Quite the plethora of events...

I've known since I got here how blessed I am to have the opportunity to be here, but it wasn't until last week when the new director, Brother Brown, gave us a fireside about the history of the building that I came to truly appreciate the opposition that the church faced in the construction of the center, and the value that they place on the center as a learning opportunity for students. President Kimball picked the land plot in 1978, even though it was not for sale, and many people said it wouldn't be possible. They thought they could have the land plot secured in 6 weeks - but it wasn't until 18 months later after much difficulty with various organizations all around Jerusalem they were given the ok to go. The bottom part of the building sits on an Israeli "green zone", meaning no one is allowed to build there, and the top part had to be below a certain height because of the Lutheran group that holds a piece of land with a magnificent view of the city above us. Against all the opposition that came to the center, they began construction and tried to think of ways to pay back the local society for taking up a piece of land on their beloved Mt. Scopus - and came up with the idea to grant 10 Palestinian students every semester a full-ride scholarship to BYU (incidently one of the Palestinain members of hte branch here attended BYU on this scholarship several years ago). The construction company that started building the center was told they'd never build in Israel again - and now the "Mor Company" (as they've named themselves..."Mormon") has been in charge of construction of the Supreme Court, Foreign Ministry Building, and many other promiment places. Brother Brown said "Even with the enormous opposition - the center went on."
He informed us that the center was to bring the city in to the building. The corridors are cobblestone, and are covered in some places and uncovered in others - reflecting the atmosphere of the Old City and the shopping areas that are also sporadically covered. The architects also wanted the building to "live" and "breathe" along with the land, and an important part of that was bringing light in to the building - thus the many windows and beautiful arches. You can feel the life of the building through the changing light throughout the day. The brethren even declared the building temple quality. My favorite quote of the night was "This is a place that holds the Lord's eye, His eye is upon this place." The night was really incredible, and made my appreciation for the center grow even more - if that's possible.
The next day was pretty incredible as well, we got to visit the Holocaust Museum of Israel called Yad Vashem. This was quite an emotional experience, that I'm not sure I was ready for. We learned so much about the Jewish people and their experience through the Holocaust, it's incredible to me what they had to go through, and how seemingly ignorant the rest of the world was. One of the most powerful quotes I recorded from the Museum was by a member of the Jewish community of Germany (at least...I'm pretty sure that's who it was, sorry for the uncertainty), anyway, it said "Tomorrow we will be heading towards the Great Unknown in full awareness and at peace. If we are meant to live, all the better; and if not,..." I can't imagine living in that kind of fear. At the end of the museum tour which was filled with awesome pictures and video clips, we entered a memorial for the children who died during the Holocaust - all 1.5 million. It was built by a Jewish couple who survived the concentration camps, while their 5 year old son did not. Inside was only a few - probably less than 5 - candles that were reflected thousands of times off of many mirrors. The room was dark besides the light that eminated from the candles, and on a speaker a man read the names, hometown, and age of the children known who died echoed throughout the building. At the entrance were nine pictures of Holocaust victim children - it was really powerful. While Yad Vashem was definitely a great experience, almost as good was the experiences we had with our guide. He was from the states originally - a retired lawyer named Larry who is now living in the Holy Land and guiding tours both here and occasionally in Poland. He started asking all sorts of questions about our religion, and while at first they were things about population and more...demographic questions, they eventually switced to be more doctrinal, and we had to tell him we weren't at liberty to discuss that while here. It was so sad to me because it was such a great opportunity to share the gospel. One of the other students, Stephen, remarked at branch prayer tonight that their guide, a different lady, commented on the respectfulness of the Mormon students, and how even though she had led groups of Mormons through before, there really seemed to be something different about our group - just like President Faust she mentioned something in our eyes. It really gives me chills to know that we can have that kind of effect on people. It's such a great resonsibility too!
After Yad Vashem we met our Judaism teacher, Ophir, at Mt. Herzel, a site commemorating the establishment of Israel as a state. It was really neat to learn about this history as well, I really appreciate the fact that we're getting all sorts of history here, scriptural, political, and national. There was a group of young students here, as Ophir described them "playing army". I guess one thing they can do as Israeli older youth is learn about the state and about the army by participating in the army for a short period of time. It was fun to see that devotion and love of country as well.
That night we had a really fun volleyball tournament planned! My team (Rachael, Priscilla, and Jeff), the Cat's with Kippa's won our game, although it was close! Luckily for me I had the best fans on the side lines, my roommates came to cheer us on and even made a sign! It's always fun to have exciting things going on around the center, as well as the things we get to do outside!
The next day, Thursday, was pretty much all free! We decided to get a troup and go hit up a lot of the sites around the Old City we hadn't seen yet. The Chruch of Mary Magdalene was first on the list, because it's only open on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It was a beautiful building really close to the Garden of Gethsemane. Inside the artwork was unique and beautiful as well, that is one thing I really respect about other religions, I love the artwork that frequently adorns the places they worship. Josh, Miriam, Moon and I got a bit lost on the way - but we finally made it and met up with a bunch of other students. After that we decided to head in to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City for some PIZZA! (It'd been forever since I'd had some decent pizza so it sounded amazing). It's incredible how different the various quarters of the city can be. The Jewish Quarter is very clean, and the shops are more like mall stores than shacks. The pizza was really good, although we had to put up with a lot of hassling from an owner of a different pizza shop, who claimed his was much better and cheaper as well. (I tried both, he was wrong! ha).
The next landmark was the Dome of the Rock or the Temple Mount, depending on which religious group you're talking with. It was neat to come here because I hadn't yet, and it's a pretty key tourist spot. Moon and I played wheelbarrow with a few young boys who were wandering around the grounds, it was pretty fun! It reminded me a lot of my brothers and how much fun they are. I was taking some pictures of the beautiful Heidi when one of the security guards approached us and told us that we had upset some people (Heidi was advised by Moon to "loosen up" for pictures, and was perceived as having been dancing!) A fuming lady with a head scarf and a face the brightest shade of red I've ever seen came stomping up to us screaming in Arabic. At first I thought the guard was kidding - but it became obvious quickly that he definitely was not. We went to grab our things and he said to us again "You've got to be faster - it's time to go". So that was an interesting experience for sure! I guess we need to be more careful not to offend others here!
Dormition Abbey was also a lot of fun, a really beautiful chapel that contains a crypt which was the burial spot of Mary Magdalene. It was fun just exploring around this area as well, we got to see an awesome statue of King David, and also the room where the Last Supper took place (although it looked a little like they had done some restoration work to me ;) ). We had to hurry back because with all the rain the sky has been darkened with clouds and we didn't want to get back to the center too late. We were going to stop by Omar's on the way back, but we got lost on the way and so we just went straight back to the center!
The in center activity that night was volleyball as well as a ballroom dance class put on by Lara Mayfield. She and Matt Huff taught us all the ChaCha, and I'd have to say that for only having 17 guys for 63 girls...or something along those odds, we did pretty well for ourselves! And while the Cat's with Kippas didn't win our game that night, we still had a pretty good time - in fact I may have to pick up volleyball as a hobby!
Four hours of class were in store for us yesterday, and feeling pretty worn out from the activities of the night before and the long, late hours studying - after class I decided to nap. And by nap I mean...NAP big time. I slept from lunch until about 4:30, Miriam woke me up just in time to run out to catch our group as they were heading out. Our Judaism professor arranged for groups of 20 of us at a time to attend a Jewish Synagogue for Friday night Shabbat service, which was quite the experience! We arrived a few minutes early, dressed in what we would probably term as Sunday Casual. Ophir explained to us a little bit about the service and gave us copies of the songs that would be sang so that we could follow along and join in if we wanted. The services were held in a building that doubled as a scouting building, and was filled with metal folding chairs. It was partitioned in the middle with curtains to separate the men and the women. We took our seats, all the students kind of split up so that we could experience the meeting with other members of the synagogue surrounding us. The service was filled with singing different Psalms, all of which were in Hebrew, of course - and I was surprised at how great everyone sounded together. There was even a point during the service where women got up, grabbed hands with their neighbors, and danced around the perimeter of the chairs. (I'm pretty sure the men got to dance around even more than we did!) The purpose of the Friday night service is to welcome in Shabbat, which I think is really great because it shows they are truly grateful for Shabbat and the things it brings them. We picked Ophir up on the way to the service, but because of Jewish customs and beliefs he was not to ride home in a car, so we bid him goodbye at the door and jumped back in the vans. It was pretty cold so I was grateful we were able to ride home! The service was really beautiful and filled me, as frequently happens in this land, with spiritual envy for another religion. It makes me want to incorporate certain aspects of their religion in to my own beliefs.
Shabbat started out great - even before I got out of bed. It's been threatening to rain all week, and while we've got a few drops here and there, there hasn't been anything too substantial until last night. The thunder and lightening is even more impressive when it's viewed through the many windows in the building (I guess we're living with the building again). I woke up to the rain pounding on our window, and although I didn't really appreciate it then, I was able to in sacrament meeting. Like I've said before, we hold our meetings in the Auditorium, in which one entire wall is windows - the wall we face actually. The speakers today were framed by the storm - which was both incredible and awful. I'm sure those of you reading this know how much I love the rain, so while many of the students were a little sad at the implications of the rain on plans for the week, I was ecstatic. The best moment for me was when Kari, the most talented violinist ever, was playing a medley of There is a Green Hill Far Away, How Great Thou Art, and I Stand All Amazed, and behind here a great bolt of lightening struck, and not more than two seconds later lightening clapped. It was, to me at least, as if God himself was approving of the song and the circumstances. The line from the song How Great Thou Art kept sounding in my mind: " Shabbat here is so incredible, I feel, because it is spent the way sabbath days should be - totally focused on Christ and bringing oneself closer to Him. The great part is it's almost completely self motivated - which just shows the caliber of the students here - they're awesome! I look up to each of them so much.
Anyway, I feel bad for posting such a long blog but it's been a really incredible week and I can't not share with everyone. Thank you all for reading and keeping up with me, all your support and love is really important to me.