A realization of time

I began this blog with the intent to share my full with respects to my journey to and in The Holy Land; However, I have realized that I will not likely make daily entries so I will sum many things up and go further into detail on other matters. I hope you will forgive me for my brevity on certain matters. Especially if you have been here and seen the things I have seen and the things I will see, because you know how amazing this experience really is. In fact many of the details I will leave out were more spectacular than I ever could have imagined. To assist in this process of "summing things up" I will include exerps from an email I sent to one of my sisters as a result of her curiosities:

"When we arrived in Israel on Friday. We flew into the Tel Aviv Airport. My friend (using your camera) took some really cool pictures of Jumbo Jets with The Star of David on them. When we arrived in Jerusalem I walked through the BYU Jerusalem Center, on Mount Scopus, to the west side or the building and looked out over Jerusalem. I can see quite clearly the Old City Walls and The Dome of the Rock.

   "On The Sabbath (Saturday) we had church. Before church we had ward choir practice in our chapel followed almost immediately by sacrament meeting where we performed. After church we went on a tour through much of The Old City. I was very excited about going through the Arab market (It was really kind of crazy: tons of people in a very tight space. Possibly the coolest thing about our tour was we were stopped by several merchants who all said basically the same thing "It's the Mormons! You have to be blessed of God to be a Mormon." I was very touched because they recognized who we were without us even saying anything—this is all the more impressive because millions of people visit Jerusalem every year as tourists, but we stand out among them all as being different in a good way; a way were the people would say "you have to be blessed of God."

"We entered The Old City through Damascus Gate. Once on the other side of the gate we were in Old Jerusalem. We left old Jerusalem through another gate and entered West Jerusalem. The difference between East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem is greater than the difference between the posh neighborhoods of Sandy and the poorest neighborhoods of Rose Park. Not that the people are poor, it's just a completely different environment. The one environment in East Jerusalem is very loud, enclosed, dirty, and busy: The environment in West Jerusalem is very quiet, open, and modern.

"In the evening on Sunday we had what they called "a musical discovery." This wasn't exactly a talent show, or an audition, but it was kind of a mixture of both. What the musical directors of BYU Jerusalem said about it was "we are trying to get a feel for the musical talents of your group so we can plan ensembles, and other activities were we can utilize your talents." It was AMAIZING many of my class mates are so talented and The Spirit was so strong during our evening of music, that I was completely taken back. I performed part of a song I've been writing called "Do you know the way to Jerusalem." I hope to complete it while I am here. They did ask me to write a choir peace to be performed before church as the prelude music. "

The past few days have been absolutely amazing. In the last two weeks I have seen: The Garden Tomb; Golgotha; The Church of The Holy Sepulcher; the ruins of the biblical city of Jericho (In case you are wondering, the walls really did come tumbling down, and archaeologists have found them.) a tree memorializing one of our Saviors miracles-- when he healed the blind man on the way to Jericho; a Bar Mitzvah; The Western Wall; The Dome of The Rock; the ruins of Herrod the Great's Winter Palace; The St. George monastery; Bedouins offering camel, donkey, and horse rides to tourists in the Judean wilderness, a herd of camels running through the Waddie Qelt .

I also had a birthday and was sung "Happy Birthday" followed by a Hebrew tradition where a couple of guy's lifted me up on a chair and quickly hoisted me up and down for each year I have been alive. (For a man of my stature this was quite a feat for these men to accomplish.) For my Birthday, besides doing homework and going to class discussions, I went shopping in "The Old City" ('The Old City' means the part of Jerusalem contained inside some ancient city walls.) and purchased a leather backpack from a shop keeper that is trusted by both the students and administration of BYU Jerusalem. I went shopping with several of my lady friends and they went cloths and jewelry shopping. I enjoyed shopping with these women because: They are just amaizing people; and the womens clothing in this part of the world is absolutly amaizing--the clothes are modest, fashonable, decorative, and all around fun.