October 18, 2007

McCall Barrick

Brother Ludlow


Thursday, October 18, 2007

Today was a long day of classes for the Hebrew students. They had another day of double Hebrew classes, the last one finishing at 3:20. Trevor, April, and I decided that since we are not in Hebrew that we were going to go to the Tomb of the Prophets while they had class. When we were getting ready to leave we were talking to Archie and invited him to come with us. So the four of us set out, going through a part of Jerusalem we have never been through before. So that was pretty exciting. When we got to the Tomb of the Prophets we found it was closed, even though the sign said it was supposed to be open. That's Jerusalem for you. So we decided to go to the Church of the Ascension instead. It was then that Archie remembered that he was in Hebrew and should have been going to class. In fact, he was in the first Hebrew class that had already started. We determined that we could make it back in time for the second class, so we came back to the center. It was really funny.

Tonight after dinner a bunch of us decided to go to West Jerusalem to take a break from our studying. In West Jerusalem we spent our time looking around and shopping. And we had to stop to get some amazing crepes from one of the shops. It was a very successful trip for all of us. We weren't there for long, though, because we needed to come back to the center to continue studying for our upcoming exams. It's all about balance here.

Thinking about an Old Testament highlight has been very difficult for me because I have loved everything we have done here. However, I have come to the conclusion that our field trip to the Galilee is definitely one of my favorite things we have done. Swimming in the Sea of Galilee was so much fun, with everyone playing and just enjoying themselves. Even Brother Ludlow joined in our games! But for all the fun we had, I enjoyed even more the spirit there. The whole area of the Galilee is so beautiful and peaceful. The night we were there a few of us sat out on the beach, looking at the stars, and sang hymns. It was so incredible to be in such an amazing place singing the hymns and feeling the spirit so strongly. Galilee is such an incredible place and I am so excited to be able to go there again to study the New Testament.