Your typical Sabbath game night at the JC

Sabbath night at the Jerusalem center is just one huge party. So many games and movies and laughs. The most played game here is probably Mow. If you haven't played this game, its probably the most fun you will ever have with a deck of Uno cards. The game starts with one person being "mow" or the chief of the circle. That person controls the game and comes up with a specific rule that everyone has to follow. There are three original rules: 1) no talking. 2) when playing a blue, you have to say "blue" and then the number. Ex "Blue two". 3) if you play a seven of any color, you must say "have a nice day". If someone plays a seven on top of a seven, they must say, "have a VERY nice day" etc. The longer you play, and the more rounds that happen, the more rules that get incorporated. You become mow by going out just  like in uno. Some of the funniest rules that i have ever played with here are: when you play a skip, you swap hands with the person to your left. If when the color changes, everyone must run around the table. The game we had tonight was really funny. Just picture all of these rules combined: If you draw a card, you must say, "ouch, that hurt."
if you play an odd red, you must creatively propose marriage or profess love to another in the circle. if you can make that person laugh, they must take a card.
If you play a green, you make an animal noise.
If the color changes, everyone stands up, someone sings "everybody dance now!" and you boogie in place.
(This next rule made all of these absolutely epic)... when you play a wild card, you must choose a color and then select a language/manner of speach which everyone must then incorporate.
Some of the languages we had were...
African clicking language
Gibberish
Valley Girl
Underwater
Irish accent
Frech accent
latin
Mexican
Gangster
Cowboy
Sign language
Gay voice
Indian
Pirate
So for and example scenarios, lets say someone had to draw and then got a red seven which changed the color. They would have to say "Ouch that hurt" then "have a very nice day" in clicking language then propose to someone in the circle in clicking language and the get up and sing while eveyone dances, in clicking language.
SO MUCH FUN!

Jordan Feild Trip: Day 1-- Through a Wilderness

Days in advance we prepared for a major trip, four days in Jordan. “No Hebrew writing” They warned. “Make sure you are wearing modest clothes because that is the best means of preventing harassment”. No matter how many pictures they showed us or how long they oriented us, there was no way to prepare us for the wonderful things we would see and experience in Jordan. I didn't exactly know what to expect either.

Bus rides are fun, but I've discovered i can't do any homework on the bus or it makes me sick. Sometimes i feel antisocial because turning around and talking to people gives me a headache. And then I get drowsy and tend to just nap on the bus even though I'd rather look out the windows at the country. It didn't take us long to get to the Jordan river which is the physical and political border between Israel and Jordan. We went through border control, which they told us would take a long time and the people would be grumpy if we didn't get there early to avoid the masses. Like usual, they (meaning the teachers and administration) over dramatized the situations and we passed through security and passport control quickly and without problems.

The landscape near the dead sea was empty and barren; somewhat flat and very brown. The atmosphere was much warmer and more humid. It changed slightly as we began to climb through the desert mountains up to the top of mount Nebo where Moses led the children of Israel. We could see Jericho in the distance. A sliver of the dead sea, a faint black line which was the river Jordan, and only because it was a rather clear day, a blur so distant it could almost be imagined, which was the hills of Jerusalem, the backside of the mount of olives.

This is the oldest map in of the middle east. You can see Jerusalem right in the center

This is the sign outside the church which had the mosaic map. It made me want to go home and get a bunch of pieces of rock and make my own mosaic art. 

This is my roommate Sarah Jane. She is standing on top of Macherus. The dead sea in in  far is just beyond those hills behind her. I (attempted to) sketch this exact scene. (Minus SJ of course)

This is SJ and my other roommie Kylie standing by the (reconstructed) pillars on the ruins of Macherus

Our tour guide's name was Mohamed. He was very knowledgeable and very meticulous. He discussed the Muslim understandings about Moses and how the church on the top of the mountain was to commemorate Moses. He said that it was originally built and then excavated because people were looking for the tomb of Moses. After his lecture, we pulled out our scriptures and discussed with brother Harper how the restored scriptures help us understand that Moses in fact did not die but was carried up to heaven. Its not like he was trying to contradict what Mohamed was saying, but we were just exploring what we know and how we know it. Nebo was really cool to me because that morning I had written a paper on how Moses gathered the children of Israel to the base of the mountain and then Moses ascended up to the mountain (which is symbolic of the temple) to learn about the covenants of God and the higher priesthood. The children of Israel didn't understand and didn't want to understand the principles and ordinances of the Melchizedek priesthood which is a huge part of the reason why God had them wander around in the desert rather than go straight to the promised land. Even though it was in their sight if they just looked hard enough, because they weren't humble and obedient, they couldn't receive those blessings until they were ready. This makes me want to do everything I can to be ready to receive the blessings God has promised me and not waste time in a worldly dessert.

We then traveled to a special Greek orthodox church were the oldest map of the middle east has been found. It was a huge mosaic on the floor of this church originally displaying the whole area from turkey to Egypt. Now, because of damage over the centuries, all that remains is a small portion of Jordan and some of Israel. Jerusalem was the center of the map at it's full size. Also still in the mosaic is t part of the river Jordan and all of the dead sea. two bridges across the river could be seen. These are still the main crossing points today. One interesting thing about the mosaics was that there were originally images of animals and men. At one point in history (and this is where my facts are not all solid because I can't remember who or when, but the general idea is here) the leaders decided that worship in the church should have been more centered on god and less focus on distracting artwork, so they erased/destroyed any representation of beast or man. In this ancient map, we could tell that one image was a lion because the back legs are still intact and also because it it chasing a lamb The lamb wasn't destroyed and I think I remember being told that was because it was a symbol of Christ and could be preserved.

We drove for quite awhile and ate lunch and headed through more dessert. We stopped at Macherus. This was the place where john the baptist was most likely beheaded and where he was imprisoned. It was the ruins of a fortress on top of a rather high hill. The climb was steep and exhausting. After we got to the top we discussed how this was significant to our gospel understanding. We discussed the record in the scriptures about how Herod was so easily swayed by his wife and the dancer Salome. He was a rather pitiful man. I loved the view from this mountain top. We could see the dead sea again really well just beyond some hills. I sketched the cliffs and the also on of the capitals from the ruins of the Herod's fortress. One thing that amazed me about this view was the layers of rock in the hills. Being a bit of a geology guru and having taken some classes on this, it was fun to see the evidence of geological shifts in the earths crust. The folds in the sedimentary layers of earth were so fascinating. I know there is a word for when the earth bends like that rather than fracturing and breaking. It made me want to go out there and analyze the deposition and erosion. Also, there were many little cave homes dug into the hills and the soft limestone. They were from earlier civilizations I wanted to explore those hills some more. We left there just as the sun was setting behind the remaining fortress pillars atop the lone peak in that valley of folded earth. Breathtaking view

We drove about five hours all the way to Petra and ended up at a rather nice hotel. The buffet style food was very decorative with flowers and fruit cut into shapes, but it was a rather typical meal of the middle east. Rice, Chicken, Pita, and stuff to put with the pita. Our meal was accompanied by two musicians who played drums and a flute type instrument. Dinner turned into a dance party, which I left prematurely due to exhaustion, but I could still hear stomping feet above my hotel room as I got ready for bed. I had dreams about living in a tent and trekking across a desert. It might be nice to be a Bedouin? But maybe not. My sheets and mattress were much to familiar and comfortable. I knew i'd need a good sleep because we were going to spend most of the next day in Petra!

Cave Crusaders

So, i have a sad little story. I went to the Jordan river yesterday but I forgot to get water from the Jordan river. It was a suggestion from Cassidy that i bring a little vial of water home to treasure for ever. But i didn't Mostly because i didn't have anything to put some in when i got there. didn't think that far ahead. But i did get a picture of me standing in the river which is kind of cool i guess. Tonight, was  a friday, and we always have movies on fridays in the big forum. Tonight was a special movie though, it was a silent film, but we had our own silent movie organist who is also the branch president. You know how that goes, the organist watches the movie and just improvises to accompany the mood the film is portraying. It was so much fun. I think fridays are my favorite days. We typically have four hours of class on fridays and we're not allowed to go into the city before 3 pm because of the potential political conflict and such. if there was ever going to be a clash between Israelis and Palestinians, it would probably be on a friday. Its the beginning of the Sabbath for all the jews so any jewish store is closed all evening anyway. We all just get together and play games inside the center on friday nights. its super fun. 

A group of us watched 500 days of summer. I'd never seen that before and i liked it a lot. We watched the movie while a few of us did some arts and crafts. Its this kid Alec's birthday tomorrow so a group made a present for him. It was a big thermometer on a peice of cardboard and its a "fun scale" to measure how much fun individual people are.

Tomorrow is the Sabbath. Well actually, its today since its 12:19 for me. Saturday sabbath is kind of funky mostly since it just not what i'm used to. I still sometimes use the words "sunday" and "church" in the same sentence even though here, they don't really work. Sunday is our free day too but i don't know what to do this week. Its rainy and cold and miserable here so i'm thinking i'd rather find an adventure indoors. There is this cave i want to go explore and caves are pretty warm and dry when its raining outside. I attempted to organize a group to go see this cave a few weeks ago and it sort of worked out. The driver ended up taking us to a different park with caves, so it wasn't what we planned, but it was still loads of fun. We took over 3 gigs of pictures all of our combined. I'll attach a couple. The funniest thing that happened this whole trip was Brennan. As we're walking out the door of the center, he saws, "every time i put on this fanny pack, i instantly lose any hopes of ever getting married." so to play off this hilarious comment, we took "couple photos". You know those really cheesy or really awkward couple photos they either make  you take at prom or those really unusual people do for their announcements? We did pictures like those. there were four couples. And there was Brennan and his fanny pack. My couple picture is particularly awkwardly painful and was funny because it was intentional. 

These caves we explored were pretty awesome there is one picture i attached of Brennan climbing out of this little hole. This tunnel was about two and a half feet diameter. we had to crawl on our stomachs to get through. It was pitch black and you couldn't' even see the person in front of you. it curved and snaked up and down for about 15 yards. I went first but i had a head lamp. the people behind me didn't i imagined what kind of reaction i would get if I screamed or pretended to fall down a hole or get stuck or fall into water or something. no one behind me could see anything. the cavern we crawled into wasn't that big, but it opened out to outside. Not all the caving was like that. most of it was just big cisterns which were still cool. the last one we explored just seemed like a massive system of endless cisterns and stairwells underground. It just kept going and going. it was like a whole city under ground. I love this kind of exploring. I'm a rock person and it was just incredible to me how all these were man made. Someone spent practically their whole life carving out this hole in the earth just to store water. Amazing. It was definitely  the coolest thing I'd done up till then. And it wasn't even the place we'd planned to go!  I told our security that when we got back and Tarrick, our chief security guy just laughed and said he'd have to give that driver a geography lesson. We basically ripped him off about 600 Shekels. the cost that Tarrik gave me was 600 shekels to get to the limestone cavern i'd researched. this silly driver took us about twice the distance we paid for. Oh well. I like planning trips like that. It took a lot of arranging and paper work to make that trip happen with the ten of us, but it was worth it.

Sunday is the new Saturday

Something that is really curious about this adventure here in Jerusalem, and something i may not get used to, is having Saturday be my Sabbath. I do really like referring to it as the Sabbath rather than Sunday though. It gives the day of worship a whole new meaning I'd never really grasped in the states. It was still Fast Sabbath and testimony meeting just like everyone else. One of my classmates bore her testimony and mentioned the peculiarity of the name which we refer to the day of rest and worship. She said, "Our ancestors called it the Holy Sabbath, our grandparents called it the Sabbath, our parents call it Sunday, and we call it the Weekend." This really did make me reflect on the level of respect I've had in the past for the day of our Lord. I especially reflected on the need for a weekly emphasis on the spirit after i spent the later part of my Sabbath in the old city. This was kind of a mistake for our group to go to the city. We're allowed to leave the center and do as we please after church. But it didn't really occur to us that because of the different religions, its not the Sabbath for everyone. Although it is the Sabbath to many, its not like all the shops are closed and everyone has a respectful and peaceful demeanor on this day. Nope, This definitely isn't Provo and there isn't a day of peace for the whole city. It's Jerusalem. Just like so many other areas of Jerusalem life consumed with contention and unrest no matter which day is your Sabbath, if its Saturday or Sunday, its not really a peaceful atmosphere in the city. After being jostled and hollered at and enveloped in smells and sights which, although very fun and adventurous during the week, are not my ideal Sabbath environment,  I felt like my Sabbath was not as Holy as it could have been. Next Sabbath, I'm going to walk in the gardens on the mount of olives instead of going into the city.

Later, I'll account what happened on our Sunday that was like a Saturday.

Arrival

I arrived in Jerusalem yesterday afternoon. Travel from Utah was long, boring, and void of sleep. Yes, I hate jet lag. Getting off the plane and traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the first thing i was reminded of was my trip to Belize. It was mostly the orange orchards. Then, as we started ascending through the  "mountains" it reminded me so much of southern Utah. Scrubby grey ground cover and sad looking conifers all backed by crumbling white cliffs. The limestone is gorgeous though. as we peeked over the last bend in the road and the Kidron valley and the city itself was revealed, i was stunned at how vast it seemed. Ultimately though, as discovered by this mornings walk, the city isn't really as big or as far away as it seemed.
The center itself is just gorgeous. I feel like I'm living in palace. There are splendid marble arches and huge glass windows. Everything is just filled with light and constantly glowing. The rooms are nice and practical. The staff is so friendly and helpful. My classmates are all really great. I can tell it will be so much fun to get to know them all. The spirit i have felt already, associating with these people and seeing what i have, is just wonderful. But i know its only a brief taste of what I'm going to experience here.
Its hard to fully grasp the idea that this is my new home. I live here now. I'm not just a tourist that has to see everything really quickly because I'm going home tomorrow. This is my life for the next three and a half months.

I'm so excited.

So now I'm going to go sleep.