Last Week in Jerusalem

Well, all good things must come to an end, I guess. Jerusalem has been awesome, I am actually home now but I wanted to take some time to wrap up my semester by summarizing the events of my last week in the Holy Land.

Garden of Gethsemane. We went here for a morning to learn about and ponder the Atonement while tracing the last steps of Christ's life. It was really hard to leave this place knowing that I would not come back again.

Of course while tracing Christ's steps, we ended up at the Garden Tomb. I have so many good memories of this place, Sabbath afternoons, Easter mornings, etc. It was also really hard leaving this place for the last time.

We went to go see our friend Omar one last time. We met him a while ago (before Galilee) in the Old City. He came to our Community Concert at the center and we went to his house for an afternoon. We just became good friends with him (he is mentioned in an earlier post of mine titled "interview"). We went to where he works in the Old City, which was at an incredible building (the Old City never ceases to surprise me). It had a 360 degree view of the whole city, it was stunning. You could see everything close up, from the merchants in the markets to the rooftops of the houses to the laundry hanging out to dry. Oh how I love the Old City of Jerusalem. So much culture and character.

We painted murals at a nearby hospital/orphanage for special needs kids up by Crash Corner in East Jerusalem. This was the scene that I helped with. We called it our "Lovely Deseret", as in the hymn. It's a good one, look it up!

The finished product of Our Lovely Deseret. I was super impressed at how all of our murals turned out, there were three more scenes: a jungle, ocean, and mountain scene. They were all really good, it was a very daunting task to do four walls, but we did it!



We took a four hour bus ride to Eilat to go snorkeling in the Red Sea. We snorkled for four hours and then headed back to Jerusalem, but we got to stop and eat at the Kibbutz that we ate at on the way to Egypt. That was fun to look back on some of the memories we had then, especially to think about what we all thought about each other. Egypt was so early in the semester that we THOUGHT we knew each other but we definitely didn't. But anyway, this was a super fun day and a great "ending social" to our semester!

Words can't really describe my feelings during my last week in Jerusalem. It was so surreal, like it really never would end. But it has. It is over. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if it ever really happened, it just seems like it was a dream, but then I hear a hymn or get caught off guard by something that immediately takes me back. Those moments are so sweet to me and I don't think anyone can really understand what it's like. It makes me feel such fond feelings towards Jerusalem and the people there, I will always have a spot in my heart reserved for the experience I had there. I will never forget it. Ever.