October 16, 2007

Tiffany Dunn
10/16/07
Journal
Ok, so I was trying to find something really fun and exciting to share with everyone, but really there is nothing to share. Boring, I know. So here’s my attempt to make life interesting:
Today was a class filled day. Joy and rapture. I was really excited because I got to go to bed after breakfast…yay for taking Hebrew! Woot! Anyway, after people were done speaking Arabic we all moseyed on over to our Old Testament classes. After OT we had Brother Huntington’s class! Gotta love that man. We were then supposed to have a quick announcement session, but it was not quick. Oh goodness. It took the whole time until lunch! It was long….like 45 minutes long. My favorite part this week was Sister Lee. She got up and chewed us out, in a very kind, grandmotherly way, for taking food out of the Oasis. There were quite a few comical moments. Ha. Right after lunch we had linen exchange, always an adventure, and free time until class, yet again, at 4. Let me tell you, it was a long day of classes. But we had Brother Huntington twice!
In case you didn’t know, Dr. Musallam was having major issues obtaining his clearance to come into Israel proper. This was no fault of his own. It was a combination of the government, his wife getting in an accident (she’s ok), and Jewish/Muslim holidays. Because Dr. Musallam wasn’t able to get to the JC Brother Huntington gave the lecture. It was really enjoyable. My favorite comment was from Sister Huntington. It was something to the effect of her nicely scolding her husband for taking advantage of the teaching opportunity to fill the students head with his radical ideas. I laughed so hard when he told us that! Other than that it was a boring day filled with nap time and movies (the second half of Pride and Prejudice to be exact). I mean studying. J
Oh! And my apartment got ghosted! That was fun. We came home to a ghost on our door and some treats! It had a cute little poem telling us we got ghosted and to go do it to 3 other people. So fun and unexpected! Way to be whoever started that!
Now on to the OT. My favorite thing that I’ve learned from the OT actually came from our Mount Carmel field trip. When Grandpa Ludlow was talking to us, he gave us the most interesting insight. Let me enlighten you. Back in the day, (I don’t remember the date) archaeologists found a whole bunch of records in Syria and called it the Ugeretic Library. It contained hundreds of texts from (correct me if I’m wrong G’pa Ludlow) the time of Ezekiel and Priests of Baal. One of the things they learned was the truth behind the worship of Baal.
To help the people believe in Baal they would gather a group of the people in the early morning and take them up to Carmel. While they were praying around the altar it would burst into flame. The thing that made the people believe was that no one had touched the altar. It must have been Baal who did it! Allow me to prove otherwise.
The record indicated that the priests had foolery up their sleeves. The night before, they would get a little boy and climb the mountain. They would remove a stone from the altar that revealed a place inside that would fit a little boy. They would set the boy in the altar, give him live embers and shut him inside. All he had to do was try and sleep until dawn. When he saw that the priests and the people were there he would put the embers on the kindle and get the fire going thus tricking the people into believing in Baal. Boy do I love the Spirit and the fact that we can learn for ourselves instead of taking someone else’s word!