October 21, 2007

Sunday, October 21, 2007
Journal Entry—Gregory Marsh
Brother Ludlow
Today, in Hebrew class, we continued with the Hebrew alphabet. We’re almost done learning the alphabet—we only have three letters left to learn. Hopefully, we know what we’ve learned pretty well, because we have a quiz during our next class period.
Like any other day at the Jerusalem Center, a group gathered in the evening to play soccer. This was different than any other group I had played with, though, because there were only six of us playing—three on three. That made the game a lot different: there was a lot more exercise and a lot less injury in the hour that we played.
In the afternoon, I went with a group to the Tower of David Museum. It’s a very unique museum—I really liked the mixture of the old with the new (the ancient citadel of David with all of the modern art inside it). From the tower of the citadel, we had a beautiful view of the entire city of Jerusalem. Featured on one of the panoramic plaques, that point out various sites of interest in the city, we found the Jerusalem Center—the Mormon University—featured prominently on the skyline. I’ve always wanted to see a Mormon…
From all of the time that we’ve spent studying the Old Testament, one of the most memorable experiences that I’ve had is our field trip to Galilee. I’m really grateful that we worked it out with the Kibbutz to have a little bit of time swimming in the Sea of Galilee, because that was a beautiful evening. We played ultimate Frisbee as the sun set, running through the shall waters near the shore. We collected seashells and swam and built sandcastles. As the sun set, the waves started kicking up, and a breeze started blowing. This Sea of Galilee, so important in the New Testament, became real to me. Watching the waves come in from the Sea, I sang “Master, the Tempest is Raging” to myself—what a place and a time to sing that beautiful hymn!