A glimpse of the Holy Land.

I just wanted to post a couple pictures every so often before I leave.  So they'll be random and not chronological, just humor me (:

Here's the sunset from about two weeks ago.  Oh! isn't it gorgeous?  I had to run out of dinner and grab my camera because it was sensational. It finally got cloudy for a couple weeks, and now it's pouring rain and windy!  I actually had to wear a coat today in the City.  My feet were like popsicles but it was worth it (:  I really love this place.

This is our pomegranate tree on our balcony!  Unfortunately, while we were in Galilee it finally lost all its leaves and pomegranates.  But up until the end of November, it was quite green and pretty.  Mostly I posted this picture because I miss the summer breeze just a little bit.  But winter will be nice...although I'm not excited for negative temperatures anytime soon.

These are the excavated stairs to the temple!  Where Jesus would have walked!  And perhaps He would have taught here on the steps.  Isn't that wonderful?  I love the Holy Land.  Everywhere you walk is sacred ground.

This is a bedouin woman making a rug.  (I think I took this on the way to Jericho.) Each rug takes a really long time to make, and they are each unique.  She's using a loom to weave it. This was a special place where they train young women to make rugs in the traditional way to sell at the market.  Isn't it pretty?  Many bedouin live here in the Negev area, which is where this woman lives.

This is the beautiful Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives!  Isn't it perfect??  I caught this sunset on the way back from a field trip.  If you kind of squint, can you picture Jesus on resurrection day, standing on the mount and cleaving it in twain?  And the people seeing the nail marks in His hands and feet and bathing them with their tears?  This is one of my favorite places.  I live on this same mountain, not far from where Christ will stand at that great day. It's hard to believe that I'm here...even if only for eleven more days.

That's all for now!  I have to write papers now!  Wish me luck.

Love always,

Rapunzel.

Oh Galilee, sweet Galilee, where Jesus loved so much to be.

Guys! I'm back from the Galilee, and I only have TWO WEEKS LEFT in the Holy Land! :( This is not okay. To console myself I'm going to post about my beautiful ten days on the shores of the sea. Ready?

Here I am at Nazareth!  One of our stops on the way to the Sea of Galilee.  Isn't it beautiful?  This is the Church of the Annunciation, where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be the Mother of the Son of God.  It was a beautiful church.  Gabriel is traditionally depicted holding lilies out to the Virgin Mary in early Christian art, and so this church was built with a dome in the shape of an upside-down lily.  You can see the petals from inside the church.  There are hundreds of depictions of Mary inside the church, from different countries around the world.  It was an absolutely beautiful building.

Here is the view from the inside. Michael and I sat by the dome and listened to "Consider the Lilies" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  It was really peaceful and wonderful.

I took this picture in the basement of the Church of St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus.  I really liked this church, because Joseph is often overlooked, especially since he was not mentioned in the scriptures after Jesus' early childhood.  The stained glass windows were absolutely flawless.  Galilee is unique because most everywhere we went had a Christian focus.  I really enjoyed it, though I love learning about the other faiths and cultures of this area.  It was fun to just think about Jesus all the time.  But I'm so happy to be back in my Jerusalem with its juxtaposition of Judaism, Islam and Christianity.  I'm not sure which I like best.

Here is my first view of the Sea of Galilee!  Isn't it gorgeous?  By the way, it's actually a freshwater lake, not a sea.  Only Luke will refer to it as "the lake of Gennesaret".  The rest of the gospel writers will call it a sea (and I like to, just because they do).  It's so perfectly lovely!  And actually, it's quite small. Only about 13 miles long and 7 miles wide at the most.  I loved it very much.  We had several wonderful storms, but when it wasn't stormy, the sea was often glassy, almost like it was remembering.

Here's a view from a boat we took to the middle of the sea of Galilee.  It was marvelous.  Oh, what a beautiful morning that was.  We went from the kibbutz Ein Gev, where we stayed for ten days, across the sea to Ginosar where a 2,000 year old boat was discovered.  It could be a boat used by fishers at the time of Jesus, though we don't quite know.  It's fun to imagine.

Here is the Mount of Beatitudes, where there's a pretty little church and splendid gardens.  We had a small testimony meeting on the side of the mount, and shared our favorite parts of the Sermon on the Mount.

This is a cute girl from India named Rishita!  She saw me writing in my journal on the Mount of Beatitudes and wanted to be my friend. She was soooo sweet.  I bumped into her again at Tabgha, and she wanted a picture with me. So adorable.  She said that she had come all the way from India with her family to "visit the places of Jesus."  Isn't that wonderful?

Here's the church of St. Peter's Primacy, where tradition holds that Jesus came after His resurrection.  Peter and the fishers were out on the sea, toiling all night and catching no fish.  A stranger on the shore called to them and told them to cast their nets on the other side, and they pulled them in overflowing with fish.  Peter swam to shore, because he knew it was the risen Lord.  Christ was sitting on the shore, and had made them breakfast.  They talked together, and Jesus told Peter three times to "Feed my sheep."  (There's a marvelous talk by Jeffrey R. Holland on this subject, by the way. If you want, here's the link. http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/the-first-great-commandment )
I love that talk.  We discussed it, and also talked about how Peter said he loved the Lord three times, just as he had denied Him three times on that dark night before His crucifixion.  It was almost as though the Lord was offering Peter a chance to make up for the denials, to go forth and preach the gospel to every creature and eventually die a martyr's death.  I really liked St. Peter's Primacy.

Here I am in one of my favorite places in the world--Capernaum!  I've wanted to go to Capernaum since before I wanted to go to Jerusalem, believe it or not!  It's a small town where Peter lived during the time of Christ, and many miracles occured there, including the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, and the raising of Jairus' daughter from the dead.  This is me at the synagogue of Capernaum, built on the foundations of a 1st-century synagogue, where Jesus may have taught and began His public ministry.  I loved Capernaum!  It was so peaceful and perfect.  Just as I had hoped when I read about it when I was fourteen years old.  I love this place.

Here is me eating St. Peter's Fish!  Do you see the coin we put in its mouth?  Haha.  It was a really fun day.  We had just finished canoeing in the Jordan River (I didn't bring my camera; it was too wet.  I wish I had brought it because it was the most beautiful river I'd ever seen in my life.  All turquoise and ripply and gorgeous).  So my hair is all-natural here haha.  The fish was delicious, and the evening was alltogether wonderful.  There was a competition for eating fish eyes...we won't go into the details. It was quite amusing (:

This is a picture from Yardenit, a baptismal site on the Jordan (not Bethabara, which is closer to where Jesus was baptized.  We went there last month).  It was peaceful and beautiful, and as always I took a picture of a flower.  I do that a lot...I have probably hundreds of pictures of Jerusalem flowers.  You only get a snippet, which is probably lucky.  But I really liked this one.

Here I am at the same site, with my scriptures showing the Jordan River.  We never found the location of the original picture, but this was as close as we could find (:  The water really is that turquoise color. Amazing.

Here I am at the church on the Mount of Transfiguration, which was such a pretty site.  We sang Christmas hymns, and the acoustics were phenomenal.  A bunch of tourists took videos of us singing, haha it was really fun.  Afterwards we read the account of Jesus and the transfiguration.  We don't know if it happened here at Mount Tabor, or on Mount Hermon, which is a higher mountain that we only see from a distance.  Either way, walking on Mount Tabor was like walking on temple grounds. Just tranquil and wonderful.  This whole country is just a remarkable place. I am so sad to leave. Anyways.

I forget which church this was, I think it might have been Tabgha near where Jesus fed the five thousand.  I just love the candles at all of these Christian churches.  They're so pretty, and they make you think of all the pilgrims who come here seeking Christ.

This is a picture of the glades of Dan!  I have a hundred million pictures of Dan so I won't post them all.  Just imagine a forest in Europe or Ireland, all green with trickling streams and stones and leafy trees and moss...That's what Tel Dan is like.  It's perfectly magical.  I told you Israel's not a desert!  Haha it's just about every climate you can think of, but it's not just a desert.   I say that often, but it's true.  I actually took this picture, and my group left me behind and I got lost.  There was a fork in the trail and I picked the wrong one...and ended up at the end where the buses were.  So I was fine, but all my friends were concerned and running around looking for me...So that was terrible.  But, of all the places on earth to get lost, Dan is at the top of my list.

This is the waterfall at Banias...which I edited and then lost the original.  So you get the cheesy version of this picture.  But it was really pretty to begin with, now it's just blurry haha.  It was actually the most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen.  

Here is near the waterfall at Ceasarea Philippi.  These are the springs of Pan, where Jesus conferred the keys of the Kingdom to Peter and said "upon this rock will I build my church".  It was a wonderful place, but there were no churches, which surprised me.  Here's where it finally started to rain.  We've been waiting for the rainy season to officially hit, and here it came!  Then I had to wear my jacket.  Yes, this is December we're talking about here.  Isn't it crazy?  I love the weather here.

Here's my first aqueduct!  I don't know why, but I think aqueducts are so cool.  And that's the Mediterranean right there.  That's all I have to say about this picture (: I took it on the way home from Galilee, it's close to Caesarea.

Here's the city of Caesarea, built by King Herod to impress the emperor.  It was really big, and quite spectacular.  I took this standing on the ruins of the theater.  Herod actually made this city quite grand, and built an artificial harbor here. I won't bore you with the details, but I thought it was pretty cool.  You can always look it up if you're curious.  That means Daddy, probably. haha.  Anyway, I really liked Ceasarea.

This is the view I'm most familiar with.  This is the shore of Galilee, where I would wake up every morning at six and read my scriptures.  My goal was to read all four Gospels on the shores of Galilee, and I finished the last ten chapters of John yesterday before we left. It was my favorite part of Galilee.  It was quite stormy on three of the mornings we were here, and it rained on the last day (yesterday), but the storm always calmed by the end of my reading.  And I got really pro at reading my scriptures in the wind.  I also marked up my scriptures in purple, so that every time I read the four Gospels again, I'll remember Galilee when I see my purple notes in the margins.
That's all for Galilee!  Can you believe I blogged the day after I got home? You should all be impressed. I love you all and can't wait to see you again. I think I'll just post random pictures from now on.  Miss you guys!
Love always,
Rapunzel.