1. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish holiday of the New Year. They celebrated the eve on Wednesday and Thursday was the new year. It was cool to walk around in the Jewish quarter of the Old City and see everyone happy and buying food for the party that night!!! It reminded me of Christmas Eve and how everyone is buying last minute presents. Holidays are just so much fun!!!
2. SUNDAY: Got over our Turkey 'hangover'. Almost everyone was sick and were either sleeping or studying for classes we didn't study for the previous week.
MONDAY: Field trip to Neot Kedumim (Bible nature walk; reminded me of camping in the mountains, seriously we started a fire and made our own lunch in the woods)
TUESDAY: Classes
WEDNESDAY: (Rosh Hashanah Eve) visited Dome of the Rock and the Jewish quarter, and had a Arab Culture Evening and Palestinian Folk Dancing (soooo much fun!!! We dressed up and had a great time!)
THURSDAY: (Rosh Hashanah) Classes
FRIDAY: Classes and Humanitarian Activity (we made over 2,500 hygiene kits)
SATURDAY: Church, Garden of Gethsemane, and General Conference (because of the time difference, we're watching General Conference over the next 3 Sundays. Crazy)
3. This upcoming week is mid-terms and, so last week I've been stressing a bit on mid-terms and some other things. On Thursday, one of my friends e-mailed me, and he mentioned about having more faith. I was struck by that and searched more into it. I found this talk by Elder Gene R. Cook titled "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ". While reading this talk, it just continually lifted me out of my 'depths of despair'. There were 6 points he talked about: be believing, commit yourself, do your part, pray, expect trials of your faith, and expect the Lord to act. "Life is all upstream--all uphill." I need to do my part and have faith that the Lord will help me through all my stresses right now. Everything will turn out great in the end.
4. When I visited the Jewish quarter this week with my friends Eliza, Shalyn, Tiffany, and Charlotte (aka Lottie), we just wandered around and enjoyed the festivities. We were walking around this building which had an empty corridor and tunnel which was weird because there was people everywhere getting stoked for their New Year's party. We were walking down the corridor and Lottie walked towards the tunnel. I all of a sudden heard this BOOM!!! My first thoughts were, "Lottie stepped on a mine. We're going to die!", and I gasped and started to breathe faster. I looked freaked out to everyone else, and Lottie started laughing her head off. She had stepped on a balloon. Since the balloon was in the tunnel, the noise made an even louder sound which scared me out of my wits! I shouldn't have been scared because Jerusalem is pretty low on danger despite what everyone says (most of the craziness happens at night and on the West bank which is plenty of miles away). Now looking back, my reaction was dramatic and funny, but at the time my heart took a while to calm down.
5. General Conference was actually wonderful tonight (or Saturday morning for pretty much all of you). One of my favorite parts was when we sang, "Redeemer of Israel" for I'm in Israel. It's crazy how understanding the geography and the people makes me realize more about scriptures and songs. For instance, the words "Israel will shortly be free" means so much to me now that I'm over here. I didn't think about the war that is happening over here, but the lack of proselyting. We, as members, are not allowed to preach the gospel. We can't free those who don't have the whole truth. There are many good people out there who understand good parts of how to live their lives righteously, but I want to show them so much more. Another part was "For why in the valley of death should they weep or in the lone wilderness rove?" There are so many valleys over here it's quite ridiculous. I thought I knew valleys since I've only lived in valleys, but these valleys are seriously V shaped. For instance the Kidron valley right between Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives is just a road maybe plus some wiggle room for houses. It's interesting though with the Kidron valley because that is where Christ walked to the Garden of Gethsemane and he would have past by this Jewish cemetary which is still there today. Hence he walked in the valley of death to suffer for us. Also the wilderness is seriously on the other side of Mount Scopus. We are on the side which faces Jerusalem and the other side (which is a walking distance) views the Judean wilderness and when I say wilderness I mean desert. There's nothing out there. I can't even imagine someone walking through a valley of death to suffer or walking in the Judean wilderness for forty days fasting. Yet Christ did. He did those things for us so we may be saved. He is our Redeemer of Israel.
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