Last week we had the opportunity to go on three field trips! We went to the Jewish Quarter on Monday, the Kotel Tunnels on Tuesday, and Wednesday was the Christian Quarter.

We first went to the Davidson Museum south of Jerusalem, North of Ancient Jerusalem and where the old Second Temple was in biblical times. We saw the ruins of the Temple and it was so cool to see original real live stones from Jesus’ time.

We first stopped at the piles of stones Romans pushed off the edge when they took over and destroyed the temple, thus fulfilling the prophecy:

“And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!”
“And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” – Mark 13:2-3

They fell from so far up, they broke and dented the street which was visible (on top of piles of rocks cut out of the picture)

Whitney and I

Remains of stores along the side of the Western Wall of the Temple where you would exchange money to temple money, buy a sacrifice like sheep or dove, and other things for preparing to go into the temple mount.

The remains of Robinson’s arch leading to the temple (one entrance for pilgrims from the south to enter)

We also went to the temple steps which lead to the main southern entrance to the temple mount. This was in the BD with a picture so I was super excited to come here. We had an amazing devotional on temples and it was a very cool experience to sit on original steps that Jesus actually stepped on (it sounds funny saying that but this whole trip we usually say “this is a traditional spot where this or this happened” or “we are 6 feet below where this happened” so actually touching something that is proved original instead of possible or being in the same airspace is pretty cool.

Sitting on the original steps (all around is restored)

My BD picture! Look it up in the back! 🙂

An alleyway in the Old City.

Joe Ludlow and I shared a huge donut!

There are such beautiful sunsets in Jerusalem!

Kotel Tunnels was a tour along the tunnel made along the Western Wall under Muslim quarter buildings and we learned more about the Temple. While building the Temple, the Israelites brought a 300 tons, 45 feet long bedrock stone all in one piece. Still no one knows today how they got it up here but we saw that and we also saw lots of Herodian stones that they carved each as they built up to the Temple.

The Christian quarter field trip started off with a church where we sat for a while waiting for our tour guide. We then went to a door where old pilgrims would stay and carve their name on the door and Orson Hyde, an LDS missionary in the 1830’s came here and possibly carved his name.

Melinda and I at the door

Hyde

I have such wonderful and awesome friends! (Anna-Marie, Brooke, Annie, Jerica, Analise, Mary Jane, Heather, and AJ)

Old remains of a wall towards the outside gate (just around the corner left of this picture) that Jesus possibly walked through with his cross to the crucifixion spot (either Holy Sepulchre or Golgotha or somewhere else, outside this gate). That was super cool to see!

Holy Sepulchre

Although we as LDS members tend to not worship here as the place Christ was crucified and buried because we like to commemorate places that we can connect to how it looked at that time but I think it is very beautiful architecture.

After the field trip we stayed in the Old City and did more cool stuff before our time is done here in Jerusalem. We got shwarma, went to the top of the Church of Redeemer tower, and got a tour of the Hurva Synagogue.

Best shwarma ever! As you can tell by Devery’s face 🙂

Creeper picture looking down from the top of the dome  of the Hurva Synagogue during our tour.

View from the Redeemer Church tower. It was so beautiful and cool to see little buildings her and there around the Old city (and outside) that we knew what it was.