First I just wanted to start off with my experience at the Western Wall yesterday. As I watched people go to the wall I would see them kiss the wall and lovingly pat and rub it. As I walked up I thought maybe I would feel the same way (not kissing or patting but be affected) while I touched the wall the thought came to me, "This is just a wall, how lucky I am that I know of actual temples to go to and worship in." I looked at the people that take this pilgrammage and how they come to this wall, and realized they didn't know what I knew. I thought in my mind about going to the temple and pressing my hand against and reveling in it's awesome power. Now I'm not advocating worshipping the building itself, obviously it's what happens inside, but I will never look at a temple the same way again.


Today we started the day at 5:00 a.m. not to bad, we were awakened by Jared crying that his throat hurt, poor guy, and then the local mosque started calling for prayer, there was no way we were going to get back to sleep. Kyler and Melyn came home early last night, so we asked Kyler if he wouldn't mind helping to give Jared a blessing. It set my mind at ease and really helped him. Our itinerary had to change a little bit, because looking at the weather today and tomorrow would be our only sunny days, then it is rain for the rest of the stay and possibly snow! We decided to drive and park at Jaffa gate instead of walk (too much complaining from the kids yesterday) which turned out really easy. Today we came armed with a plan on how to get around the city, so we weren't wandering aimlessly. We were told yesterday the Dome of the Rock would be open from 8:30 a.m. until 11:30 because of Jared's blessing and trying to get reservations set up for other things, we left late, so by the time we got there it was already closed. We had planned to go out an exit from the Dome of the Rock that would put us out on the other side of the city at the Pools of Bethesda. So now we had to go to plan B. The Dome of the Rock would open for 1 hour at 12;30 and it was 10:15, so began walking towards the Pools of Bethesda, from yesterday we had a pretty good idea how to get there, but once again took a wrong turn. We found ourselves wandering the residencial area of old city. You would look through doorways and see stone steps leading to courtyards, so cool. Finally we figured out what we did wrong, all the while we were keeping our eye out for the Church of the Holy Sepluchre, but still no luck, I was beginning to doubt it's existence. Finally we found our way to the pools by following another tour group (finally caught on, just follow the groups)
What a beautiful place, it's actually called St. Anne's Basilica, it was built in honor of Mary's mother and the birthplace of Mary. It was so nice to walk into a big open area, (the streets are so narrow you get claustraphoic) The basilica is renowned for it's acoustics and special echo. We listened to a group sing, after they were down there sound still kept reverberating. Down below we went to a cave/crypt, where they honor Mary. The same echo is made there, so we sang "I am a child of God" and "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" it was really awesome. Next we went to the Pools this is where Jesus came upon the parapalytic man. It was said that when the water would ripple the first one into the pool would be healed from their illness, because he couldn't walk he could never make it in before anyone else. Christ came upon him and asked "Wilt thou be made whole?" the man responded that he didn't have anyone to help into the water before the others. Christ saw that the man was fit for this blessing so He said, "Rise, take up thy bed and walk!" (read Jesus the Christ chapter Lord of the Sabbath,;the healing of a cripple on the sabbath. What a great opportunity we had to partake of the spirit the dwells there, it really is a peaceful place. We then explored the Roman Cisterns built later in 200 A.D. By this time we found ourselves short on time, but starving, in my frommer's book it gave a suggestion for a great place to eat Hummus and pitas. We tried following the directions but ended up at the same place we had the Baklava, we sat down to order, but the guy wanted $9 for a hot dog, I told him I thought that was pretty expensive, he got a little upset and said, "this is no american hot dog" at that point I told him I couldn't pay that much and left. I was pretty proud of myself, usually I'll back down but I knew I was being taken advantage of. We started heading towards the entrance to the Dome of the Rock (same entrance for the Western Wall) and suddenly came upon the Hummus place. We walked in and he explained they served hummus with falafels and other things. We sat down and they brang out, a plate with pickles, french fries, warm pita, hummus and these brown round balls of something. I looked around not sure how to proceed but no was eating. Now for those who have never eaten these things together I will share with you how it works, so you don't have to have an embarassing moment like myself. I blame it on jetlag, by the way. You are suppose to rip the pita in half forming a pocket then stuff it with the hummus, then the brown balls (falafel, I thought the actually sandwich was a falafel) these were filled with some sort of rice and spices, then you add the tomatoes and onion mixture and pickles. very good! I unfortunately started spreading the hummus on the pita itself and putting things on top of the pita, I thought the falafels were some sort of desert (silly me, but in my defense I never had one) the guy was really nice and patient and finally came over to give me a lesson, so embarrassing. Needless to say he got a good tip. We then headed to the Dome of the Rock. This is located on what is believed to be the Temple Mount, Jews actually aren't allowed to go here because it is considered so sacred. The Dome of the Rock is believed to be Mt. Moriah where Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him, it is believed that on the rock was where this sacrifice would have taken place. Islamic tradition says this is the spot from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to view paradise during the Night Jouney. Tradition holds that when the Prophet rose, the rock tried to follow, and although it failed, the cave beneath the rock was formed. Footprints of Muhammad are pointed out on the rock. The different colors represent certain things, white:purity,cleanliness; yellow: sand, Blue;sky; and green; paradise. There are 52 window panes on each big window and the gold was last updated in 1994. There are small edidfices dedicated to different prophets, Christ has one, Elijah as well. There is also a big drinking fountain where people can get water. No one is allowed inside at this time as well as the other to Mosques on the premises.(we hired a guide totally worth it) Would took the far exit we originally planned to take and decided it was time to find the Holy Sepulchre. We had been past almost all the stations so felt pretty confident it finding it. We had decided that since it was going to be bad weather on Saturday we would visit the Garden Tomb today. It is out the Damascus gate on the West side of the city. There were tons more people in this area, I grabbed Jared's hand and wouldn't let go, we left the old city and crossed the street, even more chaos, I was feeling a little unnerved, we saw the sign pointing the way, we walked through this gate and suddenly were in the most beautiful garden, there were all sorts of flowers, I wish I could name them, but just beautiful. As soon as I walked through I felt relaxed again. The Garden is taken care of by people from England, I'm guessing they are like couple missionaries who come for two months at a time. She told us we had come at a good time that no one was there, but some groups were coming. We made a beeline for the tomb. You have to walk down some cobble steps, with lush green plants and purple, red, yellow flowers blossoming. It's just as seen in pictures, we walked into the tomb. There is a small room (holds maybe 8 people at most) with low ceiling, called the weeping room. They have a gate up, to the left is a conclave area, it was shorter than I thought maybe 5 and 1/2 feet long then there is a speration and another to the right (crusaders later used the tomb for burial, they believed in trough burials so they dug out the shelves that would have originally been there.) I couldn't help having the tears come as I thought about those who loved Christ and had watched Him suffer on the cross, how difficult it would have been to watch. Then I turned and saw on the door a sign that read "He is not here for He has risen" and then my thoughts turned to the women finding the angel asking why they looked for the living among the dead. And then His appearance to Mary Magdalene. We were able to sit for some time just by ourselves comtemplating on the Savior's ressurection. The birds were singing and the sun shone brightly on the door, red gardenias were placed to the right. We soon heard a tour coming through so we decided we should hurry on to Gogatha (where the Savior is believed to have been crucified) This is a short walk away maybe 3 minutes I was surprised at how close it was. There a tour guide for the park starting telling about the signifigance. He spoke about how those who were considered criminals would have their bodies taken to be burned or buried in mass graves, but Joseph of Arimethea asked if he could take Christ's body to a tomb. We then followed the group to the next area, where the tour guide talked about how there could be a garden here. He said that because there was a short rainy season it would be difficult for a garden to thrive. After excavation they found a huge cistern below the grounds determined to have been built during Christ's time, it would hold a great amount of water. He then talked about the discovery of the tomb, it was unearthed in 1867 by a greek man who wanted to turn the area into garden area, but after trying to drill for water after one of his attempts he found that he came across the beginning of a cave, he asked a friend who was an architect to come and see if it could be used to hold water, the man told him to stop digging that it was a tomb. The man didn't listen and continued digging, but without water was unable to continue. We were then told that the original opening would have been about 4 feet tall but the opening was made a little taller and a door added by the Crusaders. During the explanation a group started singing "I know that my Redeemer lives" it was to a different tune but still brought me to tears. You could feel how sacred it was, I was really moved by the missionary giving the tours testimony at the end. He asked at the end to do as the women who first saw Christ were told to do, "Go and tell." After we were done, we thanked those who were in the big tour group for letting us come in on their group to listen. They were a methodist church group visiting from Mississippi, one of the group left and came and asked where we were from, he asked us what donomination we were and we told him Mormon, he was so nice and invited us to have communion with them. We declined telling him we had to get going, but thought it was a nice gesture. We didn't want to leave these beautiful gardens but wanted to get to the Holy Sepluchre Church before nightfall. Our friends told us to stop by and see a man named Shaban who had a store and would take care of us if we stopped in. It was on our way to the church so we stopped in. What a sweet guy, I forgot to take a picture of him, but will see him again later. I bought something there I swore I would never do, even living where we live now. I bought a BYU sweatshirt, in my defense it does have BYU Jerusalem on it, plus he had some awesome shirts that a student made up. We had a great time shopping it was so nice not to have to haggle because I knew he was giving us a fair price, (quite a bit less expensive) when we came in his shop we told him who we were friends with and he chuckled and said "I know you can't smoke or have tea or coffee" He then talked about how he loved the students that come to him, he even had a picture of him and Steve Young. After shopping for a little bit it was getting late, but we couldn't give up on finding the church. Shaban told us where to go, we followed his instructions but came upon a mosque, I kept going though hoping there was more, and lo and behold we finally found it. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was really dark and hard to see, so we took some pictures but plan to go back. We then headed back to our car came home and ate sphaghetti. Enjoy the pictures. (We did do some of the stations but some are in the church so I will give a full overview later)Tomorrow we leave for Galilee, I'm not sure if there will be internet so i might miss a couple of days but will catch up. We are going to

Tabgha, Tiberia, Capernaum, Nazareth, Jordan River, and maybe Ceasrea on the Mediterrean Coast.


> Golgotha or Calvary, it looks like it would be the two little holes to the right but the first eye is to your left and then the second eye is to the right then the nose in between

Garden tomb, if you look near the ground you can see a little curb, this is the groove the stone would have been rolled through to close off the door, notice the window to the right I believe that was added, part of the wall had to be rebuilt as you can see to the right of the door.

Pools of Bethesda to the right is the pool and far back where the wall is would be where the man sat and Jesus healed him.