We're here!

So...we finally arrived in Jerusalem after what felt like an eternity of flights, security check-points and interesting Indian airline food. It is so beautiful here! The Center is absolutely gorgeous and we have the most amazing view of the city.

My roommates seem really cool. They've already burned up a blow-dryer trying to figure out the voltage difference, so our room smells like burning appliance, which is really lovely. I think someone should make a candle of it. It's pretty cold here (not Rexburg cold or anything, but it's suprisingly nippy!) and it seems that some of the students couldn't figure out how to turn on the heat in their rooms last night (including, but I promise not limited to, me), so we just sort of layed and shivered. It gave us all something to talk about this morning, though. (And I'm proud to say that we figured out how to turn on the heat...seems you just flip the switch on the thermostat to "on". Who knew? I'm going to blame that on jet lag, as I've been blaming everything on jet lag.)

And, yes, jet lag has set in with a vengeance! I was under the (very false) impression that I was totally above it because I wasn't that tired yesterday. Oh man was I wrong! I literally collapsed into bed after our last meeting today and slept until dinner was halfway over. We are all so tired, but we also have a lot of homework, so we're trying not to get to comfortable on the beanbags in the student lounge so we can get stuff done.

Today we took a whirlwind walking tour of Jerusalem. We live in the Palestinian part of the city, and it was interesting to see how very different our neighborhood is from the Jewish part of the city. All the shop owners know the BYU students very well and they all gave us their cards so we'll go back and spend egregious amounts of money in their particular store. One of them even had "BYU" painted on his store-front sign and as soon as we got there he said, "From east to west, BYU is the best." Seems we have a bit of a reputation.

We passed by so many amazing things today! I can't wait to study them more and spend more time there. Gethsemane and the Garden Tomb are both very close to where we live, so hopefully on Saturday (the Sabbath) I can go study scriptures in one of those places. We also went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was amazing to think how much thousands of people have given up to go there. Seven different churches were fighting for hundreds of years over who got control of the church because it's holy to all of them. So finally, about 150 years ago, they all signed a "status quo" which stated that everything would stay exactly as it was that day so that they'd stop arguing. There was a ladder leaning up against part of the church and it's still there because no one can move it. Which I think is slightly ridiculous, but hey- whatever works.

It's really interesting to see how the Church feels about all this stuff versus other churches. There have been battles going on for hundreds of years over where certain things happen and people get really passionate about it. But for us, it makes absolutely no difference to know exactly where things were. There is a wonderful spirit here, but it's the same spirit I've felt studying the scriptures in my closet in Idaho. I love that having true doctrine makes all the details insignificant. The restored gospel is so amazing!

Anyway, I didn't get any pictures of the city today because we went so fast. But we will be back a lot, so I'm sure I'll get some good ones and I'll put them up here! These are some pictures of the Center, the view from the Center and my excitement (and loveliness) after we got here. One of them is sideways and I don't know how to fix it, so, um, just turn your head.

I love you all and hope you're doing well! Please email me at schmadison@gmail.com. I miss you all terribly and would love to hear how things are going!