Jerusalem

There are these beautiful little creations of shells all over the beach. You can just pick up solid handfuls of shells.
Then when I was walking back from my secret beach spot, I discovered even more ladybugs! They are all over. There are three right here on this little plant alone. Whoa. Ladybugs are so fun.
Yay! I found a kippa too! Kippas are the little hat things that Jewish men wear on their head. I don’t really know how they keep them on, but with all of the Jews on the kibbutz and with all of the wind on the Sea of Galilee, you’d think I’d be finding a plethora of kippas on the beach. But nope, just the one.
That evening we went to a restaurant where you could either get fish, pizza, or spaghetti. Since I am very unfortunately not a fan of fish, I got spaghetti. But they just plop down this plate in front of you with an entire little fishy on it.

Since I didn’t eat the fish like everyone else did, I thought I should at least eat the eyeball.
Clearly it tasted pretty good. Actually, it wasn’t that bad at all. There wasn’t much taste. It was just kind of gross chewing a fish eyeball.
Then we went drove to the other side of the lake and went to Tiberias. There was a store called HAPPY DAY! Yay! It was pretty much wicked awesome.

Saturday, March 27: Shabbat
Since my group was having church later in the afternoon, I was free all morning. I got my scriptures and went and sat on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and read about Jesus being on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Awesome, I know. I’m so lucky.

I sat in the grass too, underneath the beautiful sunshine. Then I took a picture of my Jerusalem Bible sandals, which are the best in the world.
And I got my BIRTHDAY BOX! A couple from Jerusalem came up to Galilee and brought all of our mail. YAY!
They sent my chunky peanut butter. I have the best family in the world. I loved this box so so so much. It made my day so wonderful. Mail is the happiest.
Then we went to another baptismal site on the Jordan River, where there were plaques of the Jesus baptism story in about five million languages. This is one Hawaiian pidgin. Dearest Hawaiian Kara read it for us.
Moon and I took this lovely picture while we were singing hymns and a couple primary songs. We sang one of my favorite songs that is maybe called “I Like to Look for Rainbows.” Good one.
GALILEE ROOMIES! Breana. Chelsea. Aleni. Hayley. We had so much fun in little cabana 154.
This is on the Jordan River. A lot of people get baptised here. It is beautiful.
Go in peace!
Then it was time for church. So we went to Tiberias and had a fabulous sacrament meeting. It was so so so so beautiful.

Here’s the view from where we had church. The view is great from the Center looking out at the city of Jerusalem, but I thought this was even better.

pretty colors
all the lovely ladies
purple day!
Chelsea and roomie Lauren
purple. yellow. and a little red. fabulous colors.
Goodbye Tiberias. Hope to see you again. Back at Ein Gev, Elyse and I happened to be rockin’ our purple genies. Gotta love those genie pants, and shabbat.

Wednesday, March 25: Woke up of course. Got ready. Walked out my door. Picked a beautiful hibiscus from the bush in front of my door. Put the beautiful hibiscus in my hair. Went to breakfast. Ate some yummy yummy granola with yogurt. Walked back to the lovely shores of the Sea of Galilee. Had three wonderful hours of New Testament class with Brother Huff.  Ate lunch that wasn’t very good. Free for the rest of the beautiful afternoon to wander the beach.

I wandered. I wondered. I looked at lots of little shells.
I tried to read this Korean writing, or maybe it’s Japanese. Sorry, I don’t really know.

People made some fabulous sand creations. The Dome of the Rock. It makes us feel like home, Jerusalem.
At sunset, we had a little photo shoot.

My skirt got wet. Yay! Thursday, March 26: Field Trip

Our first stop was Gamla, which means CAMEL! Because this little mountain resembles a camel, my new favorite animal. Don’t worry though, llamas still have a very special place in my heart.
We went on a little hike down the hill to see some more cool ruins. These were from one of the oldest synagogues in Israel or something like that. 
Lauren and I jumped for joy off of some ruins, because ruins bring about great joy in us.
It was another fabulously beautiful day and so good to be in green mountains. I miss green.
There were beautiful wildflowers all over too. I love love love wildflowers. 
I bought this sweet leopard cowboy hat too for 20 sheks/$5 when we were at Gamla. It’s the coolest of cool.

After Gamla, we went to Qazrin, a Talmudic village, where the Talmud (which is part of Jewish holy books) would’ve been worked on way back in the day. I took notes in my sweet little note taking journal.

We saw a bunch of cutesy little Jewish kids there doing fun things.
Then we got back on the bus and went back to Ein Gev for the rest of the beautiful Galilean day.
People were playing on the beach. It was simply marvelous.
Along with the Dome of the Rock, the cool kids made a Sphinx. Maybe we should make sand creations of all the cool places we’ve been too, because we have definitely been some awesome possum places.
That night, we went down to the beach and lit some fun little sparklers and a few firework things. I love Galilee, best field trip ever.

As we sang “Master, the Tempest is Raging”, the wind was blowing and the waves were going and you could just imagine Christ walking on the water and calming the seas. 
Our boat ride took us to Nof Ginnosar (or something like that that sounded like dinosaur), where we saw the ancient Jesus boat. They discovered this boat deep in the mud in the Sea of Galilee. This boat is from the time of Jesus. They have had to do so much to preserve it and to get it out of the water without having it fall apart completely. This ancient boat is pretty cool beans.
Then we went to the Mt. of Beatitudes where I put another beautiful hibiscus in my hair. I had one of these pretty little flowers in my hair everyday in Galilee. I love it.
Beatus is Latin means to be happy or to be fortunate, so the Beatitudes are to make us happy. Brother Huff, one of our religion teachers, gave us a lesson about them here at the Mt. of Beatitudes. It was so so so beautiful here, with trees and green things and flowers and sunshine and rain. I love it.
Then we went to Tagbha, which honors the loaves and fishes miracle where Jesus fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fishes.

I lit a candle.

Tagbha is also where St. Peter’s Primacy is and is where Christ told Peter to “Feed my sheep.”
There were hugest heart shaped rocks I’ve ever seen.
Next stop was Capernaum, the base of Jesus’s Galilean ministry and also Peter’s house was, which became Christianity’s first church house.
This is a Holy Place.
I love rainbows.
Our last stop for the day was Kursi where the there are signs that say “Danger Mines!” because that area is part of the Golan Heights and Israel and Syria have been fighting over it.
The miracle of the swine, when Jesus cast the devils out of a person and into a bunch of pigsthat then ran down the hill, also happened here. It was so beautiful here and so windy on top of this hill. Oh so glorious.
Now for my favorite part of the day:

First I found a ladybug. His name is Winston.
I frolicked down the beach by myself and found a dead fish and named it Octavius.
I then gave him a proper burial service and said some beautiful kind words of remembrance. Every creature deserves that.
I found another ladybug and named her Emmaline, Winston’s lover.
Then I found a big plastic bag and the water and took it out of the water because things like that do not need to be in the water. Then I decided to fill it with trash, because there was a lot of trash on the beach and I did not like seeing it at all. So I participated in a self sponsored beach cleanup. 
I also found a sweet new pair of shoes.
To top that off, I wore my sweet Michael Jackson shirt all day long. It was such an excellent day, must be because my dear sister turned 25 on this lovely day. I do love birthday celebrations, and Winston, and Octavius, and beach cleanups, and beach walks, and the Sea of Galilee. What an excellent day.

Good thing I didn’t try to herd the sheep by myself, because they were quite unresponsive to me. Actually, when I tried to get a picture with them, they just avoided me and ran away.
They ran away from Kara too.
Then we went caterpillar hunting, as they did in the Bible. Just kidding. I just have this new fascination with bugs and I like to make friends with them. Except…
THE CATERPILLAR POOPED ON ME! I was observing its incredibly engineered body, then I saw a little something coming out of its bum and screamed and the caterpillar fell on the ground. Then I looked on the ground and saw this little green conglomeration of caterpillar poo. Wow… a whole new realm of understanding with the fecal matter world.
After the caterpillar poo incident, we ground up some hyssop and some other stuff and made some sort of spice. Lauren is so good with that ol’ mortar and pestle.

This is my hand that I used for my mortar and pestle party. Check out my new watch… HARRY POTTER!

When I take notes on the field trip, I like to draw pictures. Today I drew a lovely picture of Harry Potter. I’m a big fan of that HP.

It is getting so beautiful here. There are flowers all over the place. Also in my time in nature, I found some mosquito eaters in love. Then all of these little children found a chameleon or some big lizard type thing. Cool to the max.We also saw a Torah scribe. The Torah is the first five books of Moses and the Jews are such devout Torah studiers. The Torah scroll has to be had written by a scribe, who studies how to do it and it has to be perfect. Incredible edible egg.Almost as exciting as watching the scribe was finding a bathroom. Hooray for toilets. Actually, I’d rather squat than use a lot of the toilets over here. 

It was a delightful little field trip today. I loved it. It was great because a lot of times we just go and see sites and ruins and its fun stuff when you herd sheep and do things. And also, it was just so beautiful today. Green, sunshine, flowers, I love it.

I went to the Shuk today! Hooray!
It is the Jewish outdoor market and I love this type of shopping. They sell wicked cheap fruits and vegetables and lots of nuts and spices. Then there are some clothing and souvenir shops and pretty much anything else you could ever think of, or maybe half of the stuff you could think of.

And of course… they sell kippas!

There’s also people that play music and stuff. There was this cool dude selling things that Stefanie and I just had to take a picture with, and this is it. Awesome possum huh. What interesting people this world has… :)

Clearly, the Shuk is the happening place. I love it.

Today we had a free day so we went to Ein Kerem, which a beautiful little village where John the Baptist was born. I loved it so much here.

See… so beautiful. I love nature. :)

We went into a few churches there and inside guess what there where… mosaics! Yep. It’s true. Some cool people many many many years ago made this beautiful church and this cute little birdie mosaic.

Churches are holy.

Flowers are so beautiful. I love them. I love them in my hair. I love sunshine and flowers and Ein Kerem all together.

Inside one of the churches there was this absolutely beautiful painting of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus. I love it.

When we were walking around the town, I walked by this car and there was a car seat in it. But that’s not the best part… as you can see, there was a doll sitting in the carseat and it pretty much cracked me up. So I took a picture and am showing it to the world.

Marianne, Chelsea, and Cate outside of St. John’s church. I think this commemorates John the Baptist’s birthplace.

Chelsea and Shamra, my cool to the max roomie, inside the church

Outside of the church there were all of these plaques with scriptures about John the Baptist in lots of different languages. This one is francais. Hooray! Je l’aime.

beautiful little magical staircase

After buying a sandwich, an apple, and some love nuts and eating it in a park, we continued our Ein Kerem journeys. We wandered into a little art gallery with these beautiful gardens outside. The guy had some really cool art and I loved his gallery. Here’s some pomegranates.

Then we walked on this oh so magical path to go to the hospital up on the hill that had some incredible stained glass windows. They were done by Marc Chagall and there are 12 of them, one for each tribe of Israel. They are amazing.

Sitting on the hillside pondering the eternities… :)

     After lunch we headed to the Church of the Nativity. On the street there was this sweet VW bug. I want one of those cars. I think an old bug would actually be my most favorite car to have. Yep, that’s what I want. Maybe not one all tricked out like this one, maybe I could paint pretty pictures on the outside instead though. 
    Instead of a VW bug, this is my sweet ride! If only there were more rust, this is exactly what my car is. Oh man oh man I love this baby. I love it so much!
     This car would probably be pretty sweet too. This cute little boy was just cruising around the grounds at the Church of the Nativity.

     The Church of the Nativity is built on the spot that tradition marks as the birthplace of Christ. It is one of the oldest operating churches in the world.

     We went under to where Christ was born and there were so many people that I couldn’t really grasp where I was. We were all being rushed in and out unfortunately. But this star on the floor marks the spot where Jesus was born. I was in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

     I’m not sure why Kara is closing her eyes :), but this is the only picture I have of this spot. It is where the manger was. This is where the wise men came to, where the animals stood around, where Jesus lay wrapped in swaddling clothes.

     The flames in this picture are so cool. This was inside the church in front of a statue of Mary and the baby Jesus.
     Of course there were also stained glass in the windows. These churches are so beautiful. I love them. After visiting inside, we walked around a little town square thing in Bethlehem to buy things. The tourist industry in Bethlehem has gone down so much, especially since the Wall was built. They are struggling in a lot of ways.

     After we crossed the wall, we went to Shepherd’s Field, which is hill between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. We had the most delightful Christmas Program there too. I love Christmas.

     We sang Christmas songs, read the Christmas story out of the scriptures, and a few people shared other stories,  as well as some testimonies. I really enjoyed it alot.

     I saw a shooting star!

     Making wishes – one of my most favorite things to do.

     My wishes always come true.

Two decades. Twenty years. That’s how OLD I am. Twenty is huge. It’s so so so much bigger that wee little 19. Wow. I am 20. Exciting stuff, yes it tis. I am loving this.

You can see some of the many wonderful signs from Marianne and Kara. Then later in the day, Shamra put love nuts all over the table for me. Oh goody! You know I love love nuts. She’s such a cool roomie. I really like that funny girl.

I mostly just studied during the day, because we have serious exams coming up, but then came the night, and then came the party. Marianne, Kara, Elyse, Anne, Alexis, Annie, Shamra, Stefanie, Lauren, Stephen, and I got in a big giant taxi and rode to Ben Yehuda, because that’s where the parties happen.

We went to go get ice cream and crepes and things. I ended up with some delightful frozen yogurt and some absolutely perfect flowers!

Stephen Wilkinson, one of the coolest guys at the JC, was the lovely gentleman to get me the flowers. He’s so so good. And I love flowers so so much. They made my birthday even better than it already was! 

I had so so much fun on Ben Yehuda. I LOVE BIRTHDAYS! They are the best. This was such a goooooood birthday. I had so so much fun. We had such a wonderful time, I just can’t even tell you how good it was. Happy happy happy. Yay for birthdays!

My birthday got even better we we got in the taxi on the way home and it happened to be the most hoppin’ dance party taxi on the planet. This guy had all these sweet lights in his taxi and sweet dancing jams. It was so excellent. That taxi ride was definitely, no doubt, one of the best parts of my lovely celebration of 20 years.

Being 20 is glorious. I love it. I’m so happy.

It was an incredible performance. It took about 2 1/2 hours and it was quite amazing. I really really enjoyed it. Handel was so inspired when he created this. I loved it.
I had such a good time going out, even though we had a lot of studying to do, since we have exams, but the performance was so good. I love music. I love being in Jerusalem. 

It is the big physical barrier between Jewish Israel and the Palestinian West Bank.

It goes against international law. Why is it there?

It has greatly reduced suicide bombings and has made it much safer in Israel, but it makes it so much more difficult for Palestinians to get through and it has destroyed a lot of the Palestinian territory. 

A Palestinian from Bethlehem in our branch named Sahar was telling us how she comes to church every Saturday. It was easier before the wall was built, but she’d still have to sneak over. And I believe once it was built, there was a skinny little hole she could get through. Then she’d be like a fugitive every time she’d be on this side of the wall and had to be very concerned about getting caught. Recently though, she just got a job at the UN and has a permit so that she can get to this side much much easier. It still takes about an hour and a half though and she has to get all checked and inspected. Sahar is an amazing woman.

Not only can Palestinians not get through the border, but Israeli’s can’t either. You have to have very special permits to do so, and if even if you do, sometimes you still can’t get through.

Danny Seideman, an Israeli Jew, was the one to teach us all of this today. His view was very unique as an Israeli, but it was an excellent one and I learned a lot from him. He, like so many other people, just wants peace in this land. There is so much conflict here.

As I was taking notes from what he was saying, a little ant crawled across my paper. I of course had to take a picture of it. This picture is so blog worthy.

I don’t think I like this wall. Nope. I don’t.

We need some peace.

Today we celebrated Purim, which is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of Jews from Persia about 2500 years ago. In the synagogues they read the Scroll of Esther, they give gifts to each other, they drink a lot a lot a lot of alcohol (not us though), and my favorite part is that they dress up and stuff. Yay! I love dress up!

I didn’t have a specific costume, but I Moon did hook me up with this sweet make up. And I put this cool scarf on my head and I was wearing a jingle jangle belly dancer skirt over my genie pants and I had on elf shoes. I must say I looked pretty good.

A big group of us went to Ben Yehuda Street in West Jerusalem. It was supposed to be the happening place. It wasn’t.

Marianne, Kara, and I got matching little belly dancing skirts.

Moon is so fabulous. Room 410 was full of pretty girls in need of costume type things and Moon was putting sweet make up on all of us. Moon, Richelle, and Miriam are such a wonderful room. I love those girlies.

While we were on Ben Yehuda, we wandered around, looking for some sort of party or something fun to do. I went into a little market and found some chunky peanut butter, which was a party for me! Skippy Natural super chunk is my favorite, but regular chunky skippy peanut butter works too.  

Everyone was in the synagogues, so Ben Yehuda was not that exciting at all. So we left and went back to the JC. We waiting for our taxi near McDonald’s. Yes, there is McDonald’s in Jerusalem too, unfortunately. This picture is for you my favorite twins.

Don’t we look lovely?

I need to incorporate all of these extra holidays in my life. It’s the coolest of cool. 

The Dome of the Rock is the most distinguishable landmark here in J Town, and I finally went there today! 

It was completed in 691 and is the holiest site in Islam.

Amazing.

I really liked the grounds there. It was like a big park all over and it is a good little social environment. There are groups of Muslims around with little children playing and people just sitting around. It was so sunny and peaceful.

There was one girl that asked to take a picture with me too. Her father spoke English but she didn’t, and I asked for him to take a picture with my camera too, but she didn’t want to. She just wanted one with me. :)

I need to go back to this beautiful place, although it is lovely seeing it from my bedroom view everyday.
Muslims are so dedicated. They pray five times a day. They stop whatever they’re doing when it’s prayer time and they all pray, facing Mecca. They also have a month where they fast all day everyday. They can only eat while it’s dark and they do it for an entire month called Ramadan. They also give a lot of money to the poor around them. They ideally want equality between them too, because during their feasts and stuff they share a lot with the poor. And during the Pilgrimage to Mecca, they all wear similar clothing so you can’t tell any difference between wealth status. There are so many Muslims around here and I have gained such a greater appreciation for them. As a religion, they are so dedicated. It’s wonderful.