Shabbat Shalom

Navi samwell: A beautiful fortress built by the crusaders within the 3rd crusade where Richard the lion heart tried to over take Jerusalem. (this is as far as he got) on this sacred site there is a building that in the basement it's a synagogue, on the top floor it is a mosque, and it was also a chapel for Christians, it was amazing. Beautiful!!
This is the actual stone at Gibeah of Saul, the palace where David came to play his harp. The building was excavated and these stones were just thrown down the hill and there they have stayed since the 1940's. BEAUTIFUL!!!
Funny Story. We were in West Jerusalem, which is the safe part of town where we're allowed to stay out at night and everything. It's very westernized. But we were sitting down eating a chocolate filled crepe (delish) and the store owner came out to me and said get out of here.. I just looked at him then he started yelling and said get your friends out and go, go go go.. So I just got up and ran. The reason he got us out was there was a bomb scare in the center right next to us.... It turned out a lady had just left her bag of groceries out in the street and the bomb squad came as did the police... Goes to show how much people care for our safety.
here is that palace I was talking about at the Gibeah of Saul. From this hill we could see so much, we looked at the land of our ancestors. And we could see Beth-el which means house of God. This was the place Jacob saw God in his dream which we call Jacob's ladder dream. And this would also be the spot where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. INCREDIBLE!!!
This is Erica Clark she is one of my roommates, we met in the air port on the way here and became FAST friends. This is our First Sabbath and we were so jet lagged.

NOW FOR THE MEAT OF THE POST!!!
Last Night we celebrated by welcoming the Sabbath day with the Jews at the Western Wall. You would think that at such a holy site the welcoming of the Sabbath would be reverent with a lot of praying? Well wrong, the Jews usually arrive at the wall at sunset so around 7 then until the sun sets and it is dark there is just straight celebration. Dancing and singing in Hebrew. So when we got to the wall the girls split from the boys and went to their separate sides of the wall. 4 of my good friends went down to the wall and we each submitted a prayer for each other (if you put someone elses prayer in that isn't yours it's believed to be good luck) so we did that then walked out never letting our backs face the wall. It was so packed so that proved to be a tad difficult. As we stood there I we saw a bunch of girls our age singing, then it just turned into a song and dance. the girls held hands and got in to three circles all encompassing each other and started singing and jumping while spinning in circles. I was standing there watching and 3 Jewish Girls the only one I can spell is Barbra came and grabbed my hand and pulled me in and just told me to sing along as best I could. We did that for about 45 minutes. And then the girls asked where we were from. They were so wonderful they explained that they were on a "gap Year" for their religion where they are sent away for the year after high school till college where they come here to spend a year learning about the torah and their religion. It was a testimony of how the spirit can be felt anywhere. One Jew (Mandi) talked with me and asked if I was mormon and said she respected my religion so much and that she love me, that no matter what religion people were if we all just loved each other as being children of God that we would never have strife within the world.