Peace

This week we had a rather stirring open discussion in my Modern Near East, Islamic Perspective class. Our teacher began by reading an article on the conflict, and then asking us how we would solve the conflict, or how we'd begin to heal the wounds that have been passed from generation to generation and in most cases, run deeper than anyone could begin to understand.

So, we began. People raised their hands and suggested that we should get a mediator to bring the two sides together and help them understand that they are all just people. Our teacher is a Palestinian Christian, and he's lived with the conflict his entire life. He has dealt with every method of trying to create peace and many feelings of pain. There were many suggestions, each one seeming less and less hopeful than the last. Someone raised their hand and suggested bringing children together. Dr. Mussalam told us that they tried that starting in 1993 and that it had no effect against the war in 2000. There was still enough contention. (Also, he was very sincere...he wasn't just trying to have us suggest things so he could shut them down, he was very sincere. This is his life.)

A guy named Adam was sitting by me. After about 40 minutes of this style of an idea being presented and then deemed hopeless or having no way to carry out the ideas, Adam said to me, "Is it six?" I had no idea what he was talking about, but he pointed to his paper and he'd written down "Alma 31:6(?)" I didn't know what the scripture was, but we looked it up and it ended up being Alma 31:5 :

"And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God."

How true that is. How true is the word of God, and how it inspires us to do "that which is just." If the people here could only see that. If they could only hear the word and open their hearts to it. They see this beautiful building on top of the Mount of Olives, and all it is to them is a beautiful building. We have the word of God, in its fullness.

After we found that scripture, I took mine out and looked in the Topical Guide under "Peace of God" and just looked up different scriptures. One that I found and loved was D&C 19:23-24 :

"Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me. I am Jesus Christ; I came by the will of the Father, and I do his will."

When I read this I thought that it was so interesting that ultimate way of peace is through Jesus Christ, and neither side involved in this conflict believes in Him as the Messiah, Savior, and Redeemer of the earth.

What a blessing it is in our church to have the fulness of His gospel and Heavenly Father's plan for us.

I may have told you this, but when we went to the Garden Tomb, President Brown told us all about his experience with President Hinckley years and years ago, in the Garden Tomb area. They were walking down the path to olverlook Golgatha, and there was a little path marker on the ground (which is still there) that says, "Pray for Peace in the Middle East." And President Hinckley said aloud, half to himself, "I do. I do pray for peace in the Middle East." And President Brown thought, "If he can, then I sure can too."

Please pray for Peace in the Middle East. Even if it seems hopeless, we must have a love for these people as God's children. We must pray for their welfare and peace.

I love you all, and I am so thankful for the perspective this experience has given me and will continue to give me.

I hope I never forget you, Oh Jerusalem.

Egypt Day 5 - 9-21-09

Finally, finally, finally I am going to work on Egypt again! I apologize for the delay, but I felt like I needed to keep up with life as it is happening in the present and catch up on Egypt when I had time....so, here goes!

This day wasn't as big as the day before. We woke up in Luxor and the plan was to go to the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple. That was our pre-lunch plan.

But...instead of just taking the bus to the temple, we took motor boats! It was so much fun! We walked down to the banks of the Nile, to the same place we got on the falucca boats, and we climbed aboard our boats. We were all pretty tired, and our boat wasn't full at all. We had maybe 15 people on there. Maybe less. So we all took pictures and sang pop songs and had a grand old time while we were awaiting our arrival to the Karnak Temple :).
This is my boat :) Unfortunately I'm taking the picture, so I'm not in it.

The Karnak Temple is huge! I think they said it took 1700 years to fully complete. That could include the surrounding area and grounds, too....that seems a little long :) But that's what I remember someone saying. Anyway, it's also one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. (Three of which are in Egypt. This temple, the great pyramid, and then another one....so, check and check! Two of the seven wonders of the ancient world, off the list!)

First it had a huge courtyard lined with sphinxes. They were signs of fertility and strength of the kingdom and gods, I believe, to all those who entered.
This is outside the temple, with Rafaat explaining about the temple before we went in.

Next we went into another big courtyard area that was the lowest level of the temple. All temples in Egypt have three levels, the lowest being the first you enter into, then the second highest being next, and the "holy of holies" being the last and central point in the temple. There's also A LOT of symbolism for the temple ordinances, which I won't be mentioning really, cause I don't know much, but those of you who do will be able to recognize it.
This is inside the first courtyard, and there is a temple entrance right behind my head. It was just a little room off the side of the first level of holiness.

Okay this is inside that temple. There was a cool window with light streaming through. You can't see the ray of light very well in this picture, but I just thought it was cool.

This is a row of huge Egyptian statues on the other side of the hall.

Okay, so inside the second highest holy place, there is a big columnade courtyard. The columns are massive! We were asked to try to explain how they got them all into such a tight area, so close to each other, and none of us could come up with the answer. So, finally Rafaat our guide, just told us silly americans. The columns were constructed of disks stacked on top of each other, but the discs are huge! They weigh tons! So if they just stacked them, how would they get the top ones on? Here's how. They build the courtyard and then put the bases of the columns down where they wanted columns. Then they filled the whole room up with sand, level to the tops of the bases, and they stacked the next column on top of them. Then, they filled it up with sand again and dragged the next layer up on top, and so on a so forth. When they finally got all the discs on, they had to dig the sand out of the area. Ingenious, right? These people were definitely hard working and very diligent with their work. It is because they loved their religion and their gods so much.
These are the columns! They are just huge! It's unreal! This temple was destroyed, and then reconstructed, so some of the parts are missing, but the fill-ins are the only places that there are no carvings. The entire column, each and every one, had carvings on it.

Taking break in the shade :)

Anyway, after that we walked down and we saw a huge obelisk. It also has a cool story behind how they erected it, but I don't think I could do it justice on a blog. It involves building a huge box-shaped mound of sand, with two of the sides having ramps on them, and then digging a tunnel underneath the box. Then they used oxen to drag the obelisk, end first, up the ramps so the obelisk was in position at the base. Then they hoisted it up, and as the weight of the obelisk fell on the center of the mount of sand, the sand was pushed into the tunnel underneath, and the obelisk stood straight up. Then they just had to uncover the sides. Okay, just kidding, I think I did an okay job. At least in my eyes...you guys may be confused. Sorry! Did my best!

This is the Obelisk. It's huge...and I apologize for the view. It was the only way to get the whole thing.

After that was the holy of holies. Very cool. It was interesting though, that as Mormons what we were interested in was the inscription/carving and heiroglyphics on the outer wall. It showed the coronation process for the Pharoahs and includes telling them about eternal life, washing and annointing them, and then giving them a new name, which is symbolized by two Cartouches, or the little ovals that their names are in. You may have seen them? Anyway. Very symbolic. And really cool. We had a little explanation given to us by our Old Testament and religion teacher, Brother Manscill, but obviously he couldn't say too much. I was a little sad that I couldn't understand it better, but Dad said he'd bring us all back to Egypt sometime after I get my endowments.....oops, Dad, should I not have blogged that? Oh well, guess we'll have to go now! :)

This is the Holy of Holies with the Altar in the middle..

This is the panel on the side of the holy of holies, in its entirety.

This is a zoomed up picture of the first hieroglyphic, which shows the king being embraced by the God Osiris, and his own Ra (or his soul) and being told about Eternal Life.

After that we saw inside the holy of holies, where the altar was, and then went outside to a pond that was where the priests used to clense themselves, and that was that temple.

That description was very brief for what all we saw, but you get the general idea. It was a huge temple and took us several hours.

This is an overlook of the temple in the background at the end of our tour.

After that we took little horse-drawn buggies to the Luxor temple! That was fun. Same kind of buggies that we had that nice little adventure a couple nights before, but luckily we don't often get taken advantage of, or have to even think about it, when the center and the tour people arrange everything for us. We're just shepherded like little sheep to and from the next activity. It's rather nice. Cushy, I would say.

I don't have any pictures of the Luxor temple. I apologize, but my camera died. Bad planning. Shame, shame on me. I hope you all forgive me!

The Luxor temple was pretty similar to the Karnak temple, and it had more symbolism on it. We didn't take as long there, and I do know that this time the holy of holies was split into three rooms, each giving a special room to specific people. That was pretty cool. And I bought a book there about the different temples and the valley of the kings so I could show you guys all pictures of the panels when I get home :).

After that we got back in the same buggies that we were in before, and we rode back to the hotel for a quick lunch, and then we had free time! We had all heard about this glorious flea market in town (where we had tried to go before but our little buggy guy didn't take us...) In the buggy ride I was wearing my sunglasses, which I have identified as an excellent way to avoid men and guys who catcall at blond american girls. If you're wearing sunglasses, then they don't know where you're looking and you can ignore them without offending them, since they just don't think that you heard them. Example: we were leaving the Luxor temple, and a group of teenage boys said "Hey beautiful girl, what's up?" but of course, in the accent with the broken English, and I just kept walking with no response. Desired effect achieved. I heard them say from behind me, slightly baffled, "hmmm no english?" Which was great. The other thing about wearing sunglasses is that the people that you want to say hi to and make feel special, you can. For instance: little kids on the street, being hurried by their parents while they were staring at me from the carriage (I guess blonds do cause quite the commotion...). I would wave at them, and they'd be unsure who I was looking at, and so I'd take my sunglasses off and smile, and they'd get really cute, big smiles on their faces. It's just the cutest thing ever.
This is me and Amanda and Cathleen (who is actually wearing a hat I bought for myself...) in the carriage. You will notice that I have sunglasses in hand :).

So we went into the market, and I got tons and tons of cat calls. I generally wore my sunglasses, but some people would even come up in my face and say, "beautiful lady, please, let me see your eyes!" and a few times I showed them. For some reason they like our eyes. Oh well. Egypt was the most intense place for bartering and for buying. They were very, very forward. But not in a creepy way, just in sticking with you and trying to get you to stop and look at their stuff. I once had a problem with someone touching my arm to get my attention, but I quickly and firmly said, "Don't touch me." and he took his hand away and was very apologetic. Even still, we were careful to always have guys in our groups and to stick in the same vicinity. I got some cool stuff, too. :) But you're all going to have to wait to see what it is!

After that we went in and had dinner at the Hotel for the last time.

After that, it was on to the train station! We took an overnight train to Cairo that night. I was a little afraid to see what the train would look like, I'm not going to lie, but that's because of an overnight train that I took from Germany to Paris, which was way more sketchy than this train. We go first class, five stars all the way. At least that's the way to do it in Egypt....which is pretty necessary. There was a really funny moment where we all had been assigned rooms and they had compacted the rooms too much, so instead of two to a cabin, we had four to a cabin, with the two beds and everything. Everyone was looking around going, how is this going to work? But what's even better, is that Amanda and I....our two extra roommates were Brother and Sister Allen. We were especially freaked out by that one hahaha. But they got it all solved, in it turned out we had the whole car to ourselves. :)

Anyway, the train was pretty good. I slept okay, except for a door that wouldn't be secured and therefore kept clanging. But it was nice. The one thing we were all getting tired of was the food....we had meat and carbs all that week, and a few well-cooked veggies. It was a little rough. But still, very fun.
This is Amanda, in our car. the seats folded down into a bed, and then the panel above did too, for bunk beds!

This is our butler! I forgot to tell you that we had a butler. He served us dinner and breakfast, and also unlocked our beds. It was kinda fun.

The hall in our train, thought you guys might like it :)

Anyway, that is day 5! I am going to try to get the rest up soon, okay? Bear with me!

Love you all!

Bible Lands Preserve Field Trip 10/12/09

So. Yesterday we went to a "Bible Lands Preserve" called Neot Kedumim. They have different sections of their...compound, for lack of a better word, that are dedicated to different Biblical examples of the land.

For example: First we stopped off at a place and learned (again) about cisterns. Our guide was very impressed that we guessed the name of it....little does she know that we've had a number of fun experiences in cisterns. She also told us that in biblical times a person used 15 gallons each day, which is what a normal person uses today, just for taking one shower. They really treasured their water back then. And you would, if it only rained three months out of the year and you just had to store it up, or your family, animals, and crops would have no water for the other 9 months of the year.
This is my group pretending to be Abraham's servant going to find Isaac a wife, and there's Tonya, in the Red, pretending to be Rebecca, giving all the camels water (those on the left, except for Richie, who is pouring the water back into the bottom of the well, and was the Servant, are camels.) Fun times.

Next we went and we did a fun little activity called...Shepherding! Yes, that's right, we got to herd sheep! (and goats, actually.) That was really fun, and really funny. Apparently, though, we did a better job than any of the leaders had seen before. Or at least the sheep were more cooperative than before. It was fun though. Our guide, Miriam, told us that they way to do it is to be gentle and encouraging, and definitely not violent. We split our big group into three different groups that all did it. It was really funny. I was in the third group, so we got to watch and discuss the other groups' tactics. I think she was impressed with that too. I'm fairly certain she's used to usual tours with families and people that don't know each other coming there to visit, not a group of Mormons who are used to working in groups, planning, and cooperating. Oh, and we're also in our 20's and are very friendly, but competitive Mormons :). Of course we wanted to be the best! And guess what, my group was :). We did it in 3 and a half minutes. The first group did it in 6 and a half minutes, and their task was the same as ours - to get the sheep to stay in a group and enter (and stay in for 10 seconds) four circles in the pasture, one after the other. But, to be fair, they went first so they were the pioneers of our group. The other group took 4 minutes, and their challenge was different. They didn't have to stop in the circles, but avoid the circles as they went from one corner to the other. (Meaning them and their sheep/goats avoid the circles.) It was really fun, and funny to watch. And funny to do, come to think of it...who herds sheep in the middle of the Holy Land? Oh wait, Mormons! It was way fun :).
This is us getting our sheep going... You can see me in the white shirt, with my back to you, by the girl in the blue striped shirt.

This is during the Herding...I'm above Brooke, who is in the gray shirt. I was petting them to get them to go.....hand sanitizer was used afterward, don't you worry. :)

Afterward I tried to get a picture, and the sheep kept running away! It made me sad. They liked us as a group better.

Me by the sheep, in the end :)

Next we went and talked about Christ for a while, and how all the leaders in the bible were first shepherd or were called shepherds, like David. Shepherds have to engage their sheep to get them to be cooperative. They have to make them want to do it, but can't always be bribing them with food or what not. Also, shepherds have to not stand in front of them, but behind the group, making sure that none get lost, always watchful of their sheep. She said that shepherds use sticks as an extension of their arms so they can put them on the sides of the sheep and so the sheep know they are there and feel comforted. She equated all of this with Christ, which was really cool. The last thing she said was my favorite, it was that being a shepherd is a 24/7 job. There are no breaks. You can never leave your flock. This is why Christ is "The Good Shepherd." Obviously some shepherds leave their flocks sometimes, and that is not a good thing. Not everyone is a diligent shepherd, but Christ is. He is the good shepherd, and He never leaves His flocks. I really liked that analogy.

Next we walked on this little path and she showed us two trees that are in the bible. The first is one that Abraham sat under and greeted his guests. She had a whole bunch of stuff along with that, and how the root of the word for hospitality or something comes from that tree because Abraham would offer his guests food, drink, and a place to stay. That was interesting.
This is Miriam, our guide, and the tree to the left of her is Abraham's tree.

The next tree she told us about was one that Christ's crown of thorns could have come from. It's called the JuJu Tree, I think? The latin word for it has "Cristos" in it, and the Hebrew has the word for Jehovah or something in it. It was very interesting, and we got to see it, alive, and with big thorns. Here is a picture...
So, that gives you an idea of the crown of thorns... They were big ol' thorns, too.

After that we went to this little amphitheater and we learned about zataar....which is a spice here, that I've had, and really like. We saw the plant it came from, and she talked about it in biblical terms. In English it is called hyssop, and it is the plant that the Roman Soldiers mixed with vinegar and put on Christ's lips while He was on the cross. It is a sign of humility, and in the scriptures when it says "hyssop" it generally means humility. We got to grind our own. She gave us little bowls with grinding tools and we ground our own Zataar. I'm excited to try some with bread and see if it's as good as in the Old City.

This is Miriam telling us about Zataar, with all the bowls to crush our own, sitting on the table..

Me hard at work :)

This is what it looked like before...afterwards it was a fine powder.

Next we went to another amphitheater (after a bus ride) and had a presentation on the Torah, or the Hebrew bible consisting of the first five books of the Old Testament. A man was there who writes them. First, they make the pages out of leather. They work it until it is super, super thin. That was really unbelievable. And then they mix their ink and the man writes it. The Torah takes a whole year, just to write one. And the scrolls are parchment that is sewn together to make one, long scroll. He also writes the scriptures that are in the Mezzuzah and the Teffilin. The Mezzuzah are the boxes that contain scriptural verses that Jews put on their doorposts. The Teffilin are the boxes that contain scripture that Jewish men wear when they pray, on their foreheads and their arms. Both practices come from the Oral Torah, and are related to the senses. They have 4 compartments on their forehead (sight, smell, taste, and hearing) and one compartment on their arm (touch). It takes the man 3 hours to write just one of the scripture selection for one of the boxes, and if he messes up, he has to start over. It was really interesting.
This is the amphitheater...the little Jewish man is down in front, sitting at the table.

These are the Torah scrolls...see how carefully he's treating them? I didn't get the case, but they are stored in an intense, padded, velvet case.

This is the whole she-bang. The writing utensils, the stuff to mix the ink, and everything else.

This is me holding a writing "pen" made out of a reed.

After that we went to a camp-looking place and we made pita bread! It was weird...it reminded me of being up a canyon in Utah. The trees and everything could've been from there. It was really fun. And now I know how to make pitas! We didn't really use a recipe, which gives me even more hope for making it in the future at home. It has water, flour, olive oil, and salt. Pretty basic. We also cooked it over a metal pan-type thing, over the fire. It kind of looked like a wok. So, maybe I can perfect the recipe and we can have yummy, yummy pitas when I get home! Yes?
This is the campfire where we made it. Everyone is gathered around the place that we made the dough. You can see the "sage" (that's what Miriam called it), the upside-down wok over the fire where we cooked our pitas.

This is me, with way way gooey hands, because Miriam wouldn't let me add more flour to the dough, even though it was way, way too wet, and therefore sticky. She thought there was too much in it already....so, I just dug in :) Messy messy....delicious though. All of you know how much I love bread dough :)

After that, and lunch, we went to the "seven species" part of the preserve. This is the part where they grow the agricultural products that they grew in Biblical times. Some of the products are barley, wheat, dates, olives, olive oil, and honey (made from dates). I don't think I am remembering all seven, but that's some of them, anyway.

First we took a little train that looks like a disneyland ride :) to the seven species area. After that we sat in a grove of date palms and we talked about the different species and about dates and how they make the honey. Totally a girl's camp experience, cause we were all sitting on this tarp under the palms with our guide, Miriam, talking to us. Pretty funny.
This is our train that we took to the Seven Species area :) Disneyland anyone?

This is Jeremy Perkins, Emily Andersen, and me on the train! And yes, in case you were wondering, this day was a bad hair day for me...I went to sleep right after showering and had quite the mane to tame when I got up :)

This is us at the date grove, with everyone sitting together under the trees.

After the dates, we went to a threshing floor, which is where they crush the wheat stocks after harvest to separate the seeds from the stocks. Then they toss the mix up into the air with a pitch -fork and the wind separates the stocks from the wheat seeds. The wind blows the stocks away and the seeds fall straight down into a pile. That's pretty cool. After that they showed us the wheat grinder and said that a handful of wheat seeds takes about an hour to grind to prepare to grind again for another hour to be made into wheat. It took biblical people a LONG time to just make bread. Apparently it took about 3 to 4 hours a day just to make bread for a family of about...6-8 people, I think is what they said. Anyway, I thought that was interesting.
This is the only picture I got at the threshing floor, showing Sarah being dragged around by our very own "horses" Adam and Kyle. The horses would drag around this board with a metal grate on the bottom and a person standing on it, to crush the stocks.

After that we went to an Olive Press. They told us that to harvest or pick the olives, you put a sheet under a tree and shake it, and the olives that are ripe will just fall off. Also, she said that Americans think there are two types of olives, green and black. But, in fact, they are they same type of olives. If you pick olives when they're green, then they stay green, but if you wait longer to pick them, then they'll turn black. The black ones are the ones you want to pick to make olive oil. She then showed us the press and how they take the olives and make a paste with it in the press. And after that they take the paste and put it into woven baskets and press it, and the oil runs down into a basin at the bottom of the press. Then you have to wait for the mush and the stuff that runs in still runs down to the bottom, and the stuff that's left on the top, that's olive oil! Guess what.....think apple juice. Replace apples with olives. And....ta da!! You have olive juice. :) I'm way ahead of these guys :)

The Press is in the middle, and then over to the left you can see a thick log that some girls are sitting on, like a railing. That's where the Olive mush was pressed to get the oil out.

This is Victoria Clemmons and I pushing the press :). You can see the harness where they can harness a mule or horse or something to do the labor for them.

Anyway, that was our last stop. Oh, on the walk to the bus I found three little bottles of olive oil on the ground, and so me and two of my friends took one :)....yay for cool finds in the holy land :)

I love you all, I hope you're enjoying my posts. My next big project it to continue with egypt. I'm sorry I've been so behind on that...I've just been so busy! This week has been uneventful too, cause we've just been studying for some big tests, but we'll get it all sorted out and I'll get the rest of Egypt up before I go to Jordan in a week and a half...I hope you guys are still interested in reading about Egypt!

Origins of my new heading picture...

Hey all! Do you like my new title picture?

I liked this one because you an see a good representation of the extreme differences in Jerusalem, represented by the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim temple, in the far background, and the Western Wall, a holy Jewish site, in the more immediate background.

We went this morning for Sukkot, to see the end of the Feast of Tabernacles! This is the morning that they end their week of praying for rain with a ritual that, in effect, symbolizes their desperation for their prayers to be heard. After their week, they take palm fronds and go to the Kotel (aka the Western Wall) and they worship and pray and everything there, in their community groups, (and each group is very different, no unity of religion here...) and then they take the fronds and they beat them against the ground or the wall in desperation for their prayers to be answered. It's like they've prayed as much as they can, and they don't know what else to do, so they throw a temper tantrum. Not kidding, either. That's how our Judaism professor explained it to us. His name is Ophir Yarden. :) 
This is Michelle and I with the wall in the background.

This is a group of Jews we were by, who were all dressed in white robes (which are apparently optional for the group except the one leading), and they have their palm fronds, and their kippas (their little hats), and they were walking in a circle and chanting/praying and singing and etc.

Just me with a guy, so you could see the garb and etc.

This is a balcony where we went to go see better, and you can see the whole wall and how packed the place was for the end of Sukkot. This is also good cause you can see the separation between men and women really well. We were allowed to go in the back part of the left side (in this picture) but just to pass through. They have the barrier extended because of the holiday. But the tiny little sliver to the right that isn't as packed, that's the women's side. Isn't it interesting that the men's side is so full and huge, and the women's side is less full, yet way way smaller?

This is the same group I was taking pictures of before..you can see them a little better as a whole.

This is Brother Brown, Kathryn, me, Michelle (in the blue), and Lindsay Pugmire....you can see the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall behind :)

Good morning! This was towards the end. Oh and you can kind of see my new purse! I bought it the other day...and I really love it! It's cute!

This was us sitting on a bench in our tiredness, towards the end when we were going to go meet everyone to walk back. Jeremy, who took the picture, told us to act silly, and the best we came up with for the most part was smiling and acting like we were sleeping....you can tell what was on our minds (Sleeeeeep!) :).

It was a wonderful early morning at the Western Wall, though. They almost didn't allow us to come. We had heard about it from Ophir, our professor, and he told us to try to go because we could take pictures because it wasn't the sabbath yet (it was on Friday October 9th, but Sabbath doesn't start until sun-down on Fridays), and so we got it specially approved by Brother Brown and security. (Since we haven't been allowed to go out into that part of the city for the past week.) And they even moved classes around, and pushed breakfast back a little bit so we could be there for a while instead of rushing back! It sure is nice to have 80 students to cater to, instead of 35,000 or whatever number BYU has :)

I miss you all, and I love you all, but I know I'm supposed to be here, and I feel at home here at the center. I am already in love with this city. It's a wonderful place! I just wish all the little kiddies could play nice....but we're working on it. We'll have peace in the middle east just yet. :)

Shalom!

Carillon Bells!

I forgot to tell you guys something!

On Sunday we went up with Brother Whipple, who is a fairly well-known organist, I believe, and he and his wife are the music service couple here. He goes to the YMCA in Jerusalem every sunday at 11:15 a.m. and plays songs on the Carillon bells in the tower there. He lets students come and play them too, if they get there in time. So I had the opportunity to play them! How exciting is that?

I played "I know that my Redeemer Lives." It's funny, cause they don't care if we play hymns, cause they just sound pretty, and nobody knows what they are or anything.

Anyway, it was really fun!

This is me, playing the Carillon bells :) It's like a piano, but you have to pull and push the pedals.

City of David Field Trip 10-05-09

Things have been a little different at the center since we got back from Egypt. There's been a lot of holidays lately, with the end of Ramadan (for Muslims) and Sukkot (for Jews), and sometimes, I have heard it said, holidays are not for celebration or what not, but for causing a ruckus. So, there's been some tension and we haven't been allowed to go into the Old City a couple times. One of those times was yesterday, so we were excited this morning when we got to go out and get to the City of David, which is actually outside the walls of the Old City, to the south.

When we got to the place....of course there was a bathroom stop....and even better....the girl's room was being cleaned.....
We improvised :) With 60 girls and 20 boys....we usually improvise a lot :).

After the bathroom break, we went on top of a tower and looked over the dig site. Here are some pictures from the tower...
This is me, with the camera facing south. This is the south east corner of the old city, and temple mount, and in the days of Christ would have been the pinnacle of the temple, or where Christ was taken up by the spirit and tempted by Satan to jump off and have the angels of God save Him. The dig site is more beneath us and to the south.

So this is from the tower looking more east. Behind me is the Jewish cemetary and the tombs on the side of the hill. (The Mount of Olives). The center is further to the right on the hill.

This is to the west of the tower, and the domed building is the place of Caiaphas's house, where Christ was first taken after being arrested after Gethsemane.

After the tower, we went to a movie theater, right underneath it. It was a 3-D movie! I was worried, I'm not going to lie. Movies at tourist sites in the Middle East have proven to be a little bit sketchy....and when we were told to grab a pair of 3D glasses that just added to my apprehension :). At least we usually have a grand old time and are entertained at these movies. This movie, though, was actually really well done. It was 3D, yes, but they did a really cool job of getting oriented with the landscape and location of the original City of David, along with the history and background of the place, which can get confusing in the Bible. I think I'm going to go back, actually, cause our national park's cards get us in there free of charge :)! We're lucky students.

After we were educated in the movie, we went under the deck and looked at a place where David's palace walls were, and saw the place where he probably looked off his balcony and onto the rooftops and saw Bathsheba. They've dated the walls back to his time, and it's the newest part of the dig site.

After that we went down some stairs and sat and looked at the wall of the city of david. It was really interesting because we could see the different additions from different times, along with a house of a scribe where they found seals with their name on it, you know, to stamp on scrolls after writing them, and those names appear in the Bible. That was cool.

Anyway, we sat and talked about David and the mistakes that he made along the way. Not only did he look upon Bathsheba, but he also was supposed to be at war with his people and troops then, too. And then, on top of everything he inquired about Bathsheba and had her brought to him, when she was a married woman and he was fully aware of that. Anyway, we talked about how little choices lead to big conseqences in our lives, and how one small moment or bad thought or anything could completely lead us into the wrong path.

After that we stood up and went down to one of the tunnels we were going into. This one was called Warren's shaft. It was built as a place that the city people could come when the city was under siege to get water. It's a tunnel to a crevice in the rock that they used as a well, because there was water running underneath it. I believe that it was dug by the Romans after the tunnel underneath, Hezikiah's tunnel, was dug to divert the Gihon spring, which is Jerusalem's main water source and why it is desirable as a place to have a city.

Next was the best part of the day: the walk through Hezekiah's tunnel... :) It is tunnel that King Hezekiah dug to divert the Gihon spring to move it so the water came out in an artificial pool that was protected by the city wall. He had it built because the Assyrians were coming to attack the city. With that prospect he had men working 24 hours a day, chiseling through the rock. It took them 6-7 months. But the diverted it under the city, and disguised the place where it came out, and the Assyrians never found it. It made Jerusalem a fortress.

So....we went inside :). It was really sweet. We walked down some metal stairs, and got the point where we stepped down into the water. It was cool and refreshing. Very fun. At the beginning it was up past our knees, and then for the rest it was about mid-calf. My jeans were soaked! I even tried to roll them up, but it didn't work...oh well, they dried! And it was sweet! You could see the chisel marks in the tunnel. It was dark and narrow-ish, so we all had flashlights and stuff. We also, being mormon's :), turned off our flashlights in the middle of the tunnel and sang a hymn. We like to do that, and I must admit that I really enjoy it.

At the end of the tunnel we came out to the Pool of Siloam. It's the place where the blind man, who was blind from birth, went to wash the clay from his eyes that Christ rubbed on him to heal him. We had a water fight there... :)

After that we were soaked, and we went to some stairs that are pretty newly uncovered, and now underground, that used to lead to the Temple, during Christ's time. So Christ most certainly would have walked on them. It was so strange to be walking on something so old, without someone telling us not to. But it was a neat experience. We got to talk about when Christ would've walked there, since it was on the south east side of the city. We didn't say long though, we were all just standing on them and talking for a minute.

After that we went back to the center and did some homework! So, there you go. There is my monday :).