First Days in Jerusalem

Shalom! I am finally in Israel!

My first week at BYU's Jerusalem Center has been very exciting! After we finished all of the orientation meetings (there were plenty of them), figured out all of the policies and procedures, and finally had some free time we went straight into the Old City! It is beautiful in there! All my senses were overloaded with all of the history and culture! I can't believe I get to live here for the next four months!

Last Friday night we went with our Religion professors (Bro. Draper) to see the Western Wall and the Jews celebrating the start of Shabbat. It was so neat to see them celebrate and worship at the wall, and it was fun to see many of the young men who are studying seminary here come and sing and dance to welcome in the Sabbath. I didn't take my camera but hopefully I can get some pictures of the wall before I leave.

On Shabbat (Saturday is the Sabbath) we held Church here in the Jerusalem Center. The branch is small, but wonderful! Each member here has an incredible and unique story. Many of them are working at the US Consulate, some are studying at the Hebrew University, but we make up the vast majority. A small group of us decided to go into the city and spend some time at the Garden Tomb. It was a neat experience to be there, especially on Shabbat. It was so calm and clean compared to the rest of Jerusalem. There are some wonderful British caretakers that are as friendly as can be, they gave us a tour and then we sat for quite a while pondering.

Classes are intense. I've never had so much reading in my life. It's a good thing I like to read, and its a good thing the topics are (for the most part) very interesting. We get to take some very intriguing classes: Ancient Near East Studies (NES), Modern NES with a Palestinian narrative, Modern NES with a Israeli narrative, Old/New Testament, and I'm taking Hebrew as well. It's quite the load, but its especially brutal trying to balance that with playtime in the city.

The people here are wonderful! There are several service couples here along with the faculty/staff. Everyone is so happy and helpful! The students are all great. It's intimidating because they are all smart, but I'm excited to try and create Zion here with them. My roommates are a lot of fun: Sarah, Kendra, and Amy. Due to the lack of space in our room I'm sure we'll become tight friends fast. :)

I've felt rather sick ever since the airplane ride, it makes studying hard. But don't worry... lots of pills, sleep, and prayers will remedy it soon enough. And I'm kinda sad BYU lost to UCLA... oh well... everything can't be perfect I guess!