I Hear Jerusalem Bells Ringing :)

September 5th - 11th

Wow! What a week! It all started off last Monday, our field trip day. We were taken to a lot of sights that overlook Jerusalem, Augusta Victory Church, Bethlehem overlook where the shepherds may have been when the angel came to tell them of Baby Jesus, and Samuel's Well where we overlooked a lot of the land where there were many battles. Gorgeous views and so fun to hear the stories of where things happened WHILE being in the same spot where it possibly happened. We all sang Christmas songs looking over Bethlehem which was really special singing about the fields and actually looking at them right then. We also were singing about cold winter nights while sweating, so that was fun haha. I love field trip days!

This week classes were difficult. There's a lot of reading for all of the classes that makes it so hard. They are crunching so much curriculum in such little time. We have a chapter or two of reading for each class each night. It is a ton. We had Hebrew for the first time this week! Kelsie and I actually really enjoy that class. The teacher is so cute and she makes learning Hebrew so fun! Plus she believes in learning through music, so EVEN BETTER! I love it :) totally the way I like to learn everything. So overall, classes are fun yet difficult. It'll be worth it though. It makes it better that we only have classes 3 or 4 days a week and travel and explore the other days :) Especially the Old Testament class because we get to go see all the places we learn about! This week we also had auditions for the Talent Show, and I'm on the Talent Show committee I got to be in to see everyone's audition. It's gonna be a great show! Plus I am actually in 3 numbers...haha don't worry I'm not the only one in multiple numbers. I am singing a solo, a duet with Kelsie, and a group number with my friends! I'm super excited! There is some awesome talent here in Jerusalem. Brooke and I decided to do the talent show 30 minutes before auditions, and so we grabbed a girl who we knew could play the piano and asked her to accompany us, and she learned the music right then and rocked it! Seriously everyone here is so musically talented.

Today was one of the best days this week. We started off with a group of us that went to Hebrew University and looked around the gardens on their campus. Super pretty! Then we took a taxi to the YMCA in West Jerusalem to play carillon bells in the tower. It was so freaking cool! We started off playing the typical bell tower song at the top of the tower and chimed the bell 11 times for 11am, and then all throughout the hour, we all got to take pieces of music and play them on the bells throughout the city. Each time, one person would play the right hand, and the other would play the left since they are handles and you can't really play by yourself. It would be way too hard unless you've had a lot of practice. Kelsie and I played Amazing Grace! Sadly we were one of the first one's to play so we forgot to take a video and picture on our own phones :( but at least our teacher, Sis Holyoak who runs everything music related at the JC, took a picture of us. But I also got to play "I am a Child of God" with my friend Sam. It was so fun! Such a cool experience! Literally hearing "Jerusalem bells ringing". (Coldplay reference for those of you who might not know) Super awesome :)

If you want to see a video of me playing, look on Facebook :)

After that we all headed over to the Biblical Zoo to spend the rest of our afternoon. It was so cool! I was really impressed! They even had a giant ark representing Noah's ark in the middle of the giraffe, zebra, rhino, and hippo exhibit. Everything was mostly in Arabic and Hebrew so we couldn't read much about each animal, but it was still really fun. It was really far from the center so we too a taxi, and surprisingly they had a taxi that was able to hold all 19 of us that went! Crazy!!! So much fun with awesome people :) The Jerusalem Center has connections and we get taxis for ten shekels a person no matter how long you ride for which is only about $2.25. So we usually take them when we are going to be riding for about 30 minutes. So $2.25 for a 30 minute ride is so cheap!