Happy Birthday Karrot Cake!!

So today happens to be one of my bestest friends in the entire world, Kara's birthday! Kara randomly was assigned as my roommate freshman year, and I could not have been luckier! It really was such a blessing. She is the sweetest, funniest, greatest, most beautiful girl I know and I love her to pieces! I seriously cannot count the number of times we talked till 2 in the morning, went out cruising in the dance-it mobile, ate oreos to get our late afternoon chocolate fix, and rolled on the floor literally laughing until it hurt.

I love you Kara!! I hope you have the greatest birthday ever! I miss you like crazy and am so grateful to have you in my life! Congrats on the engagement :) (Jeff Kimball you are a lucky, lucky, man!)

Arab Culture Night

Wednesday night we got a well needed break from studying in the form of Arab Culture Night! It started out with our very own call to prayer. The father and son who "sing" the call 5 times a day from the largest mosque in Jerusalem, came to the center and gave us a private performance. It was cool to see and hear what wakes us up bright and early every morning in person and to learn more about the significance of the prayer. They are amazingly talented individauls (I could not make my voice sound like that in a million years) and have every single line of the Qur'an memorized. Pretty impressive!

After prayer we had a native arab cuisine dinner that our cooks spent all day preparing. They turned the Oasis Cafeteria out for the occasion-we actually had real life tablecloths, center pieces, and fancy folded napkins haha. The food was interesting....I am proud to say that I tried everything though!

Our night concluded with Arab folk dancing which was awesome! They brought in a few local experts to teach us the moves and we all got super into it, with foot stomping, jumping, high kicking, and hip shaking galore, and had a blast! I really wish that we had a cultural dance in the US, because the tradition is so much fun.

The night was definitely a success and I would say we are all definitely more cultured because of it :)

P.S. We are no longer under lockdown.....yay!!!!

Shephelah Field Trip

Monday was field trip day as usual, as this week it was a great one! It was called the Shephelah field trip, the low land of Judea, and we made so many stops!

First, we went to Beth Shemesh and the Torek Valley, which is where Samson was born and where the Phillistines brought the Ark of the Covenent. It also is where two stone ebenezers were raised, so naturally we sang "Come Thou Fount" and reenacted the whole thing...

Next we hit up Lachish and Azekah, which are Tels that were once Judean fortresses that Joshua conquered. They were both interesting, but all the tels we visit are starting to look exactly the same! And for some odd reason we also seem to visit them during the hottest part of the day, and tels are sadly typically lacking in the shade department. But even with the heat, it is still pretty amazing to see ruins that are thousands of years old!

Next we went to Mareshah, which was awesome! It is basically an underground city complex, built so the residents could escape the heat of the summer and work in the cool. I am telling you, these ancient Israelis were smart people! The underground complex contains a cave where they raised pigeons for sacrifices and fertilizer, a winepress, an olive crusher and press, and a cistern (which all of us girls may have stopped in and sang "As Cisterns in Zion"....haha gotta love JC humor!)

From there we went to the Bell Caves, which were way cool. They are the result of mining for plaster during the early Islamic period, so there is no real religious significance behind them, but they are gorgeous and have better acoustics than anywhere in the world, according to our in-house music genius Brother Whipple. We of course had to take advantage of this, so we sang hymns in there for a quite a while, and a few people of the more talented members of our group sang solos. They were all beautiful and it was one of the highlights of the day.

After the bell caves we went spelunking at some nearby caves, which was a first for me and an absolute blast! Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures because they advised us not to bring our cameras in because there is a slight chance they could break. Knowing my luck, I was 100% sure mine would break if i risked it, so my camera stayed on the bus, safe and sound :) But even without my camera I had so much fun exploring the caves, crawling through TINY holes, and getting ridiculously dirty :)

Our last stop of the day was the Elah Valley, which is where David fought Goliath. Brother Manscill taught a great lesson about the faith of David and then we all got to try our hand at the sling, which is not as easy as it looks! I did finally get my rock to go about fifteen feet straight in front of me though, which I definitely consider a success! It was so cool to imagine David facing Goliath in the same exact field where I was standing, and the whole experience made the story totally come to life.

I obviously am not quite as brave as David haha

It was a long, great day, and we were all definitely ready for a shower and nap as soon as we got back to the center :)

Free Day-Ethiopian Church, Marketplace, and the Olive Wood Rivalry

Sunday was our free day so a group of us went out to explore the city! Our first stop was the Ethiopian Church in West Jerusalem. The Church was really pretty and we had a great time walking around barefoot, lighting candles, and singing hymns while sitting on the oriental rugs.

Next we stopped and explored a huge marketplace. We sampled some local foods, talked to some locals, and I got the greatest juice I have had in my entire life! They have these juice stands all over Jerusalem, where you pick out exactly what you want from the huge variety of fresh fruits in front of you and they make your juice right then and there. My selection this time was strawberry, orange, pineapple, banana, starfruit, and date......so yummy :)

my delicious juice :)

Before heading back to the center to study for midterms, we stopped at both Jimmy's and Omar's olive wood shops. It is actually pretty funny because these shop owners have a huge rivalry going on in the Mormon souvenir market. And there definitely is a market...haha these men who are Muslim actually have lots of carvings of Joseph Smith, Nephi, Captain Moroni, etc. and have BYU flags hanging in their shops. They give any students visiting their stores free drinks, occasionally ice cream, and a whole lot of compliments to try to win their loyalties and prove that they are better than the other guys! There is an Omar/Jimmy division here in the center, that may or may not involve occasional debates and trash talking between the students, its hilarious! For those who may be interested I am definitely an Omar-ite. I already bought my nativity and I love it :)

I love Shabbat!

Just warning you upfront, this is a journal post and there are no cool pictures, sorry! This last Sabbath was one my favorites here in Jerusalem. It was fast sabbath since we have district conference this week, and the whole block of meetings was amazing. I have heard that people struggle going to church meetings back in the states after being here, and I can definitely see why! Looking at a gray cinder block wall during sacrament meeting is just not quite the same as looking out at the Old City of Jerusalem, we are definitely spoiled.

After church a group of us went to study our scriptures over at Orson Hyde Garden, which is one of my favorite places here in the city. It is so pretty and the view is incredible. We have not been able to go for the last few weeks, because a group of our students got mugged there recently, but the center sent some security guards there to watch over us so we could spend time there safely. It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon!

After dinner Melissa, Stacey, Lauren, Abby, Becca and I went over to the Whipples apartment to make cookies. The Whipples are an elderly service couple over here and they are basically the greatest people I have ever meant. They are so sweet and full of personality and have both done some pretty incredible things in their lives. Brother Whipple was the first mission president in Poland, translated the Book of Mormon into Polish, and is the most musically gifted man alive. Sister Whipple is absolutely hilarious, and is a former singing/tap-dancing star! It was so fun to get to know them better and the chocolate chip cookies were heavenly! Sadly,Israel apparently does not believe in baked desserts because they were our first cookies here haha and lets just say that between the six of us girls, we finished the whole batch :)

That night, President Brown taught a lesson about Luke, which was super interesting. I am learning soooo much here in Jerusalem, its crazy! Studying the gospel really has never been so interesting. So overall, it was a pretty fantastic day! Hope you had a Shabbat Shalom as well :)

Lockdown....

So right now we are under lockdown here in the center because of what is currently happening here in Israel with the raid on the flotilla. If you want to learn more about what happened, look here. The attacks caused all the Arabs here to go on strike and protest, and because we live in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem, we are not allowed to leave for security reasons. We all feel totally safe here in the center and security is taking all the necessary precautions, so there is no need to worry Mom! It is interesting to be living in the middle of such a heated conflict, and to be hearing first-hand the arguments from both sides about the tragedy. Depending on which newspaper you pick up or who you talk to here in Israel, you will get a completely different story. We are all praying that things work out and that the situation diffuses so we can get back to life as usual here, but until then we will be staying indoors studying for our midterms this week and doing some much needed catching up on blogs/journals/sleep!

Pray for Shalom

Bible Lands field trip

Last week we went on a field trip to Neot Kedumim, which we renamed "Bible Land!" It is a 500 acre park where they have tried to preserve the land-down to the specific types of vegetation-as it would have been found during the time of bible. Besides getting to see what it would have looked like back then, we got to participate in a bunch of biblical activities like....

drawing water from a well...just call me Rebekah!

grinding spices by hand

attempting to herd sheep...attempting being the key word haha. My chosen method was to nudge them with a stick and tell them where to go, and lets just say it failed miserably. I was definitely not meant to be a shepherd!

working an olive press

and making our own pita!