It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Jerusalem Center......
Santa welcome's you to Brother & Sister Allen's apartment.
We were fortunate to have a nice Christmas tree and olive wood carvings left behind from the former couples.
The Jerusalem Center was quiet while the students and faculty were in the Galilee for 10 days. We kept ourselves busy decorating the center for Christmas and also hosting tours of the building. The Jerusalem Center is open for tours to the public Tues-Friday. The visitors to the Center come from all over the world. They enjoyed seeing the festive Christmas decorations and many wanted their pictures taken in front of the grouping of Christmas Trees. On the days we hosted tours, our visitors included organized Israeli tour groups that had booked way in advance, an LDS tour group from America, neighbors who are curious about the building on Mt. Scopus with the arches, walk-ins visiting Jerusalem who had a couple hours and had read in the tour books "best to see in Jerusalem"; the Mormon University and organ recital. One group we hosted had 150 Israeli's from several retirement centers. As we introduced ourselves we told them that we are volunteers here and what our responsibilities are. We also tell them about our family. The comments are great when they heard we have 9 married children and 33 grandchildren.... actually they were amazed. First that we would have so many children and grandchildren but that we would leave them to come here for 18 months at our own expense. Many had questions about the Mormon Church but we are not allowed to enter into discussions as per the agreement with the Israeli government and the Mormon Church that no proselytizing of any kind can take place. The tour takes in the 8th and 7th floors of the building and last about an hour. It includes a 10 minute movie about Brigham Young University, the BYU Jerusalem Center, how it was built, information about the architect, and so on. The guest are then escorted into the beautiful auditorium with that magnificent view of Jerusalem for an organ recital of classical music such as Bach, Beethoven, etc. performed by our master organist. From there we guide them outside where they have the glorious view of the Old City Jerusalem and then walk through the Biblical gardens. The Biblical gardens have several ancient olives presses with the first one dating 2,000 years old and the other 1,500 years old. The millstone is an impressive stone and to a few select groups we remind them of the scriptural story of the millstone and little children. We end the tour walking past the 700 yr. old olive tree that was transplanted from the Galilee. It didn't survive the transplant so they grafted in some branches from a healthy tree but along with the branches there were somehow seeds from a raspberry bush. So we tell them we have the most unique olive tree in Israel....a Olive/raspberry tree. They love that story. Wouldn't you know that when there was a tour of high school students they wanted their pictures taken with that "cool" guy Bro. Allen.
This lovely nativity set was purchased by the Center over 10 years ago from a Master Wood Carver named George Llamas. He just pasted away several days ago. We had the opportunity to meet him on our first visit to Bethlehem. He includes several of our Prophets who have purchased nativity sets from him.
This lovely nativity set was purchased by the Center over 10 years ago from a Master Wood Carver named George Llamas. He just pasted away several days ago. We had the opportunity to meet him on our first visit to Bethlehem. He includes several of our Prophets who have purchased nativity sets from him.
This set is kept in the Safe at the center during the off season.
Our students leave for home in 2 weeks.....we have grown to love them and will miss their friendship. We are looking forward to friends coming for a visit during the holiday seasons........they will help us celebrate the season while we are away from family and friends.
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