Galilee, Called to Serve, Palm Sunday

Here are some highlights from the last couple of weeks…

I recently spent 11 days in a bungalow at Galilee on the beach. If that isn’t cool I don’t know what is. Up to this time in my life, Galilee is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. My two favorite parts of the whole trip was the boat ride that we took on the Sea of Galilee. Our first couple of days in Galilee it was really windy so there were plenty of waves. It wasn’t difficult to imagine our Savior walking on these waters, and calming the storm. My other favorite part of the trip was a hike that I went on with about half of the students. We hiked down to a beautiful waterfall, but it was actually the hike out that was my favorite. It was the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. I was so grateful that I came at this time of year when everything was so green.

Galilee was the most restful part of the entire semester. We went on a lot of field trips, but we also had multiple days that we just had class in the morning, and the rest of the day was open for naps and swimming. Among my favorite field trips were the Mount of Beatitudes, Church in Nain (commemorating the raising from the dead the widow of Nain), swimming at ha-Shelosha (which is like a natural swimming pool), Mount Tabor (one of the places they think might be the Mount of Transfiguration), and simply being on the Golan Heights was really cool, we saw many mine fields. Oh and I almost forgot Caeseara Philippi was beautiful as well. In the back of the Bible picture #26 is a picture of this place, and the coolest thing is my professor actually took this picture! So he showed us where he took the picture, he was actually in the water when he took it. So we each tried to take a similar picture without getting in the water. While you’re looking at the pictures look at all of these pictures too… 1-3, 6-15, 17, 19-28… I’ve been to all of these places too.

One night we went to a restaurant and ate “St. Peter’s Fish.” And guess who ate both of the fish eyes. Yes, that would be me. And just in case you didn’t know, the middle is hard… mmmm.

Even though Galilee was amazing, from day 1 I was counting down the days until we would return to Jerusalem. I found out that my call had officially been sent in right before I left for Galilee. I called home quick on Friday and found out that my call had been issued. The hardest part was I had decided to keep it a secret, so no one even knew my papers were in. I opened my call at 11:00 pm the night that we got back. My parents had scanned my call in without looking at it. I had my whole family on the phone when I opened my call. It was simply amazing opening up my call finding out I would serving the Philippines while looking out on the city of Jerusalem. One of my most favorite moments of my entire life was announcing my call at dinner the next day. Everyone wasn’t sure if I was serious or not at first. Once they figured out it was real, they all erupted into cheers. I’m pretty sure I got at least 70 hugs that night. It was so fun because we all know each other so well that no one could believe that I had kept it a secret from everyone. My mouth was hurting by the end of the night from smiling so much.

The best part was two days later was Palm Sunday, and I got to spend the entire day with Filipinos. Before the procession started I went to talk to them and take pictures with them. They were so excited to talk to me and more than willing to answer any of my questions. Then later during the processions we ran into them again. So we decided to do the procession with them. As soon as they saw me they told me to come up and help them hold their banner. So I spent the whole time surrounded by Filipinos singing and just loving it! When we got to the end of the procession we lost the Filipinos for a while. But no worries we found them later all dancing to the band that was playing. As soon as they saw me they came and grabbed my hand to come dance with them. So for a while it was just me and the Filipinos dancing. Best day ever!! And that’s not it. The night ended with a bunch of us making 125 shekels from performing on the street. We bought a bunch of gelato with the money.

Classes, Check-points, and Germans

Last week was midterms, this week is finals. It's funny how that worked out... So the semester here is front end heavy. After this week I will only have New Testament and Ancient Near East, instead of Judaism, Islam, Old Testament, Ancient Near East, and Hebrew. So between this week and last week I will have taken 9 exams. I just have to keep looking at my schedule and reminding myself that once I make it through this week life will be wonderful! After this week we only have morning classes, we go on field trips twice a week, the homework load is significantly less, and we have tons of free days. Oh and we have our 11 day Galilee trip coming up, followed by a 4 day trip to Jordan. And I guess I shouldn't be complaining anyway because I am living in Jerusalem!

They also seem to be canceling/rescheduling things left and right lately. Last week our passover dinner got pushed back because they're not done remodeling the kitchen. Today our separation wall field trip got canceled because of the rain. We also aren't allowed out into East Jerusalem and the Old City for the first time today because of problems on the temple mount. Everyone else that wasn't in the library this morning apparently could hear the sirens all morning. But no worries I'm still completely safe. So needless to say I've had ample time open to study for all of those tests, so in a way I guess it's kind of a blessing.

Another thing that has been canceled frequently in the last couple of weeks is my Islam class. My Islam teacher lives in Bethlehem which is in the West Bank. The only reason that he is able to come into Jerusalem is because he obtained a special permit because he has a job in Jerusalem. But to get across the checkpoint can take hours, and he is not allowed to drive his own car across. The first time class was canceled he was unable to come to class because an Israeli soldier wouldn't let him into Jerusalem and wouldn't give him any explanation why. Since coming here I've heard many checkpoint stories, and they've probably impacted me more than anything else. I never realized how blessed I am to have the freedom I have. Also being an American I can cross the same check-point at any point without any problems. I can only imagine the frustration of being denied access to Jerusalem for no apparent reason.

One last neat story then back to homework...

So a little background, the Jerusalem Center does free concerts once a week as a way to give back to the community. They are typically classical music by very talented musicians. Musicians love to come play here because the setting and acoustics are so incredible. Anyway last week I was volunteering and helping usher at one of these concerts. One of the main reasons they have us host is because people from the community love to see who the students are that live here. (Sometimes I feel like if they were doing a tour of the center, they could point to a group of students and say something like "here's one of recent exhibits, some of the students that actually live and go to school here.") It's actually kind of funny. So I was hosting last Sunday and this older German couple came up and started talking to me. The first thing he said to me was "Are you a Latter-day Saint?" which really caught me off guard because throughout all of Jerusalem we are known as "the Mormons" or "BYU" never Latter-day Saints. I told him yes, and he then asked me if I had been to Salt Lake City. I told him that I live right by Salt Lake, and they both got really excited and told me that they had recently visited Salt Lake and had seen temple square. Through the course of the conversation they told me that the elders had been coming to their house, and every time they come they feed them great big meals, which the elders love. I don't think they originally knew exactly where they were coming to for the concert because they told me that they got so excited when they got here and saw "Brigham Young University" on the sign out front. They told me that they knew who Brigham Young was, he was the one who had took the saints across the plains after Joseph Smith died. I was very careful to let them do all of the talking about our religion, so that in no way was I proselyting. But it was really fun to hear someone else tell me about what I believe. I had never wanted to bear my testimony of the truth so bad in my life. But even without my testimony I'm convinced that this couple will get baptized. They were in Israel because he is a retired doctor and they go around doing humanitarian service. So they were here doing service within the West Bank. They told me that they hadn't seen the elders for a while because they had been gone, but they're going to call them as soon as they get back. I'm sure the missionaries just absolutely love them! Like I said I'm convinced they know it's true!

Tel Aviv

I went with a group to Tel Aviv last Sunday to spend the day. The weather couldn't have been more perfect! We spent the day exploring and playing on the beach.

This is part of the group with the Mediterranean Sea and downtown Tel Aviv behind us.

We went to a flea market, which turned out to be a glorified garage sale. This was just around the corner from the flea market...

Since being in here I've been having weird cravings for food that I miss. The food I miss most is definitely cheddar cheese. You can only imagine my excitement when I found some in the market in Tel Aviv. So I bought a little wedge of it. It cost 14 shekels (about $3.50), but it was totally worth it!


The best part of the day, by far, was playing on the beach. We weren't allowed to swim, only wade. So we spent most of our time playing ultimate frisbee and watching the sunset. This is my fearless ultimate frisbee team, or at least part of them...

So I've decided that sunsets/sunrises have become kind of theme of my adventure here. The day that I left Utah there was the most beautiful sunset. My mom told me that it was Utah saying goodbye to me. Then on the plane ride I had a window seat so I got to watch the sunset and the sunrise as I was flying over the ocean. When I went to Egypt I watched the sunset over the Nile a couple of times, once while floating on the Nile. Then I watched the most beautiful sunrise on top of Mount Sinai. At the Jerusalem Center we have the most beautiful view, so I have watched the sunset over Jerusalem from Mount Scopus, where the center is. And then of course last week when I was in Tel Aviv we sat on the beach overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and watched the sunset. I got to hold this sunset in my hand...

New Friends

So before I left I had a friend forward me some of the local people that I should go visit while I was here. I finally got around to going yesterday. Three of my friends and I chose to go to a family that lives just up the way. We were all a little nervous about just going to some random house and meeting some locals. We also weren’t sure if we were going to be able to follow the directions to find their house. We found the house just fine. When we got there we sat in front of the little entrance to the community of houses for a couple minutes not really knowing what we were doing. Eventually we got brave enough to knock and announce ourselves. A lady poked her head out of the window and we told her we were looking for Nuha and Aya. She said “I’m Nuha” and Aya (her daughter) is here too. She pointed to the stairs and told us to just go up them to the front door. So we went and met them up there. They immediately welcomed us into their home before we really even had a chance to tell them who we were. We found out Aya was 13 years old, and she also had a brother that is 14, a sister that is 6, and a brother that is 4. I felt loved from the very first moment I met them. After being there for only about 10 minutes Nuha went and got us grapefruit juice. And we all just sat and chatted and got acquainted with one another. I was very impressed with their English, we had very little problems communicating. Aya told us that she loves learning English. Right away they got out photo albums to show us pictures of them with past BYU Jerusalem students, as well as other pictures of them. I felt like family even though I had only met this family 10 minutes before. Through the course of the conversation Nuha’s husband told us that he works at a restaurant. We talked to him about his job, and about the different food we had had since arriving in Jerusalem. After that conversation ­­Nuha went downstairs and got us pita, hummus, mushrooms, beans, and tomatoes to eat. It was so yummy!! And it was incredible to be in a Palestinian home, with a Palestinian family, eating Palestinian food. Nuha asked us how many Palestinian friends we had, and we told them they were our first. Both Nuha and Aya said “good!” in unison when told them that. After about an hour we had to leave because we had to be back before sundown. None of us wanted to leave though. It was raining when we left, and Aya was concerned that we were going to get wet. I told her that I had a hood on my jacket, and she proceeded to put my hood on my head for me. I barely even know her and her family, but I already love them! We were all walking on air on our way home and we couldn’t help but smile!

“The world fears time, but time fears the pyramids” cont.

The title of this blog is the first line of the infamous pyramid sound and light show. We saw the sound and light show the first night we were in Cairo, the pyramids are amazing, but the sound and light show was probably not my favorite thing in the world. It was much more fun to go back the next day and see them in the light, and go inside one of them. I think this was so neat because the pyramids are something I have heard about my entire life, and I would never have even dreamed of going inside one of them.

So if I could only choose one word to describe Egypt I would probably choose “grand!” Or at least to describe things like the ancient ruins, the pyramids, and the Nile. It’s amazing though that among these amazing sites are people that live in complete poverty that don’t even have clean water to drink. Needless to say my 8 day trip was amazing, and dare I say slightly life changing. I saw so many things that I’ve learned about since a young age and I also experienced visiting a developing country for the first time. There is no way to describe even a small portion of my adventures in Egypt, but here are some of the most exciting parts…

One of my favorite things was all the different types of transportation we used. We used 9 different types of transportation: bus, train, camel, airplane, taxi, shuttle, felucca (the boat we took down the Nile), a horse drawn carriage, and walking of course. My two favorite were the camel and the felucca ride. My hotel in Luxor was on the Nile, so we took feluccas down the Nile to ride camels, went on a camel ride, and then sailed back down the Nile while the sun was setting. Can you say incredible! It was the most beautiful sunset, and it was so peaceful! I also saw the most beautiful sunrise while in Egypt. One morning we got up at 2:30 to hike Mount Sinai. We started hiking by 3:30 and we were at the top by 5:30. The coolest part of the hike up was the “camel parking lot.” So when we were 2/3 to the top all the people that rode camels up, had to get off and walk. So we got to weave through all the many camels in the dark. Also on the hike up we had to always be aware because getting run over by a camel was a common threat. Camels will never have quite the same excitement they once had. Anyway when I got to the top of the mountain, the sun was just beginning to peak over the mountain. We sang hymns as we watched the sunrise, it was incredible!

Another one of my favorite parts of our Egypt trips was visiting the Valley of the Kings. While there we had the opportunity to go in the tombs of Ramsees the I, III, and IX, as well as King Tut’s tomb. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the tombs, and I think that was something that made it one of my favorite places. It was nice to be able to just enjoy being there, and not worrying about documenting everything. I loved being in the tombs and seeing all of the amazing hieroglyphics. Sometime in the last month I learned that hieroglyphics were carved and then painted. In these tombs there were places that still had the original paint, so cool! It was also fun to think about what it would have been like when they buried the Pharaohs with all of their treasures. While I was in one of the tombs the power went out. How exciting to be in an ancient tomb with no power, but it was also nice that a couple of us had flashlights on us.

Going to the Egyptian market was really fun and exciting! I became excellent at getting everything down to at least 1/3 of the price they originally told me. All of us girls agreed that we had never received so many compliments in our lives. You would walk down the street and they would say “oh beautiful eyes” or “hi baby face.” They also loved yelling “no hassle” or “Obama” at us. The neatest part was going past the tourist market to the real Egyptian market. People ignored us a lot more while we were in the real market. We got to go through and just observe the Egyptians in their everyday lives.

We were extremely spoiled the whole trip, staying in 5 star hotels, and going to nice restaurants. One day we had the chance to eat at the Hard Rock Café for lunch, and we most definitely had a dance party while waiting for our food. It was pretty great! J

Although the pyramids were grand and amazing, I think that the Luxor and Karnak temples amazed me even more. I just simply couldn’t comprehend that these were built anciently. They are incredible, and HUGE! The pillars, the hieroglyphics, and just the structure of the building were incredible! With arms stretched out as far as they could, it took 10 people to go around one pillar.

I could probably keep going on for forever, but here are at least some of the highlights. Going to Egypt was probably one of my favorite weeks of my life. I couldn’t help but think how spoiled and how blessed I was the entire time.

The world fears time, but time fears the pyramids

Just playing James Bond in the Karnak temple, which is actually where they filmed a portion of one of the James Bond movies.

Our hotel was right on the Nile, which is where this picture was taken.

Going to the ruins of the Luxor and Karnak temples was probably one of my favorite things. Look how huge these pillars are. The architecture of these temples is incredible!

We're at the first pyramid ever made. It is a step pyramid.

The pyramids! One of the most surprising things was how close they are to the city. We first saw them the night we drove in as we were driving to our hotel. So we could city city landscape with the pyramids just behind the city.

Just kissing the sphynx, no big deal ;)

Laundry, Field Trip, and Thunder

The first picture is at the Tel at Jericho. The second one is overlooking the Judean Wilderness.


So just a quick funny note about how so much of my life is intertwined... this morning I had a quick 5-10 minute break in my Old Testament class. So I decided to might as well make it productive, so I ran down four flights of stairs and took my laundry out of the dryer, and back to my room. How many people can say that they took their laundry out during their short class break? I just thought it was really funny.
Well onto more exciting things... early this week we went on a field trip to see Jericho and a couple other sites. We first went to a monastery that is on the Mount of Temptation. It was somewhere near this sight that they believe Jesus was tempted by Satan. And in the monastery they even had a rock that was the rock Satan told Jesus to turn into bread. :) I love how everyone makes claims here like that all the time. Sometimes you just have to chuckle. Anyway at the monastery it overlooked ancient Jericho, which is being excavated, as well as modern day Jericho. To overlook Jericho we went on a little balcony at the monastery on the mountain, and even our professors said that they weren't sure how much weight the balcony could hold. Luckily we had no tragic deaths falling off the Mount of Temptation. After the monastery we went to the Tel of Jericho, where they are excavating ancient Jericho. It was neat because they are excavating remains that are 8,000 years old! Probably my favorite spot we visited that day was overlooking the Judean Wilderness. They told us that it was the spot where they took the picture in the Bible. I never knew a wilderness could be so beautiful!
So with that field trip our professors told us that one of the most amazing parts was the weather we had. It was raining the day that we went, and our professor told us that he had never seen rain in that part of the country. So the hike up the monastery was kind of slippery because they don't plan on it ever really raining. They also told us that was the coldest they've ever seen it in the Judean Wilderness too. I don't think we got the full effect of what it would be like to be stuck in the wilderness because we weren't experiencing the scourching heat.
The weather has actually been amazing since I got here! The first week and a half we were here the weather was like the perfect temperature, mid 70's or so. It definitely did not feel like January, and we all kind of forgot that Christmas happened less than a month ago. Since then it's cooled down a little bit, but it's still been nice. Probably more like 50 and 60 degree weather. They tell us that this is the rainy season, and we've begun to see that. They're in a drought right now, so it hasn't rained that much, but it is often drizzling lightly. Except for the other day... their was a huge storm! Someone native to the Holy Land told us that it was the worst rain storm that they had seen in a couple decades. It was thundering and lightening like crazy too! At one point it was so close and so loud the huge windows in the center started to shake. I also heard that the rainstorm caused a lot of flooding in the Middle East. Luckily that day none of us were out in the city, so we got to enjoy the big rainstorm from inside.
Another neat thing we did this week as attend a Lutheran service on Sunday. It was kind of neat to go to a sunday service in a church in the middle of the old city. The people were all very kind and welcoming. The funny part was that they had all the visitors stand up and introduce themselves. There were probably at least 100 visitors, and only like 15 members of their congregation.
Today when I went out to the city we have a group of five 14-15 year old boys follow us half the way there. I most definitely had a 15 year old boy trying to hit on me. I was just glad that he was only 15. :) One thing that has been surprising is how much the kids just run around here. It isn't uncommon to see a little kid running around the old city by themselves. Also it's really sad to see how young they begin smoking. As we came back to the center there was a boy that was probably about 9 or 10 smoking on the steps of the center. It's really really sad.
So I need to get over to Hebrew University more often so I can upload pictures, because I know that's more exciting than writing. So I'll definitely work on that, but it probably won't be for at least a week and a half.