Church of the Redeemer. One of my favorite churches.



Random picture of Jericho. This is my FHE husband, John Wiest. Ha.



Trip to the Western Wall to bring in the Sabbath with the Jews. SO fun.

Hello!

I'm loving it even more every day here. The people in the program and at the center are so awesome and the locals are so friendly.

Our first trip to the Orson Hyde Garden.

Today on the way back from our walk to the Orson Hyde Garden near the JC (which was beautiful!) we met a man and his son Sammy who invited me and about eight of my friends over for dinner sometime. He said he lives in Washington but he comes back to Jerusalem every month to visit his wife and kids since he works for an airline. I thought that was amazing, since I got CRAZY jet lag when I came here. I was dead tired for about two days. But I think I'm okay now. I feel pretty awake. I don't know if I'd be able to handle that every single month. That's crazy.

To answer your question dad, it's very warm here. I LOVE it. At night it gets kind of "cold" (like 50 degrees or so haha) but it's really nice weather. The view from the balcony of my apartment is absolutely amazing. I'll have to post some pictures on facebook or something when I get some time. I love doing homework out on the porch! Ha.

I'm taking Old Testament, New Testament, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Modern Near Eastern Studies and Hebrew. It will definitely be very tough, but hopefully I can survive. Everyone else seems really smart and QUICK here so I'll probably have to work even harder. I will also have to get you a map, like you requested. It's actually required to get some maps for one of my classes and study them, so I'll definitely have to get that for you. I haven't even bought anything in the city yet though, but I will try my best.

My first filafel!! Marie was a little jealous...

By the way, the food here is amazing! I really think I might gain some weight here because I have a hard time keeping away from the fresh pita bread and amazing fresh fruit. You guys would LOVE it. I'm really looking forward to having a fillafil also (I don't know if that's how you spell it)... But I've heard they're absolutely amazing here. I'll have to try at least one. Ha.

To answer your other question dad, The security guards that were with us during our city tour the other day have been assigned to work especially for the Center. We had a tour guide, which was one of the professors (who's absolutely brilliant), and then about two or three Israeli men who were very aware of everything. I felt completely safe. It was really like we had bodyguards. Awesome.

I've also tried to bring my pocket hymnbook with me to important places and write down the hymns we sing there so I can remember each place later on in my life to remind me of this awesome experience.
I will try and e-mail as often as possible. Probably not as much as I'd like, but I'll try my best. I'm kind of trying to treat this like my second journal.

I will try and post pictures soon on facebook (since I don't know where else to put them), and that way you all can see what's really going on over here. I should be buying a calling card one of these days so I will try and get on that. Hope you're all doing well!

Love,
Jill