December 11, 2010—Saturday, Shabbat (Sabbath)
This morning before we got up, I lay in bed listening to the sounds—people arguing in the street and down the hall, people going to breakfast down the hall, a police siren, an ambulance going by, men unloading propane bottles (I saw them out the window later), and the wind howling. It came up this morning, and it blew so hard, it made our room door rattle gently. (Our door isn’t like the steel hotel doors at home. It is a thin, hollow door, and the key to get in looks like one of those old fashion keys with a circle of metal on one end and cut-our square of metal on the other. The door even has the old key hole.)
Logan was still sleeping (after taking a five-hour nap from 5 pm to 10 pm, then getting up and going down to the wi-fi room after I went to bed, and then he came in about midnight, took a Tylenol PM, and then slept to 8:48 am. I woke him up when I heard a crowd singing in the street. I looked out the window and saw a tour group holding a sign that said something about a pilgrimage from India. Near the front was a guy dressed in a Santa suit.
I started laughing and said, “There’s a Santa.”
 
Logan woke up, looked at his I-Touch and told me the time. I couldn’t believe it. I thought the sun had just come up, and it was about 6:30. I planned to leave at 8:30 to go to Church. I knew it would take us a while because the maps we have aren’t very good street-wise, and the last time, I was in a shuttle bus, so I didn’t know the way.
We dressed and ate quickly, grabbed some regular clothes and food for after Church and headed out. In the parking deck, there was a United Nations bus. We have seen several UN cars around in Jerusalem. Don’t know why they are here.
Finding Church became like “The Amazing Race.” We drove up near the Hebrew University because it looked like it was near there on the map. It wasn’t. We drove through a neighborhood, and Logan asked two older women if they knew where the BYU Jerusalem Center was. One did not know, until I told Logan to say “the Mormon University.” Then she knew, but she said it was close, but the directions were too hard (for her English, I think), so just like on “The Amazing Race,” she said, “Follow me. I will take you there,” which she did.
We made it with about 15 minutes to spare. Just like last time, there was a guard at the gate that let us into the compound.
It was a good Sacrament meeting. The BYU Branch Choir sang a prelude hymn and a Christmas song for the intermediate hymn. They were excellent, about 60 girls and 10 boys.
The students come here for one semester and study a language like Hebrew or Arabic, Near Eastern culture, a class like Jewish law/tradition, and other classes. There were 400 in this group, and they are leaving this week.
(Side note right now: we are watching a Thai movie, dubbed in English with Arabic subtitles, which is better than the Al-Jazeera channel.)
For those who will still be here, they are having a Ward Christmas activity at the Shepherds’ Fields where they will sing carols, have a spiritual thought, and refreshments, of course. What a great place to have a ward activity.
One of the speakers today was a brother who grew up in a Christian Palestinian family. He drove in from Ramallah this morning, which is in Palestinian control. He did not say how he joined the Church, but he did say he wanted to go to BYU after high school because his sister had gone there. However, he was turned down for a scholarship because his sister had gotten on the year before, and there was a rule against a family member getting that scholarship right after.
He really depressed about it because he had been offered scholarships from several colleges in different countries, but he felt he needed to go to BYU. He decided to accept a scholarship to a college in St. Petersburg in the Soviet Union, but his mother was not happy with that. He said his mother prayed and felt that he would be able to go to BYU. Within an hour, they received a phone call from the BYU Jerusalem Center saying someone had refused their scholarship to BYU, and they were offering it to him.
Just one thing, he had to be there in three days—but he had no passport, visa or luggage.
He must have made it because he graduated from BYU in engineering. He went on to relate how he eventually came back to Palestine to work. He was here for a while, but he felt he needed to go back to Provo to do something. He did go back, and there he met his wife, Emily.
The curtains were open during the meeting, but the city was hazy because the wind brought dust and salt in from the desert. We went out on the grounds afterwards, and we couldn’t see the Old City of the Dome of the Rock. Logan took photos of the three types of olive presses they have on the grounds. They also had rose bushes that are still in bloom.
After Church, it began to rain a little. We drove to the Mount of Olives and visited the Tomb of the Virgin Mary and the traditional Garden of Gethsemane. It was busy there with pilgrims.
The road up the Mount of Olives was very narrow, so we parked at the bottom, outside Mary’s Tomb. Then we climbed the hill. It was very steep and seemed a lot longer than the quarter of mile it was. Abraham was in the Garden cleaning it when we arrived. He remembered me, and we had a nice talk with him telling Logan about when he lived in America. It was his 70th birthday today.
It started to rain so he walked us over to his house to get olive oil he pressed from olives from the Garden. We had not spent any private time in the Garden, so we walked back and stood behind a large pine tree until the rain let up. Then Logan and I went back and spent some time there. The place of the Atonement is still a garbage dump, and a place where the garbage that is blown or rolls downhill is burned. Right on the spot where you can see through the evergreen trees to the Golden Gate/Gate Beautiful and where the altar of the temple was, is the dump. It is quite a contrast with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which is a shrine with paintings, silver effigies, tile mosaics, and more. But like Marla said, the Savior would not want the Garden of Gethsemane to be a shrine.
After we left the Garden, we walked halfway down the hill, turned right into a little parking lot, and then walked down a paved walkway to the entrance of the Orson Hyde Park. Inside the unmarked gate is a monument identifying the park. It has a typo in it. The last line left out an “h” in the word “through.” Just a side note.
The stone walkway up to the stone amphitheater is a switchback for about a quarter mile. I told Logan today with all the stairs we went up yesterday, anyone coming here should work out on a Stairmaster to prepare before they come.
We made it back to the car, and it was okay, even though it has a “Budget” sticker on the side. After we drove back to the parking lot, it was not open yet. Still closed for Shabbat. One down the way run by Palestinians was open, and it was cheaper for the night.
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday, when we went to the Western Wall, a young man in an orthodox Jewish hat, black coat, white shirt and sideburns, said, “Hi, guys, where are you from?” After we replied, he said, “My dad is from Marietta, but I lived in Miami.”
He looked like he was happy to talk with us and had no problem identifying us as Americans.
One other thing, in the Church of the Flagellation, over the altar on the ceiling is a large crown of thorns. It is about six feet in diameter. It wasn’t painted on the ceiling but was a real crown of thorns. We couldn’t go up and look closer because a service was going on at the time.