Hello Family and dear friends! All right, well first things first. As many of you know, (due to my many phone calls that I made last night), I made it safely to the Jerusalem Center :D! It was a hectic and crazy few days, but we're finally all here and all settled. The flights were long, and I didn't sleep for more than an hour (total, usually sleep was in 10 minute increments). Customs was a HUGE horrible line, where I finally realized I was not in the states anymore... (this was made easy by the fact that all the signs were first in Hebrew, then Arabic, and THEN English). Another shocking wake up call for me was the much much much smaller idea of 'personal space' that Europeans have... haha. Usually people space themselves fairly distantly from each other in lines, but in customs, the man and his family behind me were honestly about 2 centimeters away the whole time. Don't worry everyone, i was careful and very aware of the possibility of pickpockets and kept my backpack on the floor in front of me. That still didn't stop the overpowering feeling of personal space bubble being squished quite harshly... haha Let's just say some fruity-smelling chapstick would've come in handy... :).
Anyways, I can't tell you how absolutely amazing and relieving it was to get out of the airport and see Brother and Sister Huntington there waiting for us (He is the 'doctor' and does basically everything). They are both absolutely incredible, wonderful people and I love them with my whole heart already. We were all completely exhausted and felt relatively disgusting after wearing the same clothes after who-knows-how-long, and several girls along with myself got relatively sick on the airplanes. I don't think it was motion sickness... i just kind of felt like all the air in my stomach behaved as did the air in my water bottle... you know how it gets all contorted after going up in the air and landing again? Anyway, I felt seriously bloated and gross (thank GOODNESS mom told me to pack my toothbrush/toothpaste, deodorant and a change of underwear in my carry-on! Thank you mom! you're the best!) I would've been so horribly disgusting (even moreso than I was). Anyways, we had fun even though we were all gross and tired and stuff.
I AM ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH JERUSALEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! basically, i would live here forever if I could. I've only been here for less than a day and already I love it here so much, with my WHOLE heart, the thought of leaving makes me cringe and cry inside. (Not that I don't miss you all so much). You should all just come over here and live with me! Everything is amazing here! This is by far THE most amazing and wonderful and exciting and terribly perfect thing for me that i've ever experienced in my life. I don't think i've ever been so happy to be in a place, or felt more like i belonged somewhere. Ever. I feel like I am home. No joke. I was a little bit worried that I might experience some homesickness, but as I went to sleep last night, i was so unbelievably happy and everything felt so natural and comfortable and I kept thinking 'I never want to leave!'. I heard the 'Call to prayer' last night about an hour before I went to bed, it was SO amazing, tears were coming to my eyes and i didn't know what to do I was so happy! Luckily, I was able to quench my tears for the time, so that the other students didn't think I was overly emotional... even if that may actually be the case. I was awakened by it again in the middle of the night, about 3 or 4, i don't remember, but it was very cool. I'm excited to go to my class taught by my Palestinian Muslim teacher so I can ask him if they wake up at that time to pray. The call to prayer is so beautiful, everyone! It's WAY prettier than the one I have on my blog... that one is crap compared to the one they play here.
The Center!!!!!!!!! When we made it to the center, ... let me see... myemotions were... completely overwhelmed? Incredibly peaceful,ridiculously giddy, and exhausted to the max. The center is the mostbeautiful building i've ever seen in my life, although the temple wouldprobably beat it, but right now since I live here I'm completelybiased. When I first got here, i was again overwhelmed. Gorgeous. Everything is... well... perfect. The architecture is absolutely astounding, I can't wait to show you all pictures of it when i come home. It really is absolutely gorgeous though. All the buildings inJerusalem seem to be made of white stone, making the city look VERYclean, much cleaner than any major cities in the U.S. Plus it's extracute cause they all match the hills with the white limestone. There are a lot of pine trees here. It looks a lot like Utah, except take every scrub oak and put a 3 foot diameter around it and make it a pine tree, and make the ground rocky white and brown dirt. There are lots of orchards too, especially olive orchards. It's so neat. I haven't been down to the old city yet, but we are going to take a field trip down there tomorrow (even though it's Shabbat)... (Shabbat=sabbath and it's on Saturday here). We're going to get a fallafel! (i have no idea how to spell that and Brother Draper kindly went into great detail and spent about 10 minutes trying to explain it to me, haha).
Speaking of Brother Draper, i should get to that. He is my Religion teacher (for Old and New Testament) and therefore also my field trip guide. There are 40 of us in his class, 13 of which were on the plane with me. Brother Draper is Amazing! I love him so much! He is so animated and talks with his hands a lot, and is extremely passionate, not to mention incredible at working in personal stories that just make everything he talks about have a uniquely spiritual quality to it. He's so knowledgeable about everything and so happy to be here and excited to get to know the students and willing to help us with anything at all. We went on our first field trip this morning. Breakfast was from 6:30-7:30 (believe it or not, i had no problem waking up in enough time to shower and eat breakfast). The food here is good, but i'll get back to that tangent later. We then waited for the buses, which didn't show up for the very first time since the Center first opened, so we went to our classrooms for a while and talked a bit about the sites we were going to see. The buses finally came and so we piled on, 40 of us with Draper on one bus, and 40 of us with Ostler on the other bus. We went to many many beautiful sites, and learned a lot of stuff which i have to now go re-learn because my head is completely stuffed. I was mostly amazed at... well.. ok, you know how the bible talks about all these stories? Apparently like 70% of them happened within like a 15 mile radius of where I am sitting at this very moment. It's CRAZY. I had no idea that Mt. Moriah was where Isaac was supposed to be sacrificed AND so close to the garden tomb! Everything happened RIGHT HERE. Literally. It's insane, but very cool.
I'm uploading one picture (i think we're allowed to do one or two in an email) of me being kissed by a camel near a huge Jewish grave site, I think on ... I can't remember which mountain. but very near the Mt. of Olives and Mt. Scopus. We also got to sing at a beautiful (Lutheran?) cathedral/hospital... it at least had 1 lutheran missionary... and it was 223 steps to the top of the bell tower. About 20 of us were singing, A cappella, and we sang a bunch of songs... like the Spirit of God, A poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, Be Still My Soul, I Believe in Christ, and lastly, Praise to the Man, in honor of Joseph Smith's martyrdom (of which today is the anniversary. It sounded Amazing. i think maybe someone might've gotten a video of it.
Anyways, it's almost dinner time and then we're having a 'getting to know you' activity, so i have to be quick about this...and then next Friday night we are all going down to the western (Wailing) wall to welcome in the Shabbat. I'm very excited. All the kids i've met are SO nice and everyone is friends with everyone else, or at least hoping/willing to be. And don't worry mom, I'm being cheerful and friendly and fun or whatever it was that you told me to do, haha. Overall this has been an absolutely incredible experience, and even if i had to come home tonight it would've been WELL worth everything I it took to get me here. I hope this wasn't too long... I miss and love you all (despite the fact that I never want to go home), but i just didn't want to leave out anything important. :) I love you! I hope you enjoy this email and the picture.
With all my love from Jerusalem, The happiest girl in the world,
Chelsey
1 comment:
Cute camel, cuter girl. :o)
xox
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