GENIE PANTS HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE!
So kids... I'm living in Jerusalem and I will be here for the next three months. I get to go out into the city everyday to shop, eat ethnic food, do service projects in the city, meet new people, and most of all I get to visit all sorts of places that date back thousands of years.
Anyways, I went to a shop the other day in the Christian quarter of the city and I went to Shuban's (a little clothing/jewelry/cool stuff shop) and I found GENIE PANTS! They are silver, blue, and have gold on them. They are super silky and soft to touch and wear and so comfy and relaxing :) Pretty much everybody should buy genie pants from Jerusalem because they will probably change your life.
My favorite person that I have met so far in Jerusalem is named Omar. Omar is a shopkeeper on Saladin Street who sells carved olivewood figurines. He is a very good friend to the Mormons and the students at the Jerusalem University and has been selling his carvings to the students for over forty years. He has a super neat man and loves working with the LDS students. I talked to him for almost an hour about his family, his work, and living in the Holy Land.
Tonight, I went to the Western Wall for Shabbat and Shabbat is the Jewish sabbath and everyone celebrates it by going to the Western Wall. The Western Wall is the wall that is the last standing place of the second temple that was destroyed in 70 A.D. Hundreds of Jews go everyday to pray at the wall and you are able to write blessings on pieces of paper and put them in the wall. I was able to go to this place and observe Jews praying to God in a place that they hold very dear and sacred. I met a girl named Marion who is a Jew and she lives about twenty minutes away from Jerusalem. She is nineteen years old and I got to learn all about the Jewish culture and religion. It was so neat to talk to a girl my age and to see how she lived her life halfway across the world from me.
I am loving meeting people here and learning more about the culture of these different groups of people. I truly want to understand the history and culture of this city. I have been put in charge of a humanitarian aid committee while I am here and I had my first service project today! 55 people came to the service project to make school kits. The school kits are given to villages and elementary schools all over Jerusalem. We made almost 2200 school kits and they will help hundreds of kids all over the city and state. I cannot wait to do more service projects outside in the city and get to know people even better!
I am going to Tel Aviv on Sunday and will spend the day at the beach which I am super excited for, b asically I am loving life here :) I am having a slight problem putting my pictures on my laptop, so I shall try and get pictures really soon!
Love you all
Ellen
I did like Omar too. He's super sweet and very talented. The Wailing wall was one of the best experiences I had too. It is so interesting to see the different ways that people worship and pray. When I went, one girl handed me a prayer book of prayers in english and showed me her favorite. The poetry was so sweet and beautiful. If you get permission on a friday night, you can go out again after dark as long as you have big enough group. Just ask Tawfik or Mr. Hayett.
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