A Day in the Bible

So today we got to experience a day in the bible land. It sound's cool doesn't it? Well it pretty much was. We got a few days to relax from Egypt and let us get back into the groove of things. That trip as a whole was a lot more draining than I thought it was going to be, but i guess that we did stay up really late all night every night and then the 2am hike up Sinai... yeah, well, we are very thankful that we were given a few days to recover.

Anyway, there is this little place that we like to call "Bible Land" and I don't remember the real name of it, but that's OK. It is this little place that is privately being funded that has 600 ish acres that they are trying to reforest with the native plants that were here in Bible times. They started with pretty much everything being gone after the wars. All of the wood and plants had been used up with the railroad and such, and so there was really nothing left but dirt and a little bit of plant life, and so they decided that they were going to take the area and forest it with plants that are only mentioned in the bible. They even have some cedars there although they don't get quite as big as the famous Lebanon ones. Anyway, that is a little bit about the area.

We got to try a few things just like people would hav e in the bible times. We got to bring water up from a cistern just like Rebekah would have for all those darn camels. That is one thing about this place, is that it is sustained like places in the bible are too. They do collect water during the rainy season into ancient cisterns that they have re-plastered in order to water the plants during the summer. Anyway, we got to do that, and they they gave us a chance to make our own spice which by the Arabs is called zatar, but which we know better as hyssop. By the way, this is a great spice, and they had dried the leaves out for us and we got the chance to grind it ourselves into a powder that we would then use later with our food.

After we got a little grinding in we took a train to the place were we got to try our hand at sheep herding! This was quite the little exercise I tell you what! It was a lot harder than you would think. The sheep had been raised to be herded a certain way, and so we were split into smaller groups of about 10 to take turns trying to herd the sheep from one place to another. I think that it would have been easier in the olden days personally, but i don't know sheep very well. The interesting thing about it is that the sheep are raised in the midst of goats, and the goats become the leaders of the gang, so if you want to get the sheep to move, the goat has to move too. Now, we didn't know that at the time, they wanted us to learn how to do it on our own. The thing is that goats and sheep like to eat. That is all that they do, is eat! Our group was one of the best, we were the first so we had to get all of the sheep rounded up and then also get then to the first station, and we did a pretty good job if i do say so myself. We got stuck for a little while, and I even tried to move the sheep by picking up one of the babies thinking that the mother would care. If there is one thing that you shouldn't learn from sheep it's parenting skills! That mom didn't move a bit even when her child bleated, crazy, but yeah.

We also got to make our own pita's, and we lit our own fire for it and everything. We had a great lunch of pita with date honey and the hyssop that we had made earlier. Put a little hyssop, a little olive oil, and a little salt and it's the best thing ever. We also made some popped wheat that was good as well. It was a great traditional meal that we had. We then got t

o learn about the pressing of olives in ancient times as well as getting our try at a threshing floor. You really learn to appreciate the work that the people had to go through in order to make their life each day. It is much harder than I originally had thought, but i guess that is one point of coming here isn't it, just to learn about the things that we read so often about in scripture. This is a pic of me and Ashley, one of the friends that I have made here.

In all it ended up being a great day that I was able to learn a lot in. We have another free day tomorrow and I think that i'm going to go out into the city and do something. It is great to have a day off from time to time, but i also don't want to stay holed up in the JC all the time, that wouldn't be the point either. Hope that you are all having a great time! Laters

I'm back!!

So I'm sure that you all missed me, and i tell you what, I am soooooo glad to be back in a 1st world country!! Don't get me wrong, Egypt was one of the best things ever, but now that I can eat fruits and fresh veggies without thinking that i might die, I think that my system will like me better! It has been a trip of much that was seen, of testimony growth, and of inner bowel conflict (that's all i'll mention about that I think!!). Lucky for me I really didn't get that sick or anything, and overall it was a great trip. Oh, and no more bottled water for a while!! Yippeeee!!

Just quick about today, It's 1130pm right now and i started the day at 2am. that's right, 2am. Today was the day that we got to hike up to the top of Mount Sinai and we did it so early so that we could watch the sun rise from the top of the mountain. The hike up is about 4km and I don't know what the elevation change is, but it is quite significant. The hike really wasn't all that bad, not as bad as hiking the Y, although it was a steady incline that went for much farther than the Y ever does. I was actually hiking with Morgan and Amanda and Morgan has a bad ankle which she twisted a little on the climb up. I was really impressed with how well she was able to just push through the pain and keep on going, she's a trooper (and a little stubborn!). I have to mention here that the stars are amazing. There is no major city like anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula, and I have never seen the stars shine so brightly. Constellations that i have never really been able to see and always wondered how the ancients were able to pick them out I now understand. Darn light pollution!

We got to the top long before sunrise, and we sang hymns and had time just to contemplate our life while we sat on top of the mountain where some of the greatest revelations in the world were given. I wanted a good view of the sunrise, and so I actually climbed to the top of the apse of a church that is at the peak of the mountain. I was all by myself and had an unobstructed view of the world from there. I tell you what, there is nothing like watching the sun rise when the horizon is probably close to 75 miles away. Like Bro. Brown said, "It's like watching the sun come up from the center of the world." I had a great time just reading scriptures and writing in my little journal that I brought with me (thanks for finding that for me Lauren!) and just experiencing something that I may never get to do again. Pictures were taken, and then our leaders took us to little meadow areas where each class had a testimony meeting. I cannot express to you the gratitude that I have for being able to bear my testimony in a natural temple of the Lord. To be able to add my testimony to the holiness and sanctity that still resides on that great mountain.

The way up was a trail and switchbacks. The way down we took a different route and walked down the almost 4 THOUSAND stairs made with rocks in the mountain! If my knees hurt at all today, it was then!! They are called the "Stairs of Repentance" i hear, and i'm sure that it would have hurt like that if I had gone up that way!! The monastery of St. Catherine's is at the bottom of the mount. You can see it from a ways up, and you really think that you are close, but you are not! It takes a good hour or so to get off the mountain, and whole time going down these retched stairs, but we finally made it.

The rest of the day was mostly bus time, trying to get back to our home in Jerusalem. Trips within trips are not the easiest things to get used to, and it was weird to get back to the JC and really be at a place that could be considered home, but we are still on vacation! Well, i'm in school, but whatever. I got to sit next to Tanner on the bus ride for the long haul (he is one of the kids of the teachers here. He is 16 and way fun) and got to know him pretty well. We had a fun drive.

Oh, but the one thing that broke up the day was the border crossing. Now getting into Egypt is not a problem, but getting back into Israel is another story. They are really thourough in checking people and thier bags at the crossing into Israel, and so it took about 2 hours to cross total, and one more hour to get the guy in our group that was born in Turkey across! It was kind of funny, because they checked a lot of our backpacks, and one of the security things it being able to identify your pack. Well, we all have the same ones here, and it took a while for the people to realize that we would have to look into the bag before we could tell if it was ours or not. Then they start going through my bag, and of course they find the little book that I got at the mosque called "The Teachings of Muhammad" written on one side in total Arabic. I started getting grilled with questions like "Why do you have this book?" "Why did you go in the mosque?" "Why did not your whole class go in the mosque?" "Why did you want to learn about Islam?" "I don't understand, why did you go into the mosque?" and so on. It was about a 3 min discussion, with me just saying that I'm a tourist, a student, and I just wanted to see the inside of a mosque! (really cool by the way, but you'll find out about that later!). Anyway, I did get across, but having that little book gave me quite the story!

Anyway, that's my today. What i hope to do is try to catch up on the blog, actually posting things by date about what I did on the day that I did it. So just watch for that. The next few days for me are free (except another trip on Sunday) so hopefully i will have the time to catch up on all of it! Anyway, I love you all and hope that you are doing well!

Sad departure

So today marks the last day that I am was in Egypt. I am really doing to still be here for another night, but it is in the Sinai and not in mainland Egypt, so it doesn't count. But today was a good way to end the trip from Egypt, going into the Citadel of Cairo and getting to see the Muhammad Ali Mosque as well as seeing the churches in Old Cairo.

The churches in Old Cairo were amazing to see. We went to the place where they think that Mary and Joseph may have fled to when they came to Egypt. The church's around here were very simple and they were not as well taken care of as the ones that we have seen in other locations. I guess to their benefit one of the churches was under renovation as they tried to clean it up, but it was interesting never the less. We went to the Hanging Church which is the main church for the Coptic's and it is a simple church, but really has a wonderful marble pulpit for the priest to stand on. The hanging church is the only one in which we were allowed to take pictures (i really was getting annoyed by this point) but it was still a magnificent building. We also saw the Ben Ezra Synagogue which is this great little chapel that is really decked out. It was really neat because all of these places in really close to one another, and so the old city is a symbol that even here the three big religions can get along.

This motif is also seen in the huge Muhammad Ali mosque. This was cool to see not only because of how grand it is, but because it is built just like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, so now i don't have to plan that trip! The motif of the three monotheistic religions is seen in the minarets and obvious Muslim use of the building, with the cross being seen in the crossing of the domes on the building, and a Star of David being seen in the center of the central whole dome. The arcetecture of the building is amazing and it was built for acoustics, with full domes, half domes, and 1/4 domes to help sound go from the place where the imam would sound the prayers throughout the whole dome. Really it was a great place to just think about all of the religions of the world and the conflict that they are in, wondering if a peace is ever going to be found, or what is going to be the final outcome. Truly it will be a sad day when and if any of the great monuments of our time are destroyed, no matter what religion the are from.

I really have grown to have an appreciation for the work of others while on this trip. I may not believe in the way that they do or agree on doctrine, but i can respect the sacrifice that they have made for their religion and I would hope that they would do the same for me. It was interseting also to get to know Islam a little more (our tour-guide, not the religion). I would ask him about different parts of the Islamic faith as he would tell us things that i had never heard, like, did you know that the reason for the head covering for the women in Islam is becuase that is the way they belive that the Virgin Mary dressed, and she is the most important lady in Islam? I had no idea! He even had part of the surra that described the virgin birth and it was really interseting to read the different account of what they belived happened It's a little different, but amazing in it's own way.

The rest of the day was really just a drive to Morganland, the last place that we were going to spend the night, just about 10 min from Mt. Sinai. I really cannot wait to climb this mountain and see what it does for my life. Maybe i'll get some commandments eh?

Museums and Mosques

So to day we got the opportunity of going to the Egyptian Museum today. It is an amazing building that unfortunately none of you will get to see pictures of because once again, cameras are not allowed inside the museum. This museum is famous for a few things. Not only is it one of the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world (go figure right!) but it also houses 12 of the most famous mummies in Egyptian history and has a 1/3 of all of the artifacts from Tut's tomb including the tomb itself and the sarcophagus and head-mask of the boy king. We had alot of fun on the bus. This is a pic of Adam and Morgan posing oh so well!

It was really a site to see the mummies of the ancient people that you hear about so often. I was able to be 6 inches away from Ramses II and see that he was a bald guy that was really well preserved. Also seeing Seti I and thinking that this could have been Moses' father figure growing up was quite a thing to behold. All of the mummies were really well preserved and it was amazing to still be able to make out facial features, hair, nails, and even preserved fingers and toes. Really it was a great site. Another thing about the Egyptians is that some of the sculptures that they made to symbolize people had the most amazing eyes. They would use semiprecious stone to actually make the eyes reflect light just as normal eyes would do. It was eerily creepy to literaly be able to stare into the eyes of the past.
Of course the treasures of Tut were one of the more amazing things to see. The wonder of all of the things that were given to this minor king to help keep him and his ba safe for the afterlife was astonishing. The 4 separate gold leafed coffins, his pure gold sarcophagi and head-dress was really amazing piece of work. There was just to much jewelry, and it was amazing to me to see all of the furniture that was supposed to have fit in the room that i had just seen a couple days before! Really it must have been a great thing to see it so chock full of golden things when it was first found. I can only imagine.

After the museum they dropped us off at one the biggest markets in Cairo for us to shop. For me i had already spent enough money and didn't really want anything else, so a few of us went to the nearby mosque to see what stuff was like. Actually, I did go walking around the market for a little bit, but then after i heard the call to prayer i could not resist being able to see what a prayer service was like inside the mosque, and so I slipped away and went in. There were a few of us in there and it was a neat thing to watch as the imam lead the people that were in the mosque in prayer. I think that I have a video that I will have to share of the prayer service, at least a little bit of it. It went on for more than 15 min, and it was neat, but a little repetitive after a while. It was just neat to have seen some of the religious practices of Islam, since we don't get the opportunity to see a service in Jerusalem itself.

All in all it was a fun day and I am so glad that I got to experience so much in this little part of town. Tomorrow is our last day in Egypt and so I hope that I really have done all that I want to do!

Walk like an Egyptian (like you have the runs)

So, first of all i have to state that while I can relate to the title of this blog, I did steal the idea from someone else's blog, so yeah.....

So one more boat ride that took us all from the hotel to the Karnak Temple Complex. One of the coolest things in this temple is the huge hypostyle hall that leads into the Holy place in the temple. The columns there are about 15 feet around at the base (at least) and there are tons of them, just tons! There is still some of the original paint on some of the columns as well. It's an amazing feat that happened here to make all of this possible. The thought and work that all had to go into this is just amazing, thats for sure. One of the cool things about this place is the Sacred Lake where the priests would wash themselves before going into the temple. This is an artificial lake that is HUGE, prob about 300 yds on each side and deep. I don't know how deep because they do keep water in it still, but there was still about 15-20 ft that was not full and I couldn't see the bottom. Right next to the lake is this scarab statue where it is tradition to run around seven times for good luck and a quick marriage, so i'm sure that you can guess, all 40 of us BYU students ran around the darn thing 7 times! I'm sure that all of the other tourists loved seeing that! Fun stuff, fun stuff! This was also a cool place because this Holy of the Holies had very specific drawing of the ceremonies that they would perform inside the temple, or ones that would occur after death. It was interesting to see the things that they built these great temples to do, and how similar some of them seemed as well. It really gives an eternal perspective to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Then we took a carriage ride from Karnak to Luxor temples. I would love to say that it was a romantic carriage ride with a girl, but I was riding with Adam :( ha ha, just kidding. Adam and I had a great conversation about things, I really like the guy, he's a lot of fun and he's smart, so i'm trying to learn a few things from him. Luxor temple is right in the middle of the city, which you just never really think about when you see pictures of the place. Back in the day there was actually a row of sphinx that went all the way from Karnak to Luxor connecting the two holy places of the time. One of Karnak lies on the East-West line to symbolize the path of the sun, and in the same aspect, life to death. Luxor on the other hand is on the North-South line that follows the Nile, and so the life and power of the river. The gods would travel from one to the other to show their omnipotence over everything.

Luxor temple was taken over by Ramses II who put these two huge colossus of himself outside the main gate, as well as adding huge relief carvings to the face of the temple depicting his hunting and wars. This temple is also known for it's obelisks which are the largest in Egypt. Queen Hatshepsut actually made the largest obelisk out of one single piece of red granite. This is actually a story that is also depicted at her temple that we saw just a couple days ago (crazy eh?). Anyway, the thing is huge and has quite the story of how they got it to stand up, but you'll have to ask for that later if you want the story. So yeah, this was a neat temple because so many people helped to build it. Ramses II, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, and Amenhotep III and so each section has these cool little parts that are unique to any other part of the temple. Actually, the only reason that we really know that Hatshepsut was there was because of the obelisk, because her son Thutmose III didn't like her much, and so her image and name has been removed from everything. So you know if you are looking at her if you see a scratched out name or figure! But he couldn't destroy the obelisk because it was to Amun and he couldn't insult the gods, and so what he did was build a wall around the whole thing so that no one could see it! This helped to preserve it through the years and now we have this great thing of the past that is really well preserved! Oh the irony!

Anyway, so from there back to the hotel with some free time to go. We were going to go to one of the museums in town, but we were told the wrong time that it was closed for the afternoon, and so we ran out of time to do that, so a group of us walked around town to see some sights. We walked though a few other bazaars and then we decided that we wanted to go into a mosque since none of us had seen the inside of one. There is a bigger mosque right next to the Luxor temple and so we chose to go to that one. Well, the mosques are an interesting thing, really simple inside with just a little decoration. Men and women have to take off their shoes and women have to have a head covering. So we went and saw that and then they let us go into the tower to have a great view of the city and the temple from up 150 steps! That did cost us a little to tip the guy that took us up, but it was really worth it. Things around Egypt are really cheap! But yeah, so then we just walked back to the hotel while seeing a little more of the city along the way. This is also the place where we got the free literature about Muhammad that would igve me issues at the border later! Oh the stories!

Anyway, that was the end of the day really, we packed up from the hotel and we got to go over to the train station for an overnight on a train back to Cairo. We actually got sleeping cars, although this was really not up to Amtrak standards I don't think! For one thing, the bathrooms have the same disposal system as airplanes if you get my drift! The food was really iffy, and the train loud, but still knew how to have fun on the train, even if we didn't get the best night sleep ever! We didn't get to shower either, I guess we'll see in the morning if we get into our hotel that early since we are going to be in a 530am! Have a good day all!

Through the desert

We agreed as a group last night that we were going to leave really early this morning for the Valley of the Kings and Hatchepsut's temple because for one, the crowds at the Valley of the Kings can get really long, and the temperature today was really really warm. It was nice too, we didn't have any lines to wait at and I hear that some groups last semester had to wait an hour out in the sun to see some of the tombs there, so yeah, we are smart.

Unfortunately the Valley is one of the places where we cannot take cameras. The flash of the camera will eventually strip the color from the ancient paint that it still on the walls. It was actually really cool to see in the inside of the tombs there. The depictions on the wall of the many journeys of the pharaoh in the afterlife and the rituals that they performed to help them gain life after this one was really amazing to look at. They were really obsessed with eternal life, everything has this central theme to it. You can see the anointing of the kings with oil, the judgment of the king, and one of the weird things is the duality of it all. Like Osiris is the god of the underworld, and so while the king is being presented to Osiris, the king also is Osiris in the way that he dresses and such. The last tomb that we went in there was king Thutmose III whose tomb is up in the top of the mountain (the entrance anyway) and you get in the little tunnel and you just have to go down and down and down into the heart of the mountain. It's really quite amazing to see the talent that the Egyptians had back in the day. His was also cool because the whole room was painted as one big cartouche with stories of all of the people that he had conquered inside of it. The people's heads were cut off and everything! Of course, we also did get to see the tomb of King Tut, although his is a lot smaller than one would think for all that crap he had in his! Tut's mummy is also in the tomb there, and man was he small! You just don't really think about it until you get to see him, but he really was just a boy.

At this point we went to the temple of Queen Hatchepsut which is on the other side of the mountain from the valley of the Kings. Her temple was interesting for two reasons, one is that being the first real girl pharaoh she had to convince her people that she could do it, so there is actaully this whole wall of relief about her divine birth which of course qualifies her for the job. There is also a side temple on the 2nd level to Hathor (hat-hor) the goddess of beauty. Now, Hathor is depicted as a cow, and so you might wonder why the goddess of beauty is depicted as a cow, well Islam our guide had an answer for us: "I don't know know if this is real reason or not, but just hear me out. Have you ever look a cow in the eyes? Yes or not? Yes? well, I think that those eyes are the prettiest things ever, and I think the ancients thought that too." We tried the whole cow thing on some of the girls here, but even knowing that it was the goddess of beauty they didn't seem to like the idea of being related to a cow! ha ha, funny funny :) This is also cool because it's also the first place that we got a see a Holy of the Holies, or the place where their god would reside. All temples have at least one of these and they would have some idol in there back in the day to worship towards and leave offerings for. It's a cool thing to see.

That afternoon once it started to cool down a little bit, we went and got to get a felucca ride and ride a camel around Luxor. A felucca is a boat that does not use a motor at all, just the wind and a sail. That was a cool ride just relaxing as we floated around on the Nile. The felucca took us from the hotel to the place where we got to ride the camels and then back again. The camels were fun to ride though. Each camel had it's own guide, most of them were about 9-13 years old with a few adults in between to watch things over. My guide's name was Achmad (with that throaty 'ch' sound). He was alot of fun, I got lucky because he spoke English pretty well and we were able to have a cool conversation about things as we went. On the ride back Carlie was in front of me and I actually got Achmad and the boy in front of us to start fighting over how many camels she was worth! Achmad won with 30 million camels! I though it was all pretty funny. He even gave me this little thing of candy on the way. He was a fun little guy to get to know.

It was actually a little sad to talk about camels for women, because earlier in the day i had gone out to the Sook (a bazzar in Luxor) to shop with Morgan, Ashely, Aubrey, and Jesse to get some things for the fam back home, and as we left that bazzar for a more local one we met up with some guys that were leading us around being 'friends' and of course we got the question about if the girls were our wives or not. By the way, when you are in Egypt, you should always answer 'yes' to that, no matter what your status, it just makes things easier! But anyway, I said that we were just friends, and he told me that I could come to this place tomorrow and they were going to have a women market. I could get a pretty wife for about 5 camels, but if I only wanted a so-so wife, I would only need one camel! A little sad, but hey, what do you expect from a friend that wants a 'present' from you when you go to leave!?

Anyway, it was a fun time over all, but I was glad to get back to my 5 star hotel and lay down and watch some American movies with Arabic subtitles! Love you all!

The Giza Pyramids

So, you wake up in the morning, you look out your window, and what do you see? I saw a fumigator that made it impossible to breathe for a little while, so i hope that your view is better! It's really annoying though to have to be careful with the water here though, since we are in the 3rd world country and the water is just pumped from the Nile, and since all of the sewers go into the Nile along with detergents and dead animals, you don't want to drink any of the water. This may not sound too bad considering that you have given lots of bottled water though the day, but this also keeps you from eating fresh veggies that were washed with the Nile water, showering has to be done with all orifices closed (including eyes), and you have to brush your teeth with bottled water as well, and that can be a bad habit sometimes! So yeah, life in Egypt in going to be interesting, let's just hope that I don't get sick!

Our first stop today was the pyramids of Giza! There are 9 pyramids in the area, and of course we all know the big 3, and really they are magnificent structures! They all faces of the pyramids go towards one of the cardinal directions, and Hufu's (the largest) height is proportional to the distance around the world, and it's weight is proportional to the weight of the earth! Aliens really must have helped them on this one! Our tour guide, Islam, is great as describing things for us and making sure that we remember what he has told us. Our name is "Group Tut" which is pronounced 'toot' not 'tut'. So he was always saying things like, "Group toot! You awake groop toot?" And when he would ask us questions or tell us something that was pretty amazing, he would say, "you believe this??! Yes or not?" Ha ha, we was so much fun as a guide.

Now, we did get to go inside the pyramid of Kafhra, the 2nd largest pyramid. No pictures are allowed though which is sad (and a recurring theme throughout the trip) but really there is just a little tunnel that isn't large at all, only about 2.5 feet high that you have to crouch and walk down into the pyramid, and then you have to crawl back up to where the tomb is. It really was a plain room, not even any paint is left to see, but just the fact that we were in the middle of one of the largest s ancient structures in the world was enough to humble me. All 40 of us were in there together, and we sang "I am a Child of God" in the tomb of this ancient king. Other tourists there didn't speak English, but one we talked to them later though an RM and they said that they liked hearing the singing and they could tell it was a hymn. I thought that was a neat experience.

From seeing the Pyramids, we went to the other side and got to see the Sphinx, which, like Mt. Rushmore, is a little anticlimactic. Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing structure, but it is a lot smaller than you would think! It's also right across the street from the city, and it's really crowded. One thing if you go there, realize that nothing, not even help or advise, is free from a local. I didn't fall into this trap, but a few people in our group did have to end up paying off kids that were trying to 'help' them out. If you want a picture of all of you, just grab another tourist, it doesn't matter if they speak your language, they know what you want! The Sphinx actually sits next to one of the oldest temples in the world. There really isn't much there anymore, but it was cool to get a rundown of the ancient priesthood and gospel from Bro. Brown as we walked around the area.

After making a stop at the papyrus factory where they showed us how the oldest paper in the world is made, we went to Saqqara where the first step-pyramid of Egypt is and it was made for a King named Zoser. This pyramids was actually a series of mastaba's on top of one another, and then later architects were able to perfect the idea for Hufu's pyramid. This place was neat not only for the pyramids here (about 6 more in the area) but you can also see about 10 other pyramids in the distance, all prototypes leading to the ones in Giza. It is really interesting to be able to see the progression that was made from pyramid to pyramid until they got the idea down right.

We also stopped in Memphis (all these places are really close to one another by the way!) and we say the great statue of Ramses II. This is the largest statue ever carved, and unfortunately it's not standing, but it is a great tribute to the talent that the Egyptians had back in the day. We also were introduced to a few of the early gods of the Egyptians and some of the traditions they had. There is also a smaller sphinx there that is much more complete and was done a little later to more talent went into it. So yeah, cool place to go.

The day ended with a trip to the airport where we flew to Luxor so that we can begin our wonderful adventures there tomorrow. And you guys should really look at the place that I get to stay in here! A 5 star hotel on the banks of the Nile, I have a bungalow with a private pool, and a dome in my room, a dome!!! It is probably the best hotel that I will stay in for a long long time! I hope that you are all doing well! Love you all!

Church on a Friday

So today started off not as early as yesterday morning, thank goodness! But anyway, breakfast at the kibbutz was good. There were some interesting things there, like fish in some lemon water with onions, and it looks like it had been sitting there for a while. Need less to say I didn’t try any of that! Anyway, so the bus ride was pretty much all that we did today, nothing much more than that. It was interesting though, because we had about and hour in the bus, and then we left it behind at the Egyptian border. So we took all of our stuff, and then we crossed the border.

Talk about security though! I mean, really, you are a third world country, you are the one that exports the terrorists most of the time, and you have 3 checkpoints for passports for the people walking across, and then we had another check a couple miles down the road and someone had to board our bus and check all of the passports again!! I mean, I guess it could be like that in other places too, it’s not like I travel outside the country much, but yeah, I thought it was a little ridiculous! The only thing really cool, other than the fact that I was in Egypt, was the fact that there is now this sweet looking visa in my passport! That’s right, it’s the coolest thing ever!

So then we had about 5 hours in the bus with a couple stops along the way for the bathroom and stretching. Everyone started to get a little nervous about the food and the water, now the hands are not really clean when they are done being washed! So yeah, I’m trying to do my best not to get the runs while I’m here! Anyway, so we get in Cairo, and the first thing that we get to do is go to church. Now I will remind you that this is a Friday. Since Egypt is completely Muslim state, the holy day here is on Friday, and so now I have the Sabbath on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! What a thing to do on a trip! The branch house here is just that, a house with a little backyard. It’s mostly used by imports at the consulate and students doing abroad type things, but there are about 4 natives that also come, so low because this is also a no proceliting place. The branch building is also neat because everything is in Arabic and English on the doors, so now I can say “branch president” in Arabic!

After that it was off the hotel. I am staying a three star hotel for the first time in my life. This is a pretty nice little place and I really enjoy being 10 min from the pyramids! By the way, they are huge, just in case you didn’t know!! That’s what we get to do tomorrow, the pyramids, sphinx, and tons of other stuff. I am so stoked to be able to do all of that stuff!! And I am going to learn so much too! 30 dynasties in like 5 days, this is going to be insane!! The downside is all of the good food that we can’t really touch. In order not to get ‘Pharaoh’s Revenge’ we have been instructed only to eat hot foods and bread. So we go to this buffet at the hotel, and it was sad to have to pass by so many things that looked so good! I mean, even if I did eat it, there isn’t too much of a chance of it having an effect on me, but it’s still there, and that isn’t the type of running around that I want to do in Egypt if you catch my drift. Anyway, It’s off to bed now, I can’t be sleeping through all of the things that we got to do tomorrow!! Love you all!

Trips within trips

Off to Egypt!! We started our week long trip to Egypt today, our second longest field trip that we are going to have during the summer. We started at an early 630am (that's when the bus left) and had a nice 2 hour drive to get a little more sleep before our first stop. I really slept the whole way because I was up really late packing the day before. But our first stop was a very popular place in the OT, Beersheba.

Beersheba is the sight of many of hte important covenants in the OT. This is where Abraham made a covenant with Abililek so that they would not go to war. A well was dug here with the same name too to mark that covenant. Isaac also had experinces around this place that showed he was a peacemaker by letting the herdsmen of the country take well after well that he dug without argument with them. It is no wonder that this place lies along what is called the Patriarchs Way! Beersheba was also the southern boundary of the kingdom that existed in Judges, so it was important as a boundary marker as well.

Anyway, it was just really neat to be able to see this old of a tel that was in pretty good condition. You could see the old houses that people would have lived in and the little streets that they had back then just to walk down. One of the other cool things that was here was this huge cistern that they used to store water for the city during the summer. This this was huge and you could actually go down into it and walk though the huge caverns that were there. I mean, that they were able to build something like that was simply amazing!

We next traveled next to the Wilderness of Zin (isn't that a cool place to say you have been!). This is about the place where the Israelites could have wandered in the wilderness after coming out of the Sinai. We also know that Miriam died around here, who of course is the sister to Moses. But one of the neatest things was the hike that we went though in the area called Ein Avdat. It was an amazing canyon, sheer cliffs on each side and really cool stairs cut right into the mountain for the last part of the hike. This is the first time that a JC group had been brought this way and done this hike, and it really was worth it. There is a natural spring that flows though this canyon, and so we stopped to talk about the time where Moses smote the rock to give the people of Israel water. Even though this is not really the place that it happened, it was neat to see such a good likeness of what it could have been like.

Avdat itself was the next stop that we had, which is a sweet Nabateaen city. The Nabateaen's are the people that built Petra and this city while not quite as sweet was still a sight to behold. This was a major trade city because it lays between 4 major cities of the time, which I can't really remember at this time, but hey, I got a lot still i think! They had this great idea for run-off agriculture that allowed them to have these farms in the middle of the desert. You know, I think that these people were genius's. Actually, if these people had computers, i am convinced that we would totally have Star Trek stuff now... oh well, maybe next time eh? Anyway, it's also interesting because the Byzantines came through later and booted the people out, and of course that means that they changed all the churches to be their own. The marble was still on the altar which was neat, as well as the menorah's on the Greek tombs showing the crossover of religions at the times.

Our last stop was at a place called a kibbutz which is a place that is pretty much a little Zion. really, the people work for one another, and except for things like extreme surgery's and such they are pretty much self sufficient. Each Kibbutz has it's own specialty that makes the money for the place, this one had a date farm and grew algae for antioxidants. They also do agricultural research, trying to get new types of plants to adapt to the arid climate in the region. Other than letting us spend the night there, they also gave us a great experience. They took us out to the middle of nowhere to the best sand in the world. Rather than the rough quartz sand that most places have, this was pure sandstone sand, and it was the softest stuff ever. They let us play in the sand for a while, and then had us go out and just experience the desert on our own. We went to a place where we could not see anyone else and had time just to contemplate our life. They then blew a shofar to let us know to start answering questions they gave us, and then blew it again to gather us back up again. It was amazing to just sit there and to think about life, not a sound, not another person in the world, just me and the desert. I can see why Jesus would have wanted to spend 40 days here preparing for His ministry, it was a very inspiring experience.

That was about all that I did that day. Living at the Kibbutz was cool, I could see myself doing that in the future for fun, but I am really ready to get to Egypt! Oh man, here I come!

Happy Jerusalem Day!!

So I know that i didn't write about anything yesterday, and that's because I really didn't do much. It was a really intense school day with nothing really getting done but going to class and doing homework. The most exciting thing that happened was that they showed the 10 Commandments for us in the Forum, which by the way is a REALLY long movie!!! Dang, I was about to shoot myself, and I came 2 hours into it!!! Anyway, that was about it for yesterday, little bits of fun, but mostly just class.

Today is Jerusalem day, or the day that the Jews celebrate Jerusalem becoming united under Israeli control again (after the '67 war). It is a newer holiday, but dang! If you think that the US is patriotic, you should come to this party! I can't say too much of what went on, or really post pics of it either just because of the subject matter, but I can say that the Western Wall was packed with people. The group of us that went to see the festivities got caught in this little mob of Jewish boys going through the Old City. There were so many people crammed into such small spaces there. I think that I can say that I understand the animosity that the Jews and the Palestinieans have against each other a little better. Staying neutral, on both sides there were stupid people trying to aggrivate the other side. The Arabs were kept away from the Jewish procession by the police and the Army (who have been out in force today by the way) but they were both making rude jestures at one another and aggrivating the other side. It was a little crazy. By the time that we got to the wall, things were nuts there. Tons of people were there, with so many Israeli flags and a concert and everything. We had to leave before too long because it was getting dark, but we had a hoot.

Getting home was another matter. We had to get a taxi (because it was after dark and we can't walk home) and who do we get? A guy that agrees on our price, but only speaks Moroccan French and doesn't know where the JC is, even though he has been here for 30 years! We had his drop us of at Hebrew U, but we had a heck of a time getting out of there back to the center. There was this dumb guard who told us wrong directions, and so we had to backtrack alot, and yeah, we were getting just a little tired. We finally did find our way, but man were we tired. So here I am, at midnight, trying to get caught up on this blog before I leave in the morning for Egypt. That's right people, I get to go to Egypt!!! I am so stoked, and so are many of the people here, including the teachers. My OT professor, Bro. Mencill was even getting a little sqeaky as he started to list off all of the things that we get to see while we are there! It's going to be nuts! But we have two days of bus rides ( BBQ tomorrow night in S. Israel!!) and then we get to cross over into Egypt! We do have to be really carful of the food over there. I got some snacks today that i'm going to take with just in case. My goal is not to get the runs at all while i'm there, and I think that this is a doable goal!

Anyway, it is a little sad because I don't know if i'm going to have internet while i'm there, I don't really think so, so I'm going to have to sign off for a while. That also sucks because when I get back, you all will just have a general summary of the good stuff since I would have to write a book to give you a day by day blow, but yeah. Anyway, I hope that you all can live without me for a while. There might be internet, i'm staying at the Shereton in Luxor for heaven's sake, so maybe i'll be able to get a little something up, we'll see.

Oh, and two quick things. One: today I totally had to buy a hat for the sun in Egypt, and so this guy wanted to well me this nicer straw hat for 150 shekles (~$40) Anyway, he tells me it's a good price (yea right) and long story short, I end up paying 15 shekles in the end! I am the master. On a similar note, I have genie pants now, and they are awsome!
Two: We had a camel spider in our room the other day. They are gross. It crawled under my bed, and it was huge, and I would not have slept there if it had not crawled out and we killed it. Still freaked me out, those things are big and fast and nastly. Follow the link and see for yourself. Anyway, yeah, enough about tha

Love you all and wish me luck! Hope that you have a great life at home in the States!

You Take the High Road....

So being Monday, this was our second field trip day. This was a good one too because this is one of the only times that we get to go into the West Bank to see some of the sights there. It is actually really sad that we don't get to go there more like in the past. There are so many things to see that are in the West Bank, but alas, the PA (Palestinean Authority) isn't too prone to having too many guests at times, and so we have to be careful. But today our journey took us from Jerusalem into the Judean Wilderness to Jericho.



I'd love to say that along the way we got captured by theives and finish the parable in my own life, but alas I guess that i'm going to have to liken the scriptures to myself some other way! We traveled first to a little stop that was an overlook of the Judean Wilderness. It was a great place to stop beucase you could look to the west and see Jerusalem, and then look to the east and see Jericho. These places are so much closer than one would think by looking at a map! From this vantage point you could also see the elevation change going from Jerusalem to Jericho, which is about 3500 feet! Seeing the wilderness that so many different people traveled through back in the day was somewhat humbleing. It was quite windy, and so it was not very clear because of all the dust in the air, but that helped with the sun, which was really hot. I can't even imagine how much hotter it would have been with direct sunlight (i need a hat!). Anyway, one little insight that I had there was about the Parable of the Good Samaritain. So we know that the Samaritain is Jesus, right? and the man is us. The innkeeper is often though of as the church, so with that said, I thought about how the Lord finds us in sin, bloodied on the road and needing His help. And then He takes us up, and really brings us to the church, and then He leaves. We don't really ever see Him while in this life, but then He comes and get's us once we have healed with the help of the church. Jesus gives us the initial help that we need to get to the church, he pays the price of being here for us, and then he leaves it to us to get healed with the help of those that He has given us to, which I think could also include the families that we are put in, friends that we make, etc. So yeah, there was my little insight for this place.



Our next stop was in Jerico itself. We went to this place called the Quarantal Monastery which is a not-so-old-but-built-on-a-place-where-there-used-to-be-a-similar-building Greek Orthodox place for monks. This is a neat building because it's really only one little hallway with a church and chapel at the end of it, but the reason that it's like that is becuase it's built right into a cliff rock face!! If you were to fell out one of the windows, it would be at least a 200ft drop till you hit something. Hiking in the heat was quite a little journey as well and one of the people in my group said as we were trying to get up there, "No wonder they are hermits and stay away from the world if they have to make a hike like this to get home every day!" This is the place of one of the temptations of Christ and there is a little stone in the chapel that is supposed to be the stone that Satan told Christ to turn into bread. The stone they have there does look suspiciously like a loaf of bread.... but i'm not really sure about the location myself... anyway. It was amazing to see the lifestyle that many of the hermits would live though, and it's quite amazing how far they go to follow the example that they got from the Lord. This place was unique for one other reason. In the dome of the church, there was a mural which depicted God the Father with the Holy Spirit. This was amazing becuase only very rarely is the Father actualy drawn as a person, so yeah, pretty neat.

We then quickly drove past the Zacchaeus Tree (find the story!) and got a couple pics, and then we went on to see Herod's winter palace. We didn't actually get to go to the ruin, but we saw them across the wadi, and it would have been an impressive little place in his time. It really is amazing how much wealth there was and how much it was used. Although even Herod was dwarfed by the Egyptians (3 more days!!!), so yeah.

We also went to Tel-Jericho, tel being the prefix meaning the ancient place where the city was back in the day. So i actually saw sections of the wall that would have crumbled for Joshua! I actually coudn't get the veggie tales song out of my head for the longest time! We actually did sing Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho and although we didn't sound quite like the BYU choirs, I think that we gave it a good shot! Tel-Jericho is right next to the Spring of Elisha which is the spring which feeds the whole valley. It's actually really nuts that this city exists. There is nothing but desert around it, and then this little oasis in the middle of nowhere! We couldn't actually see the spring because it's a government builiding the controls the flow now, but we were told by our teacher that it is quite the torrential river flowing out of that thing! So we sat and talked about Jericho and Joshua, and also about how Elisha healed the waters by throwing salt into it. Wierd eh? Little sybolism maybe? eh eh?? haha, anyway, all in all it was agood trip.

The rest of the day was really just spent in doing homework, so that's not too exciting, but this is school over here, so I have to do serious stuff sometimes! Hope you're all having fun! Laters!

To Hell and Back

Yes, yes, I literally went to hell, and I made it back alive, barely though. One thing to tell you about it, is that it is pretty warm there, and bright, and I was with some other people, so I don't know how that plays into anything, but yeah, I think it should somehow. Anyway, I shouldn't get ahead of myself, we didn't start the day in hell after all, and it was quite the adventure getting there after all.

It first started with a division of the people. Some people made a day trip to Tel Aviv to go swimming and see some of the museums out there. I decided not to becuase they were going to be my scout team, seeing all of the good stuff so that when i get to go i don't waste time looking. Also I didn't know if the museums were any good, so they got to spend their money checking for me! It did end up being a good thing that I didn't go, becuase they had all the problems that one could have trying to find things, and didn't get to do much, so mission accomplished!

The rest of us split up into smaller groups and went out into the city to do some homework, and by homework, I mean going to see old testament sites around town! We started off in the Kidron Valley, staying close to home and going to the Orson Hyde park which is just around the mountain from the JC, about a 5 min walk or so. One thing that I have learned is that things are not always as they seem. You should look in your bible at the picture of the Hyde park, and then you need to add garbage to the grounds and scortch marks to some of the stones. It is really sad how in disrepear the grounds are. Becuase it's an open park, anyone can come in, and unfortunatly, just the way that Satan normally works, he trys to ruin things that have sacred value. The picture in the back of the Bible is taken from the top ampetheater and to the right is supposed to be a plaque on which is written the dedicatory prayer that Bro. Hyde gave. Now there is just a big hole, and it looks as if fires were built around the area. I have always thought it anoying that there are gates up everywhere blocking certain areas, but I do now understand why. Stupid people really irritate me :( Our little group found another little sitting area and read some scriptures from the OT prophets about Jerusalem, and It was quite the feeling to get such a few of the city and think that most likely the view I had was similar to the prophets who were making the prophecies about the city.

Gethsemanie is practically touching the park, and so we went there next. I really didn't see anything new, we were not able to get into the private area of the garden because of the throngs of people, but we did meet this guy named Julius who was a missionary Father who had brought a group from Nigeria to the Holy Land. It was cool to talk to a few other believers and get to know them and thier faith a little better. I did have a neat experince in the Chruch of All Nations again, just proving that going to places more than once can allows you to learn more than one thing! The spirit in so many of the holy places is strong, and you can learn so much, but you do have to ask, both for the spirit, and the knowledge that can be given to you.

From those gardens we decended into the Kidron Valley itself. Right now it is very dry and those burns I was telling you about don't help the view, but there is alot to see down there. It still amazes me to see off of the coffins that are on either side of the valley, Muslim on the temple mount, Jews on the Olive mount, and a little christian one inbetween! They still are separated, even in death. Anyway, you go down this little path, and it leads you to some really neat tombs that were carves right out of the rock. The first one is Absaloms Tomb. This was one of David's sons who wasn't the best of guys all the time, even kicked his dad out of Jerusalem, but at the death of Absalom, David still cried and wept for his son (2 Sam 18). Oh, and to let you know, at each site we read scriptures that relate to the site that we are at, so it really is a neat experince, and it means so much more than just going there and taking cool pictures.

A few meters down from Absalom's tomb is both Zechariah's tomb (mostly known for 2nd coming prophecies) and a tomb that looks cool. I say 'really cool' becuase it's cut right into the face of the mountain, and because the family that it was made for, the

Benei Hezir family, doesn't mean much in history. They did think at one time that is was the burial place of James, the brother of Jesus, but they don't think that anymore. Unfortuatly you can't get up to the Benei tombs, because they are really cool (we tried climbing to no avail) but all of the other tombs that I have mentioned are neat because you can walk all the way around them and see from different angles. They are large, and they are great for having lunch at!

From those tombs you walk all the way down the valley until you enter the Arab town of Silwan. There a little tombs all along the side of the valley that you can see, but we didn't make the climb because none of them are named. Silwan is a nice little town. We stopped for a little while to eat and get our bearings, and then we went down to the lowest place in the valley, and it connected to the Hinnom valley, or Valley of Hell.

The Valley of Hell is ironicly named, because it is actually a pretty nice looking valley and goes really far down, and makes a nice little cut on the other side of the old city. It was named for this because of all of the child sacrifices that used to go on in the valley (2 King 23:10). We have heard that every once in a while they still happen, but I don't know if I believe that, most of it is in West Jerusalem and the people we met didin't seem that bad! But yeah. The tomb of Shebnah is in this valley, and we found a place that seemed right for the description that we had, so we read about what happened here (2 Kings 18:18 or better, Isa 22:15-25). We also found the church that is supposed to commemorate the place where Judas committed suicide, but it was closed and is only open on tues and thur, so we are going to have to make a trip back come other time.

We then hiked all the way up the valley and got back into the Old City, and did a little adventureing around David's tomb. There really isn't much of a tomb there, it is a Crusade finding, but they think that he is buried below. And when I say 'they', i mean this guy that volunteered to show us some things, and then asked for 10 shekles each for his services. Yeah, well, there were 8 of us, and we wen't dumb. We gave him a tip, probably too much anyway, and sent him on his way. That is the last time that I take some 'free help'. Anyway, we went back to Dormition Abbey because we had more time today than I did last time, and it was really neat. before I had not noticed that each of the women of the bible were represented in mosaic above where Mary was. I include the picture of one of my favorite stories in the bible... anyone know what this refers to?

We then hiked all the way through West Jerusalem to Ben Yehuda st to get gellato. This is the first time that I have had gellato, and it was good, but not worth the hike that it took to get it! I don't think that I'll do that again! Anyway, then we just walked back to the JC, and I showered, and yeah. I was so tired. We had left at 9am and I got back at 530pm ish. It was a long, long day! Anyway, I hope that you all enjoyed my hell story, and i'll update you about my little trip to Jeracho tomorrow! Love you all!

The Garden Tomb

Since I only have 2 sabbaths here, I don't know if I can really start comparing, but to day was really cool. Not only did we have a general authority come (Elder Pieper from the 1st quarum of the 70) to our sabbath services and give a pretty good talk. He also had a fireside in which he just answered questions that we had for him, and also we got to go to the Garden Tomb with him.

The Garden tomb is an interesting place. Alot of members have preferance as this being the site of the crusifixion and buirial of Christ (the other being the Church of the Holy Sepulcure of course) because it is a garden area that is really well kept up, not a shrine with incense and iconography all over, but yeah. It is also cool to see the Golgotha hill with the skull look that it goes have (although it is wearing away and it's not going to be there for much longer because of erosion and vibrations from the nearby bus station). But the tomb is neat (and small) and the atmosphere is different, but ya know, I didn't really think that the place mattered too much. Both places are noisy because of all the people there, the garden is more peaceful enviroment... i don't know. I will be spending more time there later, so maybe i will make a choise later, we'll see.

That was pretty much my day, nothing that was too exciting, but still an amazing day. I am a little distracted too as I write this because people just planned a little trip to Tel Aviv tomorrow, and I need to decide whether i'm going to do it or not... so many choices!!! Anyway, i hope that you all have a great day!

Shabbat Shalom

Wow wow wow (sorta like in the bible, but not really). What could have been a lame day really turned into something that was very inspirational. A little side note, I have a new testimony of journals. I have this little pocket journal that I got in the States before i left and I carry is around with me to the places that we go on field trips, and really, having a journal in the place where things are happening, and being able to use and write as things are going on around you is SO much better than trying to remember even an hour later. Dang the Lord is smart!

So today could have been a lame day, but it was not. Again, on fridays we cannot go out till 3pm because of the Muslim day of prayer (and the fact that is anything were to happen in the city, it would be during that time). So we had classes this morning, then a good amount of time to study and get going on alot of our reading for classes, but then as soon as 3pm hit, we were out the door and into the town. It was a short trip with a purpose. All of us wanted to get some fresh Challah bread for the Shabbat, and then I also wanted to get a kippa (or yamakah for the more common term in the States) to wear into all of the Jewish places that we go. There are so many places that we go where part of it has a Jewish shrine, meaning that you have to have a head covering to go in. A lot of times they have some there for people to use, but i thought that I would get my own.

Anyway, so I did get my kippa, but I had to do a little bit of bargaining to get it, and I'm very proud of my skills. At least i will be untill i hear that someone got one for cheaper, but for now i'm the winner for what i got. The boy who was minding the store I was looking at came out and so I asked him how much the kippa's were. There were 3 kinds, priced at 20, 30, and 40 shekles (divide by 3.5 for $). The most expensive ones were the ones that I wanted the most, but I wasn't going to pay 40 for them! Anyway, so he asked "How much would you pay for them?" Now, the way that the system works here, is that you can ask how much something is, and that's fine, but as soon as you mention a price, you are in a sortof agreement that you are going to buy it, you just have to negotiate the terms of price. It's super rude to leave after that, unless you are offering a reasonable price and he wont come down to it. Anyway, so i wasn't thinking (well, a little ) and so I said, "A friend of mine got one down the street for 15."
He replied with "well, then I guess that I can move it down to 10, 20 and 30," which was still to much for me. So i just hung around, and he asked a couple more times and 30 and i just said, "no, i didn't bring enough, I don't think that I would pay that much, what about 15?" and then I started looking around. I did this not really for effect, but because I realized that the rest of my group was gone! We are never supposed to be alone, and so here I am, nervous about barganing for the first time, and everyone that I was with is gone too, so I know that I have to hurry before they get too far! Anyway, So i don't care at this point about the bargaining, so i just stay at 15. He came down to 20 for a while, and I told him like 3 times that I was only going to pay 15 for it. He woudln't relent and neither would I. So i just told him that I had to find my group before they got too far, and so I had to go. Of course at that moment as I got to leave, he dropped it to 17 shekles, and since 60 cents really isn't something to barter over, I took the deal. Anyway, I got this sweet kippa with a white background and a silver Star of David and silver lining. It's pretty sweet. It's not the most hommade thing in the world, but it was made here, so yeah. I think that i'm the pro at this barganing thing!

Anyway, the night ended well too. Only once a semester do we get to stay in the Old City after dark as a group, and that was tonight for the welcoming of Shabbat at the Western Wall. This was the realy reason that I wanted a kippa today, and it was well worth it. There were alot more people than normal at the wall, and it was amazing to see the diversity of the types of Jews there. When we first got there, a group of male youth that does this every week I guess came singing down the stairs into the plaza and started to sing and dance in the square. Of course the boys in our group were not going to be left out, so we all joined them! We had no idea the lyrics to the songs they were singing, but they didn't seem to care and we got the tune enough to 'na na na' our way through the songs. We trooped ourselves arm in arm with all of these Isreali boys singing and jiging down the outer plaza into the holy place. It is sad that none of you will ever get to see what happened there. Cameras are not allowed beause of the spark that is made when the battery is used to start and run the camera. But if you can just imagine all the dancing going on by a bunch of guys in kippa's, then add to the fact that many of them were soldiers with thier AK-47 type machine guns strapped around them... yeah, we made for quite the sight!

There was a reverant group of people as well. Up at the wall where people prayed and in some corners nearer the back were groups of people that were just swaying as they prayed, usually mumbling to themselves the prayers in the Torah. Others were in group singing, but it was more of a sweet, reverent type singing, not the rambunctious singing of the less-orthodox. I met two American Jews there, one was a Reform Jew, the other was an Orthodox, and it was interseting to see thier different views of thier purpose that night and what they did to celebrate the coming of the sabbath. The most amazing thing though, was that up at the wall, as I said a prayer of my own in the fashion of those around me, I could hear all of the different groups together. The mumbling of prayers made for a white noise background, and all of the different singing just sort of came together in its own harmonious way. I was really in the minority in whose name I was praying in at the wall, but you could tell that whether you were pious or partying, all had faith in what they were doing. It was an experince not likey to be repeated elsewhere.

Anyway, we are going to watch Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, get a little peak at Petra to get us excited for that trip coming up soon! Anyway, shabbat shalom everyone, and I hope that you all have a wonderful day!

Seis de Mayo!!

Yes, yes, I know, it's not quite what you would expect, but since most of the cinco de mayo in Mexico happens on the 6th here, that's when it is celebrated here. The chefs even made us mexican food for dinner, although all the food still had the middle eastern spices, so it wasn't quite the same, but it was pretty good none the less. It was actually pretty funny when we found out that they were cooking Mexican food, it started a whole revolution among the activites committee and now we are having a fiesta tonight in honor of our Mexican friends. Oh the things we do!

Today was greatly entertaining. One of our classes was canceled this morning and so we had just enough time to go to the Rockefeller Museum before lunch and Hebrew class. The museum was full of a bunch of little trinkets that didn't have explinations for them, all separated by their time period of course. It was still really amazing to see all of the little things that people would spend the time making back in the day, all of the talent that people had too. They also have a fragment of skull that comes from the oldest found man, who is about 250,000 years old! It was in pretty good shape considering! There were actually some really cool sarcophagi there from all over the worlds history, along with this giant stone foot. Pictures were not allowed in the museum, but I did take a couple of the Egyptian stuff just for you Emma! They had a bunch of relics that where clearly Egyptian in origin, but had been found in digs in Isreal area. It was quite the collection, that's for sure!

The afternoon was spent skipping the studing that I probably should have done and going instead to the west side and trying to see the Tomb of Kings. This is supposed to be one of the big things to see here in Jerusalem, but they changed thier hours without telling any of the guidebooks, and so it was not open when we thought it was going to be. The darn kids that have that place as a backyard were not any help either, so instead we went to the St. Georage Episcopal church that was across the street and enjoyed the great gothic style chruch that is was. It was a good break from the byzantine that we normally see, and the wood work was great. Not to mention we found this little hidden spiral staircase that didn't really go anywhere (we coudln't open the little metal door at the top) but it was fun none the less because is was so small and we had to use our flashlights to see to get up that far! It was an great church to say the least, and as far as everything goes, i'm pretty stoked to see all of the churches around here.

The next stop was one for the books, I actually got a McDonalds icecream cone in Jerusalem! It was the only reasonably priced thing there at 1.9 shekels, the meals were like 30 shekels (almost $8)! and that was just for the base burgers, nothing fancy! It could be because it is kosher meat, and that might make it's cost up the whazoo, i don't know, but i don't think that i'll be getting a happy meal while i'm here, that's for sure! And that was pretty much my day, i don't think that there is much else to it. The mexican party was fun, there was a great dance afterwards, and so it really did feel like BYU!

Oh, and one more thing, there were some fireworks going off in the city, here on the East side, and they told us before that for parties, especailly at weddings that fireworks were popular and would happen, so we wern't nervous or anything. The second time they went off me and a coupld other guys went on our porch to watch, and one fo the security guys was walking by and he said, "don't worry, don't worry...it's not the war, it's not the war!" and then just walked off! I tell you what, our security guys here are funny, they are fun to play with and great for asking questions about the city. Anyway, i have to go read the Bible... so much reading to do, and so much time to do other things!!

Warming it up

So the weather here is starting to hint of what it is going to be like the rest of the summer. It is really warming up and there is not a cloud in the sky. For the last week a little bit of rain had fallen each day and the breese had really kept things nice and cool, but now I think that summer is upon us. Today walking back from the city they were actually doing a controlled burn in the Kidron Valley, and I got a neat pic that looks like the city is burning! It was pretty cool. At first we didn't know what was going on, just that the Mt of Olives was on fire, but talking to some people we found out that it wasn't a problem and so yeah.

Anyway, so we went to our Jewish History class today, and our teacher Ophir is a great guy, but man he has us read a lot! He told us that he asked the administration how many pages of text he could assign for hte number of credits his class is, and that is the amount of pages that we got! It is an insane amount of reading to do and so i'm not really looking forward to all of it, but his class seems really interseting, and so i'm glad that i'll be learning from him.

I didn't get much time in the city today, but the little that I did have was well spent I think. We went down to the old City of David and saw the ruins of that town. It really was a small town, long and skinny going right down between two valleys. The Tyropean valley is filled in now, but a street goes right down where it used to be, so you can really see what the city would have looked like. Later as a class we are going to go to the Gihon spring and down Hezikiah's tunnel which is in the same area. The Gihon spring is the one that is supposed to flow from underneith the temple, flow down the Kidron Valley, and heal the Dead Sea in the last days, just to orient you.

We then took a trip up to Dormition Abbey, the place where Mary is sleeping until the second coming. It is a newer church, and so it doesn't have the same Byzantine feel that many of the other churchs do, and actually each major sect of Christianity has little chapel in the basement of where the tomb of Mary is. It we didn't get to see all of it because we were in a little bit of a hurry to get back for our Hebrew class, but it was a good see. We found King David's tomb along the way too and so it was neat to a t least locate a few of the other places that I want to see later.

Anyway, I think that is about all for the time being, I know that this wasn't the most exciting of the days that I have had, but bear with me, I think that I will have better days to come! Love you all!

Day in the JC

So today I didn't venture outside of the grounds of the JC. I know, i know, that sounds totally lame, and it sorta was in some respects, but on the other hand, i'm not here as a tourist, i'm here as a student, and so I have to go to classes. Today was a long class day too, if you are taking Hebrew that is. I am taking that, and the other half of the student body is taking Arabic, so they have class on different days, so that is how we are split up that way.

This morning was my OT class is which we learned more about covenants and Noah, just about getting up to Abraham, but not quite. We have a little but if a noisy class, and they ask alot of questions, so it is hard to get moving at times, but I am learning alot, that is for sure and I really enjoy my teacher, Bro. Mencell, and all of the insights that he has.

We had the very entertaining linen exchange after announcements. Yep, we get new towels and sheets just about every week. Good thing too because there is practily no ventaleation in the bathrooms here, so our towles like never get dry and they start to smell faster than we would like! Then the Arabic students went off and did stuff ebcause they didn't have class till 4, with the rest of us, and us Hebrew students got to stay behind and study till class at 2. I am all catched up on the homework though, so it was a good use of my time.

Hebrew is going to be a bomb class too! The teacher is way fun and she has a really good way of teaching the class to us. We don't learn a great amount of Hebrew while we are here, but she said that the goal at the end of the semester would be for us to be able to read out loud the 10 commandments in Hebrew, even though we might not know what all of the words mean! Another fun thing about her is that we learn and Jerish song at the end of each class period, and so today we learned the "Shabbat Shalom" song that they sing every friday at dinner. It's a fun little song with all of the lyrics in the title, but maybe i'll get to teach some of these songs to you when I get back!

Our final classes were our Modern Near Eastern Studies class, which is split into two different sections. All of us go to each class at the same time, but the two classes teach the modern history of the area, one from an Arab point of view, another from the Jewish point of view. All in all it is very interesting. Adnan is the teacher for the Arab side and he has a really thick accent, but he is alot of fun and likes to tell jokes. Ophir is the teacher for the Jewish side of things, and he is a practicing Orthodox Jew, and so you know that's legit! Both of them seem ready to help fill us in on a part of history that the western world mostly ignores and so i'm excited to learn about all that they have to teach us.

The last activity for the day was a late one considering class wasn't out till 9pm! But i traveled to India and did some yoga! Ok, so there was no traveling, but the yoga did happen. One of the girls here, Stacy, was certified as a yoga teacher a couple months ago, and so she is trying to get the hang of having a real class while she is here. She is a great teacher, but who would have thought that yoga would be so intense!! It was amazing though, i already felt like i had better posture ofter doing it once, and even now i'm supprised that i am keeping my shoulders down where they are supposed to be! Anyway, just because i'm sure you are wondering, I am not the only guy in this little class thing, and the guy/girl ratio was actually even today, but we'll see that happens in the future, if more people will join or we will lose them. Anyway, i hope to spend some time in the city tomorrow, so i'll tell you about it then! Love you all!