Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

It is hecka windy today. And yes, I did just say hecka, because that is about the only way to describe the weather outside. It's like, hard to close the doors in and out of the hallways that lead to our rooms, that's how crazy the wind is blowing.

Yesterday, however, it was absolutely gorgeous. We went on a fieldtrip to the Shephelah (pronounced Shep-hay-lah), which is basically I guess kind of the outlying reaches of Jerusalem. It was mostly cloudy, which meant that we weren't dying of heat hiking around out there, but the sun came up for a bit in the middle of the day about the time we were having lunch. And it wasn't the least bit cold. I actually remember sitting out in the field at the first place we went to and thinking how odd it was that I was actually quite comfortable is just my sweatshirt.

Right, so first we went to (and I actually have to get out my field trip manual to remember the name of it...) Beth Shemesh. There wasn't much to see there, but we reenacted the story of Samson and Delilah, because the Sorek Valley, which is where Beth Shemesh is, is where all that happened. All we really did was have one person read the narration, one read Samson, a girl read Delilah, we even had a lord of the Philistines, and the rest of us were the "people", coz they had a few lines, as well. It was a little confusing, since the scriptures don't actually punctuate speech the way we're used to, but it was definitely sufficiently entertaining.

Next we headed up to the David and Goliath overlook at Azekah. There were these really sweet trees that like, all the bark was white on them (I think that might mean they were dead, but they sure looked cool) and they stretched out over this row of benches that we all sat on on the edge of the hilltop. And we could see the whole valley from up there where the things of David in the Old Testament had mostly taken place in like, his early life and when he slew Goliath.

Then we went down into the valley, to a field approximately where this whole confrontation took place (at least, it's fun to think that) and our teacher had given some people the assignment of creating *Goliath* (I think it was like, two mops stuck together with a box on each end that had a face drawn on the top box) and brought some slings and we all slung rocks at it. I definitely stayed safely out of the way. I just saw myself with a far greater likelihood of getting hit and/or hitting someone else in the head, so I stayed off with Sister Huff (the teachers wife) and watched. In the end Chris (incidentally the guy who made Goliath and tallest kid here...) knocked it down with his sling/rock. And then went and tore off the head and held it up for us all to take pictures of his triumph, lol. Speaking of pictures, I definitely will not be able to post anymore (I'm pretty sure) until I get my computer back. Mainly because I have no where to upload them to from off my memory card. You'll just have to use your imaginations and my incredible power of description. :)

Then we went to Maresha to see some caves and eat lunch. The highlight of this section of the trip was definitely the chameleon we found. It was a real live color-changing chameleon and it was suh-weet! It could go like, bright yellow-green to black, and sometimes only its spots would change (either way, black with green/yellow spots or green with black spots) and it did kind of this brown in between kinda color. And it was only about two inches long, not including the tail. It was seriously so awesome. And it was pretty happy to just hang out with us. He would just kinda crawl around our arms and backs and whatever. I let him kinda hang out on me while I ate. And like, when he crawled off of one kid onto the picnic bench we just kinda let him go, but then he climbed up onto Sister Huff's shoe, so we were like, ok. Some of the guys wanted to bring him back to the Center, but I convinced them that that was not a good idea and he would be happier staying at Mereshah. The caves at Mereshah were pretty cool, too. There was this one that had a whole bunch of like, bell-shaped cuts in the wall that was I guess used to house pigeons. It was wild. And one had like, these old olive presses and was like, an underground city. I don't know how many of you have read Stephenie Meyer's The Host, but that's what it made me think of. And last there was an old tomb that we fit like, 25 people into. It was pretty awesome, somebody took a video of people coming out after we'd crammed them all in and it just looks like this little whole in the wall but the students keep coming and coming and coming. Lol. I didn't squish in because I was babysitting the chameleon, but I took pictures for people. :)

Next we went to these other caves that are carved out and shaped like bells. And they were huge, by the way. I think it was a quarry or something a long time ago. But we sang some hymns in there, like "O My Father" and "If You Could Hie to Kolob" and we also sang "A Child's Prayer." It was pretty sweet. I think my favorite thing about this group is that no one complains when I pitch songs. I'm usually pretty close to right, but no one ever realizes that the hymns are all pretty high and people are usually either pitching it super low or whining at me for pitching it "too high." And I really love the keys that the hymns are written in because my voice is prettier up there than down super low. So that made me happy. :D

After that we stopped at Lachish (pronounced Lah-KEESH), which was once upon a time the second largest city in the area, after Jerusalem. There we talked a little about Lehi, and how about 100 years before the Book of Mormon, prophets had warned all the righteous to go to Jerusalem. Lehi's grandfather had done that, and in 701 BC all the cities around fell to the Assyrians except for Jerusalem. It talks about all this in 2 Chronicles 30-32 for those of you interested in the scriptural context. But that's why Lehi and his family were living in Jerusalem, even though they're of the tribe of Manasseh, which had a different territory and was lost with the 10 tribes anyway. So Lachish was the last city to fall, and Jerusalem was preserved by the Lord. There's again not much to see anymore, it's basically just a big hill with some old remains of walls exposed, but we hiked around that a little bit and it was pretty neat. Another really good view, for sure.

So now we come to the number one coolest part of the trip. Like seriously, it was awesome. If I felt like Lara Croft in the tombs of Egypt, that was nothing compared to this. We went to these caves that, as far as I'm aware, had no historical or scriptural significance whatsoever. But they were so awesome. The first one we went in (the "advanced" version- Brother Huff warned those who might be claustrophobic that they may just want to do the "intermediate" cave) was basically crawling into this hole in the ground, and we crawled for about 5 minutes- honestly it kinda felt like being in the playplace at McDonalds, except stone intstead of plastic and the only people who could see anything were the ones that didn't forget their flashlights (the teachers told us to bring them and I completely spaced it, but I think it was cooler going in the dark- it's not like it was possible to get lost, it was kind of a one way deal...). Then it opened up into this space that looked like the pigeon cave we'd been in earlier- it had the same holes cut out of the walls- and I got in (I was in like, the first 5 or so people- I was feeling adventurous) and they looked like they were waiting for everyone, but then Brother Huff started climbing up the pigeon holes, and it took me a minute to realize that that was the way we go: up. He and one of the guys climbed up first, and then one kid started boosting the girls up (starting with me). I think the idea was that they would kind of help us actually climb up, but the guy boosting me was like, "Hey you're pretty light" and then Brother Huff and the other guy at the top grabbed my arms, and apparently they agreed because I found myself being just dead-lifted the entire way up. I really wanted to do my fair share, but before I could get my feet into a foothold I was pretty much being hauled over the edge. Lol. Then I helped hold a flashlight while they boosted up another girl and then a guy so that he could go ahead and help us girls through the next part (Brother Huff said he knew we were just as capable of doing it ourselves as the guys, but we should let them feel good about themselves and help us out). K, so the next part (and pretty much the exit) is called the birth canal. It was about, well, less than a foot tall and less than two feet wide, I would say. You had to kind of slither out on your back, and then almost like, right at the mouth of this little hole there was an incline (which is why you had to be on your back, although I think I could have done it on my stomach) so then you had to kind of lift yourself up on your arms to get your legs out. It was so funny watching people come through, though. It really did look like they were being birthed out of the rock. Like some ancient mythical creation story.

So after about 10 more people came out, a few of us decided to try the "intermediate" cave, just because we weren't done being adventurous yet. This one was not quite as intense, but pretty cool, actually. It was like, a series of rooms connected by narrow tunnels, and it again had that kind of feeling of living in a cave system like in The Host. These caves actually had more of a Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites kinda feel to them. Dude, it was awesome. And this one, too, had like a crawlspace, but then the entrance to the first chamber had a ladder, because ground was about 10 feet down from the *entrance*. And then there were about 3 other rooms connecting through. I followed it all the way to the end and reported back to the group (I was the first one in) coz we kinda wanted to see if there was another awesome way out that nobody knew about. Seriously guys, you should have seen me. I was definitely dirtier than I have ever been in my entire life. Covered in dust from head to foot, and I felt like Lara Croft. Especially since she has the same name as me. :D

So as we were going back out of that cave the way we came, we heard some other people in the first cavern. It was a group of guys, and one of our guys had the great idea to jump out and scare these people that we didn't know... Lol, we kinda joked about finding Osama Bin Laden hiding out in there when we first heard the voices, coz they were speaking some kinda Hebrew or Arabic or something. Probably Hebrew. But anyway, they were cool about it, they laughed and then we asked if there was another way out than the entrance and they were like, "Ya, we'll show you." But we decided that was kinda sketch, so we just went back to where Brother Huff was still getting people out (though he had emerged by this time) and told him about it. So he came back with us to this other cave, and the guys were still in there, so we totally followed them out through a passage that kind of put the birth canal to shame. It was the same kind of crawl-space to a teeny little opening in the rock. This one was wider but not as tall- so about 3 feet by 8 or 10 inches maybe, and it was just a straightforward hole in the ground with nothing tricky on the other side, but it was longer, so that you kind of had to army crawl/elbow shimmy your way through. I'm proud to say that I was the first person from the JC to emerge that way. Brother Huff was behind me and kept asking if I saw light yet (I think he still thought the whole thing was a little sketch, and I think he was worried that these guys were a little more ambitious than we wanted to be...). Brother Huff thought he was stuck about halfway through, but he made it. But ya, it was pretty awesome.

I did, however, hurt my hand pretty bad. I mean, I'm pretty certain there's nothing seriously wrong with it, it's just bruised and it hurts a lot. But I was feeling a little too adventurous as we were leading Brother Huff back to the second cave, and I kind of bounded down this slope that turned out to be like, straight gravel and ended up sliding and landing on my left hip and banged my hand that I had flung out to brace myself pretty good. I wish I had more of a bruise to show for it, though. It's barely a little black and blue. But it definitely still hurts...

Wow, I just looked outside and got a glimpse of the "torrential rains" that are supposed to be typical of this season. Lol. The weather has been so nice. It was so funny to come back from Egypt and there was like, a noticeable change in the overall temperature. Which of course was really nice, since coming from warm desert Cairo back to not quite so warm Jerusalem was a little sad. But ya, I've just been hanging out for about the last week. They informed us when we got back that the security restrictions have been lifted, so we can now go out in only groups of 3 (we had to be in groups of 5 back when there was all the unrest because of Gaza). So I went out shopping with a couple of girls on Sunday and I got a leather scripture case that has like, a stamped design of the Old City on it, and there's some camels and it says JERUSALEM. It's pretty cool. I'm so excited to finally have a scripture case again, because I haven't been able to find one I liked since my original one wore out about 6 or 8 years ago. On Saturday I went to the Garden Tomb again. I just love it there. I really need to go like, not on a Saturday, though. It's really too bad that it's closed on Sunday, because on Saturday they have all these Nigerian tours come through. It's pretty wild, I mean they come in droves. So I want to try and find some time during the week at some point.

Classes are going. We have a whole bunch coming up- 3 papers and a midterm. And like, at least 100 pages of reading for my 3 classes tomorrow. Lol. I think that the most interesting thing for me is being in my Judaism class (and, to some degree, Old Testament) and realizing how little I know the Old Testament. And I actually read it- twice, the whole way through- when I was younger. But like, our Judaism teacher is always bringing stuff up from it that I'm like, "Wow, I am such a good student of scripture...." And I feel like we're speeding through it in Old Testament. I definitely want to take more OT classes when I get back to BYU. It's really a fascinating book.

Well I'm off to practice with Matt. We're doing a waltz for the talent show. Enjoy the snow in Provo!