Concussions and the Holocaust Museum

Let me think about what has happened since we last met together.

I met this GREAT girl from our neighborhood, Raghad. She is 16, lives across the street, and probably the best thing that has happened to me since I got to Jerusalem. Sarah Bradshaw is the one that connected us, so I have her to thank for that! About two weeks ago (9/30), I started talking to Raghad on Facebook, and we decided to get a game of soccer together. So a group of us from the center met her, two of her friends, and a guy from the branch. We walked down to this dirt field near the bottom of the Mount of Olives, and played, it was honestly one of the best days ive had here! I am absolutely not athletic, so I volunteered to be goalie. Aka stand around and do nothing. Side note: when we first met up with Raghad, I I noticed two little kids were watching us. Probably Halle’s age, so 7-9ish. One kid was wearing real fancy shoes, so I said “Hey homie, I love your fancy shoes!” He was so embarrassed, said thank you. I kept trying to talk with him, but he was embarrassed, and we needed to start walking. But he was a cutie. So as I’m glancing around the city, being a “goalie” I noticed the two kids! They had followed us all the way down to this dirt field. So I yelled to them “You! Fancy shoes!! Come play!” Immediately, they pop down from the highway, ran down the hill, and stood right by me! So Abed, fancy shoes, was my “co-goalie” and Ahmed, his spazzy little friend, would side tackle people as a defender. It was so hysterical.

We also had Arab culture night. We ate a delicious feast, dressed up, had dancing, it was great. I had a different outfit on but someone told me I looked like Ellen Degeneres as a Shepard, which was very flattering since Ellen dresses very trendy but not totally the look I was going for. So I put on a dress I found, that looked cute but smelled like unidentifiable BO. Tasty. Luckily, the scarf is mine :)

Last week we were on a fieldtrip looking at some caves, when I basically died. Not really, but part of me did I think. From what I’ve been told, our fieldtrip was covering the story of David and Goliath, a few other locations and some caves. I walked into a cave with a friend, turned to walk out and started up the steps. I guess I thought I had walked far enough to stand up, so with the full force of my life I stood straight up, into the celiing of this cave. Immediately, I blacked out and fell back down onto the steps. It wasn’t far, and I pass out or bleed, but it didn’t feel awesome. I immediately got a headache, felt like barfing, and my left eye was blurry. I was also super dizzy. But I didn’t want to be a fusser, and I didn’t want to miss the fieldtrip, so I kept going. I really don’t remember much, but luckily I have 81 people here to remind me of how I felt haha. I eventually asked to stay on the bus, I guess. And when we got back around 4pm I went right to sleep. I did not wake up until around 7am Wedneaday, aka 2 days later. There is a doctor here at the center, and he would come in every few hours and pry my eyes open and check my pupils he claims, but I was pretty out of it. The center rescheduled my midterms for me because I was having some wicked headaches, which luckily have gone away. I still didn’t do well on my midterms because my short term memory isn’t what it should be, but whatever. They kept saying “you have a migraine?” and I quickly said “this is NOT a migraine excuse me. This is a HEADACHE from bonking my head.” People just love to throw around the migraine word. Fools. So between shingles, which are mostly healed, and a concussion, I am not having the best of luck. But I haven’t had to visit an ER so I’m counting my blessings on that. And I only missed one day of class, which is pretty awesome considering how big my goose egg is.

Yesterday, we went on a fieldtrip to the Holocaust museum here. I went to the museum they have in Washington DC last spring, and they are actually very different. The one in DC focuses a lot on the terrible things that happened in the Concentration Camps, but here in Israel they focused way more on the politics that lead up to the Holocaust, the life of Jews in the Ghettos, and what happened after liberation. They talked about the Concentration Camps, but they did not want to focus on the place all of their loved ones went to die. It was a very touching, memorable experience. There is a children’s memorial I will never forget. It is a dark room, with a candle lit for each child killed, over 1.5 million, and the walls are mirrors. And as you walk in there is a narrator that reads a child’s name, where they are from, and their age. When we slowly started walking out, everyone was emotional. Our group just sat outside the memorial weeping for probably five minutes. It was also interesting to learn that Israelis didn’t really talk about the Holocaust for a long time. It was something they didn’t want to remember, but it was also something they didn’t want to be known for. Israelis were supposed to be fighters, and they felt like a lot of the holocaust were people going like “lambs to the slaughter,” that they didn’t fight. Israel also just had a terrible war, 1% of their population had been killed, so they felt like “tell me how bad it is for you in Germany” kind of thing. Which I had NO idea about. It wasn’t until the 60’s-70’s that they really started to talk about the Holocaust and the hero’s that were involved.

I love it here. Except how often we are tested. This week I have three midterms. We go to Egypt in about 2 weeks, and finals are right before we leave in three of our classes. So pray for me and my forgetful mind. C’s get degrees right? #senioritis

Katrina Williams

Field Trips and Free Days

Every Monday we get to go on Field Trips. Sometimes they are full day, sometimes a half day, but they make sure we always have one a week. Well, students get a little excited and want to spend our Sundays (which here are our free days since we honor the Sabbath on Saturday) and try to go and see things before the fieldtrips when we can. BORING. Once is enough for me thank you very much. So the last two Sunday’s I’ve been boring and didn’t go to museums and such like a lot of other people here.

On our recent field trips we were able to see the location where John the Baptist was beheaded, the last spot Moses was able to be before the children of Israel went into the Holy Land, where Abraham was to sacrifice Moses, the wilderness the Children of Israel wandered for 40 years, and the road where the Good Samaritan occurred. It’s pretty amazing to be living the scriptures. But like I said, it’s a lot of dirt and rocks. “Here is where Moses got his last view of the Holy Land” but its like a literal dirt mount we are standing on, as sweat is dripping down my back and I’m hungry from the pita bread I ate for lunch because I took the mystery meat out. Which is probably scary similar to how the Children of Israel felt who were with Moses.

I went to Tel Aviv on one of my free days. It was actually a really funny story because I knew when we got to the beach something was unusual but no one listens to me here. I don’t know why but I’m serious, my opinion means literally zero. I must need some humbling. Anywho, we get dropped off at this beach, and its like roped in. Like a hotel swimming pool. Not the open ocean. And to sit on chairs that are provided, some guy is walking around with a shirt that say “Beach. Love.” And is taking Shekels. So I say “Hey, I don’t think this is the beach. This looks like it’s a private beach, maybe even a hotel. Want to keep walking?” But no one listens to me and we set up camp. I didn’t swim, so I’m just looking at the beach, and noticed that there are no women around us. Mostly just men in speedos. Which again, I mention and everyone says “well that’s just European” k… no it isn’t but alrighty. So this guy wearing a “Beach. Love.”  Tank top comes over and asks if I’d like a drink. So I am absolutely convinced this is not some regular Mediterranean beach. After a little bit more observation, and overhearing conversation we had set up at a Gay beach! A private, gay beach!! Hahaha!! I was dying. All these students who wanted to surf and whatever where trapped by this glorified outdoor pool, and were looking like idiots floating around at a gay beach. I just loved it. Because I said from moment one it didn’t look public. So that’s a neat story to not take back to the Center with us.

On Sunday of this week I went to the Biblical Zoo. It was like 11 bucks to get in, how nice would it be if the Hoggle Zoo was that cheap? It was really fun to look at all of the animal signs and see coordinating Bible verses. Also I’m amazed at whatever laws they have here for animal slash human protection because there was a literal string separating us from like 25 kangaroos with a sign that read “Please don’t touch the kangaroos, they can be aggressive.” No duh, I’ve seen like 15 YouTube videos of Kangaroos kicking people in the face. Even the lions and stuff were just behind a fence that was like chest height. They said that the fence was electric but I touched it. And I’m here to testify it is not. Because it probably would have stopped my heart if it was intended to stop a lion. The Zoo wasn’t ghetto or rundown, it just had like zero security for us or the animals. Which was fun, but if the chettah had been feeling fast and not sleeping that day I would have been dead. They have an OPEN vulture exhibit. Like you walk into this netted area full of vultures and just like chill with these nasty birds. So weird.

This week my goal is to eat something from a street vendor. I haven’t done it yet, and I’ve been here an entire month. I eat the pastries, bread, cookies, all that tasty stuff that is basically thrown at me for free. But the meat geeks me out. So I’mma try it and see how I survive.

Love, peace, hair grease.

Kathandra.

Jordan and a Jewish Birthday

I’ll repent for never emailing. It’s weird how the limited free time we have here, most of us spend studying for our ridiculously frequent tests and quizzes, or running to the Old City to see as much as we can before its dark and we can’t be there. To my credit, some kids have only called their mothers like once. And I’ve called at least once a week, usually more. So that’s nice of me….. and a justification. Ill change my ways, next week :)

We spent last week in Jordan, and it was lovely. Hot, but lovely. Petra was really cool. Turns out Petra is a place I never knew I’ve always wanted to visit. It just amazes me that people so long ago thought “lets hike up this mountain, then carve this amazing thing into it, then abandon it.” I barely can get myself up four flights of stairs every morning knowing full well a breakfast has already been made for me and is waiting for my arrival.  The kids in Petra are so sneaky and stole my heart. The law in Jordan says these kids should be in school, so BYU asked us not to give them any money when we came. But that didn’t stop me from giving them candy and playing with them :) I also got to ride a camel, which is not as fun as I thought because they are actually so freaking scary and children are the ride operators. I could have died. Ammon was a little less exciting, but we was some cool castle thing, so that was exciting. We got to see the site where they say John the Baptist baptized Jesus, which was pretty neat. People were baptizing themselves in the brown river on both the Jordanian and Israeli side. Some students were having reverence issues because once the baptized members came out of the water, their white sheets became sheer. I’ll let you use your imagination on why they were giggling. I was so nervous about eating in Jordan, because I am not known for having the most advanced pallet, but the food was great! We ate at really nice restaurants, and the hotels made us yummy food also.

I decided for my birthday I wanted to get my hair done, like getting my roots touched up. I would like to fully admit I’m an idiot. So I asked the hotel guy how to schedule an appointment at the hotel salon to get my hair done. Well he was so excited to hear it was my birthday and that a white girl was going to get her hair done by a Jordanian he scheduled it for me. So I walked up to this ghetto salon, and this guy motions for me to sit. He states he doesn’t speak any English and points to my head and says “browns or yellows?” yeah…. Promising. So I say “my hair is brown, but I want to keep it yellow.” He nods, and off he goes. Well I text Sara wigging out because my head is burning so bad, whatever he put on is FOAMING, and he left me for over 30 minutes to go SMOKE over by the sink. Sara is also panicking and telling me to get it off my head. I’m prepared to be bald. I motion as rudely and loudly as I can in Jordanian for this man to wash my head. He tells (motions) he’s smoking. Basically my actual nightmare. So I sit by the sink, and he comes over and starts to wash it out. I see in the mirror my hair is the woman from 101 Dalmatians, tooootally white on the roots, and yellow from where he didn’t touch down. So he starts to panick too, and calls 3 other Jordanian people over, who spent FORTY minutes mixing potions with shampoo on my head, and when I left the sink, it wasn’t quite so bad. But I am beyond grateful I am not in America because seriously I look so ghetto. So I walk downstairs and EVERYONE is in the foyer, and is like “cute hair Katie.” “oh youre so brave to get your hair done here, it looks nice.” Yeah, riiiight.

The next morning at breakfast, the same hotel guy who helped schedule my birthday hair massacre told the kitchen it was my birthday Friday (the next day) and so he asked them to make a gigantic cake. He stopped breakfast and made an announcement “I see in ancient Greek ‘Katherine has special 2-3 birthday on Friday. Not to celebrate in Jerusalem, allow Jordan to special her birthday. Bring in cake!” Then everyone sang happy birthday and it was awesome. At the center, they don’t make you a cake so I’m the only student all semester that gets a huge cake! It was so nice! We left Jordan that day, and came back to Jerusalem. My actual birthday I found out that the reason my back and side had been hurting all week was because I have SHINGLES. So I took a midterm, then spend the rest of the afternoon being half nude in the Center Dr’s office and then driving with him and his wife to the pharmacy. My cute roommate Ali did request the kitchen to make French toast for breakfast because it was my favorite, then she had a huge group of kids watch While You Were Sleeping to celebrate. It was an awesome birthday and I was celebrated all week.

Yesterday we went to Jericho. I’m learning that most of our field trips are just like Mom predicted “a lot of fields.” It was cool to see, but literally it was like rocks, and dirt and field. We are told great Biblical stories; we get to read the bible in the locations they think things happen, it’s all set up to be an awesome thing. But we are sweating to death in the dessert looking at dirt and rubble now. So it’s a give and take kind of thing. I learned they can’t find any evidence that the walls of Jericho fell like Joshua said, so that was interesting. So either they rebuilt the wall, and that’s why they can’t find it or it was symbolic. We also saw Herod’s winter palace, and I just think he is gross and took zero photos of the whole day. A lot of places students take photos of I just think, “google it and you’ll get a better photo” or why on earth would you be smiling at such a sad or holy place. I just keep feeling in awe that I am at that location, and don’t want an irreverent photo there. If that makes sense.

We are in mid-term mode for a lot of our classes. They do that so our classes can end and we can switch from Old Testament to New Testament, and we can have more field trips towards the end of the semester. So I have shingles, I’m studying for midterms, basically the only food I enjoy at the center is pita, and I have ghetto blonde hair. Pray for me, and pray for the Holy Land.

I love you all, and promise to write more.

Kt 

Shalom!

Holy smokes people. 

The last few days have been BUSY! I'll give you a brief rundown:

Tuesday morning we flew from SLC to NYC. The TSA in SLC decided I had a can of hairspray, which I didn't, but searched my entire carryon. And didn't find anything. Then unpacked my entire carryon. Then dropped one of my earrings, and didn't tell me. Any who, they didn't find hairspray, made me repack my carryon, then in the bathroom I heard a girl say " I can't believe they let me take my entire can of hairspray through security!" Aka they mixed up our bags. So thats really neat. My seat was somehow upgraded to Economy Comfort, so I sat next to the cutest older ladies, who happened to be previous Mission President's Wives. They were so beyond cute, and going to see the World Cup or something with tennis. They asked me for my email and number and are going to set me up with their grandsons. They offered to buy me lunch and give me money, which was so nice but I politely declined and nawed on my nasty granola bar for lunch.

My flight from NYC to Tel Aviv, I again wasn't sitting by students but I got the emergency exit row! I could have literally laid down in front of myself. It was amazing. I slept through almost the entire flight. I sat in-between this cute Israeli couple, who's daughter didn't want to travel with them and upgraded herself to Economy Comfort! Ha!

When we got here late Wednesday night they fed us in the cafeteria and made us go to a bunch of orientations. It was kind of brutal for how tired we were, but we had to do it sometime I guess.

Thursday they took us on an "Orientation walk" in the morning around the Old City. It was really neat to see all the cool little shops and vendors. We walked passed the Garden Tomb, but didn't go inside, yet. We also walked inside the church of the holy sepulcher, which was interesting. I'm excited to be able to go back when we have some free time tomorrow.

Classes started and the class load is fullllll. Old Testament is confusing, but I'm just not a history or geography person so my Ancient Near East class is going to be a nightmare. Luckily for me Brother Ludlow, who I had my sophomore year for Book of Mormon is here, and is teaching that course! So hopefully he will show mercy. We have two locals teaching us also, Bashir Bashir teaches us Israel culture basically and then I'm studying Hebrew (only 20 students got into the Hebrew class the other 62 are in Arabic.)

Last night we went to the Western Wall, which was so amazing. Because men and women worship separately at the wall, a lot of women students were confused because all of our teachers are men. I just went and found our teachers wives and made them educate me :) Which ended in me carrying one of my teachers 5 year old daughters the entire night, because she fell asleep at the wall. I found it so touching how our most sacred places, the temples, we don't allow non-members to worship with us or watch us worship. To Jews, the Western Wall is the most sacred place in their religion. And they freely allow others to worship with them, and watch them pray. I was so moved at their willingness to share.

Today (Sabbath/Saturday) I was called to serve as the Young Women's 1st counselor in the Jerusalem Branch. As students, we aren't in a student branch, we are in the local branch. So I'm serving under a sister who has been living in Jerusalem for over a year, and leaving in October. And in October they asked me to be the acting Young Women's President until they can call someone else, which might be until the end of the semester! So I have to teach these 4 girls (luckily the branch is small) and organize and attend mutual every Tuesday night. So pray that while the other students are studying and I'm taking care of these girls I'll still be able to pass my classes :) I'm so excited to serve these girls though, they are so great! Two of the girls are Brother Ludlow's daughters, and he jokingly came up to me today and said "Hey, I heard you're in the Young Women's Presidency. Please don't corrupt my daughters!" haha.

After our church services, a group of students and I walked to the Garden of Gethsemane. It was so surreal to be in a place that I knew so much about. Something I noticed, however, was that the Spirit didn't feel different for me there by being in that location. I have felt the Spirit just as strong testify of the Atonement, as I did being in the location where part of it occurred. It's nice to know you don't have to travel to these places to gain a testimony of the reality of our Saviors sacrifice for us.

Lastly, this week I was asked to serve as a "Bus Doctor" this semester. We have a doctor that lives in the Center with us, but due to some restrictions placed on him, when we go on field trips he can't come. So we have two buses, and on each bus they assign "doctors." We are given packs full of medication (even antibiotics!), materials for wounds, all that stuff, so that if someone gets hurt we are to take care of them. They looked at our prior experience and called us! The other girl is an EMT haha. I was like "well, I have like clipped a bunch of toenails, and like watched toes get amputated." I guess that makes me qualified?

The food is great here. The people are so fun. I am getting along with everyone pretty well. To the Melvilles that went on the trip to Israel and Egypt: I am convinced that one of my classmates is a descendant of the Ross family. Because I'm getting so annoyed with him that I'm about to start praying he can't come on activities with us. Special.

I love you all! I can text, but only through iMessage, which is limited to when I have wifi. And wifi is only on the first 3/8 floors. So I love love love getting texts, but it probably won't be responded to for a while, because the time difference is nine hours and wifi is weird.

Ill write you within the next week.

KT

Some photo references: Guess who found a diet coke. And it was 5 Shekels. And so so worth it.

I had this dreamy photo taken and then couldn't get off the wall, so this guy had to help me off and I thought i was just really funny. So here is the photo sequence of that. 

Also enjoy how cute my outfits are these days........ mmmhmmm.. Shout out to Grandma Renee for letting me borrow her pants for my time here in the Holy Land. All my pants are from her.