Palm Sunday

Good morning and welcome to Holy Week!!!

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday, which ushers in Holy week for the Christians and is Passover Week for those of the Jewish faith!

Because of my broken leg, I was not able to do the Palm Sunday walk, but I was able to perch on the sidelines and watch the procession go by, which was really neat!!!

The walk begins at the church of Bethpage on the Mount of Olives where there is a church service, and ends at Stephen's Gate in the Old City. If you are interested in reading the biblical description of the triumphal entry, it can be found in Matthew 21 or also in Luke 19. Basically, Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus entering Jerusalem one week before his crucifixion. He entered on a donkey and immediately went to cleanse the temple. Holy week starts with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter, and is a time to reflect on the events of the last week of the Savior's mortal ministry. 

Apparently, if you have a broken leg, people hand you free stuff... These boys were selling palm leaves to people, but one of them came over to me and handed me this giant one and said "no charge" so I held that for the duration of the walk, which was pretty cool :-) Also, all these monks and nuns handed me flowers and song books and everyone said "God bless you" or "May God heal you" as they passed me...

Hunter, Van Swag, Chloe, Me, and Camilla

All the JC kids that were walking by stopped to take pictures with me ;-)

The Judd Family also stopped by to say hello and take a picture with me--I love them! They are the sweetest people! Brother Judd was my Old Testament teacher. 

Sarah and Hunter were awesome and took a taxi with me both ways and stayed with me during the procession. They are really terrific :-)

How cool is that?! It was neat to see thousands of Christians together celebrating the Savior

Tyler and Jaque with their palm leaves

It was pretty crowded :-)

love it.

My giant palm leaf--I ended up breaking off a few of the leaves to keep after the whole thing was over.

Like I said, Van Swag and Hunter were great and stayed with me the whole time :-) I really appreciated that!

When we were waiting for the taxi to come pick us up afterwards, this Arab man came over to me (we were waiting outside of his little grocery store) and handed me this bottle of juice. I said no at first, thinking he was trying to sell it to me, but he pushed it into my hands and smiled as he turned to walk away. I said thank you. It is a blessing to see how charitable complete strangers (and those that I know well) have been to me with this whole leg injury. 

Palm Sunday was definitely a highlight of the trip for me! I loved being there for it!

-E

Snorkeling in Eilat and the Events Following

What a beautiful day!!!

Last Thursday we had the opportunity to go on a student organized activity to Eilat where we went snorkeling. Eilat is on the Red Sea, and from where we were sitting on the beach, we were in the State of Israel and could see Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It was pretty rad. Although as many of you know, I had a little injury in the course of the day (which I will get to by the end of this post) we still had a wonderful time and overall the day was really excellent!

Jacque and Romeo goofing off on the bus ride there (it took about 4 hours to get there)

Myself and Kate getting our snorkel gear together :-)

I love how Romeo got himself in the picture when he took it :-)

Van Swag, Lindee, Lindsey, and Romeo

Rachel is really cool and has a go-pro that can take underwater pictures and video, so we got some really neat footage :-)

check it. I'm in the Red Sea :-)

Kari, Rachel, Me, and KC--the snorkeling was set up was such that you were not allowed to wade straight into the water (there was a small wading area for inexperienced swimmers, but the snorkeling was not accessible directly from the beach). Instead, there were two docks set up and you walk out onto the docks and swim from one to the other with the current. There were some buoys set up in the water as resting spots if you needed them--we used them to take pictures on :-)

Ironically, I wore a t-shirt and shorts so that I wouldn't get totally sun-burnt and was super cautious about re-applying sunscreen, because I ALWAYS get sunburned when I go snorkeling. I did not get burned, but I did break my leg, so that seems ironic...

and we snapped some cool under-water pictures

As far as I can tell, that is Kate, Sarah, Myself, ? and Hannah

check it. Red Sea. Moses walked on that reef... I don't know that for sure... ;-)

I like this one

and this one.

Myself and Rachel

Rachel and myself on the dock after we finished snorkeling (these are the steps that I later fell on and broke my leg)

Our group snorkeling

Taylor and Tawny on the buoy

Jen, Amber, and Bethany in the wading area--it was nice to chill in the water close to the beach.

I already pretty much ruined my toms by wearing them in the salt water (I accepted their fate before the day began...) and so I decided to try and get some artsy pictures with them in the sand...

more artsy photos...

So Rachel and I went back out onto the dock to take a few more pictures (which is when I snapped this one) I believe right after I got up from this picture, I was going to walk down the stairs to get a picture with some of the people coming out of the water right then. As I was walking down these steps, bad timing combined with slippery steps combined with a little wave resulted in me slipping and my left foot turned inward and cracked (loudly) as I fell on it. At first, I thought that although it was incredibly painful, it was no big deal (You probably all know that I am exceptionally clumsy and fall over often, I also have a pretty high pain-tolerance). However, I soon discovered that I could not put any weight on it and it started swelling immediately. Luckily, there were lots of people around and someone went and grabbed a few guys from the beach to help get me off the dock...

my friends are all champs--Nikki told me jokes the whole time, Rachel took these pictures (and video), and Ragan and Spencer (and probably others) helped get me back to the lifeguard on the beach...

We tried this HORRIBLE idea of Ragan giving me a piggy back ride. Notice the grimace of pain on my face... that idea sucked...

Ragan and Hunter ended up carrying me back--and actually, carrying me the rest of the day...

I don't have any pictures of the rest of the day, but just in summary:

I got back to the lifeguard station, and the lifeguard wrapped my foot and I had to fill out an incident report. I don't remember a whole lot of details--I was in a lot of pain and I was trying to distract myself. I remember Rachel buying me ice cream and Katie coming over and shaking her head at me (haha--I always get injured...apparently when everyone was running over to the dock to help me, Katie and Sarah Layton were playing cards and when they asked what the excitement was, someone said 'Erika's hurt' to which Katie responded 'my Erika?' and then sighed and continued playing cards... haha--she told me that she didn't want to be one more person ambushing me but she did come see me when the crowd had dispersed ;-})

Then I was carried to the bus (luckily this injury happened about 10 minutes before we were going to leave the beach). Since Eilat is 4 hours from Jerusalem and we were there on bus, I stuck out the rest of the day...We had time to shop and walk around in the town of Eilat, so I was carried off the bus and had perched in a shady spot and had some nice reading time :-) It was a beautiful day! I actually really enjoyed the quite time (and I had a few people who chose to stay with me, so that was fun)

Then we went to a Kibbutz for dinner (and delicious ice cream) and then I was carried back to the bus again. 

The four hour bus ride back was fine--I watched the movie The Help on my iphone...I've had worse travel experiences than riding on a bus for several hours with a broken leg... 

This is my leg when we were on the bus ride home

We got back to the center and I was carried down to my room (the center has 8 floors, you enter at the top and there are stairs all the way down, however, there are two elevators that reach down to the 5th floor. My room is on the 3rd floor). Dr. Bench, the center's volunteer doctor, was gone that night--his son was in town, so they were in Jordan visiting Petra--but luckily, Dr. Clayton (He and his wife arrived a few weeks ago and they are the new music service couple--many aspects of the JC are run by several different volunteer couples) was here, so he came in and re-wrapped my foot and helped me figure out crutches and gave me some Tylenol (a friend here offered me her prescription for some heavier pain meds, but I politely declined ;-})

So the next day (which was a Friday) when Dr. Bench came back in the afternoon, we went to the hospital and I got my foot X-rayed. Turns out I fractured my fibula, which is the small bone in the leg. So they put a partial-cast on my leg (the back was hard and it was wrapped around in bandages)--apparently only an orthopedic doctor can put a full cast on (who knew?) so the next few days, Dr. Bench was a champ and tracked down an orthopedic doctor that our travel insurance would cover (I am so thankful for travel insurance! It has covered everything so far!). In the meantime, Rachel and I moved to an empty 2 person apartment on the 5th floor, so I don't have to do any stairs, and I found the center's wheelchair, so I have been part time on crutches and often times in the wheelchair. 

This is me in the half cast (on Palm Sunday--more to follow on that)

This week, I went to the orthopedic doctor and got a full (plaster) cast put on. It could be worse. I don't have any pictures of me at the hospital to show you (bummer... oh well...) ... trust me, it happened. The hospitals we went to were very nice and clean and all, so that was good :-)

This is my plaster-casted leg (with a sock over my toes). It goes up to just below my knee...At some point, people will sign it.

Overall, I am looking at this as a learning and growing experience. It is a bummer for sure, but I am not dwelling on what I am missing out on. Instead, I am putting my faith in my Father in Heaven and I know that although this is not the most desirable circumstance, I will get through it and be stronger because of it. This just gives me another opportunity to lean on my Savior, Jesus Christ and know that His infinite atonement can make me whole, and my soul (body and spirit) are redeemed by Him. I am thankful that this isn't worse than it is, and I am still so thankful that I am able to stay in Jerusalem for the last month of the program and enjoy the things that I can participate in. I have had such an incredible trip so far, and I am not going to let a little leg injury ruin it for me. 

Overall, our trip to Eilat was so much fun! I loved it and although it had it's low parts, it was a beautiful day and a great experience. 

-E

Kotel Tunnel Tour

Good Evening!

So the other day we had an evening outing to tour the tunnels under the Western Wall. The Hebrew term for the Western Wall is the Kotel. When we arrived at the Kotel, we discovered that there was a problem with our reservation and somehow there was a mixup that ended in us not having a guide for our tour... Sister Judd (my Old Testament teacher's wife) was with us, and since she had been on the tour before, she was our makeshift guide, and she actually did a really good job. I love Sister Judd- she is so sweet! :-)

So basically, when Herod the so-called Great reconstructed the second temple, he built the temple mount by putting a large platform on the mount (which is the platform that is still there today). So if you go underneath the platform, there are tunnels that are excavated and that at one point in time were street level.

This is Sister Judd showing us the model of how the temple mount was added on to in different time periods (it was hard to get a good picture because it was dark down there...

This giant slab of rock has been there since the Savior's time. It is so big and heavy that even modern technology would not be able to move it. It was initially moved into place by a mixture of careful aim and gravity. It has been chipped away at in different time periods by people trying to move it but has never been moved since it was placed here. 

This pillar was put into place (on street level) but was not finished. The little nob on the side would have been used to put it into place and then smoothed off later, but it was clearly never taken off.

This is a rock that was meant to be a paving stone but the street was never finished. I believe this street was built around the time the Savior was in Jerusalem, but the street was not finished.

Cool story, these steps are from Jesus' day :-)

After we walked through the tunnels, we had a few moments at the Western Wall

I put a prayer in a crack of the wall, which was really cool... A while ago, I found out that in the Jewish culture, you do not burn or destroy books (ESPECIALLY if they contain the name of God or are religious in nature) and when a book or piece of writing gets old (including the written prayers that are stuck into the Kotel), they reverently bury them in the ground in a book cemetery. I thought that was a really neat tradition! 

This was a really neat outing!

-E