Biblical Zoo and Bethlehem

          These past couple of weeks have been pretty fun, but not as fun as others because most people have just been studying for midterms during the week, so there is really no one to go out and do things with. I try to study sometimes, but mostly it just ends up being me going around and talking to people for a few hours until most people have gone to bed and then trying to cram in a few things for the test. So far it's worked okay, so I'm cool with that. The people here are really great though and it has been super fun. On our free day last Friday, and our free day this Friday, me and my friends just went out into the Old city and did some shopping. It is fun just being around the people here and interacting with them. When we went yesterday, we ran into a couple of people that were obviously LDS (one of their daughters was wearing a BYU shirt). I talked to them for a while and asked them where they were from and stuff, and it was fun, but then today when I got to church I saw them up on the stand and realized that it was an area seventy, Elder Kacher, and his family that were here to speak and give a fireside!! I know that most people probably wouldn't just recognize an area seventy like that, but i still felt kinda lame not recognizing them or anything. But today was pretty fun having them there because they had a son (just got off the mish) and a daughter (about to start her freshman year at BYU) that came with them. It was fun being able to talk to them and stuff, and watching all of the girls flock to the son!! I mean, he was pretty cute, but it was still just funny.

          That Saturday we went to the Garden of Gethsemane after church, so that was really a great experience.  You can just feel the spirit so strong there, especially in the private section.  Anyway, so last Sunday was another free day, so a lot of us went to the Biblical Lands Zoo here in Jerusalem. It was pretty much just like a normal zoo, but they had some other neat animals there too that I had never seen, like a Red Panda, and I got to see them try to catch a vulture for weighing, it was pretty funny. After that we just went back out into the Old City and did some more shopping. I got a sweet Israel soccer jersey and a cute bag too, but I think I got that on Friday.

Biblical zoo

          On Monday we had our weekly field trip. This time it was to Bethlehem, so that was pretty sweet. It was crazy at first because we had to cross over into the West Bank. I mean, technically the Jerusalem Center is just barely in the West Bank, but not really. But we had to cross over the wall that separates over to the West Bank, and it is just crazy how much security and stuff there is. We didn't have to do it cuz we were just a tour bus, but I guess usually it takes people quite a while to get through whether it's just for work, or school, or whatever. You usually have to start preparing to get the paper to go like a full month in advance too. Anyway, so when we got to Bethlehem we went to a think tank building where Palestinians are studying and working on ideas to try to sort out the conflict here. One guy gave us a presentation (mostly about the conflict with the borders) that was... interesting (kind of boring, but I think that is just because I was tired, haha). After that, we went to Bethlehem University and got to talk to some of the students about their life at school and in the Holy Land. It was interesting to get their opinion on the conflict here. Then we went to a Bedouin tent place to eat lunch. That was pretty neat too. Finally we went to the Old Bethlehem main city square. In the square there is a Church of the Nativity that we went to. It is built to commemorate the cave where they believe Christ was born. There are a lot of sites here that people say are the "real deal" but in reality they might not be, but this is one of the sites that most likely is legitimate. There is a beautiful church, and then in the basement they have some stairs going down to the cave, which would have been used as a storage room or stable type room, and that is where they believe Christ was born. It was neat to be in there, and we were able to sing Christmas songs in a cave there. Then we just walked around Bethlehem for a bit and looked at olive wood and other things. I got a baby blessing blanket from Bethlehem just for a souvenir. It's kind of neat to have a baby blanket from where Christ was born.

Church at Bethlehem University

Israeli missile hole at Bethlehem University

Bedouin Tent Restaraunt

Church of the Nativity

Possible place where they laid baby Jesus

Possible place of Christ's birth

          On Tuesday, a group of us went to a museum here by a place called Jaffa gate and sang for/with a group of Palestinians, so that was pretty neat. One guy there had a Lute and was playing native Palestinian songs, so the ladies there started dancing and it just turned into a huge dance party where we were doing really goofy Palestinian dancing. Yesterday we had an Israeli folk dancing night here at the center too, so that was fun. They had some guy come into the gym to teach us how to do it, and it was fun, but got sooooo hot in the gym!!

          Anyway, things here are good here. Church is awesome, my classes are pretty good (but sometimes kind of boring and there are way too many tests and ginormous papers). Oh, and I just found out that I got into ASU, so I got into all three schools that I applied to, so that's happy. And I also found out that I am going to be teaching Math 111 at BYU this upcoming fall, so that's cool.