Valentine's Day

On Valentine's Day we celebrated love by going on a suhweeet field trip to a Biblical nature reserve called Neot Kedumim. One of my favorite field trips so far!

It was absolutely beautiful there. Once again, I feel so blessed to be here during the winter! When it's perfect weather here, and I'm missing the not-so-perfect weather of Utah. It was so cool because the people in the Bible are so connected to the land, and so it was interesting to see the agriculture of the area and how it all fits in with the Bible.

We ground hyssop into a spice for us to put on our homemade pitas, which we made later.
But in between the pita making and that, we herded some sheep.
Seriously, hilarious. We had so much fun trying to get them to listen to us, and just being surrounded by goats and sheep. But we also learned some really cool stuff about shepherding, and I loved it.

The pitas were sooooo good. We put our 'zatar' on them, plus date honey, and wow, so good.

I love these girls!

The day culminated in a dance to end all dances. Seriously, probably the best dance of my life. Something about a 90 degree gym with lots of really cool people that I like. And them playing Jessie's Girl. Mmhmm.

Night Out

CAT LADY
I know the picture is bad, but it's the best I could do under the rushed/secret circumstances.

I went with Martin, Brittnie, and Addie to West J last week.
We had homework to do, and sleep that was needed, but we just decided, why not?

So we had a hilarious taxi ride, where we asked the cab driver who the baby in the picture was that was hanging from his (massive) rearview mirror. He had no idea. We wandered around, bought ice cream, perused a used book store, listened to street performers, and happened upon a cat lady!
Seriously, she was in this alley/courtyard area, and was surrounded by cats! We were fascinated. Most especially by a massive gorilla-like cat in the middle. It had a collar, so we figured, somebody is feeding that thing besides her. Fun :)

CATS

Land of David and Goliath

Slingin' some stones

A few Monday's ago we went on a sweet field trip. We went to some of the valleys and sites around Jerusalem. Our first stop was Gath; Goliath's (of David fame) hometown. It was so pretty! So green, and it was such a beautiful day. Our teacher, Bro Chadwick, excavates there--so he told us so much about pottery sherds and walls and...other ancient stuff. But he knows so much! It's crazy.
We did other cool things throughout the day too.
We went to an ancient tomb, the Bell Caves, where we sang hymns and were silent after and they rang for a few seconds, it was so pretty.

We went to Elah, where the big battle of David and Goliath took place. Slung some stones, traipsed through the mud, it was great.

It is seriously so much fun going to all the places full of Biblical history!

Bell Caves

In the tomb...

Gath

Ramesseum

Pit Tomb 33. Where the Book of Abraham papyrus was found.

Temple of Hatsephsut. I know I would have liked this woman. She reigned for about 20 years as a woman-king in Egypt, because the people wouldn't have accepted her as a woman. Work it girl.

Stepped Pyramid in Memphis

The Temple of Rameses was built by Rameses II, his temple for the afterworld. He's the most-likely Pharaoh of the Exodus, and I know most things about him through his role in The Prince of Egypt.

Mount Sinai

Our adventure up Sinai started at 2:30 am. It was so pretty outside. I made the hike with three three cool girls. It was freezing, since it was January, but once we started hiking it warmed up, and the stars were absolutely gorgeous.

Donovan, Sarah, Audryn, Laurel, and me

The top was freeeezing! It was so windy! We huddled. But the view was phenomenal. Just looking at the tops of so many mountains, and the sun peeking over the edge. Plus, Audryn shared her hand warmers.

Camels took people up, so we had to be careful where we stepped along the way. But, we passed a camel making some kind of early morning gargling noise that I will never forget.On the way down some of us took hundreds of stone steps that were put down by monks.
So pretty.

Shacks we passed along the way. People just live on the mountain. Actually, it was kinda creepy to just pass men along the way, watching us hike. I can't imagine a more windy and lonely life. But it'd be gorgeous, so maybe that's why they do it.Ahem, excuse the random Pharaoh.

Lindsay, Sara, me, Chels, Audryn

One of my favorite things about being here is all the cool stuff I'm learning from the Old Testament. We had a great testimony meeting on the top of Sinai, and our teacher, Bro Judd shared a few things about significant events that happened on Sinai, namely that God appeared to both Elijah and Moses on it. It was such an amazing place to be.