JRu 5: Wandering the Old City

Okay, I'm way (a week) behind. I will try to do some extra updating in this post. I am supposed to be writing a paper but blogging is way more fun. My last update was for Thursday of last week. On to Friday.

Friday, September 2nd (Happy Birthday, Mom!)

Because half of our group had not yet arrived, they cancelled classes and created a mini-field trip for us. We went to the Israel Museum in the morning. We had about two and a half hours to wander the museum. They have a huge archaeological wing and we have an assignment to complete a museum checklist. We had to find a bunch of items in the museum and then we have to pick four items that we want to write a paper about. We just barely made it through the checklist before we had to leave. Here are some of the highlights we saw:

• Really old churn
• A cartouche on a sea shell (In the Egyptian section)
• hanging loom
• Canaanite and Israelite artifacts
• "Sword of Laban" (the type of sword he would have had)
• The dead sea scrolls (there is actually quite a controversy about that.)

We had a little picnic with our sack lunches out in front of the museum before we headed off to the garden tomb. The garden tomb is owned and run by a christian group based out of London. A few of the council members have some issues in the church, so we comply with their rule to not bring any restoration scripture (BOM, D&C or Pearl of Great Price) into the garden, which means I can't bring my scriptures at all since I have a quad.

We got to the garden tomb a little early, so we waited outside for them to open the gates. They close between noon and two to eat and pray. While we waited, we sang a few hymns. When they opened the gates, one of the gentlemen came out and said, "You must be mormons!" We will be singing a lot on this journey.

We went in and had a tour, spent some time at the tomb and then we all met again in a little canopied area. We had a short biblical devotional and then we sang "I Believe in Christ" and "I know that my Redeemer lives." Considering we have never practiced or sang together, we did really well. We even had some other people who were in the garden come and listen to us. The spirit felt so strong as we sang and it was so nice to be in a place where there was peace and we could feel close to the Lord.

They gave us the option to explore the city or go back to the center. We decided to explore the city. My sister, our new friend Elyse, and I wandered through the city. We went in Damascus gate and then wandered over to the Church of the Holy Seplecher. Then we decided to try to find the Jewish Quarter and the western wall. We were really lucky because we ended up there before leaving out the Dung gate and wandering back to the center. It was super fun and super exhausting.

{Okay, this took me a really long time to write, so I am going to post it and then work on a new post.}