Saturday at BYU and the Monastary

A volleyball net? I think. Found in the paths behind the Monastary.

The Monastary of the Cross (supposedly where the wood for the cross came from).

A view from the Jerusalem Center.

More of BYU. Beautiful, no?

For some reason each egg has this stamp on it. Wish I knew what that meant. Something to do with Kosher maybe?

Went to the BYU Jerusalem center on Sat. for church. It has to be in one of the most beautiful situations in the world. The grounds around the center are themselves wonderful, but the kicker is that it sits on Mt. Scopus above any other building with a view directly overlooking the old city. The Dome of the Rock is center stage when looking through the wall of windows that is the back wall of our Chapel. Uh-Mazing. There are about 80 BYU students here (one of whom is named Greta and has told me I can come play on her cello whenever I want). The rest of the ward members are families working at the consulate, BYU prof.'s, a service missionary couple, a few immigrant hospice workers from the Philipines, and some spanish speaking countries, and a few converts who are native to the area. There was a guard outside the entrance to the center. We have to tell him that we're mormons and we're coming for church before we can get in. Typical Jerusalem. Apparently an Arab driver ran into four Israeli soldiers near Mt Scopus a few days ago so tensions are high again (hence so is security). Bro. Hamblin teaches at the BYU center and is the man who is kind enough to drive completely out of his way to pick up several carless members for church. I love him already.

After church, Kathy and I went for a walk to the Monastary of the cross, which is only about 8 min walking from where we live. We had fun taking lots of pictures, seeing cute families out for sunday walks (sat is like sunday here), and wondering around the paths that dot the hillside behind the monastary. I finally found a good place to go running in this city!

And so this morning I went for my first Israeli run. Only 3 miles, but I didn't get lost--so I'm counting it a huge success. I also came home on the bus alone for the first time. I had to wait forever for my bus to come. As I was waiting, I noticed a fellow English speaker (she shook her head and said "Sorry" to several people asking her questions about the bus). Eventually I started up a conversation with her and found out that she's actually German. She's here researching some archives at the library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for her PHD in Literature. It's her second summer out here and she still doesn't speak a lick of Hebrew--this made me feel better about my Hebrew skills and worse about my chances of bettering them. I forgot to ask her name, but we take the same bus and both hang around the library all day, so maybe we'll run into each other again. But . . .back to my first bus ride. I got off a stop early and had to follow the bus to my correct stop so I could find my way home. Traffic was really slow, so I kept loitering because I didn't want to pass the bus and have my new German friend and all the others on the bus notice what a dork I was for having got off at the wrong bus stop. I felt a HUGE sense of accomplishment when I got to the street leading to our apartment and I RECOGNIZED it. Yay for small steps.