Out of the 42(ish) men here in Jerusalem, only one has not served a mission...yet. Today the big to-do was that at least half of us went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, following a one Christopher Chandroo, hereby known as Elder Chandroo! The Garden itself is very small, at least the entrance area where we walked. The church next-door was built by an Italian, so all the signs were in Italian. It's called the Church of All Nations and the mosaics on the ceiling include the symbols of different countries. It was really amazing. So we all gathered in the corner of the garden (the trees are roped off, so not much space for half of our group to congregate together, but we made it work) and Chris opened his call. He's headed to the India Bangalore mission and we were all so thrilled! Because it is a sacred space, though, only the boys could give him congratulatory hugs and we had to be quiet. It was really an amazing place to open a call and definitely not an experience any of us are going to forget any time soon.
Yesterday was our first field trip day, and we got the lay of the land from various lookout points. There are three towers that we use to orient ourselves on Mt. Scopus and the Mount of Olives. To the north on Mount Scopus and our neighbors on the one side is the Hebrew University. We drove past but did not stop. It's a very prestigious university, and I guess they're ranked in the top ten or something in mathematics. I also heard that 11% of Nobel winners are from there, but maybe that was for a specific category. I think they're ranked 57 overall for universities in the world. On the other side and our beacon to the east is Augusta Victoria, a church built by Kaiser Wilhelm II in the late 19th century. The cost to bring the bells up in the tall tower was MASSIVE because to get them from the Port of Jaffa they literally had to widen and pave the roads to cart these massive chunks of metal.
I will add more to this about our field trip, but we have a Palestine class now so....
1/20 update
Our eastern beacon is the bell tower of Augusta Victoria. I believe it's a Lutheran Church now, built by Kaiser Wilhelm II back a hundred or so years ago. They have incredibly beautiful mosaics inside the chapel, and we sang a few songs that echoed like crazy. We climbed up like 200+ steps to get up to the bell tower, which houses several massive bells. The bells themselves didn't cost as much as transporting them from the port in Jaffa. Was it because they're so enormous? Was it was because they're so heavy? Was it getting all the way up the tower? If you guessed because of their size, you're mostly right. They literally had to widen all the roads from the coast up to the Mount of Olives just to get them here. Anyway, the bells are awesome and so is the view of Jerusalem from the top.
The south-eastern tower is that of the Russian Ascension, but we haven't really talked about that one or gone to see it yet. It's like a spiky-pegoda-roof tower. Google it or something.
We went next to a lookout point above the cemetery straight across from the Golden Gate--the only gate into the Old City that is sealed. It's on the side of the Temple Mount. Suleiman the Magnificent sealed it in 15something because the Israelis believe when Jesus returns he'll come into the Old City through that gate. Also, they put a cemetery outside because Jewish Rabbi and Kohen (descendants of Aaron) can't enter a place with human remains. For that same reason, the Israel Museum has only facsimiles of human bones. Fun fact.
The lookout point was neat, to get a lower perspective of the city. There was a camel there, and its owner eagerly looking for opportunities to charge you a couple shekels. One hump, because I know you were wondering. Called a dromedary by those who care about big words. The cemetery is a sight to see as well, like a cutout of white against the brown and green rocks and shrubs mountain. All of the tombs are that white limestone of everything in the area and there's no grass or anything like cemeteries in the US. Another fun fact, no morticians here. People are buried the day after they die, guts and all. It's against Jewish law and Muslims thing it desecrates the body or something. Muslims don't even use coffins. Personally, I think trying to preserve a corpse is sort of nasty anyway. Dust to dust, right? The only problem is that you have little to no notice before the funeral.
Our next lookout was to the south. There were lots of cats. And random little tour groups of Jewish people on Segways. Traveling to see all sides of the Old City, though, was really beneficial. We could see a better angle of where the City of David was. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. But then again, the Old City is a lot smaller than I anticipated. Maybe it's just that we do so much walking around and through it that it's shrunk in my mind.
Our final lookout was Nabi Samwill, which is the site were the prophet Samuel is supposed to be buried. You can go into the basement, where Jewish go to pray. They believe sites like this are holy ground and therefore their prayers are closer to God. The basement is a really small room split in two (Jewish men and women worship separately). There was a bench crammed against the wall and a white embroidered half-tent thing separating the sides, a bench in the entry way, and couple plastic chairs in any leftover space. It was cramped. If you were wondering, no, women don't have to cover their hair. That's only if you're married. Men do have to wear a kippa every time they go up to the Western Wall or into a synagogue, though. The main floor and upper floor is a mosque, which we weren't allowed into. There was also a little room that was a store, selling ice cream.
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