The week I got thrown under a bus

Kicked off playing the Carillon Bells at the Jerusalem YMCA. We played songs like I am A Child of God and Christian hymns. It was a lot of fun! Kind of nerve-wracking though because if you mess up while playing the bells at a giant bell tower, all of Jerusalem will hear you. Ah well. There's a video on my instagram if you want to hear.

Then on Monday we went on an awesome field trip to Jericho!!
When the Israelites were getting close to finish their 40 year journey they were hesitant to take over Jericho because they were scared about it's intimidating walls. Then comes the story that if they circle the city and blow their trumpets the walls would come down. And they did. So often in life I perceive things that would prevent me from doing what God has told me to do. But all these little obstacles are so easy for us to overcome if we let God help us. At times the Celestial Kingdom seems like a far shot but God can get us there too. There is no flaw or weakness too big for God to help us overcome.

We also visited a spring from Elijah's time. Someone literally poisoned the water hole and Elijah asked the Lord how it could be fixed. The Lord told Elijah to put salt in the water and it would be purified. This would have seemed counter-intuitive because they tried to prevent salt from getting in the water because it would kill the crops.  But it worked and the water was purified. This is symbolic of the Atonement because Christ took something bitter ( like the salt) and made it into something sweet (pure water). It defies human understanding but the important part is that it worked. God can take the most bitter parts of our lives and turn it into something beautiful.

We also visited the Mount of Temptation were Christ was tempted and the road to Jericho where the story of the Good Samaritan took place. Seeing that place increased my amazement at Christ's resistance of temptation. It is so desolate that it would have been so easy to turn that rock into bread. And it would have been so easy to pass by a wounded man. But they did the right thing anyway.

After field trip, we got down to business for our two midterms. By the way, this picture is not staged. My friend took a picture of it and showed it to me later. We do study here.

In between studying for finals we went to the Dome of the Rock! The Dome of the Rock is built on the platform built for the Temple of Solomon. Although there's not a temple there anymore, it is easy to imagine a temple being there with Christ teaching there. The Dome of the Rock itself is built over where Christians believe Abraham tried to sacrifice Issac and Muslim believe Abraham tried to sacrifice Ishmael. The building is beautiful. An important part of Muslim art is caligraphy (Cammie would love it) so the geometric designs on the building have caligraphy inside.

Another highlight from the week was Arab culture night! Some sheiks came and taught us about the call to prayer. Most of the time the words they say are quotes from the Koran that they have put to a melody. You should youtube call to prayer. It is pretty intense! We also ate traditional Palestian food and learned Palestian dances! I have enjoyed learning more about Islam in my Palestine class. I have particularly enjoyed learning about Women and Islam since I'm into that stuff. A lot of it confirmed things I already knew through my job but I learned I was wrong about some things too. It is such an enriching experience to learn about other cultures from the people from that culture. 

These are some great people. 

WHO THREW ME UNDER THE BUS. 

Our Palestine class it taught by Dr. Bashir Bashir, a funny Palestinian intellectual man who always makes this analogy about how class is a "party" and when someone asks a particularly intriguing question it becomes a "dance". One day Dr. Bashir Bashir sat with my "friends" and I at lunch and I asked him if we were ever going to have a dance party in class. Like for reals. He said "you want to dance?" And all my friends were like "Oh, Emma LOVES to dance!", "She's real good". I tried to set the record straight that I actually have no clue what I'm doing but alas. The next class period in the middle of class he pointed at me and made me come up in front of the class and dance. There was no getting out of it. What's done was done. So might as well just be myself right? 

So there it is. My little bit of fame. After I was done he Dr. Bashir said "Thank you for your bravery and your performance". Oh man. And this video probably isn't the best quality but it exists. I wasn't filming it but got this from someone's snapchat. That's right. People snap chatted it. Again, it was fun to be famous for a few seconds. And to set the record straight, I actually do really like my friends. 

I love you guys and I hope you have an amazing week!

Totally in deNILE about this week

So we went to Egypt.

So we get to Egypt and it's 114 degrees. It was HOT. But so awesome!

One of the first things we did was see the pyramids! They are impressive. They are constructed of massive stone blocks and it is estimated that if the slaves worked 12 hours a day for the 26 years they would have had to place a block about once every two minutes. That in intense heat would have been such hard work. I definitely gained an appreciation for what the Israelites (our ancestors) went through while in bondage.

Also in Cairo we went to the Cairo museum. It was incredible to see the mummies that have been preserved for thousands of years. They even mummified their pets!

 Then we went to Luxor and visited some ancient Egyptian temples. Those were just as impressive, if not more, than the pyramids. They were huge temples built in order to worship. I cannot even express the grandeur of these temples. They are incredibly huge, old, and detailed! The Karnak temple is probably what Moses grew up with (or he grew up frequenting another similar temple). In the day pharaohs were treated like gods. This just gives more meaning to when Moses sees the glory of God and then says "Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed"(Moses 1: 10). Men can create incredible things but they are nothing compared to God's glory and what He is able to do with us.

It was also cool to familiarize myself with Egypt in order to picture better what that must have been like for the Israelites to have to leave. Everything neighboring the Nile is super green and lush but after you get out a couple of miles it is just desert wasteland. I can understand better why the Israelites would have been scared to leave and why they complained so much. It would have been terrifying to leave your nice green fertile land and venture out into what appears to be nothing. I think sometimes we aren't in the best place, but we are comfortable. And then the Lord tells us to leave what we are familiar with and we get scared. Our ancestors did it though and so can we! 

Seriously, there's nothing out there. 

Another favorite was visiting my first Mosque! They are beautiful buildings. It sure has been an enriching experience to understand Islam's history better and interesting to learn what practices are part of their religion and what is part of the culture Islam emerged from. 

We also visited the temple dedicated to Hatshepsut, the first female Pharaoh. Girl power. 

We also got around by Nile. 

And by camel. 

And we found a cool cave that inspired this cool pic. 

Also- random fun thing. We took a carriage ride and our driver was CRAZY. We were getting passed by all our classmates so I said we should go faster. And he took it to heart! Our horse, Sofia started going crazy fast. And our driver just kept turning around and saying to us "So fun!" and laughing maniacally. It was kinda creepy actually, but mostly really fun. Anyway, the horse started going so fast that is had a little accident. For one hopeful moment I thought that the horse had trampled a dirt clod and kicked it up into all our faces. That was not the case. It was poop. The horse pooped while running super hard and little flecks of it came straight at us. Nothing stuck, but I definitely washed by face after that. Moral of the story: carriage rides are fun but don't try and race. 

All in all, it was an incredible trip! I feel so grateful for the opportunity to visit and feel appreciation for the Exodus and all the incredible events that took place in Egypt! For now, I'll be in Jerusalem, studying for midterms and seeing cool stuff around here. We do study, although I realize that seems hard to believe. Here's a pic to prove it. Love you guys! Until next time. 

God is Good

I'm so glad I am here. I am learning things here that I never expected to learn!
For example.
About five months ago the thought about going to Jerusalem crossed my mind but I dismissed it at first because I had my heart set on going on a study abroad/internship that would fulfill credits for my International Development minor. I went through a couple of options but didn't feel that those were right and ended up feeling like I needed (and really wanted) to come to the Jerusalem Center.
Little did I know that I would learn about International Development at the Jerusalem Center. Like, what?
On Monday we visited a NGO that is aiming to help Bedouin women. The Bedouin are the native people of Israel who had their land seized from them and face a lot of challenges because of it. This NGO (Sidra) is helping the women in this community learn to weave and sell their products. They are also doing projects with child nutrition. UM WHAT. Okay. Anyone who knows me at all knows that those two things (women empowerment and nutrition) are my JAM.
Basically I learned a ton and got to talk to the lady in charge and I have new ideas about what development should be.
Here is where I would post the picture I took with her but it's on my friend Jenna's camera and I don't know where she is...but you'll see it eventually.
On that same day we also went to an ancient Israeli temple. At one point in time it was built to worship Jehovah, but as time passed it was used to worship Jehovah and another god. My teacher Brother Muhlestien is so cool. He told us- the question isn't if we do the same thing in our own lives, but how. It has led me to think a lot this week about I have always worshiped God but how at certain times I have let certain ideas of the world influence my thinking (I have a lot to say on the topic actually, I'd love to share more about it sometime). We were able to stand where the Holy of Holies once was. I won't visit a current temple on this trip, but it is certainly special to visit places that were once functioning temples!

Frans- left to right- Krystal, Emily, Myself, Josh, Cody. I look like I'm grimacing but I was happy. 

Oh yeah. Guys what guys. I got a calling! It's family history co-chair! I am super psyched because family history is the bomb. But it's also kind of funny that that seems to be my perpetual calling. 

A couple of nights ago we attended a Jewish Sabbath service. It was really cool! It was in Hebrew so there was a lot I didn't understand but there was a lot I could appreciate. I appreciate how reverent they were and just the resiliency of the Jewish people. They have been through so much persecution as a people but they always hold out hope that everything will work out! 

Also, I went to a museum on free day! It was really cool to see artifacts from Biblical times. For example, we saw some carved stone idols that may have been like the ones Rebeckah took from her dad. We also had fun. I have a problem. It reminds of when Elise and I went to the bean museum and tried to look like all the animals and made a competition out of it. I'll let you decide how we did.

I love you guys. I'm going to Egypt tomorrow so I won't be on WhatsApp or have my phone this week. But I'll be able to update you on my adventures in about a week! I love you all! And shout out to Brigham for graduating this week! Congrats buddy!!

Shabot Shalom!

Well, it just gets better and better!
Last time I wrote was last Saturday so I'll just pick up from there!
Sunday (which isn't the Sabbath here- Saturday is) we had our first free day. We did the ramparts walk where you get to walk on top of the old Jerusalem wall. It was cool to see Jerusalem from a new perspective!

There were lots of niches in the walls for archers. Robin Hood style.

We also became more well acquainted with the many shopkeepers in Jerusalem that know us as the Mormons. Pretty much everyone knows who were are. While we walk down the street people just call at us "Mormons, Mormons, come back!". So that's fun.

Monday we went on our first real field trip! My favorite site was called Nebi Samuel where the prophet Samuel was buried. My favorite part about it though was the view we had of the settlement Gibeon. You should look up the story and read it but basically the Israelites were supposed to come to Jerusalem but they were scared because of Jerusalem's high city walls so they were stalling for awhile. Eventually though when they finally took action God gave them some serious help including sending hailstones down on the opposition so the Israelites could make it to Jeruslam. So many times we try and do stuff by ourselves when really God is totally willing to help us. He doesn't expect us to do things on our own.

We were also able to see the place where Jacob lived. I often forget that I am a descendant of the people in the Bible (like Jacob) and remembering that just makes it feel so much more real. I usually think of my family being from Germany or Wales, which they are. But this is where we are really from guys!

Okay, This is the embarrassing part of the blog where I tell you about embarrassing things that I did! So we received a visit from the person that is in charge of the whole Jerusalem Center. He came over from Utah and has been with us about a week. I was talking with some people when he came over to us and started asking all of us where we were from. He kinda scared us all during our orientation meeting and he intimidates me quite a bit. When the question came around to me I got super nervous and blanked! He asked where I was from and I said "I'm from California". And then I was like "Wait. Actually. I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry, I'm actually from Colorado!" Ahhhhhhhhh. He then proceeded to make an notation on his clipboard that probably said something like "Emma Beckstead is a pathological liar. Watch that one". He didn't actually write anything down right then. But still. 

Another interesting visit we had was from Senator Orrin Hatch. He told us to be good people and choose the right and we would do well in our careers. And then he made some Bernie Sanders jokes and said goodbye!

Look at that celestial looking cat. We found him napping by the pool of Bethesda. That was probably my favorite experience from the week. Not seeing the cat, although that was nice. But visiting the pool of Bethesda! The pool of Bethesda was where people went to be healed in Biblical times. Remember this picture? https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/pool-of-bethesda-carl-bloch-83121?lang=eng

People could wait by the pool and if they were the first one after the pool stirred then they would be healed. The story is about a paralytic man that waited there ( I think 35 years) to be healed but he was never able to be the first one in the pool. Christ came and healed him of his infirmity. 

While at the Pool, we went to a Christian church built by the property and joined a choir that was singing there. They were singing "I Stand All Amazed". The line "I was blind but now I see" really struck me. Christ healed so many people physically but he has healed me in so many other ways. So many times I have been "blind" because things that have happened that I haven't understood the reason for. Because of Christ, the trials I have passed through have been given meaning. Life truly would be meaningless without Jesus Christ and I am so grateful that He heals me so I am enabled to enjoy life! 

He lives. I also enjoyed going to the Garden Tomb this week! 

I love you all! Have a great week!