Love these girls with all my heart

Eating cow tongue! It was actually really good until I looked at it closer and saw taste buds...ew.

The Jordan River after church. What a great way to end Sabbath. It was funny how crowded and how many tourists were here. There were so many interesting baptisms going on all over this section of the river

This is the view from the church building in Tiberias. No church building but Jerusalem can beat this view

Sunsets in Galilee

We hiked to a freezing cold waterfall in Galilee and it was beautiful!

We love Piers

We were both pretty beat after a long day in Galilee

The Mount of Beatitudes. Definitely one of my favorite churches!

Tabgha. The spot of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes

Ever heard the story of the mote and the beam? Yeah.

In the synagogue in Capernaum

At the church on Mt. Tabor, a possible spot of the Mt. of Transfiguration

Us and our camel sandals on the top of Mt. Arbel overlooking all of Galilee

In Nazareth. Look at this little guy. Isn't he just precious?!

Me and Michelle showin off our hula dancing skills at Hawaiian night

The baby Jesus was born in a.... cave. And he was laid in a stone water trough. All of my childhood memories are now crushed. I guess we'll be making some adjustments to our annual nativity reenactment that we do every Christmas Eve. I learned a lot of new things about the birth of Christ while I was in Bethlehem. It was a neat experience to be able to walk to streets of Bethlehem, and go to Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The grotto, where Jesus was born, is located underneath the church. It was an amazing experience to touch the ceiling of the cave and think about what happened there and the people who were once there.

We went to Bethlehem this week with our Islam teacher, who also teaches at Bethlehem University. We got to mingle and talk with some of the students at Bethlehem U for a while. Bethlehem is in the West Bank, so we won't be able to go there again, but it was fun to be able to go and experience the local Palestinian college atmosphere!

Lemonade with mint. We like to call it a delicacy of Jerusalem

Painting a mural at a local elementary school. Look at that sky...tis' true..I'm an artist

We love the BYU-JC!

Happy Valentines Day!
This Valentines Day I got to spend herding sheep and goats at Neot Kedumim. It' was a super fun field trip because it was really hands-on. We made Zatar and fresh pitas with date honey and olive oil mmm. When it came time to herd the sheep we were split into teams. There were 3 big circles and the goal of each team was to herd all of the sheep and goats into the 3 different circles in the least amount of time. My team definitely dominated. I think we did it in somewhere around 5 minutes. I couldn't even imagine being the only shepherd of an entire herd! It was hard enough with like 10 of us trying to push all of them into the circles!

David and Goliath
On our Shephelah field trip we went to the Valley of Elah, where David defeated Goliath. We reenacted the story with Laurence as Goliath and Spence as David haha. It was really cold and rainy so we were in mud the whole time. After our reenactment we all went into the same brook David once did and collected stones. Chadwick is the master at slinging stones, so he taught us and then we all got to do it for a while. So cool to be where David and Goliath once were! Woo go David! I love cheering for the underdog!

Oh how we love our genie pants!

Bell Caves

Our local tour guides

Arab Night!

Representing BYU-JC in West J

Friends in Egypt

PYRAMIDS in EGYPT

Egypt was a riot! But I made it back to Jerusalem safe and sound. It was definitely one of the most amazing trips I have ever been on. I never would have thought that I would get the opportunity to go to Egypt and see all of the things that I've seen in movies and on postcards. But I did it! First we went to Cairo. I seriously wanted to cry when we had our first glance of the pyramids. We were driving through the city of Cairo and then bam! There were the pyramids! So crazy. That night we went to a "light and sound" show at the great pyramids of Giza. They lit up the pyramids and the sphinx "talked" and basically gave us an overview of the history of the pyramids. The next day we toured a bunch of things including the Giza pyramids and sphinx. We got to go inside the Menkaurah pyramid and it was awesome! The entrance to the pyramid was a tiny small tunnel type thing that we had to crouch way down to climb down..and yes, even the short people had to crouch down. 

My Egyptian Lover

Then we went to Luxor and went to our hotel which was right on the beautiful Nile River. Oh my gosh I'm obsessed with the Nile. It's so pretty! It's super nasty though, so no one swims in it. While we were in Luxor we found out that riots had started in Cairo the day we were there, but we had no idea! Funny huh? We watched the news while we were in Luxor just to stay updated and stuff and we found out that the gov't had shut off the internet in all of Egypt, and they shut down cell phone towers in Cairo. We thought it was so crazy that we were there when all of this was happening, especially as we kept hearing how much more serious the riots and such were getting. But aside from all that, we went to the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and got to see Ramses III's tomb which was incredible! I couldn't believe how amazing all of the decorations on the walls of the tomb were. The tomb was a huge long hallway type thing with little rooms off to the sides. They haven't even finished excavating all of it yet, so we know that it was even longer. I wish you could all see this tomb! I can't even put into words how amazing it was..and we weren't allowed to take cameras in, so I don't have any pictures. We also went to King Tut's tomb. We actually got to see Tut...like his real body that they had unwrapped from the mummy. It was weird because he's sooo old but his body is still here! It was all black and shriveled up..ew. But it was awesome! This was my favorite day because we walked down from our hotel about 100 ft. to the Nile and went on a falukah ride up the Nile to the other side. Then we all got on our own camels and went for about a 45 minute camel adventure! haha. Camels are the weirdest/grossest animals. Then we rode back to the hotel on the falukah's while the sun was setting on the Nile. So so so beautiful! It was so peaceful and relaxing.We also got to go to Karnak and Luxor temples while we were there which were also so so so amazing! It just amazes me how all of these ruins are still here after all this time! Then we took a night train back to Cairo (what an experience haha). The night we got back to Cairo we were told that we wouldn't be able to go to the Cairo Museum or Muhammad Ali Mosque or anything the next day because everything in Egypt had gotten a lot worse.

 

So then we headed to Sinai. We got to our hotel in Sinai and tried to prepare ourselves for the next morning. We had been warned that it was going to be so so so cold on top and to bring lots and lots of layers. So we went to bed and got woken up at 2 am to hike Mount Sinai. We were all wearing our headlamps and tons of layers. We started hiking around 3 and made it to the top around 5. It was honestly one of the hardest things I have ever done! I don't know why the hike was so hard..probably because it was 3 am and the hike was really steep. I was in the front of the pack just charging my way up the mountain, but I hardly talked to anyone the whole time because I was so extremely exhausted. When we made it to the top we found out they were right. It was FREEZING! We all laid on the ground and huddled together for warmth. Then we sang hymns and watched the sunrise. It was so beautiful, but hard to enjoy it because I was so cold. It was such a great feeling to finally get to the bottom and know that I CONQUERED SINAI!!!

I LOVE EGYPT!

The Garden Tomb

The Dome of the Rock with Taylor, Abby, and Cameron

Elisha's Spring, Jericho

Eating falafel! Mmm so yummy!

On the old city wall

Just hanging out on steps that Jesus once walked on!

On the rooftops of houses. One of our favorite hang out spots.

So, I've been in Jerusalem for over a week now and I have absolutely LOVED every minute of it. Our apartments are so cool because they all have huge balconies that overlook the entire city. I look outside my window every morning and see the beautiful Dome of the Rock. I also am woken up by the Call to Prayer every morning around 5 am. But I love it! I feel like I live in Hogwarts because I live together with all of the other students and my teachers, and we do everything together. I have gone out into the city almost every single day since I've been here, usually to the Old City. It takes about 20 minutes to walk from the JC to the Old City, and it really is uphill both ways. The city is divided up into East Jerusalem, the Old City, and West Jerusalem. And the Old City is divided into the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Quarters (the Jewish is my favorite). It's really European-looking over here. Many of the buildings and streets are made out of stone and have vines growing up them. It's not like a desert here at all. It's been raining and cold most of the days we've been here. We're all trying to enjoy the cold weather while it lasts though because we know it's going to get hot soon! One of my favorite places in the Old City is the Western Wall. It is so amazing and beautiful. Going at night before Sabbath is the best because we sing and dance and pray with all of the Jews. It's such a fun and different way to worship. Learning over here is the best because everything we learn about is stuff that we get to actually see here. On Monday we went on a field trip to a few different places around Jerusalem. We had just been talking about Jacob in my Old Testament class and then we got to go see Beth-el, the place where God told Jacob to change his name to Israel. So cool! We have 2 LDS teacher, 2 Jewish teachers from Jerusalem, and one Palestine teacher from Bethlehem. All of the teachers here are so awesome and knowledgeable! They really do get the best teachers to teach us here. On Saturday, Sabbath, we had church and I was called to be a nursery teacher. Everyone from Jerusalem and the surrounding areas comes to church at the JC because it's the only branch around here. And the teacher's families live here too, so there are a few kids in nursery and about 20 in primary. Church was really cool because there are these huge windows behind the speaker that face out to the city so we get to look at the beautiful Holy Land while we are at church. So amazing!