Churches, Tests, and Beaches

We went to the Russian Church of Ascension (the one with the golden onion spires).  It is part of a convent dedicated to Mary Magdelene, and it was really beautiful.

These cool green rose flowers outside the church.  I didn't know there was such things as green roses, and they weren't the exact same, but they kind of look like them.  I want this as one of my wedding flowers I think.

 The church (although you can't see the onion spires very well, this really is one of the most beautiful churches on the Mount of Olives).

Me and Jessica at this delicious waffle place.  Oh my goodness, I don't think I have even cleaned a plate at a restaurant that fast before.  Ever.

We went to the Red Sea.  I was actually kind of 1/2 in charge here so there were moments of uh oh.  Like when we realized we forgot the medical kit.  So I when I was making the announcements of where to go, and where to get the snorkel stuff and such I told everyone to not get hurt, and luckily nobody got hurt.  There were a couple poor souls that got a little bus sick though.  Haha, it was a grand adventure. The sea was super salty, the sun was super hot, the sunscreen was applied super liberally, and the coral was spectacular.  Truly a day for the books.

This super cool building on the beach.  It is so . . . Israel.  An odd combination of antiquity and modernity.  Yup, definitely Israel.

THE BEACH!!!! And for all of those that thought the Red Sea was red, it is not. 

The wonderful ladies I have got to be in Jerusalem with . . . .

(From R to L . . . me, Valerie, Allie, Grace, Jenna, Margret, Gabby)

I love them so much.  Also, we had all the girls in this pic which means that all the boys were taking  the picture, and it was funny because I don't think they had realized that under all the long cargo pants and baggy shirts, we actually are women!

We went to the Lights of Jerusalem tour.  Basically once a year they do this big festival where they light up parts of the Old City.  It is a super cool thing, and it was kind of funny to see the Old City look so modern and all lit up at night. 

This is the Christian Quarter Information Building, and it was completely lit up by protectors, and the birds moved tweeted and stuff.  It was soooo cool.

This was just pretty.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

Me and my friends all talked in crocidille hunter accents as we passed these elephants on the wall.

This was my favorite exhibit.  It was a house of cards.

And each card had a king or queen from the Bible.

This exhibit is exactly what I would imagine real life tangled is like.

Us by the house of cards.  I love all of these people.  They are just the greatest.

 There was this tree of lightbulbs with little chains attached, and when you pulled on the chain you turned on the lights on part of the tree.  

This was the starting point for the walk.  It was super tall and absolutely stunning.  From this point there were four different colors of lights that lead around the city to the different exhibits.  It reminded me of the string mazes my family does for Valentines Day.

We went to a garden nature reserve.  They have all of the animal and plants mentioned in the Bible at this place.  We got to grind our own hyssop (my new favorite herb—I eat it dried with pita and a little olive oil all the time).  There also was a well that I drew water out of.  I guess that makes me a woman at the well.  Come at me righteous servants coming on behalf of rich Canaanite lords with future covenant bearing sons . . . . 

We got to herd sheep!!  And lets just say, there is a reason why Christ is the shepard and we are the sheep.  Being a shepard is king of tough.

We got to make our own Biblical lunch (we made lentil soup and popped wheat and pitas) at a campsite in the reserve.  The funny thing was that there were two groups for our class, and the boys making the soup on one side wanted our professor to say that their soup was better.  So they got two cups and had the professor taste both to decide if the Brad/Josh/Alex soup was better than the Jessica/Liza/girls soup.  But theirs (which he tasted first) was SUPER hot, so Bro Belnap burned his tongue and kind of default chose ours because he couldn't taste either and ours didn't burn his tongue.  The boys were soooo mad, and we were laughing pretty hard.  Also to note, Ben Lehnardt dumped water on Chelsea Clayton, and she was all miffed.  Me, being very experienced in the ways of water wars, was done cleaning my big metal bowl so I beckoned her over and told her to go dump it on him.  She at first was hesitant, but then Jason (who is like 6'5) said to just casually walk behind him, and so when Ben turned his back to work on putting the fire out, she causally walked over behind Jason and dumped it on Ben's back.  We were all dying laughing.  So I wasn't PART of the water fight, but, like a true Jarman, I kind of instigated a awesome water payback.

So the guy in the green is Dax Levine.  Which means that he is a Levite = Jewish priest lineage.  So when the man at Neom Keumin (the nature reserve) was showing us the Torah Dax got to wear the special breastplate of the Levite priests.  Awesome, right!?

 This is me . . . and what I did AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL week.  I had 5 finals, and one paper.  Ya, it was rough.  But now I am ddddooonnneee and the rest of the semester is super easy. I will only have 2 classes!!  I am super exited.  Also because now we are starting the New Testament, and I love reading the 4 gospels.  

Other random pics I haven't posted yet . . . .

This is Teresa Greenwood, me Charlotte Ray (isn't that the cutest name!! and she's even from GA), and Sarah LeChminant.

 Me at the Zoo . . . this was actually the day I got my mission call.

 Me and some of my friends at some cave.  I think this was on the shephelah field trip . . .

On other news, I made it into the nursing program at BYU!  Yay!  I found out the day after finals, so it was a great surprise to end my finals week!

Adios for now, and wish me luck in Petra, because I'm gonna be in Jordan next week (and I WILL  GET TO RIDE A CAMEL . . . . Yippee!!!)

A Week of Moments

This week we got to go to the City of David.  It was interesting to go to such a politically symbolic place.  It is a huge Jewish pride thing, completely ran by an organization of Zionist settlers that get lots of money from American Jews and Evangelicals.  But it is literally right on the edge of a Palestinian settlement.  So the land grab battle is ever raging.  The settlers are willing to pay big money for Palestinians that are willing to sell them their property.  However, to sell your land to an organization whose whole goals is to find evidence that proves that the Jews outdate the Palestinians and thus should have the rights to the land is becoming a traitor for the Palestinians.  It is really complicated. 

My favorite part of the day is when we got to go through Hezekiah’s tunnel.  It is a tunnel that was build to shunt the water from the Gihon springs to the middle of the city, at the Pool of Siloam (which is where Jesus told the blind man to wash after he rubbed dirt on his eyes).  Anyway, it is like shin deep water, and this 1/3 mile tunnel.  The funnest part was when our little group decided to go savage mode, so we turned off all our headlands and went through the tunnel in pitch black.  Then, to up the ante, we did savage speed mode, where you jogged (more like sloshed) through the water pretty fast in the pitch black, trying not to hit your head, hearing the yells “Faster, faster” of the people behind you, trying not to trip, laughing your head off.  It was a really fun moment, although there was a time of two where I thought I was going to trip and fall into the water.  It was really one of the funnest things I have done here so far.  I love the places we go, but I really love the people I am here with, and they make things so much fun.  We are like a big happy, young adult family.  Like tonight at dinner, I was at a table with Josh Gill (who went to Russia), Brad Barber (who went to Bulgaria), Brian Passantino (who went to Argentina), and Chase McClowsky (who went to Brazil), and Alex Bertin (who went to Mexico) and they were telling their craziest mission stories and we were just cracking up the entire time, I could barely eat.  They would just tell me mission story after mission story, and there would be a silence and they would just say “You are going to have so many hilarious experiences by the time you get off your mission Liza”.  I think if there is anything I have learned from boy RM’s it is that missions are fun and funny.  They are so hard, so frustrating, and you work harder on them than anytime in your life, but they can also at times be hilariously funny.  Like they were telling rejection stories and just dying laughing at some of the funny ones, because they knew they just had to laugh it off, or become depressed, so they would just laugh.  I want to be able to do that on my mission, keep my spirits up by just laughing.  

Another fun thing I did this week was go to Jaffa street and the open air market and the Old Train Station in West Jerusalem.  I also went to a waffle place on Jaffa street.  I didn’t realize this until this week, but  I really have been spending all my time in the Old City while I have been in Jerusalem.  Which is great, because there are so many ld sites and ancient churches to see, but I have been missing out on all the modern, party places in Jerusalem.  There is a whole side to Jersulem where everything is modern and there are adorable shops, and open air markets where they sell all sorts of spices and fruits.  We had a falafel while walking through the open air market, and then as we walked through the rest of the market, one person would buy a special pastry and have everyone try a bite, and then the next person would get a loaf of braided bread fresh from the oven, and we would eat it and keep walking, tasting and smelling the culture of Jerusalem.  West Jerusalem is also really clean, which I lovem because the Old City can be pretty dirty.  West J also has a lot of public spaces.  Like there is a cushion garden next to this big public park.  The cushions look totally real, but they are actually made out of concrete.  We sat on them for a while.  There is also a big public fountain at Ben Gurion park, like the one in Gateway.  West J reminds me a lot of Gateway.  

We also went to the beach at Tel Aviv this week.  Which was amazing, but I also got SOOOO sunburned there.  I may or may not be peeling a little now.  But it was worth it.  It was like any beach in California.  So nice.  I loved the Mediterranean Sea, it was the temperature of cool bathwater, and the sun was shining.  Really, it was the perfect day weather wise, I was just too exited to let the sun screen sink in before running into the waves.  But the Med Sea is way saltier than normal oceans, so when you got a mouthful of water, you really felt it.  

Really, it is moments that defined this week.  The moment of being thrown up in the air over a big wave by Jordan, Mike, and Ben at Tel Aviv, feeling exited, hearing the laughter of 40 of my new best friends playing in the ocean with me.  The moment of sloshing through Hezekiah’s tunnel, full of thrill, hearing Brad laughing and whooping behind me in the pitch black.  The moment of laughing while dancing to Backstreet Boys with Josh and Jess Smith at the Jerusalem Center dance on Friday.  The moment of being cold enough that I wanted to go inside while talking to Bria on Tuesday, but not wanting to end the conversation, because then she was going to get set apart and I wouldn’t get to talk to her again for two years.  Again laughing at all the fun memories we shared over the past year that we were roommates.    The moment of laying on my bed, laughing with my roommates about stupid things.  The moment of talking to my mom about all the spiritual experiences and realizations I am having here, while looking out at the beautiful view from my balcony, and realizing how God knew what he was doing with me all along.  Sometimes I feel that I could stay here forever. 

Midterms Week and More Old Churches

This week was midterms week, which means lots of studying and not a lot of city time.  But we did have a lot of fun during study breaks.   (Most notably watching the super old Disney cartoon short “Sun shine Makers”.  If you ever get the chance, watch it.  Just search it on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGN0UwuJxw

  It is absolutely hilarious, and the songs will get stuck in your head for hours).

But the highlights of this week are probably . . . . 

ARAB CULTURE NIGHT . . .  

There is a man named Chibon in the Old City who LOVES BYU kids, and he let us borrow a bunch of his Arab clothes from his store for the night, so we went and borrowed those, and then we came back, got all ready, and went to Arab culture night.  The night started out with two sheiks from the Al-Aqusa mosque (Dome of the Rock) doing a call to prayer.  Then, we went to dinner.  And by dinner I mean an absolute feast!  There was everything you could imagine and it was all divine.  I think  the best thing I had was this watermelon juice for dessert.  It is like liquid watermelon with vanilla in it, and it is soooooo good.  I can’t wait to come home and make some for you all.  After dinner we went to dancing.  We leaned the Durka, a traditional Arabic dance from some cute preteen Palestinian girls.  I think we stressed our little girl out because she started out teaching us moves and saying “This one is super easy, you will learn soo fast.” and by the last move she was saying “This is easy move for me, but it is hard for you.  I know that you can learn it.”  She was adorable though.  Then we took pictures in all our Arabic garb.  I had a blast.  

Me and Sister Woods, one of the professor's wives.

 Me and some of my friends.  (and sister Wood in the back.  Gosh she is such a hoot.)

We also got to go on a field trip to the Shephelah or the valleys of Israel. . . We went to the valley where Samson lived, where David slew Goliath, and other biblical places.

It's kind of a long story of why we had a mirror . . . but we did.  Well basically we had it so we could reflect the sun off of it and flash it to the other class that was 12 miles away on another peak.  And it worked by the way.  Anyway, this is a "ghost tree" in one of the valleys.  Nobody knows why it is called a ghost tree.  It just is.  So we made up a ghost story for it.

In the Valley of Elah, where David slew Goliath and after a brief lesson there . . . we got to sling stones!!!!  So I have now slung stones in the valley where David slung stones!!  Although I don’t think that any of my throws could have taken anyone out.  Slinging stones is harder than you think, but I am proud to say that I did not hit anyone in the head with a rock accidentally, so it looks like I have more of a future in stone slinging than stone skipping, because i have accidentally hit someone in the head with a rock doing that (sorry Jenna Goode).  Or maybe it is the other way around, because if the point is to throw a rock at their head . . . . 

Me and my handy dandy sling

Me and fluffy.  Jk, his name is really Cerberus.

Anyway, next we went to these caves.  During the hellenistic period (where the Romans were around) the people learned that if they could dig through the 7 feet of limestone, they would get to chalk that was super easy to carve out.  So they would dig these massive caves underneath their little mud brick houses.  We got to go into a bunch of these caves.  

This cave is a dovecote.  It is where they kept all the birds to raise them for fertilizer (apparently their poop really makes crops grow) and also to eat them.  There were not too many pigeons when we went there, but there were a couple still living in this ancient bird house.  

 Me and JHart at the dovecote.

Another cave we went to, called Bell Cave, had amazing acoustics.  Like they have concerts there in the summer because the acoustics are so good.  It was super cool to walk in and hear the other Jeru group singing deeper in the cave.  The entire cave was echoing their harmonies (have I mentioned that literally everyone in my group sang in choir . . . like seriously sometimes I feel like I am on a never ending choir tour.  Or in the middle of high school musical.  I am not kidding.  I am in the real life Jerusalem the Musicial.  One person in the group starts humming, and then all the sudden there are twenty people singing, and all sorts of harmonies going on . . . . all while we are in the line for the bathroom in some rest stop grocery store in Jericho.  And I am like “Does anyone else feel like this is not normal?!?)  Haha, I really love it because me and my roommates just crack up every time this happens.  I don’t know if I have told you about my roommates yet.  I don’t know who picked roommates, but they were spot on.  My roommates are 

Carley---- 6’4’, accounting major, pretty laid back, soo funny once you get to know her

Jenna—super spunky and determined, has an adorable smile, got her mission call to Korea the same day I got my mission call

Valarie——just finished getting her social studies teaching degree from BYU-I, a total hoot, always laughing—well we are all always laughing, especially when we are all together.

And we all go running together a couple mornings a week.  Which is a whole other story.  Basically, I love running.  But I really love running when we pass my gorgeous views and ancient sites in a country half way around the world from where I grew up, and this is what I get to do every morning.  I love it!  Although it does create problems when you have four sweaty girls and one shower and class in an hour.  

Another highlight of the week was going to the church that commemorates where the Lord taught the people the Lord’s prayer.  It has the Lord’s prayer in every language imaginable.  Like half of the languages I have never even heard of.  

See.  Kudos to anyone who knows where they speak Samaritan, and a million bucks to the person that can actually read that.

So of course I found the spanish one, and took a picture next to it, because that is my new favorite language (next to English of course), but then I was walking around and found the Lord’s prayer in Guarani!!!!  Guarani is the second official language of Paraguay and 98% of the people speak it (they are all bilingual there in Spanish and Guarani).  Apparently missionaries that go there end up picking some of it up, so it is my 3rd favorite language (next to English and Spanish) because that is the second language of my new people.   And it was there!!!!  So I got a picture by it too.

Then we went exploring and found a random church (this is actually a fairly often occurrence—there are 500 year old churches everywhere here, so going super old church hopping is actually pretty easy).  This church is the church were Mary the mother of Christ was buried.  It was really old, and really dark, so I am guessing it was from the time of Constantine/the era of the crusaders.  But don’t quote me on that.  Sometimes the coolest things in these churches are the ceilings.  They show how old the church is and looking at them, I just feel like I am in the middle of hundreds of years of history.

A shrine to Mary . . . you see how baroque the architecture is?!?!

 The cieiling . . . you can see all the smoke stains from hundred of years of candle prayers.

The outside of the building.

This is the Jewish cemetery that we passed.  It is HHHUUUUGGGGEEEE!! If you can see the hill past this hill is just as covered in tombstones.

We missed dinner going church hopping so we went into the city and grabbed some schwarma . . . . soo good!!  Then we raced back in time for sunset (we can't be in the old city after sunset).

That night me, my roommate Jenna, and one of the other girls Grace, went online mission clothes shopping.  The visiting member of the Quorum of the Seventy (he lives in Saudi Arabia right now) came up stairs in the center and stuck up a conversation.  He asked us what we are doing, and finding out that we we looking at stuff for our missions, he asked us where we were going.  

"Busan, Korea"  Jenna piped.

"Asuncion, Paraguay" I added.

"Berlin, Germany" Grace finished.

He laughed and was pretty impressed.  Then he talked to us about how cool it is that so many sisters are going now, and when they are so young.  We were asking about him (this is then we found out we were actually talking to an area 70, and he was telling us how he worked for the FBI his entire life, and he lived in Maryland for awhile, and flew around a lot (ya know, like breaking up drug cartels and capturing terrorists and stuff, no big deal) and then he moved to the United Arab Emirates to do investigations for the US Embassy there.)  He was so cool!!!