the passion of Christ

Everything I came to Jerusalem for culminated in the past two days. Yesterday and today we literally followed in Jesus’ footsteps as we visited the sites dedicated to the last week of His life.
Yesterday we started the day going to Bethany where Mary, Martha and Lazarus were from. We visited the supposed tomb of Lazarus and let me tell you, it still stinketh! Ha.


From Bethany we then went to Bethphage, where Jesus sent two disciples to get him a donkey for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This was really neat for me to learn about how the symbolism involved with Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem. It is a symbol of a king from King David’s time, but it is also a symbol of ultimate humility.


Next we went to Pater Noster. This church was associated with Jesus instructing His apostles during the last week, his ascension, and where he said the Lord’s Prayer. They had the Lord’s prayer in tons of different languages all around the church’s complex and it was really cool to read it in all the different languages people from our class knew.


From there we went to the Dominus Flevit church. This church is shaped like a teardrop to symbolize the incident when “the Lord wept” over Jerusalem. This site was on the Mount of Olives right above the Garden of Gethsemane. It had a great view of the temple mount, which gave a really good visual of the Savior overlooking Jerusalem as He wept.
After that we went to the Orson Hype Park where we read the Olivet Discourse. I’ve learned so much about that discourse and how to read it this semester. It’s been really cool.
Next we went to the Upper Room where the Last Supper is believed by many to have occurred. There we read the Lord’s Intercessory prayer which was really really neat. There’s just something about my Savior praying on my behalf that is really special. I love it.


Today we started by going to the Garden of Gethsemane. I can’t think of a better way to start any day. We read some great scriptures and had some time to just reflect. It was such a spiritual and amazing time.


Our next stop was St. Peter in Galicantu. This was actually my very first site on my very first field trip. We’ve gone full circle now. It was really weird to think back to that day when I didn’t know anything about the city or the people I was with. Anyways, this site represents Jesus’ trial by the high priest Caiaphas and when Peter denied Christ three times.


After that we went to the Church of Condemnation and the Church of Flagellation. These churches may occupy part of the site of the Antonia Fortress where Christ was perhaps tried by Pilate. At that trial He was condemned and scourged, took up His cross and began the “Way of the Cross.”
Then we went to the Pools of Bethesda, not because it was part of Christ’s last week, but because it was right by the other churches and we hadn’t been there yet. Haha. It was really cool though. This was where Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath. There was a beautiful church there that we were able to sing hymns in and I loved it!


We ended our semester of field trips at perhaps my favorite site in all of the Holy Land: The Garden Tomb. I know I’ve talked about this site before, but I don’t feel like I can really explain how much I love it. I know it may not be the actual tomb and Golgotha, but it’s the best place where I can feel the spirit of those events and ponder on their meaning to me. During our time in the Garden Tomb, Brother Harper told us that his favorite Christmas song is The Little Drummer Boy. I thought it was kind of funny at first, but then he told us why he loves it so much and then I understood. He said, “I am the little drummer boy. I have no gift to give that is fit enough for the king.” That really hit me hard. We really have nothing that we can give Christ to make up for what he gave to us, but we can do what we know to the best of our ability.


Tonight officially ended the spiritual aspect of our semester. We had our end of the semester class program. Brother and Sister Harper did a little fireside for us titled “Seek This Jesus” from Ether 12:41 and then we watched Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s final conference address. If you haven’t ever heard it, you should definitely look it up. It was powerful! As a final gift to Brother Harper for all that he has done for us this semester we decided to sing The Little Drummer Boy for him. After the first line I lost it. I seriously couldn’t believe the spirit that was in the room. Everyone was sobbing, including Brother and Sister Harper. We sang the most beautiful arrangement of the song I’ve ever heard. It has definitely become my new favorite Christmas song and I think I could say the same for everyone else in the room. I have never been a part of anything that tender and heartfelt in my life. I know that Brother Harper felt the love we were trying to convey to him. This was the love that we had for him as our guru and teacher, as well as the love we gained for our Savior Jesus Christ as we studied his life from him. I hope I will never forget that moment in my life.

All of the sites we visited these past two days helped prep me for my coming future. I know that I have a lot of tough decisions and unknown trials in my future, but because of the events that transpired here in the Holy Land, I know that there is hope. So now let me go forth as a happy, grateful, and repentant person for the rest of my life!

bittersweet

Well, it's official. Finals are over and I'm a free girl. Usually this is the happiest time of the year for me, but this semester has been a lot more bittersweet. I have loved my classes here and am a little sad for them to be over. It is really nice to not have homework to worry about though. This week is going to be so nice to just soak everything up for the last time before I go home without the stress of school work.
Other than studying my head off all week, I also did some fun things. On Monday I went to a local preschool and sang songs with the little kids. They were so cute! They were all Palestinian and couldn't speak English, except to count and sing the alphabet. I loved it! It made me miss my Pre-3 classroom back at the YMCA.



Thursday I went to the International school where the kids from the center go to school for their school play. It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Marissa Ludlow was Joseph. It was so adorable!! There wasn't enough space for everyone though so I had to share a chair with Sister Harper. It was a good thing the play was only an hour....



Last night was our Jerusalem Center Christmas concert. I was in the choir that sang at the end. We've been practicing since we got here in September, so hopefully we sounded all right. It was really fun. Now I'm all ready for Christmas!
Today I went to the Garden Tomb after church. It was wonderful as usual. A whole bunch of students from the center were there since it was our last sabbath. At the end of our visit we all got together and sang some Christmas hymns. Then we ended with singing I Know That My Redeemer Lives. I felt so much joy being there with so many people that I have grown to love, singing our testimony of the Savior. It was so powerful singing about the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the place where it may have happened. I'm really going to miss that.

salt

Well I’m exhausted. Today was a very fun, but very busy day. The day started with our bus showing up half an hour late to pick us up from the center. Our driver thought he had to make up for it by showing off his Nascar skills. He was crazy! But we made it safe to our destination: Masada. This was the third palace of King Herod that we’ve been to this semester and was by far the most impressive. It was at the top of a hill in the Judean wilderness overlooking the Dead Sea. The hill was so steep that we had to ride a cable car to get up to it. This week I have to write an essay for my final exam in my New Testament class that compares the life of the Herod’s to Jesus Christ. This site helped give some more insight into that prompt. As impressive as the structure was, it’s just a pile of rocks. This is nothing compared to the life Jesus Christ lived for mankind which reaches through all eternity.



After that we did something I’ve been looking forward to all semester. We swam in the Dead Sea! I’m not going to lie and say I can’t wait to do it again, but it was really fun to do once in my life. It is just so dang salty! My body didn’t hurt too bad, but it tasted like fertilizer and if any water splashed in your eyes you were done for. Floating in the water was such a weird sensation. You wouldn’t be able to sink if you tried. And of course I had to cover my body with the legendary Dead Sea mud. It smelled terrible. And when my hair dried it was sooo salty. It was a really cool experience though that everyone needs to try.







After that we went on a really pretty hike in Ein Gedi. Then we went to Qumran, which is where the caves are that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in. You could tell why they went unnoticed for so long. It was just in the middle of the Judean wilderness. Brother Ludlow was our guide there which was really cool because he’s a renowned expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. We really get a quality experience here. I still can’t believe all the things I’ve seen here. I just wish everyone could see and experience the things I have. It’s been life changing.

sprinting

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned him before, but one of my most favorite people here is our Doctor Brother Chapman. Well he gave us some good advice the other day. He told us that when you run a race you don’t jog the last stretch, you sprint. So now that we have less than two weeks here we really are on our last stretch and we need to start sprinting. I’ve taken that to heart and I’ve been living it up this past week.



Wednesday we had our Christian Quarter field trip. This was a field trip in the Old City where we went to different early Christian churches. It was good to finally move on to something more familiar to us. We first went to the Franciscan monastery called Terra Sancta. It was beautiful! Then we went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer where we sang Lutheran hymns and loved it. We went to the Church of St. Mark next which is a Syrian Orthodox church commemorating the Last Supper. The lady who spoke to us there was a little intimidating… She got very mad at some of us for crossing our legs and taking pictures. She did sing the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic though which was really cool since that’s the language Christ is believed to have spoken. The church is believed by the Syrian Orthodox to be the home of Mark’s mother Mary, the site of the Last Supper, and the place where the apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. That’s some cool stuff! Next we went to a Russian church with beautiful paintings. They discovered a gate there which they believe to be the gate to the Old City which Christ would have walked through bearing His cross. Next to the gate was a smaller hole which some people think may have been what Jesus was referring to when He said that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than go through the eye of a needle. I still think he meant a literal eye of a needle, but it was still interesting to see. Our last stop for the day was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was probably my fourth time going there but it really doesn’t get old. There is so much history and sacredness in that building. I love it. And it was nice going with the class so that Brother Ludlow could explain what everything was in there. It’s an amazing building commemorating two of the greatest events in the history of the eternities. Not a bad place to visit I’d say.







Since then I’ve been hitting up the city as often as possible. I don’t care to see all the sites as much anymore, but just to experience the city that I’ve come to love so much. Thursday afternoon I went to the Tower of David Museum. This was part of a fortress built by King Herod which now has exhibits that tells of the history of Jerusalem. It was really cool to go through all the exhibits and realize how much I have learned this semester.



Last night I went with my Judaism professor Ophir Yarden to a Friday evening service at an Orthdox synagogue. It was a really great experience to see those wonderful Jewish people worshipping and praising God while they ushered in the Sabbath. One thought I had while I was there was that I don’t think I praise God enough. I thank Him for things and I ask Him for things, but I don’t simply praise Him enough. I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot lately in the semester, but it really cultivated last night at the Jewish synagogue. I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ with all my heart! They are all-powerful, all-knowing and yet they know and love even me. I know that is true. I have felt of both their power and their love in my life.