My Time in the Holy Land

Dear All,

Did I tell you I went to the Garden of Gethsemane on Saturday??? I'm really mad that I didn't take my camera but hopefully we will go back there on a free day as a group or something, if enough ppl want to go. Anyway, it was absolutely surreal thinking that that exact spot I was looking at was where Christ suffered so much for me. I just couldn't believe where I was.... Definitely a neat experience.

(This is the picture I took when I DID have my camera)

Outer wall of the old city.

I really can't believe how many places I've been privileged to visit and how many amazing places I'll be going to in the next FOUR months. Unbelievable.

(This is Aladdin's, the popular moneychanger for the students from the 'Mormon University.')

(This is Omar, the man I bought my olive wood from! Again, he is a popular choice for olive wood for the students here at the 'Mormon University.')

Anyway, today was jam-packed with stuff. It was our free day so I went with a bunch of people to a man named Aladdin (Allah-deen) haha. We went to him to get our money changed and the "Mormon University" said that he's got the best exchange rate. We then went to a shop owned by a man named Omar who is also a close friend of the university. He had AMAZING wood carved statues handmade by Omar himself. He had beautiful statues of the nativity (mom, let me know if you want me to buy you one, i'm SURE you'd fall in love with it!!!) and statues of Joseph Smith and Christ and Nephi and Lehi and every other biblical story you could think of. It was absolutely amazing. I really have to go back there, even if I don't decide to buy anything.

(Brother Whipple playing the Carillon bells at the YMCA)

We then went to the YMCA building pretty much all the way across town and one of our professors was in church of playing the bell tower songs so he let some of us play hymns on the bells for the whole city. It was awesome! I'll have to send you a video on facebook or something. After that, we RAN all the way across town to make it to a special insider's tour of the western wall. We got really close to it and then got to climb across the old city wall. I was absolutely terrified, so terrified that a couple of guys had to help me down from the wall after walking across it.

Climbing the outer wall of the old city.

This is the man that gave us a FREE tour of the Western Wall and of some of the city. This is him reading parts of the Koran, the holy book for the Muslims.

Israeli soldier on our way exiting the Temple Mount

Muslims on the Temple Mount.

Taeler Herr and I in front of Dome of the Rock.

This particular is believed to be the sight of the creation, the possible site where Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac, and the spot where Muhammad ascended to heaven. In other words, it's a site of great controversy.

Anyway, it was definitely a very eventful day. Did a lot and saw a lot. I was shocked at all the things I got to see in one day. It was great.

My BYU JC Family.

Top row: Allison Brown, Jonathan Arnell, Victoria Lund, Gage Robison, Steve Shelley

Middle Row: Diana Lewis, me, John Wiest

Bottom Row: Leslie Smith, Jessica Parker

So.... I'll just go ahead and write about all the things I saw today (January 11th). Sorry that I didn't quite finish that earlier e-mail. I got called in to be FHE MOM for one of the groups. (Our group is AWESOME by the way!!!! I love all the ppl in my group).

Lindsay Irion and me fooling around.

Dome of the Rock in the background!

Seven Arches overlook

Nabi Samuel (Tomb of Samuel)

On top of Nabi Samwil

Today, we went to Samuel's tomb which was a big lookout point and AMAZING to see out over the entire landscape. We also went to the Seven Arches lookout point and saw most of the old city. I will definitely post some of those cool pictures. You'll all be shocked, don't worry.

Every night I usually go to bed at 9 but I knew I needed to e-mail you guys and tell you about my crazy exciting day.

Getting through the homework and trying to keep up (barely), and it seems like a TON right now. But I'm learning a lot. Hopefully I'll be a complete expert about the whole city when I get back. Wink wink.

Lutheran church

Beautiful painting of Triumphal Entry of Christ

Oh, I forgot to tell you, we went to a GIANT Lutheran church which also had an amazing lookout point at the top of a tower (and you'll also see some pictures of that). The church was absolutely amazing. So many mosaics and history.

Us re-enacting our hymn singing

I think a couple stops after that we went to a lookout point overlooking Bethlehem and sang the hymn "Far Away On Judea's Plains." Amazing. Took some cool videos. I've written down in my pocket hymnbook every place I've gone to and sang a certain hymn. It's really exciting to use my new hymn book in such a COOL way.

I really feel SO blessed to be here. It's so beautiful here and the people are really nice. Besides the fact that a few 14 year old boys hit on me yesterday and there are some very creepy middle-aged men asking me to marry them, I'm absolutely loving it here. Trip of a lifetime. Can't believe I'm here and I'm really trying to enjoy every minute of it.

Love, Jill