I felt very lucky having two people in our group who had spent time for a semester at the BYU Jerusalem center. They were a fountain of knowledge and could explain everything with a LDS perspective. I split them up on the buses so each bus had somebody who was well versed...beyond our tour guides.
As we approached Jerusalem I became more and more excited. Finally, there it was Jerusalem! We rounded a bend on the freeway and we could see the tale tale sign of the Dome of the Rock. There is no mistaking it. We drove a little further and passed the BYU Jerusalem center! So cool. It was so surreal, I really can't put it into words...seriously. From knowing Jerusalem through pictures, through biblical stories, through the news...and here I was.
Our first stop was the Mt of Olives. We pulled up and the first thing I saw was a camel...yep, a man trying to make money was selling rides on his camel...we're not in Kansas anymore. The view from the Mt of Olives was fantastic...just amazing. It overlooked Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, the outer wall, the stairs to the temple, the city of David, the Lion's gate and Bethlehem off in the distance. Here is the funny thing about the Mt of Olives, there are no olive trees on it...zip, nada. The hillside is one large Jewish cemetery, containing over 150,000 graves. From our vantage point we could see the Golden gate leading into Jerusalem through the old city wall. This gate is sealed but we know that Christ passed through this gate on Palm Sunday and upon his return he will pass through it again.
The gate was sealed and a muslim cemetery was placed in front of the gate to prevent the Messiah from entering here. In front of us was the corner of the wall of the city, from here Jesus might have been tempted by Satan to cast himself down after he had fasted 40 days and nights. Next to this were the stairs leading into the city where the temple would have stood. These are the steps that one could imagine Mary and Joseph returning to Jerusalem and looking for the young Jesus as he was sitting among the learned and teaching them or you could imagine Christ cleansing the temple of the money changers on these steps. 
Off to our left in the distance you could see Bethlehem perched on a far off hill. Bethlehem is in a Palestinian area and therefore necessitates crossing over into Palestine, which equates to changing bus driver/tour guide and getting your passport stamped etc. We didn't have enough time for this on this go around. We could also see the City of David off to the left of Jerusalem. We had our devotional and a group picture. After spending 30 minutes here...and frankly I could have spent another hour here looking at everything, we left. Our next stop was the Garden of Gethsemane. We hopped back into the bus for a short 15 minute drive, which actually wouldn't have been that long if we would have walked. We got off of the bus and crossed the street, next to the old wall of Jerusalem. We walked passed an old church and onto a side street.
Up the side street we came to two walls that lined either side of the street. On the right side of the street was the public viewing of the Garden of Gethsemane, on the left was the private viewing of the Garden of Gethsemane. I don't know what Moti did or who he knew but he was able to get us into the private section. It is much like the public part except it is quieter, with less people and the path winds in and amongst the trees whereas the public part appeared to have the path around the perimeter of the trees. By this time we learned that Moti was going to talk a lot at each of our stops and if we wanted to get some photos we just had to wander away. 
So wander away we did. I loved the Garden of Gethsemane. The trees looked like they had been ripped up by the root, twisted, wrung out and placed back in the earth. They looked so old and I could well imagine them being privy to the Atonement that took place in that garden spot. Again I could have spent another half an hour just taking it all in. There was peace in that Garden, much different than on the night of his atonement. To give me perspective of our proximity, just beyond the walls of the Garden, lay the Dome of the Rock. Unfortunately we needed to cut our time short because we had an 11:00am appt to see the Garden Tomb.
You can't see it without an appointed time and our time was coming very quickly...in fact we were going to be late. I was frantic with anxiety...we can't miss the Garden Tomb. The bus ride took longer than I had hoped, traffic and narrow streets with cars did not help us. We scrambled off of the bus and followed Moti, our fearless leader. We all looked like Lemmings, each person following the next...actually we were dysfunctional Lemmings because we had large gaps in our line, some people would stop and take pictures and others would wander off of the path. To my surprise and utter astonishment we made it to each of our destinations with each person accounted for. We entered another side street lined with cement/rock walls that curved around to the left. On the right hand side there was a small door, big enough for one person to enter, this lead to the Garden Tomb area. We met our Garden Tomb guide, he sounded British. He first led us to the far end of the garden, to a small lookout. The view was of a small parking lot, next to a building on one end and a rock wall on the other end. To the casual observer this scene wouldn't amount to too much. He started to tell a story of a British gentleman that was at a hotel near this area and as he was looking out of a window, looking at this rock wall, he noticed something odd...the face of the wall looked like a skull. Golgotha, meaning skull, he surmised this might be the place of the crucifixion of Christ. Now as we gazed upon this rock wall, you really couldn't make heads or tails out of what you were looking at, certainly no skull remained. But you could pick out the original holes and indentations of the wall where the skull would have been. And he explained this whole area would make sense for his crucifixion because from this spot they would have wanted to bury him quickly before sunset, so the garden tomb was literally a stones throw away. He led us over to a sitting area, complete with benches. He began to tell the story of the crucifixion and burial and as soon as he did the world tried to drown him out. 
We were not the only ones in this garden, there were several other groups here to pay their respects. We had one group next to us, probably 40 Brazilians from a church singing, now when I say singing I don't mean the peaceful, reverent songs of respect and thoughtfulness...I mean at the top of your voice, drown out any peaceful and reverent feeling you may have...singing. It was annoying, loud and disrespectful. And just when you thought it would end, a new song was begun. Our tour guide, you could tell, was a bit annoyed. Behind us we had another group chanting, albeit much quieter as they were contained in a small building. This immediately impressed upon me as I sat there. I compared our own desire to concentrate on the Lord and our desire to hear what he has to say, while the world and her distractions vie for our attention and makes it hard to concentrate on things of the spirit. This is the way I felt sitting in the Garden Tomb, trying to listen to our guide, feel of the spirit and take it all in, while the world around me shouts, yells and tries to distract me. We made our way over to the tomb area, it looked like all of the pictures that I had seen in Sunday School. The sun shown down through the trees, shadows falling across the Garden Tomb entrance. A small square hole in the side of the rock, a path worn in the rock in front of the door where one could roll a rounded rock to open and close the tomb.
We each waited patiently for our turn to enter the tomb, Once inside I could see how small the actual tomb itself was, just a small room maybe 20 x 15 feet. To think, this was where Christ was laid to rest, this was where he was resurrected...wow. We gathered as a group and had our devotional, it was quiet this time and we could concentrate on the presentation and testimony given. The whirlwind around us had abated and we were finally left to feel the spirit in this serene place. The Garden Tomb was closing and we needed to leave. We walked to the exit, which led past the tomb itself. The door of the tomb was closed and on it was the inscription..."He is not here, for He is risen". I think that sums it up nicely.Upon leaving we wanted to visit an olive wood store to buy some carvings. We knew of a gentleman that comes to the Ramstein Bazaar and sells his wares, we like him because he has a lot of LDS carvings. Our tour guide Moti had run over to his store while we were at the tomb and reported back that it was closed. We had Moti find his cell phone number and call him up to see if he would open it. We were in luck, he said he could meet us there in 20 minutes. We got on the bus and stopped at his store. We piled into his shop and started shopping. His work is fantastic.
He had many carvings of Christ, scenes from the bible and he had many scenes from the Book of Mormon. Some LDS specific work included the Liahona, Father Lehi, the title of Liberty and Nephi, just to mention a few items. We bought something for each of our children so that they could remember their trip to Israel and we bought a carving of Lehi, kneeling down holding the Liahona. 
At this point there was a divide of what people wanted to do, a few wanted to go to the BYU Jerusalem center and the majority wanted to go to old Jerusalem. Our group walked down to the Damascus gate and entered in. It is a lovely gate, very large and formal. As we passed through the gate and into the old city I soon realized that old Jerusalem did not differ much from Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Old Jerusalem consisted of shops, merchants, small restaurants, falafel stands etc. There are four distinctive quarters of old Jerusalem, Armenian, Jewish, Muslim and Christian.
I honestly don't know which quarters we visited as we just wandered without direction for most of the time. We purchased three falafels and drinks, I bought freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, which was very good. The only direction we had was we needed to meet at the western wall (wailing wall) at a predetermined time to meet our group. In hindsight, I think I would have opted to go with the other group to the BYU Jerusalem center. 
I felt like old Jerusalem was so much like Istanbul that I had seen it before. In order to get to the western wall we had to pass through a metal detector, which I though was interesting. The only place that I saw a lot of military presence was at the western wall. Israeli military were all over this area. After meeting with our group briefly and getting the low down on going up to the wall, we decided it was time to approach. Sharma and the girls had to go to the 'female' section of the wall, a much smaller less prominent area of the wall. McKay and I donned on our yamakas and approached the wall, at first just holding back and observing. We were told that we could take pictures as long as we weren't being obtrusive and disrespectful. We took some pictures and just let it all sink in. There was one guy sitting in a chair, dressed all in black, with locks of hair, rocking back and forth repeating his prayer. 
Nearer the wall was where all of the action was happening, men, young and old, citizens and military line up against the wall placing their notes in the wall and praying. There were a few gentlemen standing around what looked like an old cart and inside the cart there were these long leather strips, connected to a small box and inside of the box there were contained prayers. Men would come up and have the orthodox Jews wrap these boxes to their arms or their foreheads and then they would go to the wall and pray. McKay and I each had a note that we had written and we took them up to the wall and placed them into the crevices of the wall. I had to touch it just to say that I did. We then stood around a bit longer and upon leaving I decided that I wanted to get my picture taken with one of these orthodox Jews manning the cart. As I asked him for the picture, several in our group gathered around as well. The guy running the cart, that I had asked, picked out Ian Price and started to question him...no, not just question him but badger him and really put him on the spot. He first asked Ian "Where is God" Ian, being a shy boy anyway, didn't answer at first, instead was looking to his father for help. The old man seeing this, said "Your father an't help you". The answer the old man was looking for was "Everywhere". After a few minutes of Ian trying to figure this out, the old man then asked "Is God in the heart of the Devil?". Again, Ian stammered around a bit, he had that 'deer in the headlight' look to him. As I stood there, wanting to help Ian out, it dawned on me, that Ian only being 13 but holding the office of Deacon in the Aaronic priesthood had more power assigned to him that this old man who had studied the scriptures for many years beyond Ian's age. Ian held the power of God, whereas this person didn't even know who God really is. I did get my picture taken and we hurried back to the group.
We walked to the bus and caught it for the final time back to the cruise ship. We sat in silence as we drove back to Haifa, I think some of us were tired and I think others were thinking about everything that we just experienced...I was in the latter group. One of the things that struck me as interesting was to see where each of these historical places were in relationship to another. I always thought that each place was miles away from one another, yet as we traveled most were in walking distance of one another. I was also amazed that all of the places we saw were in the midst of the city, surrounded by sidewalks with people rushing by on their way...to do who knows what, yet within walls just a few feet away the most important things in this world happened. I felt like day 2 was the highlight for me. As I thought about day 1, although I knew what I was seeing, I could imagine the things I was seeing as being anywhere back in the states. What I mean by that, the river Jordan, the Sea of Galilee, Mt. Tabor didn't look like anything special they could have been placed anywhere in America and they would have belonged. But it wasn't until day 2 that I really had the sense of being in Israel. The dome of the rock with its iconic gold dome, the temple mount with graves lining its side, olive trees in the Garden of Gethesemane, the Garden Tomb and finally the western wall all reminded me that Kansas was definitely a long way from here. I was in Israel, the land of Christ.
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