From Bethany to the Upper Room

What a long day. It is weird to be on the first of my last days in Jerusalem. As I am entering my last days, we are following the last days of the Savior's mortal life. (Right - Standing outside the entrance to Lazarus' tomb. Above it is a mosque, to the north is a church. This entrance was carved so that people could get to the tomb without going through the mosque). We began our field trip today by driving to Bethany. To get to Bethany, we had to go through the partition wall. It used to take two minutes to get there. Now it takes about 20 because we have to go out of our way to get there.
In Bethany, we went to Lazarus' tomb. We stopped at the church there and read the scriptures, then sang some hymns. There was a man who videotaped our singing. It was quite amusing. We stood in line to go inside the tomb. (Left - coming out of Lazarus' tomb). We were right behind a group of Serbians. When they spoke, there were moments when I understand and I could swear they were speaking Russian. But most of the time, I couldn't understand. I couldn't even pick things out. Finally I asked a guy where they were from. He spoke Russian, so that was cool.
Lazarus' traditional tomb is rather small. A lot of what is there was built up because an earthquake caused the roof to cave in. (Right - me, Megan, James, and Christ outside the church at Bethphage). Still, it was very interesting to go in. Many people light candles and take then into the tomb. After that, we went into a Palestinian woman's home for a short visit. Then we continued on and drove to Bethphage. We went to the same place where we went on Palm Sunday. It was weird to see the place with it completely empty. We read scriptures and sang again. It sounded so nice. That church, if you remember, has a stone that the Savior traditionally used to mount his donkey. However, it is too high. (Left - Dominus Flavit, a church commemorating the Savior's weeping for Jerusalem). That is because in the Byzantine era, most people did not read the scriptures, so they didn't know they details. They knew that Christ has made a triumphal entry, but they assumed that he made it on a war horse, needing a large stone.
We next went to Pater Noster. That church commemorates the Lord's prayer. Inside the Lord's prayer is written in 68 different languages. I found Swahili, Old Church Slavonic, Russian (called Moscovite), Maori, Cherokee, Esperanto, Sanskrit, etc. I enjoyed it a lot. (Right - Me with Brother and Sister Draper, overlooking the Old City).
We walked from there to Dominus Flavit. There a church commemorates the moment when the Savior looked out at Jerusalem and wept for what was going to happen. That was a beautiful place.
After that we had lunch in the Orson Hyde Garden before getting on the bus. (Left - me and the Seely family: Beno, Sister Seely, me, Brother Seely, and Katy). We were going to drive to the Upper Room, but Israeli road blocks have severely inhibited our ability to get around in buses. So, we had to come back to the center. When we drove back to the center, a road block was even blocking our street. Luckily, they let us past. Hopefully we will get to go to the Upper Room tomorrow. If not, I know what I am doing on Wednesday.
Later, I went to a Palestinian family's house for dinner. It was really good. The only bad thing is that we ended up being late because the person who set the dinner up wasn't back from shopping in time. So, we had to find someone else to go. Then that person showed up an hour and a half late. It was really frustrating, and very disrespectful to the family. I honestly hope that it didn't cloud their opinion of Americans, and students from the JC.
After dinner, we came back and got ready for our special Upper Room Experience. That was really cool. We had a very spiritual and very insightful program. They set up a triclinium (see above - from left to right would have been John, the Savior, and one of the next three would most likely have been Judas. Then on the far end was seated Peter) which is most likely the setting that was used for the Last Supper. It was a set up where the participants lay reclining on a couch (we didn't have couches so they reclined on the floor). The honored guest would have been positioned in the center of three seats facing the kitchen. Then in this case, John would have been sitting in one of the seats next to the Savior. Judas would have also been nearby. We saw the washing and anointing of the feet by the woman, and the Savior's washing of his disciples feet. It was very interesting.