{Cozumel: Chichen Itza Ruins}

I have been beyond excited to blog about this part of our trip!  

One of my favorite topics is church history.  Mike and I attended a wedding in Iowa a few years back for one of his buddies... I made him wake up at 4am on one of the days so we could squeeze in a half day trip to Nauvoo, Illinois and see Carthage Jail while we were out there - being that close to those sacred historic sites and NOT seeing them would have been unacceptable in my book! 

BYU historian and scholar Dr. John Lund writes extensively on Mesoamerica and several theories on where the Book of Mormon may have occurred.  According to his hypothesis, the ruins of Chichen Itza would have been in the Land of Bountiful (on his map Bountiful has a lot of historic ruins that are still around today; as does the area where Zarahemla would have been located).  For me there is nothing more exciting than seeing a place and connecting it with events that happened in the scriptures - truly feeling the spirit of the place.   I realize there is no archaeological evidence that says this is factually where the events in the Book of Mormon occurred.  BUT upon closer studying there are a lot of things that align themselves with these different sites in Mesoamerica, making it a possible B of M location. When it comes down to it, geography will not prove the Book of Mormon to be true (as far as current discoveries).  

I feel the same sentiment as President Gordon B. Hinckley, who said, "The evidence for its truth, for its validity in a world that is prone to demand evidence, lies not in archaeology or anthropology though these may be helpful to some.  It lies not in word research or historical analysis, though these may be confirmatory.  The evidence for its truth and validity lies within the covers of the book itself.  The test of its truth lies in reading it."

I have felt the power from the Book of Mormon affect my life every day that I have studied it, in subtle but significant ways.  I have felt the power of the Holy Ghost testify of its truth from reading it.  I don't need to know where it happened or "prove" anything geographically (although its fun to guess).  The stories and counsel in that book were preserved for us today!  THAT is

 why I wanted to see these ruins. 

Quick flashback - in 2006 I saw the Tulum Ruins on our family vacation (that is where my love of studying this stuff was born).

In 2010 we went on a different trip to Belize where we visited the ruins at Lamanai.  Those were also incredible to see & there was an awesome feeling at those ruins too. 

I was pretty excited to check out the Chichen Itza site when we docked in Cozumel!  It was a journey to get there... We had to take a ferry over to Playa Del Carmen (that was about an hour).  There we met up with our group & boarded a bus (that would be another 2 hours) so by the time we got to the Ruins we were only able to explore for about an hour  before we had to start our return journey!  But it was SO worth it! 

It was pretty packed when we were there - I think by the time we got there all the cruise ship people were there so it was peak hours.  Luckily there was plenty to see and lots of space to spread out.  

You can kind of see in this picture the door in the side of this pyramid- this was built around another pyramid which is hundreds of years older.  Prior to 2006 you used to be able to go inside and see the other pyramid but they no longer let people do that.

This was the backside of the pyramid which hasn't been restored like the other stairs.  

I loved walking around and seeing all the carvings in the stones and different types of structures that were still standing today from hundreds of years ago.  So glad we were able to check this off of our travel bucket list!