Just call me a runner

So every year Jerusalem has a marathon and I signed up to run the 10k! This is a big deal for me considering I RARELY run. Basically like never. But I figured I'm only in Jerusalem once and It would be a cool experience, even though I hate running.

But I had such a great time! The weather was very moody, it would be raining one second, then it hailed and at one point it was sunny. So it was quite the running experience. It wasn't too bad running wise, I felt good most of the run until the like the last half mile, I felt like I was going to die but I had to push through it (once I got to the finish line I seriously thought I was going to collapse)! Out of the whole thing I probably walked about a mile. Me and Jen, my running buddy, decided we would walk to hills, and there were quite a few.

Muddy shoes BEFORE the run, so just imagine what they were after the run.

A group of us all ready to runble!

Jen and I in the middle of the rain. This is as the hail was pelting us.

Me, Jen, and Hannah after we finished!

After the race showing off our medals!

So although I am horribly sore and can barely walk (thanks to Shealeigh and Ethan for gladly carrying me down the stairs when I am unable) I am so proud of myself! I am especially glad to have a picture of me with a medal and a running number. I can now officially say that I have ran in an official race!

For unto us a child is born

This last Monday for our field trip we went to Bethlehem! Bethlehem isn't too far from Jerusalem but since it's in the West Bank we can't go there unless it is for a field trip. 

Our day started out with us going to the Herodian (King Herod's Palace) and looking around there. It's so interesting to correlate all these things together, seeing where Herod was living during his kingship when Christ was born. It gives you more of a visual and understanding.  

Me and Shealeigh in the Herodian

An overlook of the whole palace.

After that we then went to Manger Square and visited the Church of the Nativity, where most Christians believe is the place of the stable where Jesus was born. It was a very pretty church that is highly decorated. They have tons of lights and candles here where things/places they consider holy are. It's a form of worship and honoring.

Me in the place where Jesus was "born"

Waiting in line to see the birthplace. It was very crowded.

After the Church of the Nativity we went to lunch and ate tons of food. We then headed over to the shepherds field had a nice devotional and then sang a bunch of Christmas hymns (made me miss Christmas). It is always so great to sing at all these places and bring the spirit.

 

 

Me and Shealeigh in the shepherds field.

I am so grateful for the birth of the Savior and what he did for all of us. I would be no where if it weren't for his atonement and love. I am grateful to be here in Jerusalem and to experience all these great experiences and learn more of the Bible and my Savior. It is truly amazing to be able to see first hand the places where the Savior has walked and where events in the Bible have taken place.

Home Sweet Home

Wow, could I possibly be making two posts in one day?!

My dear friend Vladi did a blog post on pictures of the Jerusalem Center, which has been our home for over 2 months. If you are interested at looking at it and seeing the beautiful center that we all live in have a look!

Click here for the link

Finals

I hate finals. So much. 

But I have to admit that the week before we went to Turkey was probably the funnest week of finals I've ever experienced. 

First off living with all the fun people here is a constant party. And let me tell ya, we have quite the parties here. So on leap year we celebrated with an ipod dance party. For those of you who don't know what that is (I didn't know what it was either until I got here) it's when someone makes a fun mix of songs and then everyone else downloads it, puts it on their ipod and we all meet at a designated spot at a designated time and play the mix at the same time all dance. Ashley was nice enough to coordinate this for everyone and oh my gosh it was so fun! I'm sure we all looked so funny a big group of us dancing when no one could hear music. We started in the lounge then migrated all over the JC to places such as the library, outside, etc. It was pretty crazy and so much fun. 

Following the ipod dance party then was a steamroller extravaganza at 12am. We all met and steamrolled like crazy. This is the best thing ever for me since at home I always try to initiate a good round of steamroller and everyone usually shuts me down telling me no one likes steamroller. NOT TRUE. We all love it here! This picture should be enough proof. 

Getting ready..

Me having a go and loving every second of it.

 And last but not least on Friday... IT SNOWED!! I'm not sure when the last time it snowed here but I do know it has been a LONG time. We got a break during class to run out and enjoy the coldness. I'll admit as much as I hate snow, I actually enjoyed this snow, especially since it only last a couple hours and was sunny later that day.

Shealeigh looks a little suspicious with that snowball in her hand..

Just soaking up the snow!

Pretty cool to look out into the city and see the Dome of the Rock with snow on it.

I know I need to be better at blogging but life is just going at full speed here! I still plan on posting about Turkey, but am too lazy to go to my room and get my journal with all the info written in it. Lazy, I know.  I will soon though. 

We leave for Galilee this upcoming week! According to the teachers this is probably the best part of our whole experience here so I can't help but be excited. I'll be there for about 11 days, which will be busy busy days! Can't wait. The only bad thing to this is that as time goes by here that means we are coming closer to the end of our time here. What the? How did this all go by so fast?!

Turkey Preview

Let me just say..

I LOVE TURKEY!

(no, not the meat. Although I do love that as well)

I don't have time right now to post all the important pics so I thought I would post some fun ones just to show the fun time we all had!

So here is a little preview of our amazing trip.

A nice treat in the Tel Aviv airport. That is some great hair, if you ask me.

Trying to spell out TURKEY in Istanbul.. not sure if it is too legible though.

Me and Vladi showin off our riches, well MY riches. 50 lira, baby! Which actually isn't that much.

Just enjoying the view of the Blue Mosque.

Kyle and I having a romantic moment in front of the Blue Mosque (which by the way is beautiful)

Ethan and his Harem.

The majority of our time was spent riding in the bus so me and Boone found a secret room under the bus. This moment only lasted about 5 minutes though due to the horrifying smell of feet.

We were lucky to have a bonfire and dance party on the beach at our hotel in Selchuk. SO MUCH FUN! This is Shealeigh, Dan and I "dancing in the moonlight"

Nice awkward posing in Pergamon. Pillar pics are very common here so you gotta switch up the posing.

Jumping pic on the beach at our 3rd hotel (we stayed at 4 different hotels in a matter of a week) in Surmeli Efes, which is near Ephesus.

How come I never see these hairties in America? They are so hot.

The shop man let me try on his cool boots, even if I didn't buy them. Sweet sweet man.

So much confusion when I saw this man. Multiple hats on his head and creepy dolls. That's the way to go.

Funny hats in the Grand Bazaar.

Shealeigh and I just doing some good ol' airplane on the beach at our 2nd hotel in Selchuk (Obviously I could be spelling theat horribly wrong.. that Turkish language is confusing).

Showing off my flexibility (or lack of, it was very painful) in Assos.

At one of our hotels they had a disco club.. We went... "hey, you come here often?"

Jen and I with some Turkish Delight!

I will update on all the details later but for now I hope you enjoy these "fun" pictures. I finally got my camera back so I was lucky enough to take most of these with my own camera! :) Turkey was great and I am so glad that I am blessed with this opportunity to be here and to do all these wonderful things and to be learning new things every day! So grateful. 

P.s. A shout out to my niece, Alyssa, It is her 8th birthday today! I can't believe she is already 8 years old! What a fun, exciting, and joyful girl she is and I love her very much!

PJ's on Christmas Eve! Glad I have this girl to use as an excuse to still act like a child. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALYSSA!

Lazy Me

Ok ok I know it has been quite some time since I've blogged and I am WAY behind. I always say that though, don't I? Things here have been pretty busy (I always say that too, huh?) and this week we are currently going through finals. It sucks. You all know how finals can be... STRESSFUL! Especially here cause the last thing you want to do is homework and studying so you put it off until you HAVE to do it. I'll stop talking about the depressing news (disclaimer: school really isn't that bad and I am almost done with all my finals!:)), we leave for Turkey this upcoming Sunday! You could say that it is something that everyone is definitely looking forward to including myself. It should be quite the treat! I'm planning on eating lots of turkey and gravy while I'm there. Ok wow dumb joke.

Anyways so there is wayyy too much to write down but like they always say, a picture is worth a thousand words! So here are about 164,487 words (If that statement is true). Yay for picture overload!

Ethan and I worshiping at the Church of all nations

Girls at the Orson Hyde Garden

Dan and I at the Valentines dance we had. It got so crazy that I made it out with a cut on my face, which could possibly have been my doing.

My birthday dinner! We had some good Italian food.

Vladi, Me and Kyle at the Church of Mary Magdalene

Now that I'm 21 this picture is totally appropriate.

Boone in front of the Korean language, his native tongue. It's pretty obvious he is Korean, right?  This is at a church that has the Lords Prayer in almost every language.

At the Seder dinner enjoying a great passover!

Me in front of the YMCA. Our old branch president would play the carillon bells here.

Watching a super cool 3D movie at the City of David. Ok, it wasn't that cool. Pretty cheesy if you ask me. I don't know what the deal is with all these 3D movies lately.

Shealeigh and I in Hezekiah's tunnel!

The water goes up pretty high..

After math of the tunnel!

At the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed the blind man. What a special place it was.

Jen, Boone, Jarom and I in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Just enjoying some falafel in the old city!

Me in the Dormition Abby, believed to be the place of the last supper and where Mary's tomb is (of course none of this stuff is complete fact).

Man writing the Torah in Neot Kedumim

Sheep herding at Neot Kedumim! It's a lot harden than it looks. At least it was for my group. Or maybe the sheep just hate me.

Making pita!

Just hanging out with the soldiers.

Not sure if I was actually allowed to light this candle...

In front of the Great Synagogue!

Most of these pictures are stolen from my friends here considering I broke my camera about 3 weeks ago. I’ve been cameraless since and have been making my friends take pictures of me everywhere we go, they’re not complaining though since it gives them an excuse to have a plethora of pictures of me without being creepy. Great place to break a camera though! Anyways I should get my camera back fixed soon enough (hopefully before Turkey).

For our field trip last week (we didn’t have one this week cause of finals) we went to the holocaust museum.  I don’t have any pictures but you can imagine what it was like. It hit me harder going here being around all the people that it affected. There were tons of Israeli soldiers there and it’s interesting to think what their thoughts are on it, seeing that it is a tragedy that their ancestors had to go through. One of the videos in the museum was of a holocaust survivor talking about being stripped down to nothing and then the Nazis taking them and shooting them dead. She then said that she was 7 years old when that happened. That broke my heart thinking about children going through such a tragic experience, my niece is 7 years old and imagining anything slightly close to that happening to here makes me sick. My eyes were definitely opened and I hope that something like that never happens again.

Recently we also went to the separation wall, which separates the Israelis from the Palestinians. That was pretty interesting to see. It is so crazy to me how two sets of people can live in the same city but separate themselves so much from each other. It’s a conflict that has been going on for quite some time now.

Well that is pretty much it for now! Wish me luck on finals this week and hopefully you’ll hear from me soon after Turkey!