Kotel Tunnel and Paratrooper celebration

The following are pictures of a paratrooper initiation ceremony that we walked into on our way to the Kotel Tunnel tour.



The paratroopers platoon sign with the paratroppers in front.



The Western Wall behind the paratroopers. Notice the people praying there.



The hundreds of people on the Western Wall plaza for the paratrooper initiation ceremony. It was like a rock concert with lights, music, people etc. and right behind it all there were still people praying at the Western Wall (see pics above). It was such a contrast.



More people....



Western Wall on the Kotel Tunnel tour. This spot is believed to be the closest spot to where the Holy of Holies was in the Temple.



It's hard to tell but this picture is where the Western Wall meets the actual bedrock.

St. Peter in Gallicantu; Hezekiah's Tunnel; St. Andrew's; Bloomfield Gardens; Montefiore's Windmill

Ceiling of St. Peter in Gallicantu, some of my favorite stained glass in Jerusalem. This building is very pretty and bright--quite a contrast to most churches/chapels in Jerusalem.



The center of the stained glass ceiling at St. Peter in Gallicantu



Windows, along the stairway, heading to the dungeon at St. Peters.



Statue of Peter denying Christ. Notice the rooster on the top.



Mom in front of St. Peters. You can see the edging of the stained glass windows.



Gorgeous flowers on a bush at St. Peters. I loved these bushes and wish we had them here.



Looking through Dung Gate to the security gates in the front of the Western Wall plaza.



AHHHH, my aching head!

Inside Hezekiah's Tunnel, the tunnel that brought water inside the city. The lady in front of me, whose back you see, was my head banging scout. She was only about 5'4" tall but she kept hitting her head on the low points of the tunnel. I only hit my head once because I could just watch her and I knew where all the low points were. I appreciated her!



Pool of Siloam--the end of Hezekiah's tunnel.



My pants after Hezekiah's Tunnel. The water was that deep for the first 10 yards or so and then was just above my ankles for the rest of the tunnel.



St. Andrews Church & guesthouse. This is a Scottish church and there is a store inside where we got a bunch of hand stitched items that Palestinian stitch.



The lion fountain in Bloomfield Gardens. The lion is the symbol for Judah and the symbol for the city of Jerusalem. You see lions everywhere.



Montefiore's windmill. It was meant to be flour grinding mill but the wind was never strong enough to really get it moving, which is kind of ironic because there is almost always a breeze in Jerusalem and the wind picks up at night.

Jerusalem video clips

Small clip of the call to prayer. I'm still trying to get a larger one to download to my computer. This clip also shows a kite, that the Palestinian kids who live below the center, were flying .




The Garden Tomb. It was so peaceful here and I loved listening to the birds. As you can see it was very sunny!

More Jerusalem...not sure what day we're on!

Timnah rock carvings.



Arches at Timnah



Yad Vashem Sculpture



Pater Noster, where the Lord's Prayers is written in over 60 different languages.



Orthodox Jews at Jewish Cemetary



Overlook from Dominus Flevit. Great view of the Old City from the Mt. of Olives.



Window at Dominus Flevit.



Onion tops of Church of St. Mary Magdelene



Garden of Gethsemane and the flowers around it. Much prettier this time around. :)



Dome of the Rock looking north



Top side panels of the Dome of the Rock. These are all made out of tile. So intricate and so pretty. Arabic is a pretty language.



Upper side panels of the Dome of the Rock



Floor of "Center of the Earth" on Temple Mount.



Feather/Scale like mosaic up in a doorway of the Dome of the Rock. Gotta love telephoto lenses!



Cool engravings on the marble of a wash area on the Temple Mount.



Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount



Roman writings over archway that it is believed that Christ would have passed through. (Can't remember the name and I'm upstairs right now.)


What have we done the past few days….
Sunday we went to Timnah, an ancient copper mine, with all of the faculty, the Huffs and their kids, the Masters, the Browns and the Skinners. Dad even came along which was nice. We drove down past Jericho, along the Dead Sea, past Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, past Masada, past En Gedi all the way down to the Timnah. Timnah was a lot like southern Utah with different rock formations. There were cave carvings, arches, caverns and crevices. We even got to do our own sand art….well a gentleman from Germany insisted on doing mine for me, and we even did paddleboats on ‘Timnah lake.’ On the way back it was clear enough to see across the Dead Sea to Jordan and all the way up to Mt. Nebo.

Monday, Mom and I went over to En Kerem and saw the Chagall windows and then went over to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. There is a humble reverence at Yad Vashem and it always amazes me that people still insist that the Holocaust didn’t happen. I can’t even imagine living in that time period, seeing those horrors and it breaks my heart that one man could have such a destructive influence on so many.

Tuesday, we did the Mt. of Olives. We started at the top at the Church of the Ascension, which apparently doesn’t like tourists even though they open their gates, then down to Pater Noster, where the Lord’s Prayer is in tile in over 60 different languages. From there we walked down the street where there was an amazing overlook of the Old City. As we gazed down to our left we noticed some Orthodox Jews in the Jewish cemetery around a particular grave. We walked down some stairs to the roadway and went to Dominus Flevit where I was able to get a decent picture of the iron window. It was a little difficult to get because they were having a mass in there. We went from there to the Church of St. Mary Magdelene, which has the golden onion tops on it. The gardens there were beautiful and I was surprised to see two glass tombs with bodies in them. From there we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, which was much prettier than the last time I was here, with many flowers and walkways, and over to the Church of All Nations. We went to Mary’s Tomb and the Gethsemane Grotto, where it is believed Judas betrayed Jesus.

Mom and I also went to Homemaking meeting with the permanent members of the Jerusalem branch. It was held at the 1st Counselors (Bishopric) over on French hill. Their apartment was really nice and the sisters were a lot of fun to be with.

Today, we went up on the Temple Mount, or Mt. Moriah and saw the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque. I love the tilework on the Dome of the Rock and was surprised to see people up inside the dome. I also loved the feather-looking mosaic up in one of the doorways to the mosque. As we came around to the true entrance to the mosque I got chewed out by a guard because I didn’t have my arms covered. I had walked all over the top and they didn’t say a thing and mom had a ¾ length shirt on and they didn’t say anything to her so that’s all we can figure. Luckily, I had a pullover shirt in my bag so I threw that on.

From there we went out Chain Gate and over to the Jewish quarter and to the Western Wall. We then went to the Ophel Gardens where the walls surrounding the Temple Mount have been excavated. There are many things to see at the Ophel gardens. We saw the remains of Robinson’s arch, which is believed to be the stairs that led to the temple and also and old mikvah with the divider cut in the rock to separate those going into the water and those coming out. We saw old Roman carvings and mosaic floors. Many of the stones excavated are believed to be old enough that Christ would have probably walked on them at some point during his life. We’re loving it and getting more and more tired by the day….

Holy Land-Days 4-7

The photos aren't in order because it took a while for them to load but the descriptions are underneath.




Ramparts Walk looking east toward the Mt. of Olives



Preschool age boys heading to the Yeshiva



The Dome of the Rock and St. Mary Magdelene church/Mt. of Olives



Heat rash that I always get when I get hot.



Oskar Shindler's grave



The rebuilt Hurva Synagogue. Notice the arch.

Western Wall


Jewish man getting ready to pray at the Western Wall.



Dome of the Rock and Mt. of Olives



Dome of Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was under construction when I was here last.



Christ's Tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre



Exterior-Church of Holy Sepulchre



Citadel excavations



The view from the Jerusalem Center. This is basically our view for church. Not bad, eh!



Jacket made out of Torah Scrolls.

Unfortunately, I've been having difficulty getting Blogspot to upload my images from here and BYU blocks Facebook so I can't upload photos there either. Sorry to those who I was going to keep in touch with via Facebook. I finally was able to upload some today so hopefully they'll upload to you over in the states too. One of the other struggles has been that the toolbar for Blogspot comes up in Hebrew and so I've been trying to remember what is where to post correctly. And those of you who follow my blog, know that I don't update it very often so it hasn't been easy to remember. Never thought I'd see that. :)

Many of you have asked what I did for my birthday. Well, we went and went and went. First, Sister Brown drove mom and I over to Jaffa Gate on the opposite side of the Old City from the JC. When we got there we got tickets to do the Ramparts Walk, which allows you to walk around the city walls on the ramparts. It was a GREAT aerial view of the city and I was very glad we did it. You can start at Jaffa and go counterclockwise to Dung Gate or clockwise to Damascus gate. One of the things I want to do while I'm here is get a picture of all of the major gates of the Old City. A lot of my photos are ones that I took from the Ramparts. You could even see the wall dividing the west bank over in Silwan. It's huge. Mom was amazing on the ramparts. She went up and down all the stairs and kept up with me, sore knee and all. I didn't know she was slightly afraid of heights until dad asked her about it when we got back. I love you Mom! Thanks for being willing to do it!

We decended from the Ramparts at Dung Gate and went over to the Western Wall, more commonly known as the Wailing Wall. There is a huge security gate there now and we had to have our bags put through a police scanner. While we were there a teacher came down with his preschool aged boys and headed to the yeshiva to the side of the wall. They all had crowns on their heads with what looked like the 10 commandment tablets. It reminded me of nursery/primary. They were so cute! After we left there we went over to the Hurva Synagogue, that is being rebuilt. Amy, Brett & Greg, you'll remember that it was just an arch. Not anymore! We ate lunch in the Jewish Quarter and found that there is a Bonkers Bagels in the Jewish quarter, although not as big as the one that was over on Ben Yehuda.

From the Jewish quarter we went over to Mt. Zion to Dormition Abbey, David's tomb and The Upper Room. We ended up getting a guide on accident (they're sneaky over here) and I ended up buying a bracelet from him too. I think it was worth it. He was able to tell us some things that we didn't know, so it paid off I guess. We also went to a Holocaust Memorial on Mt. Zion. One of the most interesting things that we saw there was a jacket that a SS guard had forced a jewish man to make out of Torah scrolls so that he could wear it in front of his prisoners. What he didn't know was that the pages he selected were the cursings and plague sections. He had a sense of humor still which is amazing.

From Mt. Zion we went down and went to Oskar Shindler's grave. It was in a graveyard that was locked and a little boy had the key and let us in. The grave is covered in rocks in the Jewish tradition.

It was a fun birthday. Mom and Dad gave me Sister Oaks book about being single so now I have something to read on the flight home. (Buffy, I read The Last Waltz on the way over and loved it.)

Thursday we went up to the Rockefeller museum and mom went grocery shopping with Sister Skinner and others. The Rockefeller Museum doesn't allow photos so I didn't take any that day.

Yesterday, Sisters Skinner and Brown took us over to the Alexander Nevsky church on the Via Dolorosa. I've walked past it many times and didn't even realize it was there because it's only open on Fridays. We also went to the Jerusalem Pottery shop and over to Shaabans, where I got some more olive wood ornaments. I was amazed that he actually remembered that I had been a student at the center. We also went to another jewelry shop and then home. I'm runnin out of battery so I've got to go.

Love to all.