Shabbat!

SHALOM!! Hey everyone! So I know it's Saturday but we are just finishing up our first "Sunday" in Jerusalem. Over here the locals practice sabbath on Saturday, and it is one of the only areas in the world where the First Presidency has given the church permission to hold church meetings on the same day as the culture in the surrounding area. It was kind of weird at first but I guess I don't really have my sense of time back anyway - so it didn't really bother me. There is actually a branch here in Jerusalem, and they meet in the Center. There are only about sixteen members total - most of which work for the US consulate here in Jerusalem, and so are Americans. There is one lady from England who has a wonderful accent, and a Palestinian woman as well. We didn't get to hear much of the her story, but what we did hear was pretty amazing. She grew up here (in Bethlehem), and got baptized when she moved away to study at a university. She then moved back to this area, because she is working for the U.N., although she is not allowed to live in Jerusalem anymore because of her choice to become a member of the church. She has a special pass that allows her in to the city because of where she works, but even then sometimes she is denied access - she barely made it to church today. There have been, in the past, months and years where she wasn't allowed to go to church at all, and yet she has remained strong on her own, and is an amazing example for her people. She taught the Relief Society lesson today and I was very impressed with the amount she knew and how well she was able to convey her message.

Church was amazing not only because of her lesson and story, but for other reasons as well. We have a choir here that almost all the students participate in, and we held our first practice and preformance today (kind of funny that they were on the same day, I know). We hold church in the Auditorium which houses a beautiful organ and has windows that look out right on to the city. (You can see a picture of the organ and then of the city from the auditorium). The branch members all come here and stay around the center until dinner time (they don't have lunch on Shabbat, and so they wait about three hours until we eat). After sacrament meeting and the musical number, we all had Sunday School together in a dome topped building, and it was probably the most spiritual lesson I've ever attended. Everyone participated, and the lesson took off in a direction I'm not sure even the teacher anticipated.

Anyway! Things are going really well over here, sorry to ramble on for so long. I hope everyone is doing well at home and enjoying themselves as much as I am! Thanks so much for the support - love you all.