Whacking Willows

Saturday

            Today was a great day! I got called to serve as the First Counselor in the Young Women’s Presidency. We have three girls: Emma, Riley and Amanda. I’m so excited for this calling. I felt an outpouring of love for these girls. I can’t wait to love them and teach/learn from them. Elder Gary S. Price and his wife came for the weekend and spoke to us today. They’re awesome people. I sat down with them tonight after everything was over and we talked about nursing and classes. They are an amazing couple.

Sunday

            For clinical today I was in the PICU with Catie. It was fun to go back to the hospital and see the nurses that were there last time I came. My three favorites recognized me and ran up and gave me kisses on the cheek and hugs. It was such a fun reunion! They kept coming by the PICU to see how I was and give me a kiss or wave. I also saw the three young volunteers that spoke English and talked to them for a while. I am still so impressed with how friendly and accommodating the staff has been at the hospitals. They set a good example of love and charity. In the PICU there were four babies in there all under the age of one. We had a special experience partway through the day as we learned more about our patients. I came into clinical thinking ‘what’s wrong with my patient and how am I going to fix it?’ I just immediately assumed everything would work out and the babies would be fixed. The more we found out about the patients, the more we realized this wasn’t the case. There were three that were at the peak of their life. It wasn’t going to get any better for them. As Catie and I talked about the patients and their parents and the difficult decisions they are making we began to cry. We thought of all the things these sweet babies would miss out on. They’re never going to know how to play wall ball at recess or get their first kiss behind the music house and then be sent to the principal’s office. Their family won’t see them learn and grow and someday get married. This broke our hearts and we stared at those precious babies and talked to each other about how grateful we are for the knowledge of the atonement. We don’t know what their families believe about resurrection and seeing each other again, but we were grateful for our testimonies. We know that someday those kids will come up to us in perfect bodies and they won’t have any pain or difficulty breathing or any of the tubes and machines that they had attached to them as we cared for them. I am so grateful for my testimony of the resurrection. I can’t imagine how it would feel as a parent to wonder if I needed to “pull the plug” or not without my knowledge of life after death. We said a special prayer for those babies and their families that day, and I will never forget them and that experience.

            After clinical, we went and toured Zedekiah’s cave which is under the Old City. What a gem! It was HUGE!! I pictured a little cave we have to duck down in, but it is massive and goes so far under the city. I can’t believe the Old City hasn’t fallen down through. I had to live up to who I am and definitely had an experience where my skirt fell down here. I wouldn’t be Cali if my pants didn’t fall down in a foreign country! So…there I was. Hiking through the cave in my Cali the Explorer skirt and wearing a water bottle backpack on my back. Problem was that the bottom of the backpack hit right where my zipper was for my skirt. So as I hopped around and explored, the water bottle pushed the zipper down and before I knew it my mid-calf length skirt was now ankle length. It happens. Every time I leave the country…and the house it seems like.

Monday

            Today we had a half day field trip down to Jericho. It’s only 18 miles from Jerusalem but about 3000 ft. lower. It was sooo freaking hot! It’s the oldest city in the world and the lowest city too. We went to King Herod’s Winter Palace which ended up being a blast because I became the field trip guide and turned the site into an ancient Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. Wow. I remember every little detail about that site: the overly large size chocolate fountain, the diamond shaped tiles that had little spaces to put tootsie rolls in, the round small columns for the oompa loompas to decorate cakes on. Oh man, I will never forget that site! Then we went to the Judean Wilderness which is really deceiving. It’s not a wilderness like the mountains in Idaho, its pure desert mountains. There are no pine trees or streams or even anything green. It’s just desert. It was

            When we got back from Jericho, the nursing students all got on a bus to go to Tel Aviv. Everyone else had gone already, but we had clinical most days so we were never able to go with them. Tel Aviv is right on the Mediterranean Sea and has gorgeous beaches. We got there and walked around the flea market that surprisingly looked like a DI outdoor market and then got ice cream as we walked around to the beach. It’s Sukkot for the Jews, which is a week long holiday celebrating the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness. We had some Jews come up to us with the special Sukkot emblems and we recited some praises with them and waved them around in the air. It was fun, I was a little worried they just converted me to Judaism, but then I remembered it was a much harder process than that. So we continued on to the beach and spent the rest of the night there. It was a blast. The waves devoured me and the sand felt oddly sticky. But the sea was so warm and so was the breeze coming off of it. It was gorgeous to watch the sunset over the sea. Such a beautiful day! Then we walked down to the port to get dinner and I bought some chocolate thing that looked like fudge but definitely wasn’t. It was still chocolate though so I was happy. We got back very late and I just went straight to bed.

Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday

      Today was full of classes and homework. We played lots of volleyball and ping pong in between classes. Wednesday morning we woke up early to go to the Western Wall and see the whacking of the willow branches to celebrate the end of Sukkot. It was pretty cool to see. The kids thoroughly enjoyed whacking each other with the willows. It was fun to watch. Thursday we had classes in the morning and then I went out with a group to go find a windmill in West Jerusalem. We took one of the most hilarious taxi rides of my life there and totally got jipped. We were trying to get a bus to take us to West Jerusalem, but we couldn't find one so a taxi stopped and was willing to give us the bus price which was 5 shekels. So all EIGHT of us squeezed into a small four door car!! We had two up front and then six of us in the back. I was on Jordan's lap with my head on Nichelle and Makenna's shoulders and my feet on AJ and Sean. Everyone was laughing and honking at us. It was a blast!!!

The windmill was in the Jewish neighborhoods and was sooo gorgeous! There were gardens everywhere and cobblestone streets and fountains and beautiful doors, OH! It was so great and beautiful. The windmill was awesome and huge.

That night after dinner we went back out to West Jerusalem to go to the festival at the end of Sukkot where the Jews dance to the Torah. About 30 of us went and we pulled up in a bus to this residential neighborhood and of course, we were the loudest things in the world. Apparently it upset some woman because she walked across the street over to me and shoved me into Ryan and Nic and then walked back to her spot across the street. After that we all split up into littler groups to walk around until the dance started. It was a good time. She was angry. So we came back to the building at 9:30 when it was supposed to start. The women all went to the top floor to watch the men dance on the bottom floor. We were given instructions not to dance but the Jewish people are so friendly and they grabbed all the guys and made them come join the dance circle with them. I was soo jealous as I watched from above so I was bouncing to the beat and clapping. Suddenly a young, small beautiful Jewish woman came up and grabbed my hand and told me to come dance with them. I grabbed two of my friends and we ran down to the little huts they had outside and there was a massive woman dance party!! We had a blast!! We danced in circles and sang and waved our hands in the air! Picture the song from Prince of Egypt called "Looking Through Heaven's Eyes". THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!!! They were such nice people. We danced with Dana and another woman. When we had to leave they both held me so tight for about five minutes and kept telling me that we were friends and gave me their email so I could keep in touch. They were amazing women. I love them! We all got back exhausted that night and went straight to bed, well, after I beat everyone at ping pong. Lies, I lost miserably.

Friday

     We had classes most of the day and then we weren't allowed to go out into the city because things had been heating up out there. So we all stayed inside and had a movie night, volleyball night and dance party. I can't think of a better way to spend my time if I'm stuck inside here! It was so fun. Everyone here is incredible and I love hanging out with every single person here. They're all a blast and we have way to much fun. I'm getting pretty good at my volleyball spikes. There's a guy named Lee here who is way over six feet tall and he's the tallest and I'm the shortest. We are the best at volleyball together though! We dominate wherever we are and everyone wants pictures of us together because the height difference is so drastic. He's my volleyball bud. We stayed up way late watching Jumanji and I slept through it of course. We watched it in the Shekel Shack and put tons of bean bags down and it was a fun time. I love these people. 

Saturday

       Today is Sabbath and we had two of our young women come! It was a blast. We stayed inside the center today and watched movies and studied for our Old Testament midterms we have coming up this week. It should be a fun week but way too many tests and classes.