"Please Don't Forget Me"

My last two days in the Holy Land have been everything I could have asked for and more.

Yesterday we finished up our Last Week of Jesus’ Life field trip.  We started first thing in the morning in Gethsemane.  We talked about “the olive press”—which is the literal meaning of Gethsemane.  Apparently, when you press olives, the oil only squeezes out under extreme pressure, and when it first comes out, it’s red.  If you can imagine, our Savior being squeezed of every last drop of blood that came through his pores.  The first time in Gethsemane, I was reading the accounts of the atonement, and I stopped to ponder the weight of what Jesus bore for us.  Think of the worst feeling you’ve ever felt.  Christ bore the brunt of every suicidal, depressed, hopeless despair that any human is capable of feeling—that every human has ever experienced.  And what is incredible, is that He did it.  He could have “given up the ghost” any time—He had that power over death, he didn’t have to wait for the cross.  Couple that with the worst physical pain you can imagine—you’d do anything to escape.  I know that in a torture situation I would certainly be pleading with the Lord to take my life as quickly as possible.  But Christ endured.  Every last brutal second.  We cannot really even begin to comprehend, because it was an infinite and eternal sacrifice, and our minds are still limited to the scope of mortality. 

Then we walked up to St. Peter’s Gallicantu, where Jesus was tried before Caiaphas.  Elder Talmage, in Jesus the Christ goes through 2 pages of ways that this “trial” was entirely illegitimate.  These men had no power over Christ on earth, let alone as their Creator.  And think, too, that Christ knew each one of them as intimately as He knows you and me.  He knew them before the world was, knew their divine potential, and patiently bore their scorn and hatred as He atoned for their sins, pains, and sorrows.  At the church was a courtyard that was used to tether livestock—and prisoners.  Beneath were holding cells where Jesus would have awaited “trial.”

After St. Peter’s we went to St. Anne’s, where the pools of Bethesda are, for lunch.  We sang in the church there, it has the best acoustics of pretty much anywhere.  Then we went to the Church of the Flagellation and Church of the Condemnation, where Christ appeared before Pilate and was sentenced to be crucified.  It makes me sick every time I see the movie, when they drive the nails into His hands.  After all He had already suffered, He spent an additional 6 hours on the cross.  When we took the tour at the Garden Tomb, they told us that Golgothat would have been on a main road in and out of Jerusalem—this was a public execution.  It reminds of a medieval hanging, where everyone turns out to spectate the fate of the condemned.  And Christ didn’t have to wait to die a natural death.  Death by crucifixion usually happens over several days, and He gave His life willingly (gratefully by then, I’m sure) after only 6 hours.  But after everything He had endured, and experiencing the complete withdrawal of the Spirit, as Elder Holland just talked about, it must have felt like 6 lifetimes. 

Last we came to the Garden Tomb.  Of everything that Jerusalem is and has meant to me, this is what I am most loath to leave.  It is here that I have felt my Savior, as if He stood beside me.  Today I spent about half an hour inside the tomb, and I kept thinking, “He’s not here, for He is risen.”  But He is with me wherever I am, and in such a sacred space, He is closest to me in the place where He reclaimed His broken body and became a perfect, resurrected being, so that all mankind may do the same.  I almost couldn’t tear myself away.  It felt symbolic of the journey I’m about to take.  Leaving the security of the Jerusalem Center bubble to go forth and do the will of the Father.  One thing I know for certain is that, because I have been given this great gift, I now have a responsibility greater than before, greater than many others who will never have this opportunity.  I know my Savior lives.  I testify to that with all my being.  And because I know, my life can never be the same. 

And this afternoon, I learned more about love, acceptance, and Christ than at any other time in my life.  I went with some of the girls to visit the Palestinian families in our neighborhoods that they’ve grown close to.  The last family we visited had about 6 little girls—tho not all from the same family, I think it was an extended family—and as soon as we were within sight of our house they came running into our arms.  Even me, who had never met them before, they were hugging and kissing, and saying, over and over, “I love you! I love you!”  Every house we went to, you could just feel the genuine love that these people had for us students, most of whom they hardly know.  And they somehow have so much love to give.  Pure love, the love of Christ.  Even in the humblest of circumstances, surrounded by conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, their hearts are pure and so full of love.  At the last house, they gave each of us a piece of jewelry as a parting gift.  I felt kind of bad, because one of the girls had got hold of me and kept putting things on me, and when I tried to return them, her mother told me they were gifts.  So I ended up with a pair of earrings, a necklace, a bracelet, about 6 seashells, a flower, a hair clip, and the girl tried to give me this nice wooden box that they were all in, but the mother accepted that one back.  But I will treasure these gifts.  Because they were offered out of love, and to me they symbolize everything that is good in the world.  As we were leaving—tearing ourselves away, we could barely stand to go—the oldest girl (she’s 12) wrapped me in a hug and whispered, “Please don’t forget me.”  And I just had to cry.  Her statement was filled with such longing, and sorrow for parting, this girl who didn’t know me at all.  I said, “Of course not, how could I?”  All I want is to remember.  Remember everything.  Everything that I have seen, and felt, and become here.  My greatest fear is that I’ll forget, even in the smallest measure.

I wish I had better words to express this.  I hope you all aren’t too disappointed when I come back and I’m not the same person you knew before.