Gethsemane

September 10 - I went to Gethsemane with Jaclyn and others for our Sabbath afternoon (yes sabbath is on Saturday for us, not Sunday - so Sunday school is now Sabbath school :)  It's only a ten minute walk down the road from the JC.  We walked around the garden and sang "I Stand All Amazed".  Singing Hymns here in Israel has been one of the neatest things.  I honestly didn't know what to expect when i thought about visiting sites from Christ and his apostles' lives.  It is amazing.  It makes it more real just because it's easier to picture in your mind.  We had an incredible fireside about Gethsemane also. I will write about it soon.  Here are some pictures of the garden.  By the way, Gethsemane means "Olive Press" if you didn't know.  So symbolically, Christ was crushed by his pain in the garden just as olives are crushed by the Olive Press.

Looking up at the Old City from the Garden

 After visiting the Garden a few of us went by the Church of the Virgin Mary.  This is where her tomb is.  In a Greek Orthodox church.

This is a shrine to the Virgin Mary

These are some boys who were sitting outside the lower gate with their soccer ball.  I filmed a video of a few of the girls playing soccer with these boys, but like I said - I can't upload videos.  The little boy just to "my left" said their team name was Barcelona! I thought Ryan would like that.  A few days later the men who run security asked us not to play with kids or hang out with anyone at the lower gate because then they have problems with people trying to climb over the gate to get into the center (probably just to come find us to play) oops :)