look down on the unfolding madness around the sepulcher below us. It also gave me a chance to get some good pictures of the worshiping crowds.



After we were tired of the madness of the Holy Sepulcher we decided to go to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and see what was happening for Passover. We didn't see much, other than all of the bagel/pizza shops had been changed to ice cream shops, since during passover the Jewish people must eat unleavened bread. The grocery stores in Israel have complete sections of food blocked off that are off limits to buy during this time. Just a side note, but because of this we haven't had fresh bread where we eat in the Oasis for quite some time. It is all stale and hard. I am ready for some good bread again!

Since not a lot was going down we decided to go back to the center to have a free dinner and to rest before it was time to head down as a group, once again accompanied by our teachers, to the Old City. But this time we were going to the Western Wall to welcome in Shabbat (Sabbath) with the Jews. We did this early in the semester. The time before was much more exciting because there was a group of soldiers there who were quite rambunctious in their Shabbat celebrations. Very entertaining. But on this day it was relatively quiet, which was fine; it was nice to get away from the chaos of crowds. Here are some pictures at the Western Wall that I took before the Sabbath police told me to put away my camera (pushing buttons requires work and is therefore breaking the Sabbath):





After the Western Wall some people went to Christ's funeral procession at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher but I felt like I had had enough of that place so I came home. They had a good time and did some pretty cool things, but as for me I enjoyed coming home and taking it easy, recovering from an insane, chaotic, but wonderful day.