Shalom from Israel, everybody!

(Pictured above: Me in the Mediterranean Sea.)

Sorry I haven’t updated recently – it’s been a crazy couple of weeks. So much has happened, it would bore you to hear about everything. So I will share with you some of the highlights.

One highlight was from this past Monday – a large group of us (70 of us, to be exact), took a trip to Tel Aviv, and it was fantastic. Yes, there is a lot to do in Tel Aviv, but try to guess where I spent all 8 hours of my time there. If you guessed at the beach, you would be correct.

And it. was. fantastic. I have no regrets. It was such a relaxing day, and a nice break from classes. We just went, had fun, played in the water, played on the beach, relaxed, and had a good time. It was one of my favorite days thus far.

(I didn’t have my camera with me that day, so all photo credit goes to my friend Ashley.)

But, beyond what we are doing on our own, we are going strong with Field Trips and with Service Projects, as well as so much more! A few weeks ago, we had one of my favorite Field Trips thus far, to a Bedouin Community down in the Negev Desert. The Bedouin Community we visited actually had an organization (SIDREH Lakiya Negev Weaving) that was partially supported by the LDS church, which provides opportunities for support to Bedouin Women. It was really neat to visit the organization.

Our guide for the day, a Bedouin woman herself, was very neat. Her English was fantastic. She went to college and got her degree in Middle Eastern Studies and is actually working on her Master's Degree as well. This month she gets to travel to America and fly on an airplane for the first time! She will be participating in an Arts Fair in Sante Fe. She loves working for SIDREH because she feels like she is actually making a difference for those she cares about, and I believe she truly is making a difference. This woman was inspirational.

(Our guide on the right, with another Bedouin woman in the background.)

One of the most interesting things about the community was how the houses were put together. They couldn't build lasting houses because Bedouin Communities are not recognized as legal villages by the Israeli Government, so every day their houses risk being torn down. As a result, Bedouin villages are filled with what could be better defined as shacks. It's really sad, but there is a lot of progress that can be made and is being made. Overall, it was a very eye-opening experience.

(Me in the Bedouin Community. Note the "houses" in the background).

Another one of my favorite activities from the past couple of weeks was a service project to Princess Bosma Preschool. I was particularly looking forward to this project because I have been homesick for my nieces and nephews. I’ve missed them like crazy. But the kids at this preschool were great.

For being how young they were, they were all pretty good at English! The teachers had to translate for us a lot when were trying to help them do activities (Playing leap frog was their favorite activity, by the way. Who would’ve thought?), but they knew all sorts of poems and rhymes in English and loved to show off to us.

One of my favorite children was named Hassn. Whenever we were playing a game, he was so enthusiastic about wanting to play with us. I think he and I actually ended up being pretty good pals by the end of the day. :) Before he left preschool, he came to find me just to tell me goodbye. And then, after we left the preschool to walk back to the BYUJC, he was waiting in his family’s car to leave, and he got out of the car and ran over to me to say goodbye again. I just loved him.

(A picture of me with Hassn).

Another one of my favorite kids was named Musa. He was in a wheelchair, so he couldn’t do everything that the other kids could do, but I think he was my favorite to play with. He was so happy and smiley the entire time.

When I first walked over to Musa, I knelt down to say hello. Without even talking to me he just grabbed my hands and smiled at me. He was so happy. One thing he and I did together was paint his face so that he would look like a lion. Afterwards, my friend Meeshell told him to go “rawr!” and he loved it!

(Musa and me “rawring” at the camera.)

Musa was just fantastic. So was Hassn. I absolutely loved getting to go to the preschool to play with these children.

Other highlights from the past few weeks:

The Kotel Tunnel Field Trip, a trip through the tunnels by the Western Wall. This trip was a midnight field trip, because that was the only time we could get a tour for, but it made it that much more fun. We felt like Indiana Jones, exploring the ancient ruins under the current city ground. We even got to walk on the very ground Christ walked on, as well as see the largest human-cut rock in the world. They still don’t know how the Jews moved a rock so big and put it as part of the retaining wall for Herod’s Temple. When the Romans destroyed the temple, they even tried to get rid of the rock and just couldn’t do it. They tried chipping away at it, but just gave up and ended leaving it there.

(a picture of my friend Jess and me in front of the rock. It weights 450 tons!!!!).

I have two funny anecdotes from this Field Trip.

# 1) This field trip was very unique for me on account of how badly I needed to go to the bathroom. When we went, I had been sick for a few days. So, that night, I determined I was going to flush the sickness out of me. As a result, I drank an entire 2-liter bottle of water that they gave to us. That's right, I drank 2 liters of water. The only problem was, I drank it about an hour before we left, and I didn't have time to let it go through my system, like I thought I would. As a result, it hit me during the field trip. That's right. I've never had to go to the bathroom so badly in my entire life. It got to the point where I didn't even want to move. But it's all right! I made it. As we were exiting the tunnel, I definitely led the group so I could leave first. I felt like I was going to explode, but I didn't, and am still alive.

Funny anecdote # 2)  For those of you who don't know, our teachers are in our Branch here in Jerusalem. As a result, I am the Home Teacher of my Ancient Near Eastern Studies Teacher (Brother Chadwick). The Kotel Tunnel Field trip was on the 31st of the month. My companion and I hadn't met with my teacher and his wife yet. We had tried to set up appointments, but appointments kept being rescheduled. So, that night, Brother Chadwick had given us an orientation on the Kotel Tunnel so it would be beneficial to us. Then, at about 11:45, as Brother Chadwick and I were standing outside the Western Wall, I turned to him and said, "So......Brother Chadwick....Is there anything I can do for you and your wife?" Haha. He got a kick out of it. I also gave him a short lesson on what the Western Wall was, as well as the Kotel Tunnel, just in case he didn't know about either of those things.

So those are my stories for the Kotel Tunnel field trip!

Another trip we went on recently was to Neot Kedumine, a place to learn about Biblical Landscapes. This field trip was really cool. We spent 6 hours going through this giant reserve, filled with plants and animals that are found in the Bible. I believe they said that every plant found in the Bible could be found at the reserve, as well as a good portion of the animals. I thought this field trip might end up being kind of boring, but it was so much more interactive than I expected. We got to draw water from wells, make our own Zatar, reenact Biblical stories, make our pita, shepherd sheep, see how olive oil was made in ancient times, saw how the threshing floor worked and got to thresh wheat ourselves, see an ancient cistern, see how ancient waterwheels helped to store water, AS WELL AS learning about plants and how they played into the Biblical stories.

(Shepherding Sheep)

 (A donkey! I took this picture for Chelsey. It reminded me of Small One!)

 (My friends Ashley, Jenny, and Lizzie are the epitome of style.)

(Julie and Ariel being Naomi and Ruth)

(A Torah Scribe reading from a 200-year-old handwritten Torah).

Sorry for the severe lack of pictures of myself at Neot Kedumine, but I just thought everything else was so interesting that I forgot to take pictures of me. I’m sure others did, though. But you get the point.

So that’s that! This is an update on what’s been going on since Turkey. Sorry for the lack of updating for a while. We had midterms so I thought it would be counterproductive to update my blog instead of study, and that just put me so far behind on my blog. But I will definitely try to update more often from now on! I send you all my love and hope everything is going well wherever you are!