In his book called Everyone Steals from God, author Edward Fischer makes this observation:
“When someone stops growing, his likes and dislikes freeze. At fifty he likes the same books he liked at twenty, the same films, and same television shows. As for the interior finishing of mind and spirit, he never puts anything aside and never adds anything new… If you want to witness this attitude at it’s most dramatic, travel abroad and watch the tourists. Several million of them get up enough nerve each year to leave home in body, but the landscape of their minds never alters. They are annoyed with anything unfamiliar, be it a brand of coffee [we haven’t had a lot of problems with this!!], the plumbing, or cultural patterns. They want the whole universe paved just like the streets they live on. They walk through castles and museums and cathedrals and are bored. If they were aware of their sagging spirits as they are or their aching feet, it would be a hopeful sign. The sense of awe is dried up in them and they seldom show wonder, unless you want to count the many times a day they say, “I wonder how far away the bus is parked?”Edward Fischer, Everyone steals from God, London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977, pp.122-123
Spiritual preparation can make a great deal of difference in what an individual receives from his or her tour of the Holy Land. When President Harold B. Lee visited there he said, “We pray that the Lord… would make us keenly sensitive to the spiritual feeling… we walked on sacred ground and felt influence of the greatest person who ever lived upon the earth, Jesus Christ.” (Harold B. Lee, “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked”, April 1972, Ensign).
Elder Joe J. Christensen, former president of Ricks College and quorum of the seventy, said it well: “You cannot expect to find Christ in the Holy Land unless you take him there with you”.