Another Day...

Hello! Today was a free day...not that it has been very free really--we've been deluged with studying and midterms as of late that there really isn't much time to spare. Sigh.

Well, anyway, I did get out for a couple hours today in spite of my lack of time. I went, along with two of my friends Angie Clark and Kathryn Hawker, to a place called the Dormitian Abbey, and then the Upper Room (one of the possible sites for the Last Supper), and finally to King David's tomb.

Dormitian Abbey was beautiful...I watched a bit of their Sunday prayer service and was blown away by the beautiful music by the resident monks. The acoustics of the chapel were incredible, and the monks really sang angelically. It was my first time visiting a Catholic service (it wasn't the full Mass), but I thought it was lovely. I really felt the love and devotion of these humble monks for their Maker.

The Upper Room, in my opinion, was probably not the location of the real Upper Room, but it had been changed long ago into a Muslim mosque so it's hard to say. It seems the Muslims came in after their conquest and built mosques over almost every holy Christian and Jewish site, perhaps to claim their dominion over the area and these other religions. It's been so many hundreds of years since the Mosques were built there could not be any archeological excavation to see what the Mosques are covering without enormous outcry from the Muslim population--which is understandable. On the other hand, what a pity we can't see what was originally there!

Finally, King David's tomb wasn't much to see...just a cloth covering something rectangular in an old room. I was nonplussed, but at least I can say I saw it in person.

For lunch, we went to Sbarro's Pizza and I got some American-style food, which was a blessed change from the norm. I like the food here at the BYU Jerusalem Center, but it does start to all taste the same really quickly.

After that, we stopped by Omar's Olive Wood Carvings, which is where I bought my olive wood nativities and sculptures so Kathryn could pay for the things she bought. Omar (a very nice Muslim man) seems to like me (probably since I bought so much from him!) lol. He gave us a ride home to the center in his car.

Now I am just putting off homework...but it's been a while since I gave an update so I thought I'd write something! :)

Have a great day!