This is not Dome, it Rocks

Have you heard about the new restaurant on the moon? The food is great, but they say there's no atmosphere there.

What happened to the peanut when he walked down the road? He was assaulted. 
How do I feel about blogging right now? -_- I have a feeling this blog is going to be 90% pictures.
Ok, also I got an email from a friend this last week with something really funny that I have to share. "If you're ever feeling dumb, just remember that sometimes sloths grab their own arms, thinking that they're tree branches, and fall to their death." I have laughed about that for way too long. 

ANYWAY, this week exceeded all expectations. As always. We went into the Old City all day Monday. Our first stop was at the Western Wall again; it's quickly becoming very apparent that I love the Western Wall. It really might be one of my very favorite places to visit in Jerusalem thus far. We were hoping to see the Torah reading and/or a Bar Mitzvah, and we were not disappointed. We saw a wedding party as well.

I was able to look over the divider between the men and the women and watch people using prayer accessories; I would tell you the specific name for them, but I missed the question on our test about the Hebrew word so I obviously don't know. 

Here you can see the Torah. Judaism believes that the Torah is the blueprint for the world and that God consulted it when he created the world. It contains the first five books of Moses. 

The black box on his forehead probably contains the shema: Deuteronomy 6:5-9. Verse nine talks about writing it (the scripture) on the posts of the house, which is why Jewish people will have mezuzah's containing this prayer nailed by their door.

I didn't place a prayer in the wall because I've done it a few times now. If I stop and think about it, I realize this tradition is very similar to the prayer roll in the LDS temples. You can call the temple and place someone's name on the prayer roll, and my understanding is that the people on the roll will be prayed for. I feel like a lot of religions have a practice similar to this: prayer chains, or prayer emails. It seems to be a pretty universally stable idea.

After the Western Wall, we crossed over onto the Dome of the Rock/ Temple Mount area. It was such a quick trip, but one that Jewish people never make, as I talked about in an earlier blog. One thing that I neglected to even notice the last time I was on the Temple Mount is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Which is a little bit pathetic because this mosque is where Muhammad is said to have started his journey and is considered the third holiest site in Islam. The architecture of the mosque is really impressive.

Jenessa tried to go in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and someone stopped her. Sometimes you can get in, but that happens a lot less occasionally now.

I TOOK THIS PICTURE!!!! Obviously I'm really impressed with the artistic spin I put on the Dome of the Rock. I would probably buy this from myself for a postcard.

We went into the Jewish quarter of the Old City, and it is NICE. My medical record says I'm 5'7.25" and I'm starting to think that's wrong because sometime I wake up in the middle of the night here with my toes hanging off my bed. So then I have to curl up in a little ball in order to keep my toes safe because a Disney movie about the boogie monster scared me and continues to scare me. Look at this picture and try and tell me that it doesn't look like my parents placed me on a stretching machine when I was younger. My bleeping toes hang off the bed, and it drives me crazy!!!!! I just wanted everyone to know about the really important things happening here.

Last week I talked about the sealed off Golden Gates, so I wanted to post this picture with the Dome of the Rock behind it. In front of the gate are Jewish graves.

After high school, a lot of the students will join the Israeli army of sorts. You see them stationed throughout the city dressed like these girls; their guns aren't actually loaded. We talked to these two girls for a while, and they told Lizzy to email them this picture. The middle girl was celebrating her twentieth birthday, and Lizzy offered for us to sing Happy Birthday to her. That had to have been one of the weirdest moments of my week and one of the most memorable. I think if some foreigners sang me happy birthday I would tell everyone about the weird situation for weeks. 

We finally made it back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Monday! So many churches own a portion of this site that there is a lot to see. This picture is a good example of the ornamentation throughout the site. Thousands of people visit this site everyday.

Schwarma again!

After a long day of adventure, my little Jewish boy fell asleep with her Build-A-Bear 

Hunter knows me all too well and gave me a jar of Nutella. The jar lasted a day between the four of us. 

Why is the Nutella always gone??

Michelle's closet literally vomits all over the room some days. AND WE LOVE IT. It's been a running joke for weeks, and the above scene wasn't structured for this picture, it was alive when I came home. She also got her mission call to Sapporo, JAPAN. They're going to think she's so tall. I bet her feet will hang off the bed on her mission. Michelle is the best.

And then we took Bathsheba pictures.

This week we celebrated Passover five weeks early and had Ophir come and lead us through how the event would go in a Jewish home. There was a lot of Hebrew singing, weird food, good food, and fun. Passover is one of my new favorite holidays; we went on an easter egg hunt of sorts half way through the night in order to find the hidden matzah. The matzah is the unleavened bread used in the Passover sader, and Ophir hid it during the dinner as according to tradition. We ran through the entire building to find it.

Before Passover, we helped Akman in the kitchen make charoset, one of the symbolical foods for the celebration that symbolizes the mortar that the children of Israel used to build the pyramids.

My glass magically filled with sparkling grape juice a billion times throughout the dinner. I guess I was the only one who actually loved it, apparently it tasted like vinegar.

The plate of symbolical food set in the middle of our table. 

My Judaism professor and two of his kids.

We have started to turn the movie camping thing into a weekly occurrence with this weeks choice of The Emperor's New Groove. 

This Friday, a couple of us went to synagogue with Ophir. For Jews, the sabbath starts Friday once the sun has gone down. After the service, Ophir and his family walked home in order to obey the laws of the sabbath. The men and women are divided by a veil and it's impossible to be late to synagogue. People come in when they come and leave when they leave. And Ophir's kids were running around. Everyone holds prayer books and follows the Hebrew singing. We had English/Hebrew prayer books, but everything was going on in Hebrew, so I had no clue where we were. I was sitting by a girl who kind of babysat me through the whole thing and turned my page when needed. She spoke really good English, as most people seem to do. The Jewish community at that synagogue is really used to Ophir bringing his students, so everyone went out of their way to welcome us; Shabbat shalome!

This is me screaming in my sink with toothpaste everywhere. And I have just thrown my toothbrush. So this picture is funny if you know the whole story... I know Tye's younger brother, Austin, from high school. Austin pulled pranks on me every weekend our senior year: goldfish all over my room, dixie cups full of water, numbing gel in my toothpaste, reorganized my drawers, reorganized my furniture, made me chocolate covered mustard/flour paste, fed me brownies that turn your pee (hahaha my mom is going to hit me for saying that word in this) neon orange, etc. etc. etc. On our way back from synagogue, I was telling Tye and everyone there about Austin's mastermind crimes. When we got back to the Center, Tye told me he had actually brought the numbing gel and he thought we should put it in my roommate's toothpaste. So I am really excited and loving Tye. We put the gel in Sara's toothpaste, and I forget about it. That night, I realized Sara had already brushed her teeth, so I felt weird that she hadn't said anything. I started brushing my teeth, and my entire mouth went numb. And that's when this picture was taken and when I realized what was going on. Tye and Austin are the same person. He had hunted down Sara an hour before he found me and convinced her to bring out MY toothpaste. So here me and Sara are thinking we're so funny pulling pranks on each other when in reality he really was just pulling a fast one on both of us. He has no idea what he just started.

Sawyer and me after Aubreigh Guynn opened her mission call to Brazil! We have had ten mission calls since we arrived here.

For Sabbath today, we decided to go visit the Garden of Gethsemane again. While we were there a Jewish girl from Poland and her Israeli guide/friend asked me where the Garden Tomb was located. I gave the directions and we talked for a little while. (I know everyone is concerned that I tried to give someone directions, but I double checked with John and he confirmed the route. Hopefully they made it). She was staying in Jerusalem for a day and wanted to see all of the historical sights. We started talking and I told her I was studying at Mormon University. Her mouth dropped open and she asked me if I was Mormon. I told her I was and she got all jumpy like. She told me she had never met a real Mormon before. I started laughing and told her we liked to think we were pretty normal. From the way she was looking at me, I think she was surprised that I didn't exactly fit the mold she had constructed for Mormons. She told me she thought we would look 1990's. Then she asked if a few of us would take a picture with her because we were the first Mormons she'd ever known. The image for the LDS church really makes me laugh sometimes. We aren't as strange as everyone hopes we are. Being here has taught me that religions are all more alike than we think. 

On our way to Gethsemane, we jumped over one of the little stone walls to take a picture among the poppies. The wind grabbed Michelle's skirt and flipped it over her head. Easily one of the funniest things in the world. Sweet Michelle mooned everyone. Dang skirts.

I'm standing in front of an olive grove sectioned off as the Garden of Gethsemane. What you see in the picture is almost the size of the entire garden. Across the road there is a garden that you can schedule a tour for that isn't as manicured, so I think we're going to try and go next week.

The steps of the church by the Garden of Gethsemane.

And that's all I have! The next time I post, I will have completed (aha hopefully) the half marathon! I have a feeling after running it will be really easy for my sunbeams to beat me up. 

Cheers!

Lindee

(Title goes to Preston Danielson)