Halloween generally isn't celebrated in the Holy Land, but with a center filled with American young adults, we had to commemorate a fantastic holiday! Somehow I think the staff knew that, so they only gave us 1 class in the morning and then the rest of the day for free time! After some time in the city, we came back and got ready for a fun night in the center!
We have 12 kids in the center that belong to our teachers and they were dying for a traditional Halloween. So, some student apartments signed up to hand out candy to the kids so they could trick-or-treat! My apartment definitely signed up, and our professors actually gave us the candy to give to their children haha! It was fun to see the kids that we see everyday dressed up in their make-shift costumes and trick-or-treating at our doors. It was like a little piece of home! We even had some of the LDS members from the Jerusalem Branch and some of the local JC-faculty bring their kids to trick-or-treat as well. It ended up as a fantastic success for us and the kids!
The night wasn't all for the kids though. All the students dressed up too ... and I mean all 82 of us!!! The funny thing is that it was probably the hardest to figure out a costume here, considering the limited resources, but everyone had a totally creative costume idea! I ended up as Mother Earth!
We had a Branch activity that night where we watched the original black-and-white Phantom of the Opera (silent movie, 1925) in the auditorium with the huge pipe organ. The tradition for silent films is to have the movie playing with live music in the background. More specifically, Phantom is meant to have an organ in the background. Our Branch President, President Ohman is one of the best organists in the world and he plays the organ for our Sabbath meetings and he played Phantom of the Opera for Halloween! It was spectacular!!!! I love live music and old movies, so this activity was right up my alley!
After the movie, all of the students and even some of the families went to the gym for a Halloween DANCE PARTY!
It was probably one of my favorite and most memorable Halloweens EVER!
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| Christine takes the Phantom's Mask off |
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| The Jerusalem Center's Pipe Organ |
Loving your updates xoxo- Jodie
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