Day 103

Today was our first day of the Last Week of Christ's life field trip. We started out the day in Bethany, where the tomb of Lazarus is. Jesus' miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead was when the Jewish leaders really set their sights on having Him arrested and killed. We stopped outside the church there but didn't go outside, then we went outside the tomb. At the end of Manscill's lecture one of the guys came groaning like a zombie out of the tomb, wrapped in toilet paper. A little irreverent, but still really funny.

The next place we went was Bethpage, which is where Jesus started His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, publicly declaring Himself to be the Messiah. We sang hymns in the church there, and saw remnants of the old road that He would have taken as He rode a colt into the city. After Bethpage we went to Pater Noster, which is one of the contested sites of the Ascension. One of the cool things about this church is that they had the Lord's Prayer in over 50 languages all around the inside and outside of the church.

Next we went to Dominus Flevit, the site where Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and the temple mount and wept. We read the New Testament account and some of the prophesies of the destruction of Jerusalem throughout the Bible. The church is built to look like tear drops, which is really cool. It is such a beautiful view of the city, but it's also sad to see it and think about all that has happened to this land since that time.

For lunch we stopped at the Orson Hyde Park. We haven't been allowed in there since the 1st or 2nd week of the semester because some of our students were mugged while they were walking back to the Center, but it's a really beautiful place so I'm really glad we got to go back there one more time before we left. We talked about Orson Hyde dedicating the Holy Land and about some of the events that have happened since then to fulfill the prophecies of the physical gathering of Israel back to this land.

Our last stop was at the Upper Room, a different one from the one we visited during our Christian Quarter field trip. This one I like a lot better, and I loved reading the scriptures about the Last Supper, especially after having our Triclinium program the other night where we learned a lot about it and saw what the dinner itself would have looked like. We sang some Sacrament hymns there too, and ate some bread from the Old City.

Tonight we had an information meeting about everything that we have to know to get ready to go home on Thursday. It is becoming more and more bittersweet every day as it gets closer to the end. After the meeting we had a party in the Oasis, with pizza, karaoke and dancing. It was a really fun end to a great day!