Brooke and Kelsie Take on Jerusalem: Arab and Israeli Culture!

September 25th to October 15th

Wow! What a great month! So sorry it's been awhile, but I'll try to catch everyone up on what's been happening! The main highlights for the first week after Jordan was our Arab Culture night. We took one night to all dress up like Arabs, decorate the entire Oasis (cafeteria) and eat Arab food, and then be taught how to Arab dance. It was a blast! The man Shabbon from the city who loves us Mormons has a whole collection of Arab dresses for us to borrow so that we don't have to go out and buy anything for one night. He is always so kind, and this is just one example of how he goes above and beyond to treat us Mormons so well and thanks us for the business we give him. Everyone went ALL out! The decorations were so fun and the dancing was a bit tricky, but really fun! It was a lot of fun taking an evening and fully experiencing the culture that we live in. We had a devotional where a couple men came in and sang the call to prayer to us and we were able to follow along and know what they were saying and what it meant and then they took questions for clarification. We then ate delicious Arab food and then went into the gym where a few Arab girls taught us how to do Arab dancing. The following week we dedicated to the Jewish culture by having a Passover Seder with our Israel teacher, Ophir Yarden. The Seder lasts for about 2 to 3 hours and involves a lot of musical numbers, reading through the story of exodus, speaking in Hebrew, and eating really good food! Everything in that dinner symbolizes something special in the Jewish religion. We went ALL out for that night as well. We all dressed up nice in church clothes (minus ties for the guys), the guys wore kippas, the Oasis was all decorated and completely set up with books that walk us through the Seder, and a head table where Ophir and his son joined us to walk us through the service. We all signed up to be apart of each special music number. All of the musical numbers were sung in groups and all in hebrew, except for the one that me and Kelsie signed up for with some of our closest friends here. It was the one song that was in English and could be funny. It listed the 13 important symbols of the Passover, so we made our own version of the "12 days of christmas" mixing in the Jewish traditions! It was awesome and everyone LOVED IT! If you want to see a video, go check out my Facebook page! I posted it there :)

The past few field trips the past few weeks have been a lot of fun! We explored Jericho, the Shephelah valleys, Neot Kedumim, and Yad Vashem/Mt. Herzel. Honestly for Jericho, there wasn't much to see because there isn't much left from Jericho, but we did see the oldest artifacts in the world left from the city. There are some remnants of the mud brick walls that date back to the time of Joshua. During our Shephelah field trip it was really cool! We got to see where David and Goliath battled and even got to practice throwing stones with our very own slings. It was a lot harder than it looked. We even stacked some grates on top of each other to represent our own Goliath and attempted to hit it! I failed...haha it was so hard! It was incredible to see who hard it was for us and how David was so confident he could slay Goliath he only took 5 stones and was able to sling his stone just right to kill him. It is times like this where I can see the Lord's hand in the doings of his servants. The other really cool part of that field trip was when my class and the other class were both at different cities in the valleys, Lachish and Azekah, and each had a mirror. We were able to use the sunlight to signal to each other from so far away! It was so awesome!!! We did this to show how people in different cities communicated through fire and smoke and how it is possible to communicate and send a signal from so far away. The Neot Kedumim field trip was a lot of fun as well. We were given the chance to try and herd some sheep and goats around circles and into designated areas. It was so much fun and tricky when they would be stubborn and stop at trees or bushes to eat instead of do what we wanted. Plus Kelsie was OBSESSED with the goats and wouldn't stop holding one of them. OK I LOVE GOATS. Everyone knows it too haha every time they see or hear that theres goats they always call my name and get excited with me. It was so incredible because when we were herding the goats and sheep we were able to see who hard and almost impossible it is to move a large group of them form place to place. However, people like the Lord were able to do it so easily. They are wonderful leaders and shepherds showing such love for their animals that they would "leave the 99 to go get the 1 lost one." Then later we were given ingredients to make our own pitas, lentil soup, herbal tea, and ancient popcorn (I forget what it was called) (It was fried wheat) outside! It was so cool and actually really delicious! We made all of these on a fire and only given the ingredients. They gave us date honey which the people back in the biblical times would eat to make their food sweet, and it was so delicious. All of the food was really yummy except the herbal tea. It was peppermint flavor but it tasted like Silly Putty... The Yad Vashem/Mt. Herzel field trip was lead by our Israel teacher, Ophir, and was all about the Holocaust. Mount Herzel is a cemetery for the Jews and it was amazing seeing the recently buried leader of Israel who just passed away a couple weeks ago. It was a very emotional day seeing the museum that they had and the different monuments, statues, and rooms that they had dedicated to different things that happened during the Holocaust. Outside they had an arch with rebar sticking out of the top representing the next generation of Jews that were killed and not able to rebuild their homes and families on top of that. That generation was almost completely wiped out. My favorite room was the room dedicated to the children that perished. When you walk in, all of the lights are off and the walls, ceiling, and floor were covered in mirrors with one candle lit in the middle. It made the illusion that there were hundreds of lights representing all of the children, while a woman was reading off a list of the names and ages of all the children. The other representation of this light with billions of reflections was the Abrahamic promise that his seed would be more numerous than the stars in the sky. It was extremely emotional and hard to see all the hardships that the Jews had to go through. I went through with my friend, Kaue, and at first we were wondering why the Jews would't lie and say they weren't Jews to save themselves, but then we thought about what we would do in that situation. I would never deny my faith just to save my own life, so why would we ever expect anyone else who believes in their faith the every deny it just to save themselves. I loved the screens in every room with survivors who would tell their stories. They spoke about seeing their family members die or seeing the disgustingly, horrifying things that they saw. It was so sad. One man even saw Nazi's lining up the children and babies and one by one taking them and smashing them against the wall until they died and how his parents were hiding him between them so he would have to die like that. It hit me so hard that someone could actually do that and not feel bad about it. It made me want to do everything I can to protect my children in the future from any pain that they could possibly experience. The only other fun thing we did was go around the entire center and pick all of the olives in preparation for pressing olives to make olive oil for us to take home! Sadly, a lot of the olives were dried out but it was still a really cool experience.

Jericho

This was a place where the people held doves for sacrifices and other needs

Slinging rocks at "Goliath"

Herding the flock

Kelsie REALLY loves goats!

Making pitas

Making pitas and lentil soup

The final product

Herzel's grave

This was the room of the eternal flame that is always lit in memory of the Holocaust. On the floor is all of the names of all the concentration camps.