En Kerem

6 of us took a bus to En Kerem, to explore some churches and a really pretty town that our teachers told us about. It was absolutely gorgeous, I loved it so much. Picture a perfect green countryside, warm weather, hills, and wildflowers.

Now, picture the spring where tradition says Mary met Elizabeth after finding out she was to become the mother of Jesus. We reenacted the event.

Sarah and I, loving life. She is seriously so much fun.

Russian Orthodox Church

We almost didn't get in the grounds, but this really, really sweet nun opened the door for us and we had the grounds to ourselves. It was a really huge complex, and we only got reprimanded by one nun, one time. And it was seriously one of the prettiest churches I've seen.

Other events from the day included a long nature hike, picnic lunch with Phantom of the Opera music and dancing by Greg and Sarah, seeing 2 other beautiful churches-for John the Baptist and Mary and Elizabeth, and almost plummeting to my death when Nathanael leaned against my railing, which was only being supported by a piece of yarn or something even thinner. But anyway, we all made it back, exhausted but loving life.
Oh, and my gorgeous roommates, who I love very, very much.

We're off to Galilee for 10 days! Yay:)

City of David

Inside Hezekiah's tunnel

"Stepped stone structure"

Dear ol' Bro Judd

I LOVE Audryn. So so so so much.

I absolutely loved our field trip to the City of David.

This was the city that David built, and is the oldest neighborhood of Jru.

During the reign of Hezeiah, he wanted to stop paying tribute to the Assyrians, and so prior to doing that, he prepared his city by building a different tunnel to protect their water supply. So that's what we walked through. It was a rainy day, so the water level was higher, but it was so much fun. Singing our way through, I loved it.

The stepped stone structure (millo) was built to hold up David's temple and the building projects on top of the mountain. Another wall there dates back to Melchezidek's day. Neat, eh?

Windy City

We braved the wind last week and a little bit of bad weather, and had such a fun time! We explored West J, and Mishkenot Sheananim, the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City in 1860. The windmill didn't spin...can't imagine what it takes to get that thing moving, because it was blowing hard, but that's besides the point.

We found some really fun parks, a really nice bathroom, and made a wish for Jru :)

Friends Can Be So Nice!

My cool cool cool friend and roomie and role model and everything I have yet to become...Kaitlin O' wrote the nicest blog post, dedicated to moi, and I honestly think it's the nicest thing ever. For reals, I was so excited when I found out. And I want to show my mom that I've made friends here, so,

Here's the link :)

http://kissmekaitlin.blogspot.com/2011/02/friend-focus-jessica-madson.html

Thank you Kate, from the bottom of my heart! I love that girl so much.

Also, if I ever get behind on my blogging, or you just want to see something that's actually cute, check hers out.

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