Tunnels! Synagogues! Olives! General Conference! (Annie)

Hey all! Now that Neil is finished editing my highly biased posts, I will get back to business here and relate what we all have been up to these past few days!

This last Friday I got to go to a synagogue with a group of students and our Israel teacher! I love going to the services of other religions, so I was really excited about it. We went to a Reform Jewish service. For those of you who aren't experts on Jews (I certainly wasn't before I came here), Reform Jews are the Jews who are more flexible with their worship and willing to adjust Jewish life to modern times. As a result their services were a little different than traditional Judaism, but still very interesting. The majority of the service was spent singing the Torah, we stood and faced the Temple Mount at a few points, and we got to see a lot of the native Jews. It was very interesting, especially since as students we don't get to see that particular side of the Jews very often. We see them on the streets and we talk to them, but we don't get to see them at home during the Sabbath or during their worship. So this was a great experience. I'm considering going to West Jerusalem again sometime on my own just to see a different congregation (is that what you call it?) and everything.

On Sunday we went on a field trip to the City of David, which is the part of Jerusalem that was set up by David (as the title implies) when he became king. It's just below the Temple Mount on the hill. We watched a video that I enjoyed because it showed what the hills of this area probably looked like before Jerusalem covered it, which is a bit crazy to see when I've lived here for a while and gotten used to how it is now. We saw what is suspected to be the foundations of David's palace and a few other buildings in the area. The best part, of course, was Hezekiah's tunnel. Back in the days of David when Jerusalem was being threatened by exterior powers David decided that it would be great to have a water source for the city that the enemies couldn't get to and poison. So he commissioned this tunnel deep in the hill, which I'm sure worked great back then. Now I think they keep it running for tourist entertainment purposes, and no wonder because it is awesome! There is water running through it and you basically walk inside this cramped tunnel for a half hour or so. IT WAS SO FUN!!!! I am definitely going to go back and do it again. It was dark and cool, which is nice in the heat of the day, and the fact that you're sloshing through water makes it even better! One of the guys in our group, Quin, laid down in the water so he was wet from head to toe. Neil was practically bent over halfway for most of the time because apparently people were shorter back then and they built it for their height. A few times we turned off our lights and walked in the dark. It was a BLAST.

General Conference was crazy! When President Monson announced the change in missionary ages at least a dozen girls dissolved into tears on the spot. Everyone wants to go on a mission! This last weekend was definitely historic. It's all very bewildering, in a good way.

Tuesday was Ashley's birthday! We didn't do much other than go to the Old City and have pizza. But we did put a candle in the pizza and sang happy birthday! And she got a brownie. So having a birthday was worth it.

This week we were supposed to pick the olives off the trees on our porches, which we eventually press into olive oil and get to take home, but we need a big rainstorm first. The rain washes all the yucky stuff off of the olives, so right now I'm dying for rain! Not only would it wash off the olives, but I also love the rain! It makes me think of the rain in Utah, which is very rare as well. One thing I can say for Utah rain--it doesn't rain hard or for long, but when it does rain it smells amazing.

Just a note: the date today is 10-11-12. Pretty cool.