BYU Jerusalem: East Jerusalem Day

Today Quinn, Michael Barlow, and I cruised all over east Jerusalem, it was super nice because we were just cruising at our own pace without an agenda to keep, just exploring. We started by going to the Separation wall (our only destination for the day). The whole time we were walking we were talking with Michael Barlow about things he was struggling with. On the way to the wall we stopped by a house that was Israeli built then destroyed by Palestinians, super heavy. We got to the wall and took pictures and talked about it with each other. We then followed the wall back up the hill, as we did we bumped into a little pack of Palestinian kids. I thought they were going to a little soccer field we had just past, so I asked if they were playing soccer. They said no, but they said we can play. So we went to a small cement court in front of their apartment building. It had spray painted goals with the word "Goooool" painted inside the goal. We played soccer with them for about half an hour. It was a lot of fun. One of the kids, Carlos, knew enough English to communicate with us. After a short game, we said goodbye to our little friends and kept walking up the hill back to the west side of the mount of Olives. We walked over to the Tomb of the Prophets which was the burial site of the Old Testament prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.The guy there was super nice, he gave us candles to use as we walked around of the old tombs. We then walked down the hill to the Church called Dominus Flevit, which means the Lord Wept. There was a great view from this church of the temple mount and the old city. We then walked down to the Church of all Nations which is where the Garden of Gethsemane is. After a short time spent there we walked through the olive trees in the Kidron Valley which had turned green from the recent rain.