Well you made it this far... Bbbarley!

Well lets get down to business... I was suppose to arrive in Israel on Wednesday but with this families luck, I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear that I was stuck in Phoenix, Arizona for a day and a half! This wouldnt have been too bad if Neal and Shannon would have still lived in Peoria but seeming that they arent there, there was no reason I wanted to be stuck in Arizona. I was suppose to fly to Arizona, Philadelphia, and then to Tel Aviv. But due to the bad luck situation and our plane having mechanical difficulties we decided to just hang out there in Arizona. The airlines tried to treat us well and give us some free dinner tickets, a nice hotel and a broken swimming pool. To try to fake happy we decided we would make the most of us (50 students) being stuck. We went swimming(at the hotel across the street because again ours was broken), and to the mall, to look at all the things we couldnt fit in our suit cases, and saw the movie The Help (which is an amazing movie). Sounds like a party right? It wouldnt have been too bad if we werent all very anxious to get to Israel! Luckily I was in the first group to get out of there (thanks dad for calling BYU. haha!). But the adventure didnt stop there 16 of us went out on the first group and lets just say I will never fly on US Air ever again... well after my flight home I guess. We flew from Arizona, to Charlotte, then to Washington D.C., continuing on the Frankfurt, and finally Tel Aviv. It was a long 32 hours with little room being squished in between a lot of people. But at that point I didnt even care we just wanted to make it to Israel so bad!

So to make a long story long (right Heath ha)....We made it to Jerusalem!!! The center is amazing, and beautiful everywhere you look you see this incredible view of the holy city. Our rooms are small and tight but thats alright i can deal with it and we havent started class yet because of all the complications which im scared for. The professors are so knowledgeable i know i can learn a lot from them but i hope that my brain can handle all the info! ha It is so much reading but that was to be expected and its a lot easier to read when you can sit out on your balcony and look out at this amazing place.

Today was my first day out in the city and going to church. Church is amazing i have a hard time listening only because i over look the city but i can tell you that thinking of Christ while taking the sacrament is a lot easier because i over look where he walked and lived. It was so crazy to actually walk around, it was scary in some parts like east Jerusalem just a different feel and a lot of army men with their machine guns... West Jerusalem is much cleaner and today it was peaceful because it was the Sabbath. It is the safer part of Jerusalem they let you stay their till 11 pm if you wanted where as in east Jerusalem you cant be their after dark. As we were walking through the old city, a lot of merchants were saying your Mormons right? One of the guys said You must be Mormons i can tell by your eyes, another said Mormons are blessed by God. They have this really great perspective and love for us, I feel like its more because we know we have money to spend but hey what ever it takes!! haha

I love it here and have had this constant peace but even with that i miss home a lot. I know though i am suppose to be here, I have SO much to learn and hope that i can take in and take every advantage of learning about our savior because that is why im here everything else is just extra. I miss the family already and these first couple of days have gone on slow but I prepared myself for that. Hopefully that was a sufficient update and not too boring. I will try to be good at this whole thing but work with me I don't have a lot of experience in the blogging area!