Saturday Sabbaths & The Garden Tomb

Over here, Saturday is the sabbath. It's kind of awesome, because just when you think the weekend is over at the end of the sabbath... you realize you still have Sunday free day! And THAT, my friends, is happiness.

Here are pictures from my first sabbath in Israel. :)

Me and my beautiful roommates! Ashley, Aubreigh, & Anne.

The view from the terrace. Stell. Ar.

So this is where we have sacrament meeting... I know. I KNOW.

Our room!

Changed into warmer clothes for the walk to the Garden Tomb. Anne is the queen of faces. :)

Oh how I love this girl! (And I'm obsessed with the scarf Christina... I wear it all the time!!!)

Walking to the Garden Tomb.

That's the Jerusalem Center on top of the hill with all the arches! :) It's so pretty and PRESENT! And it always blows my mind how far away it looks after only walking for like 15 minutes haha.

There are cats EVERYWHERE. I'm in heaven! Others are not. ;)

The spot where children always throw rocks at us hahaha.. (Actually we hate it. They have good aim...)

Oh this city.

It was weird how close it was to us! Like.. right in the middle of the city!

Ashley, Tye, and I being tourists. Nailed it.

 

My first glance at it upon entering the garden! They don't claim this to absolutely be Christ's tomb (not even the LDS church does), but it's very likely it was this one or a tomb nearby.

What is believed to be Golgotha. We always picture Christ on the cross on top of a hill... but He actually would have likely been at the bottom among the crowd (according to our tour guide).

This is an older picture of the same location... showing the skull-like appearance of the rocks, like they're described in the Bible.

It's amazing how much more this saying means to you once you've been here and have fallen in love with Jerusalem and better understand what's going on. So yes, please, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. ♥

Yeah. Just.... Yeah.

Christ's body would have likely been laid on the far left.

What can I say but "♥" ?!

These are actually my feet at the JC.... but that would be cool if they were at the Garden Tomb! ;)

♥ ♥ ♥

Gah! It takes so dang long to upload pictures here... this post seriously took an hour. And I'm already probably slowing down the entire system haha. I'm going to have to learn how to blog with fewer pictures. :( Especially because I'm going to get so far behind!! I hate leaving pictures out though.... but oh well. When I get back home I can upload EVERY SINGLE ONE to Facebook. Mwahahahaha!

Anyway, the Garden Tomb was great. We all took turns going inside, about 7 at a time, and then when we were all done we sat down on these benches in the middle of the garden and sang hymns. Dang.. I left my hymn book in my room so I can't remember which song we sang, but I think it was "He Is Risen." :)

Oh how I love this opportunity of a lifetime.