Long for the following reasons: a visit to Gethsemane, and the Garden Tomb, and Mark's House, and getting to know a Holocaust survivor

*Hey, this was going to be a letter to my mom but I thought I'd let it turn into a mass email (the thought occurred halfway through, perhaps?), and journal and whatever. Well, this is more just tale relating style. Maybe I should blog more this way. I'll put this on my blog too. Anyway, here it is, if you've ever wondered what it was like to wander around Jerusalem. And sorry Mom, that this started personal and then I meant to tell you about it and had it change and never got around to making it personal again at the end--I'll just tell you soon. Bent

Mom,

Thank you for the email and update :). I wanted to write you a big response so I didn't write right after I read it, but now I think I gotta just reply as well as I can.

Yesterday was wild/awesome. Sunday is our free day, which is really, really weird. It's weird when Church hits you right after you are in school (as in no day between routine work/school and church), and it might be even weirder on Sunday when you're lost, running on the rooftops like Aladdin trying to get back before sundown because East Jerusalem is dangerous--which is what we did yesterday. The Kidron Valley (spelling?), is on the east side of the old city of Jerusalem; the Jerusalem Center is on the Mount of Olives (or Mount Scopus, if you're Jewish--or talking to a Jew :). Gethsemane is within walking distance of the Center. It's about a mile to the south, just south of the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden (or whatever it's called: he was the Apostle who dedicated the Holy Land for the preaching of the Gospel in the 1800s). The caretaker at Gethsemane lets Mormons in a private part of the garden--the main part is fenced off and commercialized--because the students before us were so stellar. We had a neat chance to meditate in there for awhile on last Thursday or so. We read in the Gospels about the Atonement, then 3 Ne. 11. It was cool to feel not just the sense of a deep price being paid but the reward coming which had made it all worth it--it was cool to get out of that slump that most of Christianity seems to still be in, all those pictures of "The Passion" etc. that are so disgustingly painful and dreary. Afterwards we sang a few hymns and it was wonderful. "Alive"--that's about the coolest word I can think to describe a church, and it's cool that that's the most prominent feature of ours--well, "true and living," but maybe those are the same thing.

We also went to the Garden Tomb--on Sabbath (Saturday). There were some hilarious and irresistibly winning old British men running tours there. So cheerful--and they'd (at least our guide, whose name was Roy) testify all the time. "But the tomb is empty now--Amen! Right?" Then he told some joke about how Joseph of Arimathea's wife was upset with him for giving away the tomb and he said, "Don't worry darling, it's just for a couple days!" We laughed, then he answered, "It wouldn't be funny if it hadn't been." Hahaha. Later I overheard another guide talking about how he still used feet and miles etc. (He was pretty old.) "If the Lord would have wanted me to use the metric system, he'd have had ten disciples!" They were quite a hoot--over and over and over.

It turns out scholars believe the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be the real resting place of Jesus during those three days after his crucifixion, but all the videos we use are of the Garden Tomb, which is still a possibility, because it's so much more beautiful. I think I actually heard once about President Hinckley or someone saying, "It was here," but that might have been on where he was born. Not sure.

Regardless the coolest part was actually singing hymns after. I'm not sure why it was so cool--several reasons, I guess. It was cool to be singing there, but I think the coolest part was being there and realizing that it was the singing, it was the hymns, that really made the experience--those things that I've been doing all my life, they're the things that really bring the power. It doesn't matter where he died; it doesn't matter where I am--where he died or not--it just matters if he has my heart with him or not. We just sat there and sang--for about 40 minutes. Hymn after hymn after hymn. He is Risen. I Believe in Christ. I Know that My Redeemer Lives. In Humility Our Savior (mine). Nearer My God to Thee. Be Still My Soul. Other tour groups just stopped to listen. I really felt like we were teaching, even though technically we're not supposed to, and technically we weren't. But maybe the letter of the law isn't the most important way to reach a people anyway. If the Spirit of the Gospel is the most important thing to follow, maybe it's also the most important thing to convey or to share. I feel like all who heard that will know there is a people out there who worships God in sincerity, who believes he lives, who are happy. I do not know that I am worthy to be one of the few people who gets this experience, but I knew I was supposed to come and am doing my best to experience it all in gratitude and awareness. I wish, like Elder Holland, that everyone could come here. I'm glad, as I said earlier, that not everyone needs to to find the best part of the Gospel, to know the truth, to feel alive. I noticed a man sitting on the bench as we were singing. He stayed the entire time, just watching us. I felt sort of like a beacon, right then. This guy is seeing something that maybe he's never seen before. Maybe he's been wondering what more he could find. I certainly felt like I was living life right then. It's like Ulysses says in my favorite poem of all time (Ulysses, by Tennyson): "As though to breathe were life!" We were doing more than breathing.

And the gardens were just beautiful anyways--I would have loved it even if it hadn't been in the Holy City. I never suspected there would be so much green growth here. Turns out, winter is the rainy season here, so we scored the most beautiful time of year. That's something that really matters to me; I don't know why, I just really feel elevated when there is a lot of natural, flourishing life around me. Maybe that's why I love England so much. It just feels right. Anyway, it was really nice to find some of that here.

It was green in the Kidron Valley, which Jesus crossed on his way over to Gethsemane. I plucked a twig to bring home. The part that's cool is that seeing that these sites exist shakes you up at the scriptures--"Wait, the Kidron Valley is real. So the stuff the Bible says happened here..." The Bible ceases to be abstract, it ceases to be theoretical, or fictional. The places become real, so the events, tethered to that reality, become more real themselves. They're not just stories; they're History. They happened. Man that's cool.

A Holocaust survivor came and hung out with us last night. Rather, he spoke to us for an hour--he's 92--then couldn't tear himself away to go to his world-class piano concert, "because he loves people," as his caretaker said to us. We weren't just holding him hostage--he held us. He was a darling old guy with windy white hair and a nose that drooped a little when he smiled, which was usually. He told us his story for an hour, then said he wanted to keep talking with us after if we had more questions, and would just go to the concert late. It came and went. All he wanted, he said, was for everyone to believe in God. "I don't care what you call him, just believe in him," essentially. It was amazing to me. He had been to both Auschwitz and Dochau. I have been to Dochau. It all flashed back through my head like a very morbid nightmare. This guy, Elias, the loving, merciful, energetic jokester had been there--he had been there when it was Dochau. It was a moment of horrible truth when he first told us he'd been sent there (to Auschwitz first): he said it, then he reached for his sleeve. I knew what it was. I just thought, "No. No that can't be real." But it came--the deepest, darkest scar you've ever seen: it was green. "B 1259." That's who he had been. "I just want people to know what happened," he repeatedly said. "They have to know or they won't learn." He was an amazing man. Apparently he'd always been able to forgive the Germans--as his friend, Brother Allen, our doctor, told us--even when he was in the camps. We looked to him for an explanation and he just said, "I love people. And it happened, there was nothing I could do about it, so I moved on." It was pretty wild.

It was wild to see the other side. It was wild because I've seen so many instances of Israeli (seeming) unkindness here in the Holy Land. "Settlers" will move into Muslim neighborhoods, essentially just because they can, to slowly and unviolently push their boundaries further--it's essentially the war being continued covertly. And it's not like the Muslims were the ones to kick out the Jews in the first place, either--we didn't take Israel from the aggressors and give it "back" to the Jews; we took it from another innocent people and gave it to an earlier (innocent) one. There are too many good men on too many sides. Things are black and white, but there are three dimensions. One side of Judaism is greedy; another never for a moment didn't forgive the Nazis. One side of the Muslims here is violent; another is warm, humble, and hospitable, and watching what is their homeland (and Holy Land) too, now, slowly being stolen while talks of reconciliation are dragged out. What would I do if everyone I loved and everything I held sacred was being threatened, being slowly being stolen away, blatantly, in a "legal" way that was, at least in terms of the spirit of the law, infuriating--and I was helpless to counter it through legal ways? I don't know. I guess I'm just saying I can see much better where they're coming from. If only they could work together: but it's just like in Gandhi where the Muslims and the Hindus couldn't trust each other: sad. And hard.

Ok, well I've turned that into a rambling soap box for far long enough. What I also and actually originally wanted to say was this: we met a tribe of 7-year-olds playing in the Kidron Valley north of the Silwan Village on the East and City of David on the West (both of which are very, very Muslim, and have been for many, many years--kind of a surprise, to think of the City of David like that, huh?). There was a ridge about 1/3 of the way up the green valley's slopes. We had just passed (Dan King, Alyson Shamrell, and I) Absalom's Pillar, and finished reading his father, David's lament over him: "O Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son. Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son." Powerful. I always wondered about that. I just don't know if I can see a murderer-never-to-see-the-highest-Heaven ever feeling like that. Maybe he's not as lost as we think. Maybe he is, but I hope he isn't. I really hope he isn't. We saw his tomb later that day too, and read 1 Sam 17:45 (paraphrased): "And David said unto the Philistine, 'Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a shield, and with a spear, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied. This day with the Lord deliver you into my hands...and David hasted to meet the Philistine..." So cool. It was a holy site, the sign said. Jews were praying there and touching posts with scriptures on them as they left, and wearing phylacteries (I can't recall if those are the things on their foreheads or wound around their arms--either way I saw both).

Ok, anyway, the Lord of the Flies crew there in the Kidron. It looked like they were committing arson. Turned out they were roasting potatoes and sweet onions on a fire that may have been somewhat or muchwhat started and sustained by burning trash. They called us down and we went to hang out, even though we're not supposed to have any real contact with kids now because of H1N1 going around (hideous--I was so excited for meeting kids on the street and hanging out with them, talking to them in Arabic, playing soccer, etc.). We decided to make it really, really quick, and avoid contact. First thing that happened was they swarmed around us all excited and their leader offered us a mostly peeled onion. Here, there are several layers left, tall white American "Onion boys" (or whatever Donkey calls Shrek). I couldn't believe how nice it was of them. We tried to take a picture with them and one kid jumped up yelling, "No NO NO" for a reason we couldn't at all tell why. "Shekel! Shekel!" they started chanting. Oh. Yeah. Now it makes sense. So we gave them one (hardly anything, but two of us really didn't have anything), but when we tried again they still shout-protested "No!" or at least their main PR guy did. So, out of respect for the rural lifestyle of the indigenous (7 yr old) Kidron people, we decided not to take pictures, in order to preserve their natural, unexposed state. We laughed and thanked them then left.

We also stumbled onto Mark's house, just within the Old City's wall, on the south side of Jerusalem. Totally random. We were winding down whichever street looked most aesthetically pleasing to us, or exotically arabic and aladdin-esque. When I read the sign though it hit me: "Mark's House" and above it: "The Upper Room." Whoa. I know what happened there: and the scene from The Lamb of God flashed through my head. The Last Supper. That was where Jesus instituted the Sacrament. Wow. Wow. It wasn't like most of these places. It actually looked less like the video than you could imagine; it was probably one of the least correct looking places I'd seen or been to here, but it felt better than most, or almost all. I don't know why. But just as soon as I read that sign, I felt it. A man gestured us into the service that was just concluding there. Men left. We read the account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet sitting on benches in the back of the church. The father patiently waited, apparently (I wasn't sure what he was up to), and then left too when we were done. "Not my feet only but my hands and my head also." It is so cool to reconsider every single story in light of a physical reality, the physical reality of the place where all of it happened.

Too cool.

Well I must go, but I rather wish that all of you could come.

Love,

Bentley

Gettin' Jiggy wit the Jews

It was like ring around the rosies, except for I was in a circle with a bunch of jews, and we were moshing--after all, it was the Sabbath coming in. "Shabbat shalom!" people kept saying. And actually, we weren't really moshing (mosh pit--not sure how to spell it), but people were drumming on their Torah bestrewn portable tables set up west of "the Wailing Wall"--the largest remaining portion of the Temple, just one wall of massive stones that used to bear up something holy. So now that is all they have: they come every Friday to wedge prayers of scrolls into cracks between the ancient Roman stones that are at least 2000 years old. "Come back." They come to welcome in the Sabbath Friday evening.

Even though it's a ruin, it's the holiest thing they have. This is the world's most sacred ground of all, if you're a jew. My friends and I were wearing kipas, the small round woven caps, to respectfully come here ourselves. I touched the wall and prayed, myself--it was moving. In the mid-2nd century they were scattered by impatient Romans who were tired of revolts, and almost two thousand years of exile later--2000 years which include almost perpetual, universal scorn, if nothing else the Holocaust--this was all they had left, but still at least half the jews we talked to turned out to be from the States, they were here on a pilgrimage. That must have been what an older man took my friend to be on when he kindly approached him and said, "Welcome home."



I'm not sure how to explain why or how I suddenly found myself in a de facto mosh pit with them. I guess it was just a lot of revelry to welcome in the Sabbath--way too much enthusiasm about it, in my opinion. Maybe they were just enthused about the chance to welcome it, whatever it might be.

There were now worshippers three layers deep against the wall, bobbing like people falling asleep in class with gusto, in order to show they loved God with all their hearts, might, minds and strength (Deutoronomy 8, I think). The Wall is at the bottom of a slope that's secluded sort of by two flanking walls. Fifty feet behind those praying, singing began around tables. Then dancing in rings. Then the music got crazy and the yells got raucous and the invitations got plentiful and somehow all 9 of my buddies and I ended up running around, arm in arm, in a ring with our new friends whose favorite language was Hebrew. I had declined at first, out of respect for what they should have had respect for, I thought, but then it just felt like I ought to join in: so I did. And maybe the enthusiasm was fervor or something. I saw a man who liked like my grandpa walk by--right after I'd danced a few rounds (oh, and males and females are segregated: this was a brothers' night out)--and he was singing along with the yahoos. A five or so year old was holding his hand, and clapping his other hand onto it as they went, in tune with the song--maybe I just didn't know how to rock religiously. "So darn cute," my buddy said as they passed. It really was. It was like a party too. It didn't turn out to be very deep, but it was a good experience, and I'm glad, just once, I got jiggy wit the jews.

But that's really the most minor of the things I'll take away. The two things I'll remember are touching the wall, and one teenage jew I saw before things got hectic. He looked like a simple kid--normal face, roundy cheeks, very much just ordinary. The wall wasn't even full of people praying near it yet; of course, this kid wasn't trying to get closer.

I tried, but I could only guess what it would be like to have my identity wrapped up in a culture who waited for a god who had not delivered them for 2000 years. Moses led them through the desert for 40; now they had no one, and they'd wandered much more. And now another major world religion had one of its most sacred sites sitting squarely on top of what used to be the most sacred of all to yours. What are the odds you'll get that back? 2000 years and one Dome of the Rock later, how much hope is there now?

Maybe we can hope even when there is no hope--I don't know. I do know that while everyone was observing letters of the law that I'd never even heard of and performing rituals with obsidian-edges of exactness, that my favorite part of the night--and maybe even week--by far, wasn't. Just a teenage kid, so inobtrusive behind the milling, murmuring, surging crowd that I can't believe I saw him. I sort of got it then. It was like I saw the whole history of his people in his eyes, the trials and utter exile and feelingly one-way prayers. But he still prayed them, and I think he really meant them. I don't know how to say it in a way that is convincing enough, but I know it was convincing enough for me when I saw the kid stand anonymously and cry.

Dome of the Rock

Yesterday, a few JC chums and I met a man named Amjad under the Damascus Gate, as we paid to tour the old Roman entrance and "old city's" ramparts. (I was really pumped because it was my first chance to spend some shekels. If you, like me, have ever wondered if they're very fun to spend, accept my assurances they are. Other currencies I hope to spend include rubles and rupees.)

*

I also need to mention I've had the "Street Rat" song from Aladdin in my head for 3 days and it's all I can do not to buy genie pants and start stealing bread. I can only resist for others' sake. Anyway.

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We chatted in line; he asked if we minded him tagging along; we said "Of course, man"; then he decided to spend the next 8 hours hooking us up. He soon became like a super saiyan (awesome/powerful) tour guide: a Muslim from New Jersey who haggled prices in half with native Arabic (I got a handstitched "camelrider" shawl and coil to keep it down), explained the history and significance of the things we saw, bought us some "awami" sugar-bomb candy, and helped us through some serious hassles that would have taken serious time and pain to navigate on our way to Dome of the Rock, where we suddenly were.

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It was what awesome meant before diluted through invoking it's power in vain. It was that kind of awesome.

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After some group pictures (there were about 12 of us he was leading around now, always deferential, taking our pictures for us and humbly trying to not let us include him just out of obligation, which wasn't why we were), we ascended up a wide staircase towards the one of the world's most singular shrines, and past a tall, freestanding colonnade of Corinthian columns (leaves sprouting at the top). It was about 1 pm. White slashes of scripture from the Qur'an ran clockwise around the octagon's top, which was massive, mosaic, and dark blue: the golden dome blazed like a beacon on top. As I was about to start off for the shrine, I passed the white colonnade at the top of the stairs, and was a little taken aback: there were bullet holes in the columns, where chunks had been chipped away.

*

"What happened here, exactly? When were these bullet holes from?" I asked Amjad. "That was from the war where Palestine was fighting for their freedom, in the 40's and later again in 67. This was the last place where the fighting was, the last place to surrender. A lot of people died here."

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That struck me because the thought that had struck me earlier was that this was like the Muslim's Temple Square. Dan (King), my buddy, and I were talking about the splendour of "The Holy Mount" too: "All the investment it must have taken in time, and money, and energy--you can't spend all that and not have this place be holy." All of this came at a price. Whatever the name of this god was, this was a place of true sacrifice, and all sacrifice is sacred.

*

Now there's a ton of security because another religion that holds this place sacred also has governing power over the Holy Land, and modern Muslims are afraid that the shrine which has stood since religion governs this nation, and Muslims are helpless to protect the "oldest extant Islamic building in the world"--it has stood since 691 A.D.--through peaceful means if the government fails to preserve it.

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We learned that the Canaanites, destroyed unmercilessly by Israeli invaders, were once a covenant people in our Old Testament class--at least it was submitted to us (based on something in the JST, Gen. 17:3-7, I believe, but that may not be conclusive); that was an answer to a question about God's seeming OT wrath. If they weren't innocent people, maybe it wasn't unfathomable barbarity on God's and Israel's part. So even though it's distasteful, to say the least, God doesn't just have the wicked punish the wicked; sometimes good guys kill Goliath.

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But what this meant to me was, maybe I shouldn't look at the Muslims as being where they didn't belong, here in the Holy Land, with a shrine on top of an old Jewish--God's former covenant-living people--temple. Maybe they had been the righteous ones. Maybe not, too though. I do know that God let the Jews be scattered. And it's for a better reason than most people think (Hel 15:3, Jacob 4:17-Jacob 5).

*

I don't ever expect to be able to judge, though maybe I'll get some ideas. All I know is that I saw bullet holes all over walls and colonnades, but I didn't see any in that shrine. And even if there were, there were fewer than there might have been because they hit something else instead, and I cannot but believe that the reason they did was holy, holy--like the ground on which I stood.

*"...A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." -- Joseph Smith

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Today I learned the meaning of the word "Islam": it is literally "submission to God."

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How good a Muslim could I be if bullets peppered Temple Square?

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In case you're wondering how you can help:

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I met a man named Eric and his wife Patrice pushing their baby, Elyza, in a stroller last December. Elyza, it turns out, has hydrosephalace. After I asked about her and the medical costs they told me they were LDS and the Church was helping--I'm not sure how much--but they had wanted to do what they could to pay for some of it, so Patrice had been crafting some bookmarks and headbands and clips in order to raise some money. I told Eric I would put a link to their blog on mine, in case anyone wanted to support them.

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The link is http://carrillosfamilyarts.blogspot.com/. *

A link to their daughter's situation is there too.

I don't know how the church is helping exactly but I'm going to encourage Eric to post it on his blog, and a picture of Elyza too--she's a sweetie--but in the meantime you can call Eric at (801) 548-7617, or email him through a link on the blog. They were very humble and honest people, which is why I wanted to help them.

Saturday's the Sabbath here--for LDS too--not sure why

So from an aquarium-like sacrament room we looked through three 20x30 ft (or so) arches down on a city in which we cannot even mention the Gospel and sang "Called to Serve" to begin Sacrament meeting today. I wasn't sure what to make of it, when the Spirit began filling the room. They have a lot of truth in Jerusalem, but how many know that a God died for his people, and grasp that fact's significance?

Also, our group exodused en masse to Gethsemane and the Orson Hyde Dedicatorial Garden today. I just wasn't feeling it that way, so I made plans to go there another time with a smaller group. When everyone else had disappeared, I went and found the guitars from the Center, then I went up and tried to retrace my steps to the balcony where President Hinckley is standing during the "Special Witnesses of Christ" video, on the Jerusalem Center's highest--floor 8--sandstone-colored portico. The door was locked, and security said that they never opened it except for tours at certain times. I was frustrated, but I wandered around level 7 outside and found a hitherto undiscovered staircase, as far as my group goes, I believe, which led right to it. Really cool view. I wish President Hinckley were still around.

I figured no one was around so I strapped one of the guitars on and played a Vocal Point original song (I think), "He is Born," that my brother adapted to guitar and showed me. It was pretty cool, looking over a city and imagining how all of them were still waiting, and this was the news they had always had the chance to hear, and even though they couldn't hear it, it still felt good to say it. And at least I got to hear it--that always feels good too.

If I were making horcruxes, one would be here

Because part of me will probably stay anyway.

Today we wandered along the Via Dolorosa, where Christ is rumored to have passed bearing the cross, and eventually found a new friend, Hisom (hi-some). We went into his shop as he hawked "Antiques, lamps from the time of King David, ancient coins," and wanted to see the coins. I just hung out with him. He looked like a classy 28 year old. On the way in I said "Marhaba" (hello) to another guy, who was handicapped. Hisom said in a cheerful but almost vulnerable way, "He's handicapped." Another guy with slicked back hair ended up helping my friends while I learned Arabic from Hisom. What's the word for shop?" "Doocan." "Doocan-ak jemele" (your shop is sweet/beautiful). The way people take compliments seems so sincere--I don't think you can humbly take them unless you could just as humbly give them, unless you're humble enough to dare believe other people truly mean them. Charity believeth and hopeth all things. He clearly appreciated this compliment from a stranger. I was touched by the way he cared about that.

Aleah--Slick :)--was showing my friends authentic widow's mites. "These are the best coins in the world, because these Jesus said were worth more than all." These people are all Arabic, by the way. The northeast quarter of Jerusalem is the Muslim, (SE = Jewish; SW = Armenian -- I have no idea how they got here :) ; NW = Christian) so that is the culture we come to first on our way to the "Old City's" ancient walls from the Jerusalem Center. Heading "home" you can see the seashell bright palace high on the Mount of Olives descending like a terraced waterfall. The Jews call it Mount Scopus--we have to learn how to distinguish between the Jews and Muslims so we can refer to everything in non-confrontational terms: "Shalom" to greet Jews, "Marhaba" to Arabs, we don't say Israel or Palestine, just "The Holy Land," for now, etc. I feel like I should recount a small but telling event my friend witnessed so you could feel sympathy for the Arabs--whom I felt least akin too, and perhaps still do--but I don't want to elicit anything negative against the Jews. Anyways, the details are too many to tell, and too complex (and too not understood yet).

As I browsed in the shop I turned to see Dalynn arm and arm with Jaat, the handicapped man--he'd wanted to get a picture with her, apparently. Apparently all the men were brothers too. For a second I was like, "What the heck is happening if she's got her arm around a Muslim guy?" but I saw Hisom and Aleah smiling with warm eyes at them (the expression on Slick relaxed me--I'd initially been a little intimidated by him). Maybe it was different because Jaat was handicapped.

Jaat was gesturing excitedly and Hisom told Dalynn, "Show him the picture! He wants to see himself in the picture." She turned her digital camera back on and Jaat was clapping when he saw it. Slick pinched a bunch of Jaat's cheek and shook it like a grandparent who was too affectionate to help it. Hisom had done the same thing earlier. No wonder Hisom had sounded vulnerable at first.

It turns out Hisom had a degree in sociology and had had a fine job in a more impressive area; so had Slick, who had some other degree; and so had another brother, who was a lawyer.

"So why are you here?" I asked.
Besides mentioning the value of taking care of a family business, he said,
"Because here life is better. Here life is safe." He told Aleah to cut the widow's mite price from 33 shekels to 20, which may have been bartering and may have not, while a few friends were considering still. "Student discount," he joked with me on the side.

"Masalaami"--we left.


I was reading about how the Dome on the Rock, where the Jewish Temple had been before the Romans razed it a few hundred years before the Muslims took Jerusalem (the Jews had been expelled since an uprising in the 2nd century AD). That is the rock where Muhammad said an angel took him to ascend through the seven heavens and into the presence of God. Maybe the place had been sacred to him too, beforehand (maybe not--I don't know). Either way, it made me wonder, maybe everything religious is circumstantial when you compare it to the motive for which you live it.

"Gladly would I die a thousand deaths, to look upon the face of Tash."
--Emer, a young Calormene in C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle

"My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure."
--Sir Galahad, in Tennyson's telling of the legend of King Arthur

Wow...

So being at the Jerusalem Center is like living in a temple/walking in the Bible. I was sort of stunned ten minutes ago when I heard the Moslem call to prayer for the first time: this is another world. I think, in a way, this is the most foreign of all cultures to me--the Arabic--maybe that's part of why I love this so much.

It's all incredible. We wound through a black labyrinthine passageway, like backalleys etc.--on an orientation tour around Jerusalem today--and went through a tunnel and suddenly a vaulted ceiling appeared and apparently we were in a Christian church. There is no way to describe the complexity of the architecture, and I don't even have a clue about the culture or politics yet. So far I feel like Aladdin and for a second I really wanted to steal some bread but I didn't. Bad for Church PR, you know. So instead I made friends with our security guy, Hidar. He taught me a handful of phrases, including, "Your shoes rock." His happened to.

I never knew how green this place was. I was expecting sand. Period. In fact, I was wondering on the plane and over the last few weeks about a line in Isaiah, where he says "the desert shall blossom as a rose." "Had Isaiah ever even actually seen a rose?" I wondered. Apparently. I saw some on our balcony. Oh yeah, and the Dome on the Rock is right outside our front window and features prominently along the skyline maybe a mile straight ahead of our balcony. The wall from the "Old City" slants down from right to left at about a 30 degree angle; it looks just like the videos you see in Church. The texture of the rock, just the texture of the rock, is about the coolest thing I've experienced. It feels...I don't know. Old. Hebrew. Biblical. Middle-Eastern. Authentic.

Our group is amazing. I'm sure I'll say more soon.

Lastly, at orientation we heard a line from Elder Holland's address awhile ago to students here:
"If you ever become what you were before this experience, you will have become a disappointment to me," or something to that effect. That's cool, because that's exactly what I'm hoping for, so if that's what an Apostle wants from me, and seems to think he can expect for me, I will hope and work and pray for it too. I don't want to be the same, and once I'm not, I definitely don't want to go back.

Masalaami, my friends
(peace be upon you, I think, in Arabic)