halloween

This was seriously one of the best Halloweens I've had in YEARS. I had an absolute blast! We started out with a trunk or treat in the garage. Each FHE family decorated a suitcase since we don't have cars ha! Then we had a fashion show to see all the costumes! Then we played carnival games, had treats, and had a dance party! With a group of people who had very little to work with I was shocked at what everyone came up with! The creativity level was on point. Sorry for picture overload, I just couldn't resist posting all of my favorites and there were too many to narrow it down!

I love my cute roommates!

David (she was with her best friend who was Jonathan), Smalls from Sandlot, Trace Marriott (a student here), and Snoop Dogg

aren't they just the cutest old couple??

Fix it Felix, Wreck it Ralph, Vanellope von Schweetz

look at that form

outta the park!

Dr. Mulestein dressed as Dr. Chadwick (Indiana Jones hat and coke in the hand are a must) and Dr. Chadwick dressed as Snape. He even put on the show in class that morning. We definitely felt like we were in Hogwarts.

tinder profile and social butterfly

she even nailed the walk. this is Trace's typical field trip outfit.

red head Annie and black Annie

tv food show

these two are best friends!

a hershey's kiss haha!

these two were part of a whole family. look at that sibling love!

best doggy award goes to Elise

The Taylor Family

are you a bit shocked they pulled off the polygamy? yeah, we are too

This is our suitcase! You can't really tell because I didn't have colors but it was really cute! On the pages are a pumpkin, a ghost, and a witch, and then candy corns along the front. This is my FHE group co Alex!

the sandlot

this was right before we finished our night watching the sixth sense! I don't do scary movies so Blake was kind enough to warn me when scary parts were coming.

these two dressed up as our Palestine teacher Bashir Bashir. They couldn't have done it any better. The facial expressions, the gestures, and the outfit

classes and finals

I realized that I never even wrote about all of my classes and now here we are at finals week. I can't believe that two months has already flown by! And I can't believe how many amazing, wonderful things I have learned! It has definitely been information overload. Sister Allred described it like drinking from a fire hose and that's quite accurate. I love to learn though so it's been a blast. I knew that coming here it would be the perfect combination because of my love for history and religion and cultures but I didn't know how much I would come to enjoy the archaeology and the integrated methods of learning about other religions in depth and having hands on experiences and on site majority of the time to really grasp these concepts. It has been indescribable. The motto, the world is our campus, definitely rings true here. We are adventurers and pilgrims and students, and most importantly children of a loving Heavenly Father. I've not only learned the names and functions of the 5 pillars of Islam and the story of Gideon in the Bible, but also about tolerance, about love, and about dedication to the Lord.

Palestine
This class is about the start of Islam and the Muslim culture. We learned all about Muhammad and about which religions influenced Islam and how they practice their religion and about gender and art and architecture. Towards the end of the semester we focused on Palestine as a nation and their history since Israel became a nation and the wars and contention and peace treaties and intifadas and leaders associated with that. It's a bit complicated. Our professor, Bashir Bashir was passionate to say the least. It was always a roller coaster ride sitting in his class, but he liked to call it a party. We also had what he called "the blue bible" and we did so much reading that we started making groups and reading it together and discussing because there were so many pages.

Israel
This class focused on Judaism and the state of Israel. We started by defining Judaism as a people, a culture, a religion, a nation. Clearly this side is a bit complicated too. We talked about the Torah and the synagogue and the promises made to the children of Israel by God. We learned about Zionism and the establishment of the state of Israel and the wars that came along with that as well. Our professor Ophir Yarden is more calm than Bashir in his teaching but is still very opinionated. That was the most interesting thing about these two classes is that we were getting two completely different sides of the story as then we had to kind of decide what we believe and support based on what we were learning and we actually encouraged to remain more neutral while we're here.

Old Testament
A class that is supposed to be covered in 8 months, we covered in 2. I think that might be called insanity. It was fascinating though! It was nice to get a refresher because the last time I really studied the Old Testament was in 9th grade seminary and then briefly on my mission. It's probably the book of scripture I'm the least familiar with but also really enjoy learning about! And now, I feel very confident in my knowledge of it and can't wait to teach it in some way when I come home. There is some good stuff in there. Our emphasis was on what our teacher liked to call the plot. Our Heavenly Father's plan for his children to return to Him which is centered on the family. Take a look. You'll find examples of it EVERYWHERE in the Old Testament. As we learned about the scattering of the tribes of Israel which I had a basic idea of, we also learned about pretty much every single king that existed in both Israel and Judah after the kingdoms split. Holy cow, talk about a lot to keep straight! Dr. Allred is the head of the religion department at BYU-I and he is phenomenal! He would give us the history and the details that we needed but he always took the time to apply it to us and invited the spirit into every class. We love him!

Hebrew
This was the chill class of the semester. We learned the very basics of Hebrew and it definitely sparked my interest. We learned the whole alphabet in both block (what you see in books and street signs) and script (how you write) letters and the vowels and how to read. This was done by practicing English words in Hebrew. It was quite hilarious to listen in class because we sounded like 1st graders sounding out words haha! Our teacher also taught us Hebrew expressions so we can carry out short conversations in the city and she also taught us a lot about the culture through related items like the shofar or menorah. There have been quite a few Jewish holidays since we've been here so we got to learn a lot about them from Mrs. Goldman. She also taught us songs!

Near Eastern Studies
Dr. Chadwick's class is basically a culmination of everything we are learning. He gives us cultural context for things we are doing, he prepares us for field trips and most of all he teaches us the archaeological, historical, and spiritual significance of the places we are going and learning about in our other classes. He gives us his midterm in 5 question increments each week #blessings. He informed us that he is always working in our behalf. He has been teaching for 23 semesters here and has been involved over here for longer than that so he's really familiar with the program and has figured out exactly what works. That man is so smart! He makes everything sound intriguing and really does make learning fun because of his enthusiasm for it. He loves what he does and he's good at it. Did I mention he's a real archaeologist? That has been the most amazing thing about this educational experience is that each one of our professors is world-renowned. They know their stuff and they truly are scholars of this holy land.

Field Trips
Mostly every Monday we go on field trips. They are always a blast! We make sure we have our headsets and our 2 liter water bottles and off we go out in the wilderness, usually to look at rocks. It is fabulous! We go out with our religion class so we get taught by our religion teacher and then Dr. Whitchurch and Dr. Chadwick switch off being with our class as well. We also have a field trip manual which gives you lots of information about each place we visit and a few questions to answer which check comprehension.

 

Are you exhausted from reading all about it yet? It's a lot to take in. Trust me, I know. Above is the stack of books we've read in just the past two months. We truly are feasting after this knowledge. Since it's been finals week, I have never studied so much in my entire life. The one I spent the most amount of time on was Old Testament. A grand total of 10 hours. Wow. It sounds kind of crazy to spend so much time with your nose stuck in the scriptures (I mean it's not the most popular activity among young adults I'm sure) but it's also quite remarkable that we are gaining this knowledge and do enjoy becoming so well educated in such an important subject. Being unique is definitely a good thing in this case. We just kind of took our tests day by day and spent a fair amount of time reviewing and quizzing each other. I think we did an awful lot to prepare for this week and that we all have taken our education very seriously. It makes for a fun environment where we're all studying the same things and are willing to help each other and have the same dedication to being successful. It's been quite the whirlwind, but it's been so worth it!

 

Starting next week we just have Chadwick's class and then we start New Testament. And of course we'll still be going on plenty of field trips :)



city of david

I feel like at this point in the semester everything I say is just going to sound really nerdy and boring because of everything we're learning. But I'll do my best to make it somewhat entertaining. Today we went to the City of David. This is what would be known as original Jerusalem. It is just south of the Old City today.

This would be the millo. It's a step stone structure that helps support the large stone structure that was probably David's palace. Pretty significant when we're talking about archeology. Hence, the picture of Dr. Chadwick teaching.

Standing behind us is the Temple Mount. The place where Abraham came to sacrifice Isaac, the place where Solomon's temple was built, and today where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque stand. From this small city is what grew to be the Jerusalem we know today. A lot of this was because of what David did as king. Although he made some mistakes along the way, it's remarkable when he was able to accomplish and the life that he led.



I'm still waiting on getting a few pictures of the most exciting part of the day which was Hezekiah's Tunnel! In preparation for attacks from the Assyrians Hezekiah fortified the city by building new walls and by ensuring that the city would have water by creating a tunnel. You can walk in it today for a good 30 min or so and the water is about knee level. It was quite the adventure! It's really dark in there so we had to make sure we had lights and the people I was with had a little bit too much fun so we ended up getting a lot more wet than just to our knees.

 

At the end of the tunnel is Siloam's pool. You may be familiar with the story in John 9 where Jesus meets a blind man at the temple, anoints his eyes with wet clay and then tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam? Yup, this is the place. This was the first time that we really talked about the miracles that Jesus performed since we're still in Old Testament so it was exciting to really dive into his life for a minute. It's actually quite far that the man had to travel which for me shows such great faith!



seder dinner

Seder is the annual Passover Feast. Even though it takes place in the spring, we got to do one of our own! I love all of the wonderful people here!

This is the committee that I was on so we spent all afternoon setting up for it. We set all the tables, folded all the napkins, put the napkin rings on, and decorated!

We also had a huge sing along that I had done a lot of work on so it was fun to see it all come together! Our little table was the BEST! I couldn't have asked for better people to share this night with!

And this cute little boy completely stole the show! He is our professor's son and he is absolutely ADORABLE! and he LOVED to take pictures! We're so glad he could join us tonight!

The whole event was similar to what we would maybe do on Christmas eve. The story we read is all about Moses and bringing the people to the Promised Land. Everything is very symbolic and just like we would sing Christmas carols, they sing songs about deliverance and about these Old Testament times. It was so fun to experience a little bit of Jewish culture!

Yad Vashem

What an incredible experience it was to go to the Holocaust memorial museum here in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem means "a name and a memorial" in Hebrew which is taken from Isaiah 56:5. We couldn't take any pictures in the actual museum but here are a few from the outside.

You can compare and contrast these two pieces and how they portray the Jews.

This sculpture is right outside the children's memorial. This man directed a Jewish orphanage in Poland and instead of just abandoning the children, he died with them in one of the extermination camps.

It was definitely a somber experience. It was a lot to take in. You really just wonder how this possibly could have happened. The museum was phenomenal though and did a fantastic job and portraying the events that surrounded this horrible time in our world's history. 

This is a memorial that has each of the 21 names of the death camps with a casket of ashes from the cremation ovens and a flame that is always burning. 

This is our Israel teacher, Ophir Yarden. He has taught us so much! We love him!

Outside on the grounds there are lots of trees planted. These have been planted in memory of the "righteous among the nations" who were gentiles who helped save hundreds of Jews from extermination. It was an incredible experience. 

One quote I loved was from Rabbi Nisenbaum who said, "In the past our enemies demanded our soul and the Jew sacrificed his body in sanctifying God's name. Now the enemy demands the body of the Jew. That makes it imperative for the Jew to defend it and protect it." Before when they were being persecuted and people wanted them to convert it was a sign of heroism to be a martyr. But now, when they wanted their bodies it was an act of heroism to keep your soul alive.

Eilat

 Welcome to Eilat! This is on the very tip of the Sinai Peninsula. On the way down from Jerusalem which was about 4 hours we drove along the road that Lehi and his family would've walked down on their way to America. How cool is that?!

Here we got to SNORKEL!!! I love having new life experiences even if we look ridiculous ha! It was a little difficult at first getting used to the sound of your breathing underwater and making sure it didn't get in your eyes or that you didn't breathe out of your mouth. It was just a lot to think about! The water wasn't that warm but it was hot enough outside that it felt very refreshing.

i love jezzy jay!

Can we just talk about this water?? The Red Sea is GORGEOUS!

and look at that backdrop!

 of course we had to have a glamour shot. whip that hair.

I just can't get over these mini vacations where we take a break from school and having it be super warm still and feeling like summer! Obviously our lives are really hard...