Shephela And Following

What a week, there has been so much going on this week, I don’t know where to start. I think that my last post ended with last Sunday, so I will start on Monday.

Monday was our Shephela Field trip. It covered the low hills – between the coastal plains (by the Mediterranean, and the Judean Hills (Where Jerusalem is). We went to lots of sights, and they were all really cool. Our first stop was Beth Shema, were we talked about Sampson since it happened in that area (Story of his life takes place in that valley). There we talked about Sampson, and then there was a pottery dump there as well. It was really cool, this huge pile of pottery that was just sitting there.

The next stop was Azekah, which overlooks the valley where David and Goliath fought. That  was pretty cool. We just looked out there, but I will tell more about the valley in a sec

Next we went to anther place, I don’t remember what it was called, but there were a lot of cool places in it. First we went to the Bell caves – when they harvested the Lime stone, they shaped them into caves. The Limestone here was really soft, so it would collapse from times to time. The acoustics were really cool, we sang a few hymns, and then took lots of pictures. Unfortunately, I didn’t really like many of my pictures. I will get them from other people later.

Our next stop within that part was the Dove Coutes where they raised doves and pigeons for sacrifice and eating. I wasn’t really expecting it to be cool, but when we went in (Underground) it was really neat. There were more than 2,000 niches for the doves to stay, and it was all open as shown in the picture above. It was really cool.

After a little hike, we came to the olive press. It was also really cool. Also underground, it had the crusher, and then the beam press as shown above. The crusher was a big round stone that was in a bigger dish-like thing, and would roll in a circle. They would have a donkey or mule hooked up to a stick that would turn the stone, and would have the donkey/mule walk in circles around it. Then they would take it to the beam press, which rocks connected to the beams that would put the pressure on it to squeeze the juice out of the crushed up olives, every once in a while, they would have to tighten the rocks to so that they could get every drop out of their olives. It was cool to see and learn about.

Next we went through the cisterns. Every house had a cistern underneath it to get water from, then there were also tunnels to get around town underground. It was cool to see, I think we walked around for 45 min – 1 hour coming out just a little ways away. However, this cisterns were really cool. Because it was dark, I didn’t get very many pictures, and most of the ones that I did take were fuzzy :(

Our last thing at this sight was the tombs. There were two of them, one was simple, and white-washed, the other was painted in the main corridor.  It was really cool, but packed with people, and my one good picture, with people from our group also turned out blurry…

Lachish was pretty cool as well. After a while, all the Tells start to look the same, but when you find something different it is cool. This was the first tell that I looked for pottery as we were walking, and when I started, I noticed it EVERYWHERE. It was crazy, there were pieces like every other rock. Lachish also has a siege ramp, which was cool to see, I hadn’t seen one of them before.

Our last stop on the way back to the center was the Valley of Elah. This is where David killed Goliath with a stone, way cool. We saw the brook that he would have picked his stones from, (and picked up some stones.) and the teachers brought a box full of Slingshots so that we could sling a stone in the Valley of Elah. Way cool.

Tuesday, we had classes for like 6 hours straight, and then prepared for the midterm in Israel. Between class and homework I went out to the city. That was fun, we went to Domitian Abby, (I have been there a few times now), the room of the Last Supper, King David’s tomb (although his real tomb is in the City of David, outside the Old City walls), and then came back to the center. That night I tried out for the in-center volleyball teams, It should be fun

Wednesday, again we had 6 hours of class, and then I went out to the city again, just for a little while. We went to Omar’s, an amazing olivewood carving shop, and then walked to Jaffa gate to see the Parade that we missed. However, we did come back through the Old City, and it was so fun to wind our way through the crowds.

Thursday was just class. I think I went out again, but I don’t really remember where I went… I know that is bad, but they all seem to blend together. That night I studied for our Palestine test the next morning. It is amazing how much stress can flow around the center when one person starts it, then everyone freaks out and starts stressing. Not fun.

Friday we had our test; it was not one that we should have worried about. I got 20/20, and the one question that I did miss (Perfect score would have been 21/20) was something stupid that I knew, but was second-guessing myself on. Oh well. We were locked in the center Friday due to the happenings on Dome of the Rock, but I because I was signed up to go to Synagogue, and we could still go to west Jerusalem, we would just have to get a cab, and we were already being taken by van to the Synagogue, I got to go. It was cool, basically just a prayer session to start the Sabbath, but good atmosphere. They pray together, and it was all in Hebrew, so I could be getting stuff wrong. But most of the prayers are sung. Shows how music brings the Spirit when you are praising God.

Saturday was General Conference. That was the main thing that happened. I did go to the Orson Hyde gardens, and then to the Tomb of the Prophets (Hagai, Zachari, and Malachi) which was way cool. Because it was underground and dark, we got candles to light our way, and we got to sing the second and third verse of “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet.” General conference was big, but I will write that in the next post.

Sunday we went to the city of David. Basically it was Jerusalem in the time of Abraham, through the Roman’s I believe, so we saw a lot of sights within that, I will just post pictures from it. The coolest part was Hezekiah’s Tunnel which brought the water from the East side to the West side of the city where it was expanding.

Monday, we went to Israel Museum. That was cool, we walked there, and it ended up taking almost 2 hours by the time we actually found it. People kept giving us wrong directions and laughing at us for walking along the way. But it was cool. There were a lot of artifacts, and it took a long time to make it through, but it was good to see.

Overall, it was a great week, and I am still floating on air from President Monson’s announcement about Missionary work. So excited.

Here are some extra Pics from the week:)

This picture is the Jewish graves, They are on the Mount of Olives, and we passed them on our way to the Tomb of the Prophets.

Another great sunset in Jerusalem:) Gorgous, it had about 3 different phases, this was one of the first phase that I saw it in, After this, it went gradually pink. It was way pretty:)