First Sabbath day

  Well, it's been a great past 2 days, and the cool part is, today, Saturday, was the Sabbath! We had our church meetings in the morning, went this afternoon to the garden tomb and other parts of old Jerusalem. Heres a picture! So, funny realization- I had my camera on the highest quality setting, and our internet is super slow, so this picture right here took about 20 min to upload. I have some more, but in the future I'll lower the quality a bit, and/or down-convert them on the computer.

On an unrelated note, we had a nice evening tonight. I think the jet-lag is about gone, I slept for about 10 hours last night, it was glorious. I think I'll do that every day :)

This evening we had try-outs for being in musical numbers throughout the semester. I did 2 things, a piano solo of "My heavenly father loves me" and singing "I feel my saviors love" Both went pretty well, I think she knows not everyone is going to be polished with it, but the musical directors (a senior missionary couple) wanted to hear everyone and get a feel for everyone's voices and talents. Also, I got to play music with several different people on different instruments, and boy is there some talent here! It is great. Apparently, we get to be the performers in a very prestigious concert in December! (details to follow)

   So another awesome thing about being here is the classes! They totally rock. I've only had two so far, but they were absolutely great. Old testament and Ancient near eastern studies. If you have an LDS version of the scriptures, check out the footnote on Genesis 6:16 and get ready for this to happen (i.e. have your mind blown). Also, the ancient near east was really cool, I am excited to learn about all the awesome history that only know parts of, but want to learn more of. Our teacher, Professor Seeley, is awesome! He makes it so interesting, and is really funny about it. 

  Besides that, we went back to the old city, and found there is even more street vendors than we thought. It's pretty cool. There was a place that had shoes for like 10 shekels a pair! Super good deal. I imagine the area kind of like how my family described the crazy chinese markets, tons of vendors with shops selling very similar products, and I'm sure you could get some good haggling done. (Anyone got some good hagglin' tips?) One of my friends who went 2 semesters ago said that clothes were about the same cost as the us, maybe a little more, but maybe she didn't go where I went.. Cuz dang, they've got cheap stuff here. Wish I hadnt brought so many clothes.. coulda bought a bunch of Jerusalem clothes. Even though its all probably still made in china, it will be cool to say "This shirt is from Jerusalem. Therefore I am cooler than you." and it would totally be true. (right?)

  Well, thats the most recent excitement, other than that, I'm making lots of cool friends and having a great time. It really is a great place here. Feel free to write me an email or ask any other questions!

-Cam