"COEXIST"

I wish I could show you the t shirt design that some people came up with- you know those "Coexist" logos that have the different symbols of like, religions and different stuff instead of letters? (You can actually Google it, I'm pretty sure.) Some people here designed one that they put the angel Moroni into for the I. It's pretty neat. Well, that figures into today's post because it has certainly been a multi-cultural week for me, lol. On Monday we had our Christian Jerusalem field trip, Tuesday was our Ramadan dinner, and yesterday I went to a Mormon Passover. Lol.

So Monday we toured around the Old City, officially visiting all of the Christian holy sites/churches. First we went to the Assyrian Monastery. Underneath this monastery is a room that they believe is the Upper Room where the Last Supper occurred, but apparently we're going to a different Upper Room in a couple weeks that is more likely the real one. But it was still pretty cool. They also have a painting that is supposed to have been painted of Mary and Jesus by Luke, as in the Gospel of Luke. But the best part about this place was the lady who was showing us around. She was awesome. She had this high pitched, sing-songy voice and it was so funny to listen to her. I definitely took a video just of her talking. And she was so caught up in what she was saying. It was great.

Next we went to a church that had the old gate to Jerusalem (as in, the really old city, not just the Old City...) where Christ left the city on His way to Calvary, called Judgment gate. It had this really cool arch with a Roman column cut into it, but that was like, a gift from early Christians to the guy who rebuilt the church- there's not much left of Judgment gate. Oh, we also had to wear these wraps around our jeans, because they don't want women in there without skirts on. I dunno, some of the girls were actually able to pull it off like they were really wearing skirts, but most of us, including me, just looked like we had something wrapped awkwardly around our jeans... And there were also some neat paintings of the whole process, from Gethsemane to the resurrection.

Then we went to the Franciscan monastery. This is where Father Angelo lives. He's so funny. But he was pretty excited to have us there. And when we went inside, I was like, Holy crap. I have to say, I really think that this was probably the most beautiful church I've ever seen- and I've seen a lot of churches. It was all pink and yellow marble, and the carvings were gorgeous, and they had this huge organ up at the front. It's obviously a pretty new church, but it was so beautiful. And then he showed us a door in their laundry room where Orson Hyde scratched his name- he stayed at this monastery way back in 1841. Crazy, huh?

Next we took a tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I remember the first week feeling like I wish we could get a tour through that Church coz there's definitely a lot going on. But in actually getting that tour I realized that I've pretty much already pieced together everything there is to know about it from all of my previous visits. Plus we had this awesome fireside where one of the Branch members, who is basically like the representative of the US government to Christian Jerusalem explained to us all the nuances of different churches having to share the holy sites and all the crazy problems it causes. Actually, it's really interesting, especially with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Apparently, control over a holy site (or section of a holy site) is manifested in who gets to clean it, pay for repairs, and worship there. So it's like a big deal if somebody else cleans your section. There was a disputed stair in the courtyard a few years ago. It's only like an inch off the ground, so when the courtyard guy cleaned it, it basically ended up being a broom fight between monks of like, the Latin church and Greek Orthodox or something. Lol. Kyler, the guy who gave the fireside, is pretty good at telling crazy stories like that, it was a way fun fireside.

So last we went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, which is across the street from the Holy Sepulchre, and we just talked for a bit about the last week of Jesus' life. It's so amazing to be here in Jerusalem and thinking about this week, and we're even studying it right now in New Testament. Takes it to a whole new level, and it kinda blows my mind.

Also, because it was April 6, a bunch of us went to the Garden Tomb. It was so great because there weren't any tour groups there and it was quiet, and I could just sit next to the tomb, and go inside and I was practically by myself. The only thing I wish, concerning the whole security thing about being in groups of 3, is that I could go back there like, every day before we leave, just to spend a few quiet minutes. And it's pretty hard to put together a group for that kind of a thing, you know? Still, I really hope I'll have one or two more opportunities to do that again.

So on Tuesday we had our Ramadan dinner. It was pretty neat. Our Arabic teacher basically organized the whole thing, and he brought in some sheikhs to recite the Quran for us. They have the entire thing memorized, to the point where you could just be like, "Surah [Chapter] 44, line 29" and they would know it. It's nuts. I mean, the Quran is long, too. And the guys that came and did it for us are prayer callers at the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is the one by the Dome of the Rock (the Dome is actually the women's section of that whole complex...) and their family has been doing it for 580 years. Crazy.

The yesterday I spent my free day with some Branch members. I just went over to their house for the day to kind of see how they live in Israel. The family I stayed with are Sheri and Dan Myers. He works for the State Department, they lived in Ukraine before this, and they have a 3 year old girl named Ellie, a 2 year old boy named Benjamin, and a 3 month old baby named Maggie. They are pretty cute. We went to the park yesterday with some other families from the Branch. And last night Kyler (the guy from the fireside) and his wife organized a Mormon Seder to celebrate the Passover. Lol, it was pretty cool, he and a couple of the other husbands found some Book of Mormon and New Testament scriptures that they could insert into the traditional Passover recital (we didn't do the whole thing, tho, it was mostly kind of an FYI thing, and then we talked about the Atonement and how the Passover points to Christ, you know). We had Hawaiian haystacks for our Passover meal (lol- our *bitter herbs* were the red peppers that we put on top of them) and crepes for dessert. And they were good crepes. They had nutella and this white chocolate stuff and strawberries and it was pretty amazing. Oh, and we watched part of Fiddler on the Roof, to further merge our Mormon and Jewish cultures, lol. It was a lot of fun.