Jerusalem

Hello from Jerusalem. Let me start of by saying I have so many things I want to say and so little time so prepare for sloppy blogging!

It has been quite the crazy week. The flight over here was pretty long. I had figured an 11 hour flight wouldn't be bad with movies. You know how I love movies. Unfortunately 20 min. into The Blind Side my TV broke so I got to watch a dancing penguin and blinking text for the remainder of my flight. Come to find out I don't sleep well on planes. I didn't know that. Oh well.

We landed late in the afternoon on Wednesday. They wanted us to get off jet lag and so they wouldn't let us sleep. What's the best way to keep people awake? Meetings! Seriously I know they're necessary, but my goodness in between the 4 hr. orientation meeting and the 3 additional orientation meetings I've been dying!

Thursday morning I woke up at 5 so I ran around the grounds with a friend. Later on, we went into the Old City which is beautiful. Here are some of my first impressions:
-There are so many hills here. If it weren't for the cafeteria here I'd say I found a new great diet.
-The city smells bad. I can't identify it, it just smells. I'm so nervous I'll come back smelling like Jerusalem.
-There are merchants everywhere! They all know we're Mormons and they love us. Our instructors didn't want us to go out with our name tags on and let everyone know where we're from. Instead we went out wearing matching fanny packs and carrying around 2 liter bottles. The good news is we all came back with our money, none of us were dehydrated, and nobody knew that we were tourists. They thought we were locals.
-The kids here aren't nice. Some kid was mad I wouldn't buy his poster so he started throwing rocks at me. There are some clever new business tactics, huh? But it's not like the rocks sent me away I mean who wants a poster of Strawberry Shortcake?
-Everything here is built with beautiful stone. Someone in my ward told me the city glistens. He was right. If I keep my eyes on the building and not all the liter everywhere I'm way impressed by the beauty.
-There are so many different people here from so many different religions. I've loved looking at the different clothing, listening to the different languages, and observing different ways of worship.
-I can't believe how old this city is and how much history there is to it. There are so many remarkable things that have happened here.

Friday morning I had a great start. I blew out the fuse in our apartment. Then at lunch I spilled my tray and all the dishes broke. Did I mention the hot chocolate got all over my front? And everyone and their dog was in the cafeteria at that point? That wasn't embarrassing at all. At least everyone knows who I am? Oh yeah when I headed back to my apt to take a shower, yes it was that bad, I realized the shirt I was wearing had a big stain on it. Later we had class and then went into the city again. That night my friends dragged me into playing Scrabble. Not speed Scrabble, just Scrabble. Are there worse games? Yes; Risk, Monopoly, and any other game that involves lots of thinking. That's no game. Then we had a big dance party and watched a movie.

Today (Saturday) is the Sabbath. Church was absolutely amazing. Taking the sacrament while overlooking the Old City is an experience I wish everyone could have. My Relief Society president is Palestinian and from Bethlehem. She told so many neat stories I wish I could tell you, but time is running short. One of the things I wanted to do here in the Center is play the organ. I've never had the desire to play organ before (have you heard it?), but I wanted to play a Sacrament Hymn on this amazing instrument on the top of Mt. Scopus. It's the 2nd or 3rd best organ the church owns, so it's way nice. My new good friend was playing so he let me play a few hymns on it. (I don't think I was supposed to so he let me do it on his "practice time") It was awesome.

I feel so blessed to have this opportunity. I wake up every morning and I pinch myself. Just kidding. I hate that saying so much. Why on earth would someone pinch themselves? That's just stupid. I do keep catching myself smiling just thinking about how amazing this is. Anyways, I love the people here. I've met everyone, but I don't have all the names down yet. I feel like I know so little here and I just want to know everything. Sorry this post is long, but you have no idea how many things I left out. I'd go back and edit but sit's time for a fireside.
Both of these pictures were taken a few hours a go in Orson Hyde Park just outside of the Garden of Gethsemene. I'll include more pictures next time but you must be warned...I look awful out here. There's enough humidity to make my hair go crazy and too little to have it curl nicely. Also "modest" here is very different so that's fun.