Happy Father's Day!

 I know I am a day early but today is the Sabbath so for us it is Father's Day. 

So here goes......

Dad,

  I want to let you know that I love you and I am so grateful to have such a wonderful person in my life

You are an inspiration to me

 

 You have given me that greatest opportunities (i.e. Jerusalem)

 I hope someday that I could be like you......

i.e. learn your dance moves

or earn an award for "Best Butt"

You have lived a life that is full of service and I love you for that

 You are such a patient person. I know that sometimes I can be too much to handle but you have always been so supportive and patient with me :)

 When we are together we always have such a good time! Thank you for your jokes ( grave jokes) and  the humor that you provide on our family vacation ("is your birthday on Tuesday because your car is pink?")

We are a fearless climbing duo

 I would be not the person I am today if it wasn't for you. You have been my greatest influence

Thanks for trusting and believing in me, even when I did not believe in myself

You are my best friend

Thank you Dad

I LOVE YOU

Seperation Wall

Yesterday we had a field trip to the separation wall and a member from the US Embassy came and gave us a run down of the reasons the wall was built. The main reason for the separation wall is to decrease the number of suicide bombers and terrorist attacks within Israel.

The wall has its pros and cons: the pros being that it has decreased the number of attacks and violence has decreased. The Cons thousands of people living on the other side of the wall lost their jobs, family ties and for multiple people in our ward lost the opportunity to come to church.

This is considered to be a temporary solution but no one knows what that means.....

People graffiti the walls to raise awareness and protest against it. The interesting thing is that all of the graffiti is in English because they are trying to reach the American audience and have them intervene.

 Now let me tell you a little tale about this tel. 

A tel is an ancient city that was usually destroyed and then another city was built upon it. Many of the ancient ruins that we see are tels, and they usually consist of 4 or 5 cities built one upon the other. 

The tel that is directly behind us is the city of Samson (This picture was taken during the last field trip)

Today has been a really good day, a few of us went into the city to read for our classes. We went to the "broad wall" which is the wall that was standing during the first temple period. In my OT (Old Testament) class we were assigned the reading in 2 Kings and Ezekiel where it is talking about the first temple destruction. It still just amazes me that I can read the Bible and be in the exact place where it occurred! I know you must be all jealous right now. 

So the Jerusalem Center is under quarantine, not really but over 30 students have gotten the flu in the past 48 hours. Most of them are returning back to health so it was probably food poisoning. I guess I have a solid stomach and I did not get sick. phew.

So those who know me well know how A-MAZING I am at basketball so Lindsey, Emily and I signed up for the bball tournament here. Our team name? mo' money mo' problems. We are going to dominate. The first game is tonight so wish me luck.

I am SUPER excited for tonight because it is alos our Passover/ Seder dinner! It is like a 5 hour program and the food is going to be delicious. I will post pictures tomorrow. 

Love ya!

Just a few random pictures

1. A picture of me and my friends at the Dome of the Rock a few days ago. These are the side columns where the Prophets and Christ would have taught their sermons.

2. Me studying in my bed. Typical mid-morning activity

Me outside my apartment!

Happy BIrthday Mom!

I know I am a day late but the internet went out last night so I was not able to post a blog. But Mom I want to tell you happy birthday and I want to thank you for being such a great influence in my life and supporting me throughout ths journey and all other experiences. I could not have asked for a better mother and I know that I will forever be indebted to you. I hope your birthday was wonderful and I hope you enjoyed Dad's cake!
Well, sorry again for keeping you guys waiting. But these past two days have been packed with field trips, visiting tells, and sloshing our way through underground tunnels. Yesterday we went to a few Biblical sites, the major one being the site where David slew Goliath.

Once again our acting skills are coming out, lindsey and I make up Goliath and Emily is David. We got actual sling shots and practiced for a while. It took a while to get the hang of it and there was an Asian tour group that also stopped for a bit and I think they left when all of us pulled out our sling shots. Ooops

We also went to the hometown of David, Goliath, and Samson. I would show you pictures of the rocks but I will save you from the boredom of looking at rocks.A t one of the locations we got to go through several tombs of local kings are wealthy landowners. This is a picture in one of the tombs, so a few of us started a trend and a "field trip uniform" that consists of khaki pants and white shirts, we call ourselves the "plain white tees" and so here is the group pic from yesterday:

yesterday was really long, an 11 hour field trip adn it was HOT  but I don't mind it because the bus rides are always a highlight and no matter where we are something funny occurs. Our teacher just has this natural gift for bring in the spiritual side to wherever we are and it is so exciting to be in the locations of the Biblical stories!
Today was probably the best field trip thus far, we went to the City of David (which is the original Jerusalem where Melchizedek, Abraham ,Isaac, Lehi, Isaiah, and other prophets lived). Before the Babylonians attacked during the first temple period they built this system of underground tunnels to attach the water from the Gihon spring to the west side of the city. This tunnel is still flowing with water today! At the start of the tunnel you jump in waist high to freezing cold water! Luckily the level drops as you move your way through but that initial jump sure does take your breath away.

These pictures were taken during the low tides or after the tunnel trip but as you look at a few of their pants you can see the water level marks. We all had to bring our own flashlights because when there was no artificial light it was impossible to see your hand in front of you. For a few hundred meters we played "chicken" to see who would be the first to chicken out and turn on the lights. I was not the chicken but it was one of the guys. He did have a mild excuse because he kept hitting his head on the ceiling. Before the tour we got to watch a 3-D movie about the tunnels. The Israelis are obsessed with little tour movies and they are the cheesiest movies you will ever see, most of the time people fall asleep during them or just laugh at them.

Here we are prepared with our glasses on to watch the movie. After the tour we went and looked at the city ruins where we saw.....

The Pool of Shiloam where Jesus healed the blind man with mud and spittle. 

(Try and guess what we are doing in the picture)

This is the location where Isaiah met with Ahaz and the general area where he gave the famous prophecy of Christ being born to a virgin. 

 And some ancient toilets. Look for the rock with the hole in it.

Today was an overall success and I just had the chance to skype with Emily and my niece Cecilia which made my day :)

Funny Fridays

Hey crew! So I am going to start a tradition on Fridays, I am going to post the funny pictures of the week. Since I have just started I will pull some pictures from the past and the funny picture of the week is from turkey. So I am going to set up the scene....we were at Ephesus and we were standing in front of the fertility temple and women would attend this temple when they wanted to get pregnant so Lindsey and I had to naturally pose for this picture.

No worries mom, this is not a hint about my life or anything that is coming up soon. ( but maybe this is a hint for my siblings to start having some kids, just kidding) Besides that today has been really good. We had class this morning then we assembled another 1000 hygiene packs. Today was super HOT! It was approximately 94 degrees, I was dying. Then I went the Dominus Flevit church which is the location of where Christ cried over Jerusalem before he was crucified. Now we are just getting ready to watch Indiana Jones so we can prepare ourselves for the Jordan/ Petra Field trip that is creeping up on us!

"The Good ole Days Before the Peace Treaty"

So tonight we had a wonderful forum speaker, he is a journalist that works for Jerusalem Post, he is the Palestinian  CNBC correspondent, and used to be a writer for the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). He is living in Israel but considers himself as a Palestinian Israeli, ironic right? But tonight's lecture was probably the most unbiased information that I have received thus far and so I am going to relay the things that he spoke about in a bullet point form:

• His main topic was about how the life and conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians have gotten worse and downhill since the Oslo Peace Treaty. He was saying that he wished life went back to before the peace treaty because life was less complicated and people were more tolerant of each other. Many Palestinians got frustrated with Yasser Arafat after the agreement because there was tons of money pushed at him but he was corrupt and spent all of the money and gave none of it to the people, this is why majority of the Palestinians went straight to Hamas and supported him. He said that he was going to have change and so people flocked to him. After the agreement the Jews and Palestinians felt more restricted than ever, they woke up one morning and then there were borders set-up. Many of them lost their job because they could not go into certain areas. This just created tension between two sides that wasn't there before
• The US wanted them to have a free election in the area and they pushed for Palestinians to have their own leader. The US never thought that Hamas would ever win in the election but everyone over here knew that Hamas would win. 
• The Fatah and Hamas agreement that was made a few weeks meant nothing, it was to show Israel that they are ready for agreement but they still hate each other. To him they hate each other more than they hate Israel. 
• More Jews and Arabs have died since the Peace treaty began than before
• Palestinians are demanding that they go back to the '67 borders but they know that it is impossible to go back to that agreement. It would mean that thousands of Jews and Arabs would lose their houses and that will not create peace but it will actually create more tension and hate.
• He believes that the only solution is a two-state solution. Both the Arabs and Jews do not want to live together both know this. It is like a divorced couple living together, they need to split apart.
• The Palestinian side is divided between Fatah and Hamas and until they can agree on what they want on then they cannot go to the Israelis and make an agreement

So these are not my opinions but his. I hope that this makes sense and that I am just babbling. He is a journalist and told us that majority of the news that we receive in the US is biased and not accurate. They send reporters that they drop in and they are not really knowing what is happening. So be careful. Well I love you all and I hope that you were able to find this site. 

Mom, I have Rabies

Ok, so I don't have rabies but after you see this picture you would think that I did have rabies. I want to preface this by telling everyone that since I have been here I have not touched one stray cat or dog. I am always really good about keeping my distance. But the other day I was walking outside of Jaffa gate and I saw this ridiculously cute puppy. It was clean, it had an owner and it was even trained. I thought to myself this is an ok puppy to pet. Right? The owner noticed me adoring over it so he came over and let me pet it. Of course I wanted a picture with it and so Lindsey set it up and went to snap the photo. I picked it up and immediately my friend Rob started yelling "Katie it is foaming, Oh my gosh it is foaming." I was confused and didn't know what was going on and so I was still smiling for the photo when all of a sudden this happened.....

I was still smiling because I was unaware that it was throwing up on me. Once I realized I gently dropped the dog. Luckily for me we were right next to our favorite pizza place and the guy knows us mormons so he let me clean up there.( we showed him the picture and he got a good laugh at it) I washed my arm for a good 10 minutes. Lindsey could not have snapped this photo at a better time because I am so happy that it is throwing up on me!
This picture has made me famous here at the JC! My professors have been showing it and I am even in a piece of the talent show because of this photo. If you look close at the puppies fangs you would think it was possessed by the devil. But no worries I am ok and I don't have rabies. But every time I see this I laugh so hard and I can't get over it so I hope none of you are eating while looking at this.