So Bitter sweet :/

I have now lived in Jerusalem for four months and it has seriously been the most memorable and life-changing experience of my life. I have met so many people that have touched me with who they are and they way they live their lives. I have visited so many places and seen so many different sights that have helped me to see the Bible so much more clearly. I have made 82 new best friends that have helped me grow so much and I know that we will cherish our friendships forever. The Old City and Jerusalem have found a very special place in my heart and I will never be able to forget them. I loved my time to socialize, be academic, wander through the Old City and explore, make great friends, and most of all I have been able to take so much time to ponder and think about my life, who I want to be, and how I am going to live my life. I want to make sure that I leave Jerusalem with my memories, but also that I apply the things I have learned to my life. I know I will be able to make decisions in my future much better because of the things I have learned here. I hope you all know that I am so grateful for your emails and support through this amazing experience!

This is Jerusalem the second to last night before leaving, pretty much the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen :)

Oh Galilee

I don't even know where to begin. Living at the Sea of Galilee for ten days was such an amazing experience and I cannot even begin to describe just how wonderful it was. I learned so much about the Savior, Jesus Christ, and it was such a learning experience to live in the very places where he spent most of his ministry. We stayed on a kibbutz called Ein Gev, but we stayed in the "hotel" part of the kibbutz. It was a very peaceful place right on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; there was a beach with many hammocks and palm trees everywhere! I went swimming every other day and on my off days we usually had field trips all over the area of the Galilee to go to places where Christ performed miracles and where he taught. I did have class every other day, but somehow it wasn't so bad having class knowing where I was. We had bonfires two or three times and just had a blast hanging out under the stars and hearing the waves lap at our feet while roasting marshmallows in a fire. I was able to spend night and morning by myself just looking over the Sea of Galilee, studying the scriptures, and pondering the life of the Savior. I have never felt so much peace and tranquility in one place in my life. I feel so blessed to have been able to spend ten days there and learning so much about Jesus Christ. Amidst me learning so much and strengthening my testimony, I had so much fun just hanging out with the group, building stronger bonds, and doing crazy/fun stuff! I won't go into too much detail, but here are some pictures to give you a feel for what I did and where I was!

The boat we rode in on the Sea of Galilee where we sang "Master the Tempest is Raging"

Kathryn, Lo, and myself on the boat :)

The church on top of the Mt. of Beatitudes which was so beautiful! 

The grounds on top of the Mt. of Beatitudes looks like the Garden of Eden or what I would imagine it to look like, so beautiful! 

Me standing in the Sea of Galilee at a church called St. Peter's Primacy

The city of Capernaum where Jesus healed many people 

The beautiful city of Capernaum

The synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus probably taught 

The sunset over Galilee at Capernaum

Us playing at the Sea of Galilee during free time 

The church on top of Mt. Tabor, also considered the Mt. of Transfiguration

Father Antone, the priest at the church on Mt. Tabor 

In the basement of the church where people leave pieces of paper with prayers, on the back of this picture is a prayer for this baby 

Me and Will! 

Me, Steven, and Ashley riding an iron horse at Tel Megiddo 

Ha Shelosha, a huge freshwater pool where we went swimming 

Lizzie, Lo, and myself at Tel Dan, it was super green and so pretty! 

Me at the Winnie the Pooh tree! 

Me and Em at the city of Caesarea Phillipi

A big crusader castle that we got to explore! 

Me standing on the wall of the castle overlooking the castle! 

Me standing in the Mediterranean Sea at Caesarea Maritima 

Gorgeous sunset at the Sea of Galilee 

"I'll be home for Christmas!" I wrote this in the sand at the Mediterranean Sea where it was 80 degrees and gorgeous outside! We got to spend about half an hour in the water just playing in the water and taking pictures :) 

I cannot wait that I want to come home at all because living in Jerusalem for three and a half months has been the most amazing experience in my life and I wish I could just stay here and keep learning and traveling around, but my time is slowly coming to an end and I am very excited to see my family for Christmas! I cannot wait to hug them and just spend three weeks of Christmas celebrating the season and sharing my experiences with my family! I have finals this next week and then we do three days of fieldtrips of Jesus Christ's life and then I'll head home and I'll remember all of the amazing memories and friendships I have made. Anyways, I hope you all know that I am perfectly safe and that they keep us very safe here in Jerusalem! So don't be worried about my safety! 

Random bits of fun :)

Hey guys! Goodness, I just feel like doing a randoms post of things I might have missed over the last few months, so here are some fun experiences that I haven't mentioned yet! Let's just say it is very hard to blog everything that I am doing! Also, this may make some of you excited, but it's making me happy and sad because I am so in love with this place and it's going to be so hard to leave! From today though, I only have one month left in Jerusalem, so I am doing my darndest to have the best time ever and to just enjoy myself to the fullest! I want to go home with no regrets knowing that I worked as hard as I could, made life long friendships, learned so much, and had a total blast every day! Anyways, here are some random pictures from the last few months! Enjoy :)

I climbed a palm tree at the zoo and I was very very proud of my climbing skills :) 

We were in a burial chamber and decided to shimmy up the wall! 

We went on a field trip to Neot Kedumin, a nature reserve, and we got to make olive oil! That's me pulling the wheel to squish out olive juice! 

Me, Lo, and Em at the Dome of the Rock! No worries I will do a whole post about the dome of the rock later! 

Lo, Eleesia, Em, Kay, Sar, and myself at an Ethiopian church! 

Me using a mortar and pestle to make zotar, it's a famous spice in Israel 

This was my first time having shwarma and it's totallly delicious! Shwarma is cooked meat put in a pita wrap! 

Me hanging out at some Jewish graves outside the Old City 

Me, Em, and Lo! We are so adorable :) 

Anyways, these are some random bits of fun that I have been having over the last few weeks! Just to let you all know I am leaving for Galilee on Monday and I will be there for two weeks going on field trips and living on the beach, so it's going to be super awesome! I just want you all to know that I am perfectly safe here in Jerusalem and no bombs went off--everything is perfectly fine! I'll do a blog post tomorrow about The bombin' prom that I had though, love you all :) 

Arab Night

Me and the beautiful Hailey

Brandino and myself looking fly

The Arab dinner 

Me, Brandino, Lauren, and Lo 

OUR DELICIOUS FOOD! 

Amanda, Me, and Emily--they are so adorable! 

Em-dog, Kaylenation, Willdabeast, me, Brandino, and Sar-Bear :) 

Paul and myself :) 

Cal and his harem! 

So we had an Arab Night! We learned all about the call to prayer by two men who do the call to prayer at the Al-aqsa mosque on the temple Mount. We then had an Arab dinner with delicious dishes from the Arab world. They always have spice called zotar which goes on everything and it is so amazing! After our Arab dinner we had an Arab folk dancing night which was a hoot and a blast! We danced for about an hour to all sorts of different Arab songs :) All in all, it was a great night :) 

Habbibi! It means I love you in Arabic

Habbibi my friends! Habbibi means I love you in Arabic and this week I heard that word pretty much every five minutes because I went to the country of Jordan for four days on a field trip and my tour guide said Habbibi every five minutes to get us to follow him! It was seriously his favorite word and I heard it 24/7, so I decided that would be the title of my blog post! It was pretty much the neatest experience ever! So, I last updated with Yad Vashem which was about three weeks ago, so the week before I left for Jordan I had a helluva of a week because I had FINALS :/ Let's just say that finals in Jerusalem totally suck. I didn't go out into the city at all and I pretty much locked myself in the library for five days straight, so that I could study my butt off. Luckily, I made it through with a lot of caffeine and candy bars and now I only have two classes for the rest of the semester which is going to be super nice compared to the heavy load that I had before. I am only taking New Testament and Near Eastern Studies which is a study of the cultures and history of the Holy Land. After a brutal week of finals I got ready to go to Jordan and it was so nice to have a break from homework and tests!

Day 1: We went to Mt. Nebo which is the place Moses and Elijah, prophets of the Old Testament, both went towards the end of their lives. I was able to look out over the Jordan River Valley and I could see the Jordan river and all the way into far away Israel. We sang a hymn and actually we met a random tour group from Utah, so it was neat to run into some more Mormons all the way in the middle of nowhere! After Mt. Nebo, I went to Macherus which is an ancient hill with a temple and palace on top. King Herod of the time of Jesus Christ actually resided here and it is where John the Baptist was most likely beheaded. We took a long, rocky road up to the top of the hill and there were only some columns left over, but the view was spectacular. It overlooked the Dead Sea and the Dead Sea just stretched on for miles. I took a lot of neat pictures there and it was just reaffirmed to me how neat it is to go to places that correlate so well with the Old Testament and the New Testament. I have read so much about these people and these situations in the last two months, but to actually be there in person makes it come alive so much more for me.

The large rock saying we were on Mt. Nebo!

Overlooking the land of Israel and the Jordan river valley from Mt. Nebo 

The large hill with the palace/fortress of Herod called Macherus 

Me and the view from Macherus--that is the Dead Sea in the distance! 

The ancient columns of Macherus 

Jordo, meself, Jacobian, and Em-dawgy dawg posing for a pic! 

Day 2: PETRA! PETRA! PETRA! I RODE A CAMEL IN PETRA!!! Petra is pretty much the neatest place in the whole world! It is anybody's dream and I just had the mots amazing time there. I don't know if any of you even know what Petra is, but you it should definitely be on your bucket list to go there. It is an ancient city in the rocky mountains of Jordan where an an ancient group of people, the Nabbateans, built right into the rock a whole city! They built an altar on top of a huge hill, they built a monastery at the top of another mountain with 800 steps leading up to it, they built ancient tombs on the side of the mountain, and churches, a grand theater, houses, a palace, and so much more. we were all let loose as a group for about six hours and we just got to explore everything! There is a Bedouin village there, so a lot of Bedouin women and men sell things in the ancient city and they sell horse and camel rides to all of the tourists going through. Also, I got to RIDE A CAMEL IN PETRA! It has seriously been one of my dreams to ride a camel and then to do it in Jordan in PETRA was pretty much a dream come true. I am pretty much in love with camels now. I think they are one of the coolest animals ever! They are super tall, so pretty, and their back legs bend backwards! I was just so impressed by them--I'll show you pictures in just a moment of me riding the camel. Anyways, I spent the day riding a camel, hiking up to the monastery which was a huge temple built into the rock wall, hiking up to the high altar place, and then exploring the tombs in the side of the mountain! I was so tired and sandy at the end of the day, but it was so worth it!

 The view of the Treasury from the Siq! 

The treasury was so magnificent, it's where Indiana Jones 2 was filmed! 

Guys, look it's the camels ahhhh!!! 

Okay, you are lucky I only put up two pictures because I took about twenty...this camel's name is ZooZoo :) 

Me on a CAMEL, A REAL LIVE CAMEL! 

The view of some of Petra! 

Me! Hiking to the top of the Monastery 

hehe friends! 

Me and the Monastery! 

Michael and I with an awesome view! 

Em dawg with the theater and lots of Petra behind her! 

William jumping off a rock like a crazy person! 

Day 3: JERASH! Jerash is an ancient Roman city that is still standing! It was also a super neat place to go and see! If you haven't noticed I pretty much think everything is neat now haha, it's my new word for pretty much everything. In Jerash I got to seriously experience what a roman city would have looked like 2000 years ago. I walked through a hippodrome which is a racetrack where horses would race and at the race track we had a race with about five or six girls. I was one of the girls racing and I kind of thought that I didn't have a chance, but guess what?! I ended up winning the whole race by a good twenty feet, let me just say it felt good to sprint and race again because it has been so long since track in high school. After the hippodrome, we walked down the cardo which is the ancient center street of the roman city. After the cardo we were allowed to be let free! I went with some friends and walked to the two huge theaters there, the temple of Zeus, and the temple of Artemis. At the temple of Artemis I found a set of secret stairs up to the top of the temple, so I climbed up them and was able to see the whole city forever! I also walked through the colonaded square which is a giant circle surrounded by columns on the outside--this is typically where the market place was. On this day we drove back to Amman, the capitol of Jordan where we stayed most of the week. In Amman we had free time that night and we all went to Rainbow Street and guess what I found!? I found a crepe store--pretty much the best crepes that I have ever had! They were super delicious and ah they just melted my heart so much and made me so happy :)

Hehe there was a small museum and Will and I decided to pose like the strange statue

This is me winning the race hehe :) I am slightly smug about it! 

Me and the columns-- SO BIG! 

These three men played songs for us in the theater 

Will and I at the Temple of Artemis 

The massive THEATER! 

Hehe oh Michael, you are so funny :) 

Hot stuff! 

Day 4: I went to an ancient theater and we sang songs! It was fabulous :) The theater was super NEAT! I got to take lots of pictures and wander all over it! Also, on day four I went to the River Jordan and I that's the very place where Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist. It was really neat to reread the New Testament account of what actually happened and to have our new teacher, Brother Shade talk about the significance of baptism. I was able to sing a hymn and truly feel that this was where Jesus Christ was baptized.

View of the River Jordan

Me standing in the River Jordan 

TRIPLE WHAMMY! Me taking a picture with Jordan by the river Jordan in the country of Jordan!