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I love Palm Sunday, especially in Jerusalem. What an opportunity to be able to walk the path of Christ’s triumphal entry. I love Jerusalem.

“I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing. 

Samara = creepy girl from the Ring

Samara = what Holly shouts at me when she shuts off the lights as I’m in the basement at my dad’s house, leaving me in the dark by myself screaming

Samara = name of travel agency in Jerusalem and not the travel agency we used to go to Galilee, not that we used a travel agency anyway

By the way, I’m back from my 11 day trip to Galilee. I will be blogging about all of the Galilee goodness very soon hopefully.

I had the greatest time ever. It was so so good and so beautiful. Everything was green and we were right on the Sea of Galilee so there was a beach and there were beautiful flowers all around and I loved every second of it.

We’d go back and forth from a day of field tripping to a day of New Testament class for three hours and then free time on the beach. I had such a good time. I loved it so much.

The beach was my favorite part, no surprise there. I miss the ocean, but the Sea of Galilee satisfied my ocean need for now, even though it’s only a lake. I’d go for long walks on the beach all by myself and it was the best. I found a few dead fish and then had nice little burial services for them, and I found a dead bird too and did the same. And I found a lot a lot of ladybugs. They were all over the beach. I gave them names like Winston and Emmaline and Josephine and Octavias and Julius and things like that.

I’d also read the New Testament on the beach and it was so incredible because everything I was reading about happened right where I was sitting. I was looking out at the water the Chirst walked on. I was in all of these places where he performed wonderful miracles. I love the Holy Land.

Galilee was the best trip ever. I miss it. And I’m going to miss Jerusalem too, because I leave this wonderful place too soon…

There was also this awesome fish that was like neon and fluorescent and really colorful. I loved it. When we were done snorkeling, we took jumping pictures of course.
Some of them turned out great…

… and some didn’t. :)

Swimming in the Red Sea is good for you.

Galilee was the best field trip ever. Trips don’t really get better than Galilee. My last morning there I woke up early and went for a little beach walk to watch the beautiful sunrise and say my goodbyes to the Sea of Galilee.
I met Marianne and we went on a little beach walk together. I really love this girl a lot.
We left Ein Gev and were kind of headed home, but with a lot a lot of historical stops on the way. This place is known for its beautiful mosaics, especially this one. It’s really incredible how much detail and shading they get just from putting together all of these little rocks. Could you imagine making something like this? Not me.
The sign said, “It is forbidden to wet or stand on the mosaics,” so I peed outside. :)There was also in old Roman road that you can all the wear and tear on and paths from old wheels. After that place, we went to another place that had something to do with Elijah. We sang some hymns. Love it.
Then I went on a roof and it had a map things pointing to many different cities and places. JERUSALEM! I love that place, so so so much.
Then we went to Haifa, in northern Israel. There’s the Mediterranean!
And there was an ice cream truck that played ice cream truck music. Yay! I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen an ice cream truck in real life before. We don’t really get them in Homer.
Then we went to a beautiful cemetary, where some of the early missionaries to the Holy Land were burried.

Finally, after many hours and many stops, we made it home, to the Jerusalem Center! Yay! It’s always always so good to get home.

Roomies! I love my JC roomies. We’re in Akko, where there are a bunch of Crusader remains, as I’m sure you can tell from the vaulted ceilings and massive pillars. :) Shamra loves Crusader architecture.
Then we went to a mosque.
They are beautiful inside.
Then on our way to the sea, we walked through a market where there were lots of dead fishies. Classic smell.
So happy to be at sea! I do love the Mediterranean.
And I love Kara Van Wagenen and Marianne Gold.
I especially love posing for pictures with them.
We left the Mediterranean, the beautiful sea, and went to some Jewish tombs. Angie and I took a purple picture. She’s so wonderful.
Stone coffin. :)
Dead faces. Human menorah.
GQ.
Outside the synagogue. No, it’s not called a synagogue. This definitely isn’t a synagogue. What’s it called? I can’t think of the word. Sepulcher? Cenotaph? Maybe I’ll just say tomb.
Before we ended this slightly shorter field trip, Moon was jammin’ to her pod and dancing on the wall. Moon… love her.
We went back to Ein Gev and I again found myself wandering down the beach. I came across a dead bird and surrounded it with little shells.
Then I covered it with grass. Little birdie is now resting in peace. This place makes me so happy.
I walked in the water where Jesus walked in shoes that probably looked kind of like his. It was the best.
Our last night in Galilee… we had a bonfire with everyone! All of the guys attacked Moon and had a funny little mock trial. But poor Moon ended up with peanut butter and barbeque sauce on her. She had to shower, which she didn’t really want to do. :) But still, Galilee = nothing but good times.

Another field trip. Our first stop was a tel with some recent excavations and ruins of some old place. I didn’t much care for this tel. We just saw more old rocks and another CISTERN. I just wasn’t feeling more of the same thing. I was feeling a little burnt out with tels and rocks and ruins and especially cisterns. It’s still completely awesome though. And Kara, Marianne, Hayley, and I just take pictures in the flowers instead of going into more cisterns, so it works out.
Kara Schumacher… funny girl.
Then we went to Tel Dan, which was so fabulously nature. Except since it was a nature reserve, you weren’t supposed to pick the wild flowers. I did anyway, because they look so good behind my ear. :)
one of the four main sources for the Jordan River I think
I was taking some notes about good ol’ Tel Dan and this cutesy furry caterpillar just came right up to me. I think the bugs can feel how much I like them.
I don’t really remember what these things were used for, but here’s a picture of me in it.
At Tel Dan. Nature reserves are pretty excellent.
FROLICKING! Yay!
huge pistachio tree and some JCites
We went to get back on the bus and as we were making sure everyone was there, we realized Hayle wasn’t there. Uh oh. She got lost somewhere in the Tel Dan nature reserve all by her self. She ended up taking a wrong path somewhere between the pistachio tree, Paradise, and the Winnie the Pooh tree. Luckily some of the boys went and found her, because this whole experience would not be the same without that girl. I just love Hayley. I really really do.
Then we went to Caesarea Philippi/Banias. People were tired.
I made shadow puppets with Priscilla.
there were pretty waterfalls here, which are not in the picture
Matt Huff and Ryan Rampton scaled the cliff wall.
JJ and I stood in the lovely water.
Then we went to Nimrod’s Fortress. Awesome… totally gnarly.
I tried to escape out of one of the places where weapons used to stick out of.
Old fortresses are the coolest. They are way better than cisterns, although there was a cistern there, but there was a lot more than that.
The Galilee area is so beautiful. Too bad there isn’t a BYU Galilee. :)
“Danger! Abyss!” Just trying saving JJ’s life.
Unfortunately, no one was there to grab Brother Huff. Too bad… he’s a pretty cool dude. That night we had a bonfire on the beach with our classes on the beach. It was so awesome. People did skits and fun things. But the highlight of the program was probably Wilkinson’s African tribal dance. Sooooo funny. Man, Galilee is the best. I love it.

I’m a month behind on this good blogging stuff, but I’ll catch up someday. It’s 4 am and I’m in Utah and I’m awake because of extreme jet lag. So I’m using it to my advantage and playing a little catch up.
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Sunday, March 29: Field Trip.
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We started out getting on the bus again at 7:30 am. Kara and Shelby decided to take naps as soon as we got on. I decided to take pictures of Shelby’s open mouth.

Our first stop was Bet She’an or Scythopolis. Roman ruins from back in the day.
walking down the stairs of the theater
Then we went to the bathhouse ruins, where there were all of these little mini Terra Cotta warriors. :) Fun fun.
These explain about the bathhouse. There were three main divisions, hot room, warm room, and cold room. Men would go to these bathhouses to socialize and catch up on the town’s latest. Bathhouses = party central.
community toilet, gotta love it
Moon and Silky Wilky, two of the coolest people ever
We call this Scythopolis.Flowers!
Bugs!
After spending far too long at Bet She’an, we went to Gan Ha-Shelosha! It is this beautiful natural spring or something and we just went there and swam around and it was so fun and so beautiful and I love water.
Then we went to the Church at Nain. Nain is where Christ raised a widow’s child from the dead. The child was all wrapped up and they were carrying out of town or something, and Christ rose the widow’s son from the dead. Miracles.
The floor in the little church was pretty cool.
Back to the bus for some Chelsie Kara Chelsea Kara Chelsea. Yay!
Then we went to Mt. Tabor, where the think the Mount of Transfiguration occurred. This is Shelby. He’s from Eagle River. Yay Alaska!
another beautiful church
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Monday, March 30: We had New Testament on the shores of the Sea of Galilee again. Awesome. Brother Huff is such an excellent teacher. It amazes me how much he knows, talk about a fountain of knowledge. :) And our class is so good, because everyone really knows so much and offer all of their very insightful insights all the time. It puts so many new perspectives on the scriptures.

Today in class, this little ladybug was waiting on my chair for me. We bonded for to first hour and a half of class. She was pretty cool.

Except my poor little lady bug had a crippled wing and couldn’t fly. She’d try and whip her wings out and one of them was only half there. Sad. :( She’d life her bum/body up so that the beautiful red polka dotted part would come up so that her wings could come out. But she couldn’t fly with them. Poor ladybug. But we had fun in class anyway. We had a fun little photoshoot. My camera takes fabulous close up pictures, especially for being just a little ol’ camerea. After class and the party with my ladybug, I found myself here. Back to the beach.

There are these beautiful little creations of shells all over the beach. You can just pick up solid handfuls of shells.
Then when I was walking back from my secret beach spot, I discovered even more ladybugs! They are all over. There are three right here on this little plant alone. Whoa. Ladybugs are so fun.
Yay! I found a kippa too! Kippas are the little hat things that Jewish men wear on their head. I don’t really know how they keep them on, but with all of the Jews on the kibbutz and with all of the wind on the Sea of Galilee, you’d think I’d be finding a plethora of kippas on the beach. But nope, just the one.
That evening we went to a restaurant where you could either get fish, pizza, or spaghetti. Since I am very unfortunately not a fan of fish, I got spaghetti. But they just plop down this plate in front of you with an entire little fishy on it.

Since I didn’t eat the fish like everyone else did, I thought I should at least eat the eyeball.
Clearly it tasted pretty good. Actually, it wasn’t that bad at all. There wasn’t much taste. It was just kind of gross chewing a fish eyeball.
Then we went drove to the other side of the lake and went to Tiberias. There was a store called HAPPY DAY! Yay! It was pretty much wicked awesome.

Saturday, March 27: Shabbat
Since my group was having church later in the afternoon, I was free all morning. I got my scriptures and went and sat on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and read about Jesus being on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Awesome, I know. I’m so lucky.

I sat in the grass too, underneath the beautiful sunshine. Then I took a picture of my Jerusalem Bible sandals, which are the best in the world.
And I got my BIRTHDAY BOX! A couple from Jerusalem came up to Galilee and brought all of our mail. YAY!
They sent my chunky peanut butter. I have the best family in the world. I loved this box so so so much. It made my day so wonderful. Mail is the happiest.
Then we went to another baptismal site on the Jordan River, where there were plaques of the Jesus baptism story in about five million languages. This is one Hawaiian pidgin. Dearest Hawaiian Kara read it for us.
Moon and I took this lovely picture while we were singing hymns and a couple primary songs. We sang one of my favorite songs that is maybe called “I Like to Look for Rainbows.” Good one.
GALILEE ROOMIES! Breana. Chelsea. Aleni. Hayley. We had so much fun in little cabana 154.
This is on the Jordan River. A lot of people get baptised here. It is beautiful.
Go in peace!
Then it was time for church. So we went to Tiberias and had a fabulous sacrament meeting. It was so so so so beautiful.

Here’s the view from where we had church. The view is great from the Center looking out at the city of Jerusalem, but I thought this was even better.

pretty colors
all the lovely ladies
purple day!
Chelsea and roomie Lauren
purple. yellow. and a little red. fabulous colors.
Goodbye Tiberias. Hope to see you again. Back at Ein Gev, Elyse and I happened to be rockin’ our purple genies. Gotta love those genie pants, and shabbat.

Wednesday, March 25: Woke up of course. Got ready. Walked out my door. Picked a beautiful hibiscus from the bush in front of my door. Put the beautiful hibiscus in my hair. Went to breakfast. Ate some yummy yummy granola with yogurt. Walked back to the lovely shores of the Sea of Galilee. Had three wonderful hours of New Testament class with Brother Huff.  Ate lunch that wasn’t very good. Free for the rest of the beautiful afternoon to wander the beach.

I wandered. I wondered. I looked at lots of little shells.
I tried to read this Korean writing, or maybe it’s Japanese. Sorry, I don’t really know.

People made some fabulous sand creations. The Dome of the Rock. It makes us feel like home, Jerusalem.
At sunset, we had a little photo shoot.

My skirt got wet. Yay! Thursday, March 26: Field Trip

Our first stop was Gamla, which means CAMEL! Because this little mountain resembles a camel, my new favorite animal. Don’t worry though, llamas still have a very special place in my heart.
We went on a little hike down the hill to see some more cool ruins. These were from one of the oldest synagogues in Israel or something like that. 
Lauren and I jumped for joy off of some ruins, because ruins bring about great joy in us.
It was another fabulously beautiful day and so good to be in green mountains. I miss green.
There were beautiful wildflowers all over too. I love love love wildflowers. 
I bought this sweet leopard cowboy hat too for 20 sheks/$5 when we were at Gamla. It’s the coolest of cool.

After Gamla, we went to Qazrin, a Talmudic village, where the Talmud (which is part of Jewish holy books) would’ve been worked on way back in the day. I took notes in my sweet little note taking journal.

We saw a bunch of cutesy little Jewish kids there doing fun things.
Then we got back on the bus and went back to Ein Gev for the rest of the beautiful Galilean day.
People were playing on the beach. It was simply marvelous.
Along with the Dome of the Rock, the cool kids made a Sphinx. Maybe we should make sand creations of all the cool places we’ve been too, because we have definitely been some awesome possum places.
That night, we went down to the beach and lit some fun little sparklers and a few firework things. I love Galilee, best field trip ever.

As we sang “Master, the Tempest is Raging”, the wind was blowing and the waves were going and you could just imagine Christ walking on the water and calming the seas. 
Our boat ride took us to Nof Ginnosar (or something like that that sounded like dinosaur), where we saw the ancient Jesus boat. They discovered this boat deep in the mud in the Sea of Galilee. This boat is from the time of Jesus. They have had to do so much to preserve it and to get it out of the water without having it fall apart completely. This ancient boat is pretty cool beans.
Then we went to the Mt. of Beatitudes where I put another beautiful hibiscus in my hair. I had one of these pretty little flowers in my hair everyday in Galilee. I love it.
Beatus is Latin means to be happy or to be fortunate, so the Beatitudes are to make us happy. Brother Huff, one of our religion teachers, gave us a lesson about them here at the Mt. of Beatitudes. It was so so so beautiful here, with trees and green things and flowers and sunshine and rain. I love it.
Then we went to Tagbha, which honors the loaves and fishes miracle where Jesus fed the 5000 with five loaves and two fishes.

I lit a candle.

Tagbha is also where St. Peter’s Primacy is and is where Christ told Peter to “Feed my sheep.”
There were hugest heart shaped rocks I’ve ever seen.
Next stop was Capernaum, the base of Jesus’s Galilean ministry and also Peter’s house was, which became Christianity’s first church house.
This is a Holy Place.
I love rainbows.
Our last stop for the day was Kursi where the there are signs that say “Danger Mines!” because that area is part of the Golan Heights and Israel and Syria have been fighting over it.
The miracle of the swine, when Jesus cast the devils out of a person and into a bunch of pigsthat then ran down the hill, also happened here. It was so beautiful here and so windy on top of this hill. Oh so glorious.
Now for my favorite part of the day:

First I found a ladybug. His name is Winston.
I frolicked down the beach by myself and found a dead fish and named it Octavius.
I then gave him a proper burial service and said some beautiful kind words of remembrance. Every creature deserves that.
I found another ladybug and named her Emmaline, Winston’s lover.
Then I found a big plastic bag and the water and took it out of the water because things like that do not need to be in the water. Then I decided to fill it with trash, because there was a lot of trash on the beach and I did not like seeing it at all. So I participated in a self sponsored beach cleanup. 
I also found a sweet new pair of shoes.
To top that off, I wore my sweet Michael Jackson shirt all day long. It was such an excellent day, must be because my dear sister turned 25 on this lovely day. I do love birthday celebrations, and Winston, and Octavius, and beach cleanups, and beach walks, and the Sea of Galilee. What an excellent day.

Good thing I didn’t try to herd the sheep by myself, because they were quite unresponsive to me. Actually, when I tried to get a picture with them, they just avoided me and ran away.
They ran away from Kara too.
Then we went caterpillar hunting, as they did in the Bible. Just kidding. I just have this new fascination with bugs and I like to make friends with them. Except…
THE CATERPILLAR POOPED ON ME! I was observing its incredibly engineered body, then I saw a little something coming out of its bum and screamed and the caterpillar fell on the ground. Then I looked on the ground and saw this little green conglomeration of caterpillar poo. Wow… a whole new realm of understanding with the fecal matter world.
After the caterpillar poo incident, we ground up some hyssop and some other stuff and made some sort of spice. Lauren is so good with that ol’ mortar and pestle.

This is my hand that I used for my mortar and pestle party. Check out my new watch… HARRY POTTER!

When I take notes on the field trip, I like to draw pictures. Today I drew a lovely picture of Harry Potter. I’m a big fan of that HP.

It is getting so beautiful here. There are flowers all over the place. Also in my time in nature, I found some mosquito eaters in love. Then all of these little children found a chameleon or some big lizard type thing. Cool to the max.We also saw a Torah scribe. The Torah is the first five books of Moses and the Jews are such devout Torah studiers. The Torah scroll has to be had written by a scribe, who studies how to do it and it has to be perfect. Incredible edible egg.Almost as exciting as watching the scribe was finding a bathroom. Hooray for toilets. Actually, I’d rather squat than use a lot of the toilets over here. 

It was a delightful little field trip today. I loved it. It was great because a lot of times we just go and see sites and ruins and its fun stuff when you herd sheep and do things. And also, it was just so beautiful today. Green, sunshine, flowers, I love it.

I went to the Shuk today! Hooray!
It is the Jewish outdoor market and I love this type of shopping. They sell wicked cheap fruits and vegetables and lots of nuts and spices. Then there are some clothing and souvenir shops and pretty much anything else you could ever think of, or maybe half of the stuff you could think of.

And of course… they sell kippas!

There’s also people that play music and stuff. There was this cool dude selling things that Stefanie and I just had to take a picture with, and this is it. Awesome possum huh. What interesting people this world has… :)

Clearly, the Shuk is the happening place. I love it.

Today we had a free day so we went to Ein Kerem, which a beautiful little village where John the Baptist was born. I loved it so much here.

See… so beautiful. I love nature. :)

We went into a few churches there and inside guess what there where… mosaics! Yep. It’s true. Some cool people many many many years ago made this beautiful church and this cute little birdie mosaic.

Churches are holy.

Flowers are so beautiful. I love them. I love them in my hair. I love sunshine and flowers and Ein Kerem all together.

Inside one of the churches there was this absolutely beautiful painting of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus. I love it.

When we were walking around the town, I walked by this car and there was a car seat in it. But that’s not the best part… as you can see, there was a doll sitting in the carseat and it pretty much cracked me up. So I took a picture and am showing it to the world.

Marianne, Chelsea, and Cate outside of St. John’s church. I think this commemorates John the Baptist’s birthplace.

Chelsea and Shamra, my cool to the max roomie, inside the church

Outside of the church there were all of these plaques with scriptures about John the Baptist in lots of different languages. This one is francais. Hooray! Je l’aime.

beautiful little magical staircase

After buying a sandwich, an apple, and some love nuts and eating it in a park, we continued our Ein Kerem journeys. We wandered into a little art gallery with these beautiful gardens outside. The guy had some really cool art and I loved his gallery. Here’s some pomegranates.

Then we walked on this oh so magical path to go to the hospital up on the hill that had some incredible stained glass windows. They were done by Marc Chagall and there are 12 of them, one for each tribe of Israel. They are amazing.

Sitting on the hillside pondering the eternities… :)

     After lunch we headed to the Church of the Nativity. On the street there was this sweet VW bug. I want one of those cars. I think an old bug would actually be my most favorite car to have. Yep, that’s what I want. Maybe not one all tricked out like this one, maybe I could paint pretty pictures on the outside instead though. 
    Instead of a VW bug, this is my sweet ride! If only there were more rust, this is exactly what my car is. Oh man oh man I love this baby. I love it so much!
     This car would probably be pretty sweet too. This cute little boy was just cruising around the grounds at the Church of the Nativity.

     The Church of the Nativity is built on the spot that tradition marks as the birthplace of Christ. It is one of the oldest operating churches in the world.

     We went under to where Christ was born and there were so many people that I couldn’t really grasp where I was. We were all being rushed in and out unfortunately. But this star on the floor marks the spot where Jesus was born. I was in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

     I’m not sure why Kara is closing her eyes :), but this is the only picture I have of this spot. It is where the manger was. This is where the wise men came to, where the animals stood around, where Jesus lay wrapped in swaddling clothes.

     The flames in this picture are so cool. This was inside the church in front of a statue of Mary and the baby Jesus.
     Of course there were also stained glass in the windows. These churches are so beautiful. I love them. After visiting inside, we walked around a little town square thing in Bethlehem to buy things. The tourist industry in Bethlehem has gone down so much, especially since the Wall was built. They are struggling in a lot of ways.

     After we crossed the wall, we went to Shepherd’s Field, which is hill between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. We had the most delightful Christmas Program there too. I love Christmas.

     We sang Christmas songs, read the Christmas story out of the scriptures, and a few people shared other stories,  as well as some testimonies. I really enjoyed it alot.

     I saw a shooting star!

     Making wishes – one of my most favorite things to do.

     My wishes always come true.

Two decades. Twenty years. That’s how OLD I am. Twenty is huge. It’s so so so much bigger that wee little 19. Wow. I am 20. Exciting stuff, yes it tis. I am loving this.

You can see some of the many wonderful signs from Marianne and Kara. Then later in the day, Shamra put love nuts all over the table for me. Oh goody! You know I love love nuts. She’s such a cool roomie. I really like that funny girl.

I mostly just studied during the day, because we have serious exams coming up, but then came the night, and then came the party. Marianne, Kara, Elyse, Anne, Alexis, Annie, Shamra, Stefanie, Lauren, Stephen, and I got in a big giant taxi and rode to Ben Yehuda, because that’s where the parties happen.

We went to go get ice cream and crepes and things. I ended up with some delightful frozen yogurt and some absolutely perfect flowers!

Stephen Wilkinson, one of the coolest guys at the JC, was the lovely gentleman to get me the flowers. He’s so so good. And I love flowers so so much. They made my birthday even better than it already was! 

I had so so much fun on Ben Yehuda. I LOVE BIRTHDAYS! They are the best. This was such a goooooood birthday. I had so so much fun. We had such a wonderful time, I just can’t even tell you how good it was. Happy happy happy. Yay for birthdays!

My birthday got even better we we got in the taxi on the way home and it happened to be the most hoppin’ dance party taxi on the planet. This guy had all these sweet lights in his taxi and sweet dancing jams. It was so excellent. That taxi ride was definitely, no doubt, one of the best parts of my lovely celebration of 20 years.

Being 20 is glorious. I love it. I’m so happy.