September 2, 2011
Today was another awesome day! We went to the Israel Museum which is supposed to be one of the greatest museums in the world! I can see why. We were there for 3 hours and only got 1 and a half sections done out of about 7 sections. We even saw the Dead Sea Scrolls! There are tons of things from Biblical times like a burial chest from Caiaphus' tomb...like the New testament Caiaphas! And there are sections of buildings, like a section of a roman bath which they reassembled and part of a Crusader church. They also had a large replica of the old city of Jerusalem in New Testament times. So that was cool!
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| Enterance to The Garden Tomb |
We then went to the Garden Tomb. It's owned by a British church society and they have service couples who give tours and run the garden.Tom Atkins was our guide and he just retired as a preacher for the Church of England in London. I'll tell you more about him later. Anyways, the Garden Tomb is in the middle of East Jerusalem which means it's in the middle of an Arab city and it is closed in by large stone walls like the rest of the areas. We had an appointment with our 30 students today and our two religion professors (who are so great!). We were all waiting outside the doors to the garden and decided to sing sacrament hymns before we went in. Brother Eric Huntsman (who is currently my Old Testament Professor) was just released from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir about two weeks ago so he could teach here for a year, so he lead us in singing. It definitely brought the spirit. I think most of us were very touched and we hadn't even gone through the doors yet. When we had finished, we heard" It's the Mormons" on the other side of the doors and there was Tom Atkins and another man opening up the door and telling us to come in and how beautiful we sounded (they couldn't get over it, it was really sweet!). Like I said, we were in the middle of a city, but when you go in, it is definitely a peaceful and cool (as in weather) garden that smells so good.
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| Skull Rock or "Golgotha" |
We first went up and looked at a hill that they call Skull Rock because the large rock looks like a skull from the side. This is where Tom said the crucifixion of Jesus could have taken place according to the location and other aspects too. Tom wanted us all to know that he wasn't going to tell us that this is definitely where everything had happened, like the crucifixtion and the actual tomb of Jesus, but he said what matters most is the Man and what had occurred with the ressurection. Everything that he had said concerning that exactly coincided with what our professors had told us to remember going in. We now love Tom and know that he loves Christ. Is was evident that he has felt that love and knows how to share it with others. Tom took us to another section of the garden where he showed us a large man-made hole in the ground. It's covered up except for a small area to put a ladder, but it is similar to a huge underground pool for storing water that dates back to the time of Christ. He said that the cistern was too large to be for just some random garden and that it had to be for some kind of commercial work. Then he showed us a commercial wine press close by that explaines the water containement. It was a Vineyard in Christ's time! Anyways, Tom said that they are lead to believe that it could be the Vineyard of Joseph of Arimathea (Of the Council yah know!) and that is how Christ would be buried there.
He then took us to the tomb. The tomb was in a stone wall and the entrance was fairly small. We sat and talked about how the tomb was set up and what happened the third morning with the angels saying, "He is not here, for He is risen." There is a door now on the tomb that has those words on it. When I went in, it was interesting to see that my head almost touched the ceiling. Brother Huntsman said yesterday that Jesus was probably actually only about 5' 4" in his mortal body. He said that's probably not the case with his ressurected body but people were A LOT smaller then than they are today. Well, now I believe him because it was really small. It was cool to be inside though because even if it wasn't actually Christ's tomb, it was a tomb from that time and like His. Everyone was reverant as we went in and out. I mostly felt the spirit when thinking about the resurrected Christ and not necessarily about the actual spot, like Tom Atkins said to us. Many prophets have been there and said they had felt the spirit, but in particular, President Hinkley said that he felt the spirit definitely and that Christ was buried there in that spot or close by. Apparently, there were a few more tombs around there, but I don't think any are still around. So after our official tour we gathered as a goup again under a canopy close by and had a small devotional and sang "I believe in Christ" and "I know that My Redeemer Lives." It was very spiritual and calming. We walked around a little bit and almost didnt want to leave because of the calming spirit we felt there.
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| Me at the tomb (pic taken later in semester) |
We did eventually leave and broke up into random groups to go and adventure into the city. I went with some friends and we basically just went wherever in the city not really knowing where to go, but just knowing that the Damascus Gate would get us back home. We actually ended up in a little row of Musilm apartments and they were all telling us we were in the wrong place. Its hard to find your way around there. Honestly I feel like the old city is one HUGE marketplace. You can't drive cars into it and the roads are super small and narrow. Everything is made out of the limestone but it's super smooth and almost slippery from so many people over so long. Every now and then you will see security gaurds and police with big guns but they are actually pretty nice and will tell you where to go if you need it. We were stopped by some telling us not to go close to the Dome of the Rock because we weren't Muslim and it was time for another prayer call. I wonder how he could tell...jk! We took another route and ran into the enterance to the Western Wall. You have to pass a security checkpoint to get there and it was reall interesting to go through and see all of the orthodox Jews again. But yeah...I saw the Wailing wall today...nbd (no big deal). We only spent a little time there because we are going to go as a group at some point. After that we ended up in the Christian Quarter and actually ran into a large procession of priests singing and carrying a cross through the streets. there were tons of people following them and we kind of joined in and then took a small street out of there to get away from the crowd. That's where we ran into a Palestinian shop owner in the Christian quarter who brought us into his shop and just gave us the best time. Now, all of the people around here know who we are. They keep on saying, "Oh, you're the new Mormons!" and yell "BYU!" at us or even one guy was like "Go cougars!" haha! But mostly everyone knows that we are the Mormons and that we will be buying things in their shops. So this man took us into his shop, gave us each a fanta and dressed us in old Palastinian clothes and just chatted with us calling us Mormons the whole time. He was SO nice. I bought a beautiful scarf from him for 20 shekels which is about $5. He also has handmade leather scripture cases pretty much just for us that have the city on them and Jerusalem on them which I'm going to buy. He has a good collection of things and all of us in our group fell in love . He was so sweet! So that was the end of our excursion around the old city today. We had to get home before sunset because of the start of Shabbat (the Sabbath).
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| Dressing up at Shabon's |
We had 17 students arrive today! We were happy to see them. I don't think i told you but i havent had any roommates and I actually still dont have one yet. Im still waiting for the three other girls to get here. I've made some good friends. With just 30 of us we pretty much all got to know eachother fast and I like all of them. Going into the city today, I just left with a random group and had a great time.
Here is a random thing I dont think I've talked about. I wake up every morning at 4:30 am to the Muslim prayer call. The prayer call happens 5 times a day and i love them. They seem to always be different! A lot of the locals are so genuinely loving, it's crazy. They really want us (the Mormons) to come and just talk to them in their shops. It's really interesting what the BYU center has done with the perceptions of Mormons in the community...as far as I know, they love us!
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