Istanbul, Not Constantinople

Marhaba, everyone! I am back from Turkey and life is awesome. It's unbelievable how much we were able to pack into one week. Before you get too nervous, though, you can rest assured that I won't go into detail for all of the places we went to. Let me just give you an overview of my thoughts for the different elements of the trip.

Scenery: absolutely spectacular. Seriously, I knew virtually nothing about Turkey's landscapes before coming, but after being there for a week, I think I'm seriously considering retiring there. It was a wonderful blend of green and mountains and seas/beaches unlike any place I've ever seen.

History: Well, it's Turkey. Istanbul is there, Troy is there, ancient Greek ruins are there. I think my favorite places to see were Troy, Perganaum (the place mentioned in Revelation where the Seat of Satan supposedly is), and Ephesus, but I loved them all. I was surprised at how many Greek ruins there were--I mean, I knew that Turkey was next to Greece, but I hadn't quite put two and two together. I now feel much less of a need to go to Greece after seeing so many awesome Greek sites there (but you should know that the need to go to Greece is still quite present).

Me outside of the Blue Mosque at Istanbul

Troy, of course! 

One of the pillars at Perganaum

One of my favorites from the trip

Nike shirt and Nike statue

An ancient library at Ephesus--this was hands-down one of my favorite places of the entire trip.

The next few shots are from the Hagia Sophia church (now a mosque) in Istanbul. It was like being in the Sistene Chapel--it was that beautiful.

People: The people were great. Here's our tour guide, Bulent:

Bulent kept us laughing the whole time (which was good, since we spent a long time on the bus). He called Brother Judd "Mr. Judo" instead, so of course our theme song for the trip was "Hey, Jude." It was awesome. I also got to know the people in my Old Testament class so much better from the trip--they're all wonderful, in case you were wondering. It was a little weird to be tourists so much, since we're used to being more integrated into Jerusalem society. We lived it up, though, and sported our fanny packs, headsets, and sunglasses rather well. Thankfully we didn't look as bad as this guy:

Living Conditions: Sub-par. We stayed in pretty good hotels for the most part--they could have been way scarier/sketchier, but I think that all of us were relieved to go back to living at the Jerusalem Center after it was all over. I had an interesting diet of buffet bars that all served the same thing--"the best meatballs in all of Turkey." Just in case you're wondering, I think Ikea's meatballs are probably a lot better. We still had some good food, though, such as this:

It actually was pretty tasty. And no, I did not eat the head.

Then, there were the toilets:

Okay, so maybe those are ancient Roman latrines, and not the actual toilets we used. Actually, I wasn't pleasantly surprised at the toilets. "Turkish Toilets" had a pretty bad reputation before we got there, but I've seen much worse ones in Alabama and other fun places back home. *Ahem..* Moving on.

Spirituality: This one was a little bit of a surprise for me--it was less spiritual than what I was expecting. I guess with a Muslim tour guide, he didn't place as much emphasis on the Christian history of the place. However, I learned throughout the week to really try and focus on the spiritual elements, and it go so much better. I think my favorite spiritual site was the theatre at Ephesus--in case you don't remember, it was at this same theatre that 25,000 people yelled, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" for more than two hours. It was something special to see how there were ruins of the religion of Diana and the other Greek gods/goddesses, but the religion that Paul was trying to spread to the people of Ephesus was still going strong. We also had all 80 of us sing "All Creatures of Our God and King" together, which was so awesome. I had goosebumps, and I think everyone who heard us was deeply moved--it was wonderful to be able to praise God through song in a place filled with so much history.

"Brother Judo's" class at the theatre in Ephesus

Well! That pretty much sums everything up. If you have any questions on particulars, feel free to comment with a question... Or you can just email me. Thanks for your support! I love it here, and I love all of you.

Becca

Shootings, Tombs, and Dead Guys

Okay! I'm off for a week-long trip to Turkey tomorrow (I'm praying that the Ben Gurion airport is better than JFK), so I think that you all deserve a life update before I leave.

We're currently on a sort of lockdown in the Jerusalem Center right now--yesterday was the day that Israel became a recognized nation, so there was a little bit of "conflict" in the city... Don't worry, though--everyone loves "The Mormons," and we're not in danger in our 8-story fortress. I'm not worried, and you shouldn't be either. It has been interesting though to go to sleep to the sounds of gunshots and cheers and stuff like that. Not exactly the same stuff that I'm used to in Georgia.

This past week has been fantastic! We went on our Jericho field trip on Monday--it included a trip to the Judean wilderness (the place where the parable of the Good Samaritan took place, as well as maybe the place where Elijah had ravens feed him meat, and also the place where Jesus was tempted), Elisha's spring (the water source of Jericho, and the place where Elisha healed the bitter water after Elijah was taken up into Heaven), as well as the actual wall of Jericho. It was an amazing trip where the scriptures just made much more sense. There was virtually nothing in the wilderness, and the stories of the Good Samaritan and the temptation of Jesus became so much more meaningful there. Plus the ruins of the wall were awesome--apparently, archeologists identified the wall as from the Middle Bronze Era (but Joshua was from the Late Bronze period), so they didn't think that the story of Joshua's wall actually existed. But, it's quite possible that the people of Joshua's time just had a really old wall (that's the way it is now in Jerusalem, at any rate), and it just fell down in the Late Bronze Era! There's Late Bronze pottery mixed in with the wall, so it's quite possible. Oh, we also visited one of Herod's palaces. It was actually surprisingly intact--there's an entire bath area that's still stuck together. The picture doesn't do it justice as to how cool I thought it was, but here you go.

In the desert

Bedouin settlement

Zaccheus' tree (the man found in the gospel of Luke who climbed the tree who could see the Savior)

Blowing the horns at Jericho

At the excavation site in Jericho

The still-intact bath at Herod's winter palace.

Just in case you aren't keeping up with the Israeli calendar, last Tuesday was Israeli National Independence Day. Almost all of the kids in the Jerusalem Center went to West Jerusalem on Monday night (since the celebration went from sundown to sundown) to party it up with the Jews. It was awesome--it totally reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve. This next picture will cause some embarrassment, but I think it's necessary to put it on:

I was low on shekels, but I really wanted some ice cream. Two of my group members, a certain Morgan and Tyson, also wanted some, so we decided to go with the 4 shekel menu at McDonald's. Not wanting to seem like uncultured neanderthals for eating, Morgan and Tyson refused to be in the picture with me. But this blog post gives verbal evidence that they were there sinning with me (even though it's not documented by pictures). There was also a great [but brief] fireworks show at the end, that was [most likely] worth freezing for (it was so cold outside!). It's a good thing that security wasn't there to see how close all of us were sitting next to each other, since PDA isn't allowed in Jerusalem... Anyway, here's a shot of the fireworks:

Hmmm, a little blurry... Bummer.

I also went to Tomb of the Kings (that sketchy place I was talking about in my last post)! Finally. I am happy to report that was just as cool I was expecting/hoping. Sketchy green door, sketchy boarded up hole that we had to crawl into... it was awesome. I told my mom afterwards that she didn't have to worry, since "there weren't any dead people." Apparently it wasn't the most comforting statement I've ever made. Here's a picture of all of us in one of the chambers:

Hands-down one of the coolest places I've been to in the city.

We went to another cave (Zedekiyah's Cave, to be exact), but it was decidedly less cool than Tomb of the Kings. Which is strange, since it served as the quarry for King Solomon, so it's definitely legitimate. I wonder if all US historical sites are going to be extremely dull since they happened at least 1500 years after most of the places that I'm seeing while I'm here.

Last main item of business is the Garden Tomb--I went there on Thursday. Although this is not the actual site where Jesus was crucified and then lain in the tomb before He was resurrected, it's probably pretty close by. The rock formation outside of the tomb (Golgotha) really does look like a skull--it was incredible. I've felt the Holy Ghost at different places here in the Holy Land, but I definitely felt it there the strongest--I think it's because everyone there felt a reverence and respect for the place that isn't always present in the sites that we visit... It was wonderful to be there with fellow Christians and read the biblical accounts of the Resurrection. I hope to go there often while I'm here. And when I do, I'll get some pictures--it just felt a little irreverent being a tourist while we were there for the first time.

Besides that, the main exciting event has been the whole lockdown-and-shooting thing. Although we're about to have hopefully 40+ students play an epic game of Hide and Go Seek in an eight-story building, so I'm betting that will be something worth remembering as well. Prepare yourselves for another novel-of-a-blog-post next week... Turkey is going to be amazing and filled to the brim wtih adventures. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures for you all! Take care, and stay out of the way of bombs. Oh wait, that's me.

Becca

Mini-revelations

Hello, outside world! This week has been extremely awesome, as well as extremely full. I was planning on writing this blog post after our field trip to Jericho tomorrow, but there are so many things that have happened thus far that it honestly just makes sense to write it now before I write the longest blog post of the century.

I regret to admit that I neglected to take photos of food this past week--I'm still a little too uncomfortable with the idea of sticking my camera into other people's plates that it just didn't happen. I also feel the same way about portraits of random people--my friend Adam has been taking these awesome pictures of people in the city, but I still feel like too much of a tourist to be confident enough. In fact, today I saw these cute little Chassidic kids with the curls and the kippas and wanted to take their picture, but when I pulled out my camera they whipped their heads around, held out their hands and said "STOP! NO PICTURES!" So if I didn't have issues before about taking pictures of random people, I'm sure I do now.

Alright, so I'm sure that you all want to know a few things about where I went. I'm pretty sure the first stop was the rampart walk:

The rampart walk is a walk on top of the wall made by Suleimann the Magnificent in the 16th century--it goes around the whole city, although I think you can only go around one half of it at a time. I went with an awesome group and got more pictures of them to prove that I actually have friends here.

Next stop was Tomb of the Kings (sort of). My friend Morgan has been wanting to go to this sketchy place called Tomb of the Kings since we got here--apparently you knock loudly on this door in the middle of Sal-hadin street, and then you pay a few sheckles, climb under a wall, and then you're in this tomb with a bunch of dead guys. So cool. Anyway, he and Tyson and I were planning to go for a while, and we finally got our opportunity last week! We found the door, knocked loudly, and then found out that it was closed. We were pretty bummed, but managed to still have a wonderful time on Sal-hadin--we ate shwarma sandwiches, saw a cool Anglican church... It was still a pretty good day (side note: we talked to one of our professors about tomb of the kings, and he explained to us that the whole "we're closed" business is actually just the start of the bidding process--they say, "we're closed," and then you say, "well, I'll pay you 7 sheckels to get in." That sort of thing). We also were faced with some interesting questions, such as: how much does one pay for a tip at a sit-down Palestinian restaurant? Do you pay at the table and wait for your bill, or do you find a cashier place? I think we ended up being a little more generous than we needed to be, but no big deal. "The Mormons" have a very good reputation in the city, and we didn't want to mess it up.

Next was the Dome of the Rock! What a beautiful building. It's been the subject of so many of my photos already that it was lovely to get a more close-up view of the thing. Here are some of my favorite shots from that day:

On Friday, we had the chance to go to the Western Wall (my second time) to welcome in the Sabbath. I don't know about all of you, but when I think of "welcoming in the Sabbath," piety and reverence come to mind. Not so with [most of] the Jews in the Old City. I came at dusk with a scarf so that I could wear it around my head in case I needed to show more proper respect. I looked around and discovered that about two women out of two thousand were wearing scarves, so I took it off. I had a wonderful experience going up to the wall and running my fingers over stones that were thousands of years old, but my spiritual experience of reverence quickly came to an end as people everywhere began dancing and singing in groups. We befriended a large group of high schoolers who were studying in the city for the summer. They were extremely welcoming and frequently pulled us into their large dancing circles. I regret to say that we weren't allowed to bring cameras that night (Dad, I know you would've taken pictures anyway... I'm sorry that I failed you.), or else I would have shared pictures, of course.

This experience leads me to one of my first mini-revelations (I'm sure most of you noticed the title of this week's post). A few people came back from the "Shabbat party" with feelings of discomfort and even disgust--they didn't like the way that the Jews practiced the Sabbath so differently than the way we do here. And although I agree that I don't personally feel like church should be a party every Sunday, I still felt so much devotion and love from the Jewish people that I actually admired the way they started off their Sabbath. I feel like I have so much to learn from these different religions--I don't believe that they have the absolute complete truth, but its peoples have so much dedication and passion; their religions are a way of life, not a once-a-week thing. I know that it's already the same way for me personally, but I hope that others can see that as well.

My mini-revelation #2 happened on Sabbath yesterday. I had an extremely successful time in Singing Time with the kids--I had never seen them so well-behaved as they were when we sang our "quiet song"--and I think that we'll be able to do a lot of fun and wonderful activities and songs together. I'll be conducting our church's choir next Sabbath as well... That should be interesting (and hopefully very successful). There's a little boy whose family moved in for the summer who plays the violin (I saw him doing violin fingerings as he was singing yesterday), and it was decided with his parents that I'll be his teacher for the next three months! Hooray for teaching! Okay, onto mini-revelation #2 experience: we were going to go to the Garden Tomb (the place where they believe Christ's body was lain after He was crucified) with our Old Testament class, but there was a scheduling error and we weren't able to go. So some of my friends and I decided to go to the Garden of Gethsemane instead. We first went to the public garden, where all of the trees and flowers and pathways were blocked off. I was disappointed to be separated from the nature of the place (I know that sounds cheesey, but it's true), but I opened up my scriptures to Matthew's account of the Atonement to try and feel more connected. I finished that account after not feeling very much, and read the other Gospel accounts of the same event. Nothing. There was a loud tour group of Austrians that didn't really help with feeling the spirit of the place. But then, we found out that there's a private garden across the street where you have to ask specifically to be let in. So we did. And it was wonderful. I read some more stories about the Savior and prayed and had such a lovely time. But I also realized that although reading about the Atonement and praying helped me feel closer to Jesus Christ, it was the exact same things I would've had to have done in the States in order to feel closer to Him. Being in Jerusalem was different, because it allowed me to see the things that He probably saw, and to feel close to Him physically, but the spiritual closeness was no different. It was surprising. So all of you that are reading this and are desperately wanting to go to Jerusalem, I totally say "do it!" but I also need to say that you can feel the same spiritual closeness to Jesus Christ at home as you can in the Holy Land.

Mini-revelation #3 (apologies in advance to my Protestant friends for a Book of Mormon reference and for stating an obvious fact that all of you probably already know): I was thinking about the things that we've been learning in my Old Testament class when a scripture from the Book of Mormon came to mind. It's 1 Nephi 19:23, where Nephi says that he taught the five books of Moses and the words of Isaiah to the people in order to bring them closer to their Redeemer. He also famously instructs them to liken the scriptures unto themselves. Well, guess what? The scriptures that he's talking about (five books of Moses and Isaiah) that bring the people closer to Jesus Christ are essentially the Old Testament! Whenever I thought of the Old Testament, I mostly just thought of some good and occasionally sketchy stories that teach us good principles. But they should be taught to bring us closer to Christ. I'm sure everyone knows this, but it was such a revelatory moment for me! The Old Testament really does testify of Christ, and if you read carefully, you can find Him everywhere. I love it.

We had a Prince of Egypt party last night (I love the Jerusalem Center), and today was a free day and we went all over the city. Probably the highlight was playing the carillon (or the bells in a bell tower) for all of Jerusalem. No big deal.

...Actually, I was ecstatic. I played "O Savior Thou Who Wearest a Crown" and President Ohman even said that I did a good job. My life is complete. Or it will be after we go to Jericho tomorrow and see Turkey NEXT WEEK! Woohoo! I'll try and write a blog post before we leave next Sunday so that I'll be relatively up-to-date in my exploits. Enjoy some more pictures from today and take care!

David's Citadel

The YMCA in West Jerusalem!

One of the chapels we went to on our free day--its name is escaping me at the moment...

Yeah, so the Old City randomly has tractors and cars just drive up and down the streets. I'm always amazed that they can fit through such narrow passageways.

I love you all and I'm so grateful for your support. Take care, and drop me a line or two!

Your seasoned traveler,

Becca

PS: In further news, there was a poisonous Palestinian viper that was found in the building today... And it was right outside my room! Fun. I also tried Turkish Delight today--it wasn't really my favorite (but that might've been because it was Ginger flavored).
PPS:

Happy Mother's Day! Mom, I'm sorry that we can't be together today, but know that I love you and that you mean the world to me--I couldn't ask for a better mother. You're wonderful!

The Pilgrimage

For centuries, people of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths have traveled to the Jerusalem in order to pay respect to this magnificent city. These trips are normally called "pilgrimages," and although my laptop's dictionary makes no mention of this, they normally have some sort of degree of hardship associated with the journey. My trip to the Holy Land was no different.

In order to make travel to Israel easier, the Jerusalem Center had about eight or nine different groups traveling on different planes and airlines. My own wonderful group of six people met at 5 AM to travel to Detroit, meet up with another group of 10 kids, travel to the JFK airport in New York City, and then travel to Tel Aviv that night and arrive at the center the next afternoon. Our trip to Detroit was just fine and dandy, but then... Trouble struck in NYC. As I'm sure some of you know, there were severe storms up and down the east coast, meaning that we couldn't land at JFK. Meaning that our flight was delayed. Meaning that we couldn't go on our connecting flight to Tel Aviv. Meaning... the trip I've been waiting for the last five years was postponed indefinitely. Our group of the stalwart sixteen was unbelievable--I don't think I've ever felt like I was the most sad member of a large group of people, but that might've been the case. We first found out that we probably wouldn't get a flight to Tel Aviv until Friday or Saturday (!!!), but after talking to agent after agent (including an Austrian guy named Greg and a New Yorker named Flo), we finally found out that our group of original six could fly to Tel Aviv the next night, and the remaining ten could get standby tickets. We were on the bottom floor by this point and weren't going to be able to get back up to the terminals, so our friend Flo gave us some airport blankets, pillows, drinks from the flight attendants, and some food  vouchers for $12 worth or airport food, and then sent us on our merry way.

So cute. And so tired.

...Cement airport floors are much harder than I expected. And colder. So much so that when half of the group decided to go out into the city during the day, I decided to stay back with the other group and sleep. Lame, I know, but I was able to do this:

Almost as comfortable as a bed... Almost.

Yes, my eye covering does say "Sweet Dreams," and yes, I never really expected to wear it in a very public place. Now it's on the internet, which is one of the most public places in the world, but no big deal. Sleep was wonderful. Plus I've been to NYC before and it was cold and rainy that day, so I wasn't too bummed that I missed out.

Our plane was delayed another three hours, but we FINALLY got on board a double-decker 747! It was pretty neat. And even though we were having dinner around the time that people in Jerusalem were having breakfast, our stomachs got on at least a somewhat regular meal schedule, which was pretty nice. Customs wasn't that bad (except that a few members of our group got trapped in the interrogation room), but we finally made it back to the Jerusalem Center right before dinner. I can think of few times that I was happier than I was at that moment. Everyone else was pretty happy as well... Check it out:

They even made a little tunnel for us to go through--I took a video of it, but it's too large of a file to upload here...

The fun hasn't stopped since then! Sabbath here is on Saturdays, so we had a lovely church service overlooking the city and the dome of the rock while we sang hymns (accompanied by none other than President Ohman himself!). While we sang and he played some stirring (and unexpected) chord progressions, I really felt like there were few things in the world that compare to this. I also got assigned to be the music leader for the little kids in the congregation--there are about 20 of them, and they might be a bit of a handful. I'm so excited, though.

Here are some highlights from Sunday through Tuesday:

-Getting various awesome views of the city: honestly, this city is so pretty. Its sense of timelessness creates a kind of beauty that I haven't ever seen before (the most comparable feeling was probably when I went to a large grove of redwood trees with my dad a few years ago). The Center is gorgeous as well--there are windows everywhere, and each room even has a balcony with a bed of roses and a perfect view of the city. Here's one of my favorite pictures of the dome of the rock that I took on Sabbath:

I actually struggled to take pictures of things OTHER THAN the dome of the rock for a little bit--it's so captivating that it's hard to focus on anything else!

-Making new friends. As cheesy as it sounds, I really love the people here already. It seems like we're all united in our reasons in being here (I doubt too many people come to the Holy Land to party it up like crazy), so it's wonderful to have people like me around in that regard... Does that sound incredibly narcissistic? Anyway, here are some pictures of my friends (just to prove that I have some):

Kayla and me behind Navi Samuel and in front of the city of Gibeon

My friend Tyson outside of King Hussein's palace

-Traveling to new places! So far, I've been to the city a few times, where we've explored all of the quarters, made friends with some of the merchants, visited the Western Wall along with other important historical sites in the Old City, and walked along the wall around the boundaries of the Southern part of the city.

The Western Wall - the white in the cracks of the wall is actually thousands of prayers written on pieces of paper.

Frankincense and other wonderful smells (along with some that aren't so wonderful) fill the streets. 

-I also had my first field trip on Monday, where we became more acquainted with Jerusalem and its surroundings.

-Here are a few pictures of the Auguste Victoria Lutheran Church of the Ascension--it was so beautiful, and the acoustics were amazing. There's a pretty good chance I'll actually be able to play my violin in there! I'll be sure to keep you posted. Anyway, here are some of my favorites:

The outside of the building

The apse, or the front (and most sacred) part of the building

The altar in the center of the chapel. The lamb is called the Agnus Dei.

Part of the ceiling (sorry that I didn't edit very many of these photos!)

Center portion of the apse mosaic

Center part of the ceiling painting

 -We were able to visit the deserted palace of King Hussein, which was built on top of the ruins of King Saul's palace. A lot happened here in the city of Gibeah - you can read about it in 1 Samuel chapters 13, 14, and 15.

Inside the palace walls

-I went to Navi Samuel, the place where Samuel the prophet was supposedly buried (recent archeological findings have proved otherwise, however). There's a mosque on top, and then a synagogue below, since both the religions of Islam and Judaism believe that Samuel was a prophet.

This picture, along with showing Navi Samuel and the ruins of the crusader building around it, also gives proof that I'm actually here and not just stealing pictures from the internet.

-Behind Navi Samuel is the small city of Gibeon (you can read about it in Joshua 10, I believe?). Anyway, this was the place where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still so that the Israelites could defeat the Amorites in battle. Here's our class commanding the sun to stand still (it didn't work, by the way):

"SUN, STAND STILL!"

-And lastly, here are some pictures from some of the lookouts we went to:

Some bunkers from the 1967 war overlooking Shepherds' Fields and the town of Bethlehem

I had to do it.

Pretty awesome, eh? I'll try to take some pictures of some of the food I'm eating this week (the food everywhere is outstanding), but I also don't want to be shunned for being socially awkward for randomly taking pictures of food on my plate... We'll see how it goes. I love it here in Jerusalem! I hope you can see how much I've been able to do in only one week. Next post: Garden Tomb, Western Wall some more, and Tomb of Kings (a secret corridor my friend found out about that leads to a bunch of tombs). Until next week!

Shalom,
Becca