Israeli Cultural Center

Today we went to the Israeli Cultural Center :). Just kidding, but Thomas joked that it was kind of like the Polynesian Cultural Center. We herded sheep and ground up Hyssop. I learned a lot about different kinds of plants mentioned in the Bible. They had many different varieties of little grass huts. I forget what they were called. I got to wear the breastplate while someone read the Torah. I don't know exactly what the point of the breastplate was, but it was very heavy. It reminded me of holding the shield at youth conference when I was a kid.

Some of the plants had very typological meaning that I did not know about. For instance, Abraham, David, and Christ all tasted Hyssop at significant moments. It symbolizes humility because it is a very small plant (like a weed) here in the holy land. I have some now. It tastes all right. We also talked about how almonds symbolize determination. I learned what a cistern does and that many of the romantic stories in the old testament occur at wells in ancient Israel. I think herding the sheep was my favorite part though.

I fell asleep during the bus ride home. I have a bunch of homework due tomorrow, so I will get started on that now.

Love,

Scott

Turkey!

Little did I know that Turkey has a lot to offer. Istanbul, previously Constantinople, housed the largest Christian empire in history for 1,000 years. Until St. Peter's Basillica, Haghia Sofia in Istanbul was the largest church in the world. It made me think a lot about the apostasy. These people had the idea of temple building, they even had large marble jars filled with olive oil, but they didn't know what to do with them. The blue mosque sits across the street from Haghia Sofia and rivals it in size (although it is smaller).We also went to the largest Mosque in Turkey later in the week in Bursa. The blue mosque has much more ornate decorations than the blue mosque. I didn't capitalize it because they actually call the blue mosque something else as the official title, but people call it the blue mosque because of the blue decorations inside.

We walked around the streets of Istanbul our second night there. I had "the best baclava in the world" and ice cream and turkish delight. Turkish delight tastes like the inside of a jelly bean covered in powdered sugar. It tastes great, but if I were Edmund, I would betray my siblings for a box of See's instead.

We went on quite a long tour of Turkey over 7 days. We visited Troy, Ephesus, Miletus, Assos, Nicea, Bursa, and other places. I enjoyed walking where Paul and John the apostles walked and reading about there journeys in the lands we travelled through. We reenacted the seen where the silversmiths of Ephesus attempt to condemn Paul on the site where it occurred. The ampitheatre still stands. Sting actually performed there once.

Every restaurant we went to had exactly the same food. I know all the varieties and qualities of lentil soup and tasteless sausages. It actually impressed me how they managed to have the same dishes at every restaurant in Turkey. We stopped at a mall type building and I ate Burger King. I noticed that across from the Burger King they had a fast food restaurant that served lentil soup, rice, tasteless sausages, deep fried potatoes, and meatballs without sauce, just like every other place we had eaten at. One of the first nights we ate at a place across from the Bosphorous (the canal that separates the Asian and European sides of Istanbul) and had Sea Bass. A lot of people did not appreciate having their food stare at them. I love fish and I appreciated the break from lentil soup.

We stayed at the nicest hotels everywhere we went. One of the hotels had hot springs piped into a swimming pool. I love hot springs. The pool had a giant man made volcano that sprayed the hot spring water down on us. It got really hot. Some of the pools got so hot you could barely get your feet in. We went up to Pamukkale the day after. It basically served as a tourist attraction for Romans. They have beautiful white cliffs that archaelogists believe expanded under the Roman engineers. They have a series of pools that the Romans routed the hot springs into. Two little asian women asked to have me in a picture with them there. I was flattered :).

I may write more about Turkey later. Feel free to ask questions about it.

I love you all,

Scott

A Typical Day

In a typical day, I wake up late and then eat a quick breakfast. Then, I go straight to Old Testament with Brother Harper. He is a genius. Then we go to another class. We have Jewish history, Islamic history, and ancient history. I like that stuff. Later in the day we have Arabic. Usually we wait around for an hour after class, eat lunch, and then go out to the city. In the evenings we do normal things like exercise and study. The classes are pretty rigorous. I am doing pretty well in all my classes though. I love the old city. I love walking on the ancient paving stones and passing the places that Christ walked. I love seeing all the different kinds of people and getting accosted by street merchants shouting, "Mormons! Mormons! Come see my shop." Everyone knows who we are here.

Shabot Shalom

I probably spelled that wrong. It means happy sabbath in Hebrew. Today I woke up late, barely ate breakfast, went to choir and then went to church. We sang the prelude hymn. I am singing in the choir because they perform a Christmas concert at the end of the semester for the public. I am super excited for that. It is also good to sing right next to Thomas because I really have no idea what I am doing.

Then, I was sustained as a Primary teacher in sacrament meeting. I am super excited! I am teaching the 9 year old boys. It was cool to talk to them about their baptism. There are two of them, but usually we have three. It was so nice to not have to go to Sunday School or Elder's Quorum. They had the chastity lesson. We ate candy and cookies and sang, "Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam." One of the boys is a little genius. He played the piano by ear for an opening hymn. The other kid, Ivan, has a lot to say. He has very interesting nightmares and enjoys telling stories. We have heard that the boy that didn't come this week is a handful. We heard it from the Primary President, and the other boys. Luckily, we have two teachers and two kids to work with. I figure one of us can pin him down while the other teaches. Just kidding. But seriously. But just kidding.

After church, we went to the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden and the Garden of Gethsemane. The Orson Hyde Memorial is a rock with some writing on it in a garden. It took Orson Hyde a year and a half to get to Israel and he almost starved to death. He got here and dedicated the land for the return of the Jews. Now, they are there. Some people aren't so happy about it, but I don't think they are going anywhere until Christ comes.

The Garden of Gethsemane is probably my most spiritual place in the holy land. It is quiet and peaceful. You can walk through the trees and read the account of Christ's suffering there. There are two gardens. One you can walk through and a lot of Mormon prophets have felt the spirit there. The other one is the traditional site. There is a tree in the traditional site that dates back more than 2,000 years. Christ suffered somewhere at the base of the mount of olives and that tree was just beginning to grow when it happened. It is cool to think about.

We changed money after going to Gethsemane. Aladin, the money changer, asked us if we were Jack Mormons. I felt a bit guilty after that. We are leaving for Turkey tomorrow. We should have done it earlier, but it closed earlier than we thought it would on Friday (for the sabbath).

I ate four ice cream bowls at dinner tonight. They don't serve lunch on the sabbath. I love the ice cream here. They have pistachio flavor with pistachios in the ice cream. I am a huge fan. The meals here are incredibly well prepared. We have a bunch of options every day. Today, I had fish and chicken over some kind of grain with potatoes.

I love everything about this place. I didn't imagine anything like this experience. Everyone should go.

Schindler, Ramparts, and Trees

Today we went to see Schindler's grave. He saved about 1900 Jews lives during WW2. I didn't know the story, but it was amazing. It is cool that one man could make so large a difference. At the same time, one man also led to the death of almost 6 million Jews. We also walked around the city on the ramparts. We saw a big contrast between East and West Jerusalem. I am learning about Islam and it is very interesting. It is interesting to me how little we talk about it in the church. I believe the church wants to hold off until we can go into those countries legally.

 

Yesterday, I didn't get to go out into the city. I am still feeling sick and I took a long nap. They also schedule our day in a way that makes it difficult to go out sometimes. We don't have public transportation, so it is hard. Anyways, I played basketball last night and I have a giant blister. I put a bandaid on it, but it is still uncomfortable.

 

Also, I ran into a tree today. I was walking and watching someone else talk. It had a metal grate around it and I hit the tree with my whole body. It scratched up my hands pretty good. I took a picture. My right ring finger still hurts. My face is okay though.

Wandering Through Jerusalem

I am getting a little bit better. I forgot to finish this email earlier. I am back. Today is Sunday. I am wearing a suit, which (this is when my computer died).

 

The suit was a bad idea.

 

Today I walked all over Jerusalem. Some people went to Tel Aviv today. Apparently, they have an amazing beach there with water at the perfect temperature. I am glad I went to the old city though. I haven't really had the chance. We went to the Dome of the Rock (outside), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (where Christ was crucified), the ramparts (the walls), and all over East Jerusalem (the moslem side). We had a blast. I didn't plan on buying a chess set, but I did for 80 shekels. It is about 3.5 to 1, so about 25 dollars. It is made out of olive wood and it is magnetic. I decided that is what I wanted already and then this guy offered it for that price. I had already turned someone down for 180 shekels, so I was surprised to find it that cheap.

 

I had a blast today and now I am exhausted. I had a hazelnut kit kat bar, which was amazing. I also had a Falafel. It was okay. And we had Baclava. They said it more like Bakklawa. It was delicious. I also had this cheese kind. I love eating in the city. It was good to hang out with Thomas all day. We had a blast.

Jericho

Today, we went to Jericho. We saw the place Jesus wandered for 40 days and 40 nights, where the walls fell down, and where the first city ever built stood (the oldest one they have found anyway). There is a tower there that dates back to 8000 BC. We also saw Herod's winter palace where he died. He had all kinds of illnesses including worms in his testacles. That was my personal favorite, but there were a lot of bad things that happened to Herod before he died. He killed a lot of people.

It is incredibly hot in Jericho, which explains why Herod made a winter palace there. We all sweated a lot and wanted to stay in the bus. We did hike around quite a bit. There was a cool monastery on the side of a cliff. St. George's Monastery. It had lots of cute blue roofs. We also aggravated a merchant when we didn't buy anything from him. We were a bit confused by his anger.

 

As we were driving past the incredibly hot Judean wilderness today, we saw some boys playing soccer. My buddy Jeff said, "Look at those brave, brave children." The poor goalie was sitting down looking miserable in the heat. I thought he would sink into the ground. I am grateful to live in an air conditioned building.

The Arrival

I got in to Jerusalem late last night. We flew through Athens and Istanbul into Tel Aviv. It is beautiful here. Surprisingly, it feels a lot like everywhere else. The weather is amazing. It has made me realize more fully that the people in the old and new testament are just people like us. The conflict today is very much like the conflict then. The religions have changed. I love the churches. Previously, I was always a little disappointed that all of these great sights have churches built on top of them. We sung in the Augusta something or other today and the acoustics blew me away. I love looking out at the old city from my room. I am looking at it right now.

A Return to Academia

I am in Jerusalem. I like it a lot. It has given me an opportunity to return to academics. I feel like a scholar again. We study everything theoretically and analytically. Business classes all apply very closely to the real world. I like studying for the sake of learning new things. It feels very old-fashioned.

 

I am still not really over my jet lag. To compound the issue, I woke up with a sore throat this morning. I feel sick. I took some Mucinex, but it still bothers me. I might take a nap even though it may destroy my sleep cycle that I have worked so hard to create.

 

Yesterday, we went to Hebrew University. We had a student come and talk to a group of us. He wanted to spend time with American girls. We told him that there was no way to contact us and he was disappointed. I felt a bit bad for him. He seemed nice and hopeful. We are not supposed to tell people anything pretty much and I forgot what I was supposed to say. We didn't tell him anything he could use to find us, but it reminded me to be more careful.

 

I love looking out the window and seeing the wonderful view every day. We can see the place where Christ ascended into heaven, where he was crucified, and where he was buried from our bedroom window. It is amazing. I love walking the streets and hearing about the politics. I love politics. Yesterday we had a forum where an Israeli foreign affairs spokesperson came and spoke to us. He had a lot of good points. I love talking to people from both sides. I am constantly shocked by how one-sided people are. Mormons can be so stubborn. There is nothing about being Pro-Israeli in Mormon doctrine, but somehow people seem to be stuck on the idea. That is not to say that I am Pro-Palestinian. I am fascinated by both sides and I think it will take time and leadership and creativity for a proper solution. It is also interesting to meet the people involved in this conflict. They are very different peoples. There is a lot of diversity within each group. It is obvious to me that one of the purposes of this center is to educate students on both sides of the conflict. Unlike a mission, where we are removed from politics, I believe this experience highlights and celebrates informing the participants in political ideas and opinions.