Gospel Simplicity.: July 2011

CITY OF DAVID FIELD TRIP

This field trips was one of the most fun field trips we've had this semester! We walked over to the City of David and started off with a movie that told us about the history of the city, which was really interesting. Then we headed to Hezekiah's Tunnel which was a lot of fun. Hezekiah's Tunnel was a tunnel built many years ago underneath the City of David in Jerusalem. It was built as an aqueduct to provide Jerusalem with water during a siege by the Assyrians back in the day. It was quite interesting to learn about the background of it and, of course, to go through. After going through the tunnel we went to the Pool of Siloam, fed by the Gihon Spring, a place where Christ healed a blind man. The experience there was amazing.

Me, Shubs, Vladimir and Deids.

Group at the City of David overlook.

City of David!!

About to enter the tunnel!

Roomiess :)

Me and Baby Cheeks!

Erica, Ashton, Jen and I.

PRINCESS BASMA MURAL

Here are the Jerusalem Center, I'm on the Humanitarian and Hosting Committee. One of the service projects we picked up after the kids were out of school was to paint a mural at the preschool Princess Basma. It was one of my favorite things we've done with the committee so far. We painted a mosaic of a popular cartoon in the Middle East. The second time we went, there were a few disabled young kids and me and a few of the other students got to hold and play with them. They were adorable. I loved going to Princess Basma... definitely one of my top highlights of being in Jerusalem. I didn't get a chance to go the last time, so I'm excited to see how it turned out! I'm glad that we've been able to be involved with doing service here in the Holy Land.

I loved these kids!

Group of painters!!

Almost finished!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO... MEEE!!

Besides my 18th birthday, this was definitely one of my top birthdays so far! It was a great day. Since I'm not usually in school for my birthday, so it was cool to be in a school setting for the first time for it. I had class, which I was bummed about at first, but it ended up being a great class. We had class for a lot of the day, so I didn't do much til evening. The night was soo much fun, though. A big group of us went into West Jerusalem to get Thai food, my favorite food, for dinner. It didn't really taste like real Thai food, but it was still fun, and it was especially fun to be with everyone. After dinner, we went to one of my favorite bakeries in Jerusalem to get some snacks. Then, we walked around the city a little, before taking a van home. On the van ride home, we had a dance party, which was lot of fun. My roommates weren't able to come, but when I got home, our room was fully decorated for my room, with some nice notes and treats. I loved it. Then naturally, we had a mini dance party. My roommates here at the JC are the best. After spending some time with them, we all went to an in-center activity to play some night games. Everyone was soo great and I just loved spending the day with some great friends!

Yummy Thai food!

Don't even worry about it....

Group at dinner!

Niffer, Ashlyn and I... Love these girls!

Me, Jaycee, and Matt!

Group in West Jerusalem!

The Ericas! Love this girl too!

Me, Shubs and Matt frolicking in the streets of West Jeru.

"Baby Crush"

Bus ride home!

Best roomies everrr!

Doing the usual...

SEDER MEAL

Another activity we had was a Seder meal. Our Judaism teacher, Ophir, put on the meal for us. I was just getting over a stomach bug so it was kind of interesting sitting there for 3 hours, but it was pretty good. I was one of the narrators. Some of read a few verses from a prayer book and then we enjoyed a nice meal. It was a fun and well prepared night!

Jeehee and I... SOAR buddies.

Me, Cory and Lizzie!

Beautiful table arrangement!

TOMB OF THE KINGS & YMCA BELL TOWER

On one of the free days, me and a group of friends went to the Tomb of the Kings and the YMCA Bell Tower. Tomb of the Kings was neat. I don't know too much about the Tomb, but it was fun to go through. There are a bunch of 1st century tombs, similar to the one that Jesus was buried in. It was the final resting place of some Queen. It got It's name because the original explorers of it thought it was the burial site of the house of David, but they were wrong. One of the friends who came with our group brought candles, so it was neat to go through with the light.

Afterwards, we went to the YMCA to watch our branch president play the bell tower. He is so talented. I'm pretty sure he's an organ professor at BYU. If not, he's some sort of music teacher at BYU. He also let a few of us play a hymn or two. It was a lot of fun.

Me and Joanie!

Dan and I.

Playing the bells!

And here I go again...

THE GARDEN TOMB

Next was my first visit to the Garden Tomb. There is such a spirit about his place. It's probably my favorite places I have been to in spiritual sense. Whenever I go to the garden tomb I just feel such a peace and it gets me thinking about the gospel and how blessed I am to have a loving Savior who sacrificed for me and all of my family and friends. It's wonderful because when going to the tomb there are always different types of religious groups sitting around, singing and pondering about their surroundings. It's great to share the belief of the atonement with other denominations of faiths. The garden is also beautiful. It is well taken care of and it just makes it even more of a great experience.

SYNAGOGUE VISIT

The visit to the synagogue was interesting. It wasn't what I expected, but I really enjoyed it. We went to a reform synagogue and stayed for welcoming in the shabaat. They sang songs and read prayers and parts of the Bible to welcome in the Sabbath. It was really interesting to see the Jewish people get into it and to learn more about their culture.

The Group :)

The Rabbi

Group in the synagogue.

NEOT KEDUMIM FIELD TRIP

Neot Kedumim has also been one of my favorite field trips. It's a landscape reservation. We went from station to station learning about the land and different processes in relation to food, farming and more, during Biblical times. We made our own pita bread and ate it dipped in some Hysop and oil. We made the dough for the pita and then ground the hysop plant up to make the seasoning. We also learned how to herd sheep. We split up into 2 groups and the goal was to see which group could Other things we learned about were the water system and how an olive press works. I loved how much of this field trip was hands on.

Learning about the well.

Grindin my hysop.

Oh ya know, just holding a sheep.

SHFELAH FIELD TRIP

There's soo much to say about this field trip... In summary we visited the five valleys and some of the cities in the Shfelah. We went to places having to do with David and Goliath, Samson, and other Israelite ancestors. We even got to do some slingshotting. I'll just summarize with some pictures.