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!