Wow. What an amazing day it has been so far. These first few
days I have been hoping to get in a groove/find my niche here in the city and I
definitely think those prayers were answered today.
Before I continue I want to share something I was thinking
about today. I got a text last night from a dear friend about my
blog/experiences. It was so sweet and encouraging. She also told me how jealous
she was of me and all the things I get to do. This message meant a lot to me
but it also made me want to highlight something we all suffer from here on
social media. When sharing things,
whether it’s instagram, blogs, facebook, etc., we tend to pick out and
distribute only the highlights-not the struggles. Don’t get me wrong, my
first few days here have been amazing, but at the same time they have been
surprisingly difficult. There have been tears, I have felt alone, and I have
felt like I am in the wrong place. I am confident I am not the only one here
that has felt that way. That’s how life goes. Do we want to share that? No.
Those feelings are signs that we are weak, and we would never want anyone to
see that side of us. Right? The point
is, as I continue sharing my experiences here in Jerusalem, I hope everyone can
remember not everything is rainbows and sunshine. I think this is an important
thing to remember when examining anyone’s content on any form of social media-
I most definitely suffer from this disease of comparing my life to others and
hope I can get better. It is hard. Okay, my rant is over.
So today we had church. Wow. Wow wow wow wow. We had it in
the auditorium on the eighth floor with the huge windows that look out over the
city. I can’t even explain what it feels like when someone says something about
Christ- his suffering or his ministry- and you can look out into the city and
pick exactly where he was. It is unreal, to say the least.
Today we had approximately 250 visitors (wow). Tourist
season is definitely picking up here in Jerusalem. It was really neat. We have
an overflow seating area that has audio streamed to it and we had to utilize it
today, which is saying a lot. President Woods said we had about 400 in the
congregation today. 400 Mormons in Israel in the same place. Wow. What a time
to be here in the Holy Land.
One of the visitors was one of my favorite people, Sarah
Darby. She was in my ward at the Isles in Provo. She is here vacationing with a
friend’s family. I didn’t expect to see her in church today, I thought I had
missed her being in Jerusalem by a few days. When she turned around and waved
to me I thought I was going to lose it. I was so happy to see her. The comfort
of a familiar face is hard to compare to anything else. Needless to say we
talked and hugged and caught up before and after 'Sabbath school' and relief
society. It was hard to see her go.
Speaking of comfort, that is one thing I absolutely love
about the church. No matter where you go, it is exactly the same feeling and
organization. It is comfortable for me, it is home. I felt so at home today and
I am so grateful for that. As I sat in sacrament meeting today I decided to
make a goal: when I have a family and we go on vacation I want to go to church
wherever we are. I have never gone to church in a foreign place and regretted
it. It is so inspiring to me to see the strength of members around the world
who are so much stronger than I am and in much more difficult circumstances. So
that is my goal- go to church around the world!
Today was a fast meeting so we got to share testimonies. We
had so many visitors that passing the sacrament took 45 minutes. We only had 20
minutes to bear testimony but I think it was one of the greatest meetings I
have been in. I think 5 people shared, but one man really stood out to me. This
man was a thick, tan, 60-something Latino man. He went up to the stand with a
pretty young girl who ended up translating for him. To start his testimony, he
welcomed us to Jerusalem, which I thought was really beautiful for some reason.
He spoke really well and had a beautiful accent. He lives here in Jerusalem and
shared his testimony of Christ and especially of the truthfulness of the
church. He was so impressive to me. I am always so struck by international
members and their faith and perseverance. It is easy for me to believe in the
Church, I am from Utah and see the blessings of it all around in me. Whether it
is temples, my ward community, the beautiful school I go to, I am always aware
of it’s presence. I have religious
freedom and never have to think twice about sharing the gospel or practicing my
religion on Sundays. I am so lucky. Anyways, I loved this man’s testimony. The
young woman (who ended up teaching relief society) translated so well and it
was wonderful.
After sacrament was ‘Sabbath School,’ which still sounds a
little funny to me. Our teacher was one of the students here at the center.
Almost all of us have callings now. She did a great job and shared a video that
really struck me. I think it is one of my favorite Mormon messages videos. You
can find it here. I would definitely encourage you to watch.
Next was relief society, which was taught by Carmen, the
girl who translated for the Latino man. What an inspiring lady. She just had a
baby, Adam, and is a cute young mom. She is from Bolivia but moved to Israel to
marry a Russian man on the internet. It sounds sketchy, I know, but it
definitely wasn’t a mail-order bride kind of deal. You can tell they really
love each other. Carmen says they both hate the story of how they met so they
tell people they met on a trip to Paris, they think it sounds romantic. I
thought it's cute. So Carmen speaks Spanish, English, and since moving to
Israel six years ago has picked up Hebrew and Russian. Here is the thing that
was so striking to me: After she explained her family situation I started to
wonder if her husband was a member. Then I realized, if he wasn’t prior to
their introduction and she moved here to Israel to be with him, she can’t
convert him here. WOW. How crazy is that? I have never thought of this being a
limitation. Can you imagine not being to teach the gospel to your very best
friend, your companion? I can’t. It made me realize how INCREDIBLY lucky I am to have the rights I have in the states.
Carmen gave a great lesson about what ‘treasure’ means to us and I look forward
to more lessons from her and getting to know her better.
After church I finally found Brother Fellows. He is the guy
in the branch presidency that works at the consulate. It turns out he is over
American visas for Israelis so he has a very interesting job. I got my church
calling today! I have been called as the second counselor in the young womens
presidency! On our application they ask about previous church callings and I
was a YW teacher when I was in London so I think that has a lot to do with it.
There are only two young women in the ward so it’s wayyy low key but I am
looking forward to it. If nothing else it is fun to be their friend/someone to
look to.
After that little meeting I went with a group to the Garden
of Gethsemane. I was hoping to go to the Garden Tomb because I thought that
would be a cool way to start the trip but I guess the church that runs it (the
Lutherans or the protestants, I can’t remember) require you to take one of
their tours before you can wander around freely. We aren’t doing that until
Friday. So anyways we went to gethsemane. It was so cool. I am so glad we went.
It was beautiful and a lot more garden-esque than I thought. I think I pictured
it more as a grove of olive trees, but within these it were lots of flowers and
little paths. There were also some plaques that had scripture. I really, really
liked it. It is my new favorite place. You can't walk inside on those paths but I think I liked it like that. It kept it more sacred.
The Garden wasn’t far from the center which totally blew my mind. To
my Logan people- it would be similar to walking from my house on Cliffside down
to Riverside elementary on the Island. For my Provo people- it would be similar
to walking from the Maeser building to Center Street. The location of the
center is totally amazing.
The Garden is next to the Church of All Nations which looks
beautiful. I am looking forward to going inside. Today we didn’t have enough
time but I will definitely be back. There were lots of groups (Greek Orthodox
again, I think) going through with what looked liked Brothers from the church.
There is a busy road that runs next to the Garden that I thought was an
interesting contrast to the peace inside. Funny story- we actually saw our
first shepherd today. He caused quite a
ruckus when he had to get his flock through this street. It was hilarious. That
was always how I pictured Jerusalem. Another thing I noticed were the olive
trees themselves. Some of them are young and some are old, supposedly 2000
years old, so they would have been in Gethsemane at the time of the Atonement. Olive
trees grow out, not up, and get pretty gnarly. The wrap around themselves and
it looks almost painful. I thought this was very fitting for the atonement.
On the way back a random guy kind of swatted at one the
girls in the group like he was trying to touch her. I don’t think she even
noticed but I did and so did two boys with me. They freaked out. I just wanted
to say thank you to boys that look out for girls. It is much appreciated and a
very attractive quality.
I am kind of getting distracted now so I’m not doing as well
with the detail! I’m sorry! I also want to apologize for grammatical errors and
overall weirdness on here. I typically write when I am super tired or I am
trying to rush through and won’t reread the post until it’s actually online. Oh
well!
Again, thanks so much for the texts. I miss everyone and
it’s so nice to hear from the real world! I don’t get wifi until I walk out of
my bedroom so don’t worry about waking
me up J
love to all!!
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