Happenings

So I haven't written in a while and I wanted to update on what has happened in the last few days. Things have started to calm down as all of the students arrived at the beginning of this week. Last Saturday we had observed Shabbat which is the Sabbath. Now in the US we observe the Sabbath day on Sunday, but in Israel it is the tradition on Saturday, so that is when we have our church services in the center. It is amazing to be sitting in our main meeting (Sacrament meeting) overlooking the same city that Jesus Christ administered the first sacrament. That in itself is a trip to think about. The view of the city is beautiful from our seats in the auditorium and it makes the church services have a new light to them. The people in our branch are really amazing. From what I can tell, many of them work for various government organizations or in some cases the UN (example: my Relief Society President). Their stories are as amazing as they are. After church, a group of us walked to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. Most of the Christian population gathers to one part of the garden to honor Christ and commemorate his divine actions in the garden. We Mormons, as Christians, went to this site first but soon discovered that there was a separate garden just across the street that our church leaders and other LDS members gather and recognize as the Gethsemane Christ was in that night. We had to say we were Mormons to get into the gate of this site that had "Private" on the gate. There we were led into another garden of many old olive trees. I was able to sit on my own and contemplate the divine love of my Savior and visualize the place he was that night.

Olive Trees at Gethsemane

 Something I really like is having church on Saturday and a free weekend day on Sunday. It's nice to go to church and know that the next day is a day to play and do whatever you need to do before Monday. It's nice. Anyways, on Sunday I went with some friends out to the city where we visited a few different sites. We went to the Tomb of Mary, which is actually located right next to the Garden of Gethsemane. There, Armenian priests take care of a church and grotto where they believe Mary was buried. People light candles and line the stairs with tons of them, which leaves a beautiful site. Next to the church is a grotto or cave that they now have a church service in. Amazingly, it is directly under the "Private" part of Gethsemane that the Mormons visit and is believed to be the place where the Apostles slept that night.

The stairs at Mary's Tomb

After visiting Mary's Tomb and a slight detour along the Eastern wall of the city, which has future significance in the Second coming of Christ, we were able to visit the Pools of Bethesda. The site is owned by the French and they make the whole place BEAUTIFUL. It's one of my favorite places in the Old City. This site is where the bible says that Christ healed a man who had been ill for 38 years. The pools themselves have an interesting story as well. The area now has a garden and a Cathedral (Anne's Cathedral) along with ruins of past buildings. Everything is beautiful there. The Cathedral has the best acoustics I've ever heard and we were lucky enough to get to sing a few hymns inside. The ruins near the back of the property seemed to be remnants of buildings from the Crusaders. There were large cisterns that would even store the water of the pools. There was one area where you could take stairs down a long way to see the water from the ancient pools.

A sign at the Pools of Bethesda complex

We then went exploring through the Old City and met some more Mormon friendly shopkeepers and then made our way to Jaffa gate into West Jerusalem. In West Jerusalem we ate dessert at a small cafe that was really nice and looked at the shops around. A fun thing for us girls was getting a facemask in one of the shops that is made from minerals from the Dead Sea! Fun! After a little bit more exploring we ended our long day of walking and went back to the Center.

The girls in Western Jerusalem

Since then, I have been getting used to a new and rigorous schedule of classes and homework. In a way it ends a bit of freedom, but it is really fun to get to know our professors more and learn so much. We all take Ancient Near East Studies, Modern Near East Studies (Palestinian Perspective), Modern Near East Studies (Israeli Perspective), Old Testament, and we can either take Hebrew or Arabic. I am taking Hebrew! Like I said, It's fun, but rigorous.

This week, we had our first field trip with everyone here. We went to different high areas in Jerusalem so we could see the whole city from different views. It really is a beautiful sight! We also were able to look down on Bethlehem and see the Herodian. We were able to see where the City of David is located in reference to the Old City as well as Bethany and were able to visualize paths that Christ would have walked frequently. An area that I was very interested in was where Caiaphas's palace would have been. It is next to an old Church that has 1st century dungeons underneath and could have been were Jesus was imprisoned for a time as well as where Peter would have denied Christ 3 times. It's so cool to see all of this stuff!

The Old City taken from the 7-Arches Overlook 

 Today, in between classes, I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It is another location that is said to be the location of Christ's crucifixion and burial. It was beautiful and worth seeing. Definitely an awesome way to spend time between classes too!

I'm excited to get more involved with our classes and take some more field trips. Next week we go to Jericho!