Well, I'm not too good at this blogging thing lately. I thought for sure I would at least get some updates before I left for the week... but... it is late, I need to go to bed, and I'm afraid it isn't going to happen. I'll post a lot when I get back (hopefully).

I think I’ve mentioned before that we have been putting together lots of hygiene kits here. And well, I’m not sure why, but I really enjoy doing it. It think it is way fun. I haven’t missed a single shift yet. There are usually two shifts that people are supposed to come in, so I usually go for the first and then just stay for the second because we can always use the people. The first day I kind of got put on sealing and making boxes. I just so happened to get the same job the next time, and then the next, and the next. I really hardly question my role in life now. I have found my niche – it is making boxes. Sometimes I’ll do something else for a few minutes, but as soon as we need boxes I’m back on it. I have spent hours making boxes and I've probably made a good 95% of the boxes that we've done here. I can literally do it with my eyes closed. It really is cool how many we have made. We are producing them way faster than they thought we would. We have had to cancel a couple because we didn’t have the supplies we needed.

There is a Humanitarian Conference being held here at the BYU Jerusalem Center this weekend, so we have service couples here from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, etc. As well as a few others like Elder Neuenschwander. They came to check out the process and even helped a little bit the other day. After they left we decided to see just how fast we were going. So we timed it for 5 minutes and we did 30 boxes. That is 30 hygiene kits a minute. They have already sent thousands of them to Gaza that we made and packaged in our cute little boxes with the BYU Jerusalem Center logo on them.

(Thur., Feb. 26) Well, not a lot to say about it. I am on the set up committee, so I spent a couple hours that afternoon setting up for Seder. Seder was really cool. I couldn’t believe we were just sitting there for over four hours in the cafeteria. We all participated in different ways, everyone took turns being servers, narrating, singing, etc. I sang some song with a few other guys… but I really have no idea what it was about. It was nice to learn a little bit more about the symbolism of all of it. I’ll just post a few pics instead of talking about it:


A little pre-meal kitchen prep time.


My table during Seder (still missing one person). Note the plate of six of the symbolic foods used during the Passover meal.


Washing my hands. cool huh? But really, part of ritual purification before the meal.


A Hellenistic Jew?

(Wed., Feb. 25) Well, our City of David field trip began with an amazing 3D movie. It really was quite cool and educational. It definitely gave me a better understanding of the area. It was even better than a really cheesy cartoonish movie we had watched at the Tower of David Museum. It was neat to see some of the ruins of the city, the Gihon Spring, etc. Of course, the coolest part was Hezekiah’s Tunnel. I have always thought that digging that tunnel was an amazing feat to it was so cool to actually go through it. It is incredible the things that they could do back then. I hiked my jeans up nice and high and I came out of the tunnel completely dry. But… then we played in the little pool at the end so I was still soaking. One thing that was neat – this is for Mom and Dad- was that the pool we were playing in was what, if I understand correctly, they would have told you was the Pool of Siloam (I also remember seeing it on your videos). However, they now believe that to just be a Byzantine era pool and recent excavations that are still going on have discovered a way bigger pool just a little further past the little pool that is at the end of today’s tunnel. So we were sitting on the steps of the partially excavated large pool. Also, we got to see the main road that they are excavating (sewer under it an all) running from the pool up to the entrance to the Temple Mount.

After, I again went “wandering”. We went to St. Peter’s church nearby where Christ may have been arraigned and beaten. Then we wandered a lot around the Armenian, Christian, then Jewish quarters. We went to Christ’s Church which was cool because it had element of a synagogue, Hebrew writing in the stained glass, etc. I guess its purpose was for converted Jews. We went to the Latin Patriarchate and the Armenian St. James Cathedral. Both were amazing churches. We observed about a half hour service at the St. James Cathedral. Really cool. We found a bunch of other things on our map, some cool lookouts from the rooftops, and just explored. I knew there was some residential area, but I was surprised by the great amount of residential area in the Jewish Quarter.

We have had some intense storms lately and we had a sweet one we went and played in for a little bit (well, I’ve played in them a few times). Sacrament meeting was awesome on the 21st because it was storming really hard outside and there was some huge flashes of lightning and loud thunderclaps. I taught Priesthood that day on Missionary Work.

The next day we headed out to the city and it was great because lots of people at the center had been planning on going to the Tower of David Museum but cancelled last second because of the weather. I hadn’t wanted to go just because there were so many people going. Well, we got out to the city and the weather was fine, so we went to the Tower of David. I really liked it. I thought I might be a little tired of museums, but I still really enjoyed it. It went through each of the periods of Jerusalem, the different rulers, etc. It was a great review and preview for classes.

I never knew I was a smoker, but I guess it must be true. On Monday, Feb. 23, we had a blood drive which I of course signed up for. Giving blood is a breeze for me, right? Only once have I had any complications, and that was because I was SOO healthy that my heart rate was really low (I doubt that healthy part though…). That time, when she turned around, I breathed really hard and when she took my heart rate again I was good to go. So here we are a few years later, and the girl in front of me got rejected because she was iron deficient. I felt bad for her, along with all the other girls who were iron deficient. I get my blood tested with no question in my mind I would be approved, and, What? I have so much iron in my blood that they can’t let me donate. They told me to stop smoking. Hmmm…. I have yet to investigate further why I have such ferrous blood. The guy told me I could come back so I chugged tons of water the next two hours and went back. I asked the wrong person because the lady wouldn’t me test again. Maybe it was a good thing, because you are “supposed to” wait three months, and well, I couldn’t quite remember when I gave blood last.

The next day I had volunteered to go to a place for disabled children but when we showed up there was only two kids there and the ladies were already playing with them. They don’t seem to coordinate with us very well when they need BYU students. So we kind of played with those two kids for a while and then just walked back. It was unfortunate because I was excited to get to play with the kids.


This was a cool sight to see as we were walking along.

A memorial at Yad Vashem

On 18 February we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. It was a humbling and educational experience. It just sickens me how intolerant mankind has been throughout all of time. I can somewhat comprehend how people could get into their mind to subjugate another race or people under them, but I cannot understand how so many people could actually support the genocide of the Jews. After Yad Vashem we went to Mt. Herzl right next to it. Our teacher, Ophir, made a very interesting point of Mt. Herzl being like the temple for Secular, Zionistic Jews. The juxtaposition of the two places was enlightening. It helped further create in me a sense of the need that the Jewish people must have felt to have a nation of their own. I’m glad that they do have a nation, but I do not like the plight of the Palestinians who are here. It is such an intricate and delicate situation, one that I cannot pretend to understand, but I am grateful for the chance that I have had here to become somewhat more enlightened on the difficult circumstances.

On the 19th we had some more excursions in the morning to many places, Church of Mary Magdalene, Dominus Flevit (where Jesus wept over Jerusalem), Absalom’s Pillar, Zachariah’s Tomb, etc. That afternoon I headed up a group to go to a tour at the Knesset. It was cool to learn a little bit more about the Israeli government. Oh wait, whoops, maybe I should learn a little bit about the American government. I really need to learn more about the politics of my own nation.

After, everyone wanted to take a taxi right back to the center, but luckily I had Aleni and Lisa with me again to go exploring. We wandered around some nice rose gardens on our way from the Knesset to the Supreme Court Building, then over to the other Hebrew U campus (one is right next to the Jerusalem Center), then decided to walk back over to Ben Yehuda street to meet a group that was going out to dinner. On our way I saw some American Jewish Agency something building and I wanted to know what it was so we went in and asked. We started talking to a girl there, probably about 5 years or so older than us, and we ended up walking home with her. She lived next to the market, which is where we wanted to stop and it is just a couple blocks from Ben Yehuda Street. She was born in Israel, grew up in America, and moved back to Israel. So it was awesome talking to her. It was actually a pretty long walk and it is awesome she walked with us because she knew the best way. She was very impressed by the Mormon University and said she had gone to the concerts there quite often. She raved about the auditorium and how it is such a beautiful place. I mean… seriously… We have an amazingly nice auditorium overlooking the entire city of Jerusalem. Where else do you get such a cool place for concerts and church meetings? We stopped at her apartment for a second for her to drop her stuff off and then she walked us the rest of the way to the market. We got some stuff there for dinner and then made our way over to meet the other group, got ice cream at McDonalds, and went back to the center. Oh I can’t forget we even had some Cha Cha lessons that night… poor girls, if only there were some more boys for them to dance with.

Friday the 20th I went to a synagogue service! It was really neat to go to. Not quite as cool as the Western Wall, but still cool. Of course there was that part where I usually had no idea what was going on, but that is okay. It is still great to observe. I would just look at the Hebrew words and try to sound them out when I was totally lost and wanted something to do. We still got to do some singing and danced around a bit at a few parts.