In a beautiful Olive Tree Garden
Monday was our first field trip and we went around the city of Jerusalem to different vantage points towards the Old City and learned more about the history and geography of the Holy Land.
Me with the south of Jerusalem towards Bethel and Bethany behind me.
Our first stop was the Augusta Victoria Hospice. We saw east away from the city towards Jericho and the Judean Wilderness. We couldn’t see much because it was so hazy in the morning but it was a super cool experience. We had our devotional and sang a hymn. I’m so glad I brought my own little hymn book because I write down where and when I sang a certain song and remember where I sang it. We were going to go into the church up to the tower but it was closed for another half hour. So we went on our way to the next stop.
We drove west of Jerusalem to the Bethlehem overlook. It was beautiful to be on a hillside and look towards the city of Bethlehem and I’m excited for our field trip there next month. We were wandering around during our 10 minute free time and we found a turtle! How cool is that!?
Next we drove to the Promenade, which is a ledge facing the South part of Jerusalem and the City of David. This was my favorite part of the field trip. Brother Ludlow talked to us about the story of Abraham and Isaac, how he was commanded by the Lord to kill his own son. We also talked about this in my Old Testament class. In the restored scriptures from Joseph Smith, it talks about how Abraham’s father, Terah, tried to sacrifice Abraham to the Egyptian gods and the angel of the Lord saved him and he fled. Then Abraham as a father himself, was commanded to do the same thing to his son. If God could pick the hardest thing for Abraham to do it would definitely be that. The Lord gave Abraham this trial not to see how faithful Abraham was to Him, because He already knew, but for Abraham to learn more about Abraham, about himself. In Genesis 22: it says that he saw afar off where he was to sacrfice his son and told his servants to stay where he was. Where we were standing was a possible place where Abraham could have been as he saw towards Mt. Moriah (which the Temple Mount is on now) and went with Isaac together. It was such a humble experience to think of Abraham and how much faith he had to do the hardest thing in his life with so much faith. No wonder he was blessed with seed without number!
Our next stop was at the Seven Arches Hotel. It is East of Jerusalem kind on the Mt. of Olives closer to the Temple Mount. We focused more on the history of Temple Mount, talking about the First and Second Temple and history up to the Dome of the Rock. We could actually see the Kidron Valley and the geography of the Holy Land where the Garden of Gethsemene led to the place traditionally known where Christ was convicted. There was even an old cone shaped small building thing that was standing when Jesus walked the earth. It was a cool view.
We went back to the Augusta Victoria into the chapel and up the tower. It was super cool because the tower was super tall that you could see everything. It was a long walk up to the tower though, someone said 250 steps, and they were steep steps! Man all this walking is gonna make my calves HUGE! And they already are kind of big. Inside the church we talked about the symbols in the architecture and the ceiling mosaic of Christ, the 4 Gospels, and the 12 Apostles. Up on the tower we could see our next stop, which was the farthest away, we could barely see it through the haze.
We drove all the way to the Nebi Samwill church, which holds a cenotauph of the prophet Samuel. We all sat in a beautiful garden looking towards the city of Gibeon and read from the Bible Dictionary a few things about Samuel and his story. It was super cool.
This field trip is the first of many Monday field trips that I learned so much and it was a super fun day!
