Sabbath

Orson Hyde Garden

In the Orson Hyde Garden. There is a path that runs down the mountainside through the trees. You can see the Dome of the Rock mosque and the Eastern Wall of Old Jerusalem in the back. I don't know if you can see them, but the stones that you see covering the whole hillside on the right and along the Eastern wall are Muslim graves. They bury their dead above the ground.

Today was the Sabbath. Over here in Jerusalem where so many other people celebrate Saturday as the Sabbath it is a lot easier for us and the other branch members who work outside the center to celebrate it today as well.

Church went very well and I love being able to look out over the whole city during sacrament meeting. The wall behind the podium in the auditorium is all glass so during meetings you can see most of the city. While I was taking the sacrament, it really struck me that the places where Jesus suffered the first sacrifice for all of us were basically just right out that window. The Garden of Gethsemane is just around the corner from us and Golgotha is thought to be near the garden tomb which is right in the middle of the city. Looking out upon the city of Christ's sacrifice while renewing my covenants was an incredible experience that I will luckily get to experience every week.

After church we went to the Orson Hyde Garden which is about a five minute walk from the center. On October 24, 1841 Orson Hyde came to Jerusalem and walked up the Mt. of Olives to look over Jerusalem. There he delivered a dedicatory prayer and consecrated the land for the gathering of Abraham's children and for the building up of Jerusalem. He also asked that the prophecies of God's servants in relation to the Jews and Jerusalem might all be fulfilled. Elder Hyde's prayer was not seen or attended by anyone else, but in 1979 on the same day (Oct. 24), President Spencer W. Kimball came to Jerusalem to dedicate the garden in memory of Elder Hyde's prayer. I recommend reading Orson Hyde's dedicatory prayer if you can. It was interesting because the path we took to the garden was lined with trash and was not a very pleasant walk but once we got into the garden it was completely different. It was extremely well kept and clean and had a totally different feeling to it.