Shabbat Shalom

Hello Sabbath everyone! Today we had our first branch meeting here at the Jerusalem center. There are the 79 of us students, then faculty, and then the local branch members. Church is held in the auditorium with the best view of the Old City... so much for easily paying attention. Today we were taught in Relief Society by a Palastinian woman who is amazing. She was telling us how she almost did not make it to church today because checkpoint wouldn't let her cross into Jerusalem since she is a Palastinian, but her UN lisence got her in finally. How crazy is that? I'm kind of tired of being locked up in the Jerusalem Center already though. Yesterday there were demonstrations after the Muslim's Friday prayer service down in the city so we were not allowed to leave. We could see it from our balcony though, so of course most of us students were hanging over the balcony watching. We even got the local faculty members to come out and explain what was going on. There was a police blimp and police helicopter hovering over the Old City making sure nothing got out of hand. But we could see all the protesters running down the street when the cops came. It was pretty awesome. There will be a cease fire for fourteen days though so hopefully we'll get to go out soon!