I have done tons of amazing things in the past couple weeks! So get ready for a long post..haha One day we walked over to West Jerusalem with some people and we went to see the Wall of Life Mural. It was so cool! In this cemetery the whole wall along the perimeter was covered in a painted mural that goes through the whole bible. It was amazing. The painting itself was beautiful, and huge and so cool! I really liked it.
We went to the West Bank for our Jericho field trip. We went and saw Jericho which is called "The Oldest City in the World," which we learned that it isn't actually the oldest city, but they still claim it to be. It's nice being able to write the oldest city in the world on souvenirs and stuff so I guess that makes sense. But it was fun because it is the lowest city in the world because it's almost 900 feet below sea level so on the bus when we passed the sign on the side of the road that showed sea level we all sang Under the Sea from Little Mermaid haha. Literally only at BYU. But Jericho was cool, we got to see some of the mud brick remains from the walls that fell down at the Battle of Jericho! Also wouldn't have thought anything of that like two months ago, but since we are learning about all these stories in the Old Testament, all of these places are so cool to me!
Shimon Peres is one of the founding fathers of Israel you could say, he was Prime Minister two times, he was the President, and played a huge role in making Israel Israel. He passed away while we were here, and it was a pretty big deal considering all he has done, and the fact that he was very well loved by the people. Once we heard that they were going to have a viewing, a few of us grabbed a cab and rode over to the Knesset Parliament Building to see if we could get inside. Presidents and leaders from all over the world were flying in to be there. We surprisingly were able to get in and see everything. We went at a great time and beat a lot of the crowds. We even saw Bill Clinton's head! haha if you look at the second picture you can see his white hair right by the end of the big video camera. So that was pretty cool being there for that because it is such a significant event in history. And I was able to be there for that!
One thing that we did at the center that was a lot of fun was an Arab night. We all went to Shaban’s store in the Old City and he let us borrow clothes from him. The center was all decorated, and the chefs made an amazing dinner for us to have! After we ate, we went to the gym for some Israeli Dancing! We had an instructor guy come in and teach us some Israeli Folk dances and I loved it. It took me back to the good old Folk Dancing days at BYU. And we even did one of the dances we did at BYU in Folk Dance! So that was way fun!
On our free day, we took a bus up to Tel Aviv to go to the beach! It seriously was amazing and so needed. It was so nice not having to be in long pants with the sun shining, we could play beach volleyball in our swimsuits and go run out and play in the ocean! Well sea I guess, considering it's the Mediterranean Sea. It seriously was amazing. Such a fun day! We played volleyball on the beach, swam, walked into town and got lunch and ice cream, walked around the market, then came back to the beach with everyone and we played in the waves. Definitely one of the most fun days I've had.
Our next field trip was in the valleys south of where we are and one of the cool things we did was signal to the other class when they were like 15 miles from where we were, we were seeing what it would be like when they would use smoke signals back in the day. Each class had a big mirror and would use the sun to reflect off and send it to the other class way far away. And it actually worked and it was way cool! It looked like a big camera flash or something on a distant mountain. Honestly I was skeptical and didn't think it would work, but it was way bright and so cool! It was funny we would cheer every time we saw their light haha. So obviously we had to take a mirror selfie out in the wilderness.
Then we went to this place with all these different caves that had awesome acoustics inside so obviously we sang some hymns, which actually was really cool. After that we went to the valley where David slew Goliath and we even got to try sling shots! It was kind of hard, we had a little competition to see who was the best at slinging, it was so fun.
Another fun dinner we had the next week was our Seder/Passover dinner. The Passover is actually in the spring, but our Israeli teacher wanted us to be able to experience one and have a Seder Dinner. Our professor’s name is Ophir and he seriously is the best. I went with him and his family to Synagogue a couple weeks ago which was way cool, and then he and his son came and helped do this nice long Seder dinner for us. We had all the traditional foods like the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread and everything. We went through the whole dinner with the narration, songs and prayers from the book, drinking of our grape juice (wine ;) and everything. And we had a way good full course meal with it. I thought it was super interesting because we had just studied the story of the Passover in our Old Testament class, Ophir has been teaching us about Judaism in his class, and we were able to experience it all during the dinner and it was a lot more meaningful. My favorite part was how symbolic every little thing is that we did, I want to try to have one or go to one this next spring because it was seriously so interesting to me.
We went to an Israeli soccer game and it was so fun! I actually really like going to soccer games, the fans get so into it, it makes it really fun. At first we were sitting with just our group and we had great seats, but then we were going to meet up with our other group on the other side of the stadium but ended up just sitting with all the young fans that were going crazy. It was so fun! Even though they were all little babies, it was so fun they were going crazy, so loud and cheering and loved having us there too!
Another fun field trip we went on was to a biblical nature reserve. We got to take almonds off the almond tree which was super cool because I've never seen an almond tree before! After that we talked about shepherding a bit and even got to try it ourselves. Our tour guide split us into three groups and gave each of us a little mission with the sheep and goats. I was in the first group and we had to herd the sheep and goats around a circle thing without any going in, and then have them end up in a different circle. It was hard because they did not really react to any calling or sounds or anything, besides physically shepherding and surrounding them with all of us and walking them everywhere. The groups after we went had harder destinations, and it was actually way entertaining to watch haha none of us knowing what we were doing and trying to get a big group of animals to do what we want haha
Also while we were there we were able to see a couple different Sukkots made out of different leaves and stuff. Those were cool because going on right now is the Sukkot holiday where Jewish people make little hut type things would be the best way to describe it, and they eat and do stuff in those that honors the Israelites that had temporary housing while they were wandering in the desert for 40 years.
After that we got to make our own homemade pita and lentil soup! Both of which were actually very yummy. We had this fig syrup stuff that we put on top of the pitas that made it super good! And I cooked my pita just enough so it was still doughy on the inside, obviously, and it was so good!
After that we were able to watch a scribe writing a Torah scroll, and he showed us and read from a Torah scroll that was over 200 years old! That was super cool, and the little man was so cute.
The next week we had a field trip with our Israeli teacher Ophir, the same guy that took us to Synagogue and did the Seder/Passover dinner with us. He took us all around Mt. Herzl/Commemoration Hill and we were able to see Shimon Peres’ grave too. The museum itself was pretty heavy. In the gardens around the museum, every tree had a little plaque below it with the names of people that helped hide or save Jewish families during the Holocaust. I thought that was really cool.
We went to the Children’s Memorial first. They had some sculptures that hit me. One of them was a bunch of columns lined up, arranged like a class photo, but the columns weren’t complete because those children’s’ lives weren’t complete either. It was so simple, yet it said so much. Inside, it was simply a dark room with lots of candles and mirrors so it looked like tons of stars. And then there was a voice that would say a child’s name, their age, and which country they were from. That was hard for me, hearing their names and their ages. It made me think about the kids in my class that I just finished my student teaching with and my nephews, and how much I love them and other children. It broke my heart thinking about that part of history. Outside that part of the museum, there was a sculpture of a man with children, and his name was Korczak. He ran an orphanage in a ghetto in Warsaw and he taught the children. He didn’t want to send the kids off to their deaths alone, so he went with them to the train station, onto the train, and to the camp along with them, when he didn’t even have to. I thought that was such an admirable thing for him to do, and very touching. It made me reflect back on myself, and how I want to be as a teacher in the future, and the influence I can have.
Inside the main part of the museum, it was divided into different rooms where we went through the history of Germany, the beginnings of the ghettos, the extermination camps, and their liberation. It was very historical and had a lot of information, but also pretty emotional as well. The videos from the different places and interviews of survivors were what hit me the hardest. It was a lot to take in, and it was so real. It just amazes me how people could get to the point where that was even happening.
Thursday night I wanted to go to the free Israeli dancing that they had at the movie mall with the same instructor we had here at the center. So we got a big group to go into West Jerusalem and we walked around this little night market where people were selling their jewelry and stuff, got some ice cream and smoothies, and then we walked over to Cinema City to find the dancing. It ended up being so fun! It was fun because there was a big group of us, but also because there were a lot of Israeli people there too! They all were so nice and helped us, it seriously felt just like a Rec Night for Folk Dance at BYU it was so fun.
Here are just some views from the center after walking out of choir on the Sabbath. Of the best Sabbath ever where we had the Primary Program where the kids seriously were amazing and taught us all of the important things of the Gospel through their simple words and songs. The best part was at the end when they stood in a line and held hands and sang the primary song We are Children Holding Hands Around the World. I couldn't handle it, they were so cute and it was just touching. We also got a new branch presidency so now one of my professors is my branch president too, which I'm actually really happy about because I think he is so great.
After church a group of us went into the city and we went and saw the Dormition Abbey where some believe that Mary was buried. The building itself was really pretty, but I think it was even prettier inside with all of the mosaics and everything. We didn't have a lot of time because we had to get back for dinner, but I definitely want to go back and spend some more time inside.
