Today, in New Testament we talked about the crucifixion of Christ and His resurrection. There were three points that really struck out to me. The first was when on the cross Christ says “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” He was being beaten, mocked, tortured yet he had no bitterness to these people who were inflicting the utmost amount of pain on Him. My teacher said to us that we have no right to ever be bitter because Christ, who suffered extreme injustices wasn’t bitter. I can’t ever be bitter about anything because my Savior wasn’t ever bitter and he is my utmost example. The next point I loved was how on the cross Jesus comforts His mother and is thinking of her. Our teacher quoted Elder Maxwell who said “Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity.” This was said in relation to mothers and women who comfort their children and others even when they are going through something even harder. I aspire to have this attribute of empathizing with others even when I am struggling. The last point in class that really stood out to me was the part where Christ, on the cross asks why his Father has abandoned him. Brother Muhlestein quoted Elder Holland who spoke about this event from Heavenly Father’s view point. He asked where our Heavenly Father would have hid when His son was suffering so immensely. He said wouldn’t his normal response have been to send angels to save him and uphold him. I can’t even fathom the feelings that our Heavenly Father felt when he had to let Jesus suffer alone for a brief time on the cross. I am so thankful for the immense love he has for the rest of his children that he was willing to let his perfect son suffer alone so that the rest of us could be saved from our imperfections.

On a different note, our class has a song we made to the tune of “Ain’t No Mountain High.” It is dedicated to our teacher Brother Muhlestein. We LOVE singing this song haha seriously. We ALL get into it. I love it. We sing it on the bus during every field trip. K Hutch always starts us off in her perfect cheer leader voice saying “5, 6, 7, 8” then we start in “Ain’t no tel too high, ain’t no valley low, aint no wadi wide enough baby. IF you need him call him no matter where you are no matter how far don’t worry baby cause baby there ain’t no scripture hard enough, aint no doctrine deep enough, aint no pharaoh dead enough to keep me from getting to Muhlestein! Every word means something important to us. Like the tel is built up hill that has different strata of all the different cities that were built on that hill. A wadi is a dried up river bed. And the pharaoh is important because Brother Muhlestein is an Egyptologist. The doctrine and scripture parts were included because he is our religion teacher and he really does give us new views on the scriptures and on doctrine; he has expanded my learning and my understanding in so many ways. I am so thankful for Brother Muhlestein and I will miss him so much when I leave this place. I can’t wait to visit him and his family when they return back to the states.

My Old Testament teacher, Brother Judd is equally amazing. I never really appreciated or loved the Old Testmanet until I was in his class. He brought the Old Testament and the teachings therein to life, he made me excited to continue to study and expand my understanding of the Old Testament. Brother Judd is so humble and so funny. We had a song for him too! It was to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger” It goes “Judd Judd Judd Judd Judd Judd Judd Judd Judddddd it’s the bus of the Judd the thrill of the fight rising up against the challenge of the Muhlesteins. (we were Judd’s back then but now we are Muhlesteiners since we switched teachers when we stopped studying OT and started studying NT) Were the best JC crew you got nothing on us…. (forgot this part) we’ll fight to the endddd Brother Judddddd.” We are very spirited I guess you could say. And maybe a little crazy. But I love it.