The Past Bit

Okay so I know I haven't written for a while so here goes a quick overview- i will skip egypt for now and come back to it later.. right now we are going to focus on my amazing past 3 days :)

Friday:

Okay so Friday happened. And it was great. Friday is the day before Shabbat or the sabbath, which means you need challah bread, or sabbath bread. So we went to west Jerusalem after we finished our service project at the center. There was a small group of us that tried to get over there before things closed for shabbat. We got amazing bread, smoothie type things, and then walked around for a bit. Overall it was a great few hours. After I upload photos to my computer tonight I will have to add some, because it was so great. We then just walked around the Old City and talked to some shop keepers but mostly just bought gummy candies, the candy i live off of here. haha When we were back right out side the gates of the center were a handful of Palestinian boys dancing. It was kinda folk dancing and stepping together. We danced with them for about 40 minutes til we were so hungry we had to leave them. They were teaching us dances and stuff. it was tight. Then the best part of the day happened.. LOST... after this I will make a whole post about that. :)

Saturday:

Fast Shabbat. And it is a forced fast here whereas the cafeteria doesn't serve lunch or dinner. killer. But it was a really good meeting and relief society also was very good. Right when church got out and our home teachers left we went to the Garden of Gethsemane. The easiest path to Gethsemane is through Orson Hyde Garden. It is a really pretty place, but it is really secluded. My roommate and a few other people got mugged there about a week and a half ago. So it has been off limits, but we got to go yesterday and they had our sweet security guys stationed the whole way through it was awesome! Gethsemane is always a great experience. We stayed for probably a little over an hour and just wrote in my journal and read. I love being there, it has such a great spirit about it.

A few days ago my friends and I met a family that 3 of my friends had met before. We hung out with the family and talked to them for a couple hours and they invited us to their cousins wedding. We are not allowed in East Jerusalem past sundown but we tried anyway to get permission and they turned us down. But a few of our other friends went and met them too and got invited and so finally we got clearance. I went to a Muslim marriage ceremony!!!! It was so much fun! We were the only non-Muslims but it was so much fun. The girls were in one room and the boys in another. They all loved us. The kids were playing with us the whole time and we were up dancing also. It was such an amazing experience.

Sunday (today):

Sunday here is like saturday, weird I know. A group of 8 of us woke up and left the center at 6 in the morning and went to mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It was a cool experience. Then we looked through the church for a few hours and felt where the cross aparently was in the stone and saw th slab of stone Christ has been said to have been laid on. After that we went to West Jerusalem to the outdoor mall and had crepes for breakfast where I made friends with Aladdin who works there, it was alot of fun. Then we went to a very Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and went inside an Ethiopian church. Then we went to the YMCA bell tower and were able to play the bells. I played "Nearer My God to Thee" so the whole city of Jerusalem could here it was awesome! Then we went to King David's Hotel, which if i ever come back here I will stay there, its awesome! Then we went to East Jerusalem to exchange money with Aladdin Jr, my favorite person, and then to Omars to look at olive wood. It has been a long day and now I have a lot of homework before dinner in two hours plus I am dead. But being here is great and I love every second of it. Its starting to go by fast and I am just kinda freaking out. haha