Throwback Thursday: Israel Flashbacks, Pt. 3

This is the third part in a series of posts recounting our family's adventures living in Israel in 2007. 

You can find Part 1 and Part 2 on my blog. 

The BYU Jerusalem Center

Our second stop of the day was just over the next mountain on Mount Scopus to go to BYU Jerusalem Center. We enjoyed our informal tour. It’s so nice when the guides understand and tailor the tour to the needs of small, active boys.

The Jerusalem Center is beautiful. I shall not go into great detail because many of you have seen pictures, visited it or heard of it. Basically it is an 8-floor building that is built into the mountain. Five of the floors are for the students who live and study there.

We enjoyed the organ recital from the missionary: Elder Michael Moody. (Carol, I think you may know him.) He played three pieces and we looked out on the amazing view of the Old City while he played. My heart was really touched by the stirring and powerful strains of Come, Come Ye Saints. And then he played Prelude on Deliverance, a piece I had learned while studying organ with Carol. I was so excited and mentioned that I had learned the piece. Then Elder and Sister Moody asked if I would like to play the organ. Of course I did. So with a little help with the stops, I played a beautiful and peaceful rendition of Jesus, Once of Humble Birth.

I’m having trouble uploading my pictures, but we did take pictures of me playing the organ. It was really an experience.

After the brief organ recital, we went outside and viewed the city. They had different models of how the city appeared at different periods. That was really helpful for understanding the layout of the city. Then we toured the biblical garden, saw plants from biblical times, learned how an olive press worked and saw a few different types of olive presses, learned how wine was made, (well, I don’t think our guide ever used the word wine, but that’s what it would have been made into eventually after everyone squashed the grapes with their feet) and finally learned about the 1000- year- old (I think) olive tree that was transplanted from Galilee. It unfortunately, didn’t survive the transplant very well, but it has many new shoots that are coming from its branches. Yes, there are all sorts of Biblical allusions there and I’ll leave that to you to ponder.

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