Last week in Galilee

Shalom Family! 
This week was our last week in Galilee. On Monday we started our back-to-back field trip week. We started our trip by going to Mt Tabor, one of the supposed sites for the Mt of Transfiguration. It has a beautiful church and a great view of the Jezreel Valley. The church has 3 chapels, one for Christ, Moses, and Elijah. Probably the most interesting thing that happened all day, though, was definitely when we arrived at the base of the mount. We got off the bus to get into taxis up the hill and as we walked to the taxi, there was another group getting out. The tour guide was arguing with the gift shop/snack bar owner and it turned to yelling and then men had to hold them back. At one point in the fight, the owner leaps over the bar onto the tour guide and they start grappling. The group started chanting the Hail Mary in French, maybe to calm them down? We found out later than they started fighting because the guide spilled packets of sugar on the counter. After Mt Tabor, we went to Megiddo, a place you might know as Armageddon. It was the usual pile of unearthed rocks. We got to walk through a cistern, which is always fun. We ended the trip with Bet Shearim, a place with tombs of the ancient rabbis who compiled the Mishna. We saw the tomb of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and walked inside one of the large caves.

For the last three days, both classes were together on the field trips. Tuesday, we went to Hazor, where we saw a live dig and had a lecture from one of the archaeologists, a BYU alumnus. We went from there to Tel Dan. Dan is in a Nature Preserve and was called the city of seven springs because of all the water there. It’s a beautiful area and very green; it reminded me of Colorado. We saw a mud-brick gate that they are pretty certain that Abraham walked through and the altar that Jeroboam built and Ahab expanded. Next was Caesarea Philippi, where Christ asked the apostles who they thought he was. It has a huge cliff face, which has temples for Pan, the shepherd god, cut into the wall. Christ used this backdrop to make the point that it is the rock of the gospel that you need to found your life on. Then we went to my first real castle! Nimrod’s Castle is a Mamluk castle, patterned after crusader styles, and is currently in ruins. It’s in good enough condition that you could climb into the towers, walk the ramparts, and walk through the secret passage. It’s probably my favorite site so far. We ended the day at an old Israeli bunker on Mt. Bental overlooking the Syrian border.

Wednesday started with Chorizin, an old Jewish city that showed how Hellenized the Jews became. In the synagogue, there were Greek themes in the artwork, like medusa carvings. Then we went to Sepphoris. It had lots of really well-preserved mosaics and a crusader fortress. Our last stop was Acre, a crusader city on the Mediterranean. The fortress was filled in with sand, so all the original architecture is still there. It was really cool. I really appreciate the sites where you stand in the room and are in awe of the architecture as opposed to looking at a half-foot high rock wall that was magnificent 2000 years ago.

Our last day in Galilee was on Thursday. We went to Mt Carmel, where Elijah faced off the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18. Then we drove to Haifa and visited the Bahai Gardens. The Bahai faith is centered in Haifa, where their great prophet, the Bab, is buried. The Gardens were beautifully manicured grassy terraces down to the shrine and tomb of the Bab. We went a little ways to a Templer cemetery (not to be confused to the Templar knights) where the first Mormon converts in Israel and some Mormon missionaries are buried. One was a BYU student in the 1890’s and left one year short of getting his degree to go on a mission to Israel. He died of smallpox 3 weeks before his 24^th birthday. We talked about how it’s good to die for the gospel but so much better and harder to live for the gospel. Our last stop was Caesarea on the Mediterranean. This is the place where Paul was imprisoned and brought before Herod Agrippa in Acts 25-26. It’s the place of the famous quote “almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” We saw the palace, theater, hippodrome, and crusader remains, all right on the shore of the Mediterranean. It was beautiful. We stopped at the still standing aqueducts on the beach nearby and got to wade in the Sea. The beach was pristine, much better than any of the beaches we’ve been to so far, including Tel Aviv. We drove home to the JC after Caesarea.

On Friday, I went with a group going souvenir shopping. I’ve got pretty much everything I wanted at this point, but it’s always fun wandering the old city. Saturday was church. We started our Sunday by going to mass at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. We went to the Arabic service for the first half hour and the English one for the last part. The Arabic mass looked very Catholic but the English was totally American evangelical, complete with a woman pastor. She and her husband are co-pastors and assigned to Jerusalem for the next couple years. We then went to the YMCA to play the carillon bells. I did that the first Sunday here, but the group I was with had signed up to go, so I tagged along. Across the street is the King David Hotel, the place where important people stay when in Jerusalem; Obama stayed there earlier this year. We went in to see the lobby, which has a long hallway with the signatures of all the famous people who have stayed there. Among them are Yoko Ono, Eleanor Roosevelt, Metallica, Elizabeth Taylor, Ban Ki Moon, Nelson Mandela, the Bushes, and, of course, Obama.

We got lunch in West Jerusalem and on our way to the old city I saw several wedding dresses in an upstairs window. It’s the first wedding dress store I’ve seen in Jerusalem (I’ve seen them everywhere else we’ve gone- there were 4 in Nazareth that we drove by) and it didn’t take much to talk my companions into going in. I felt like a bride, it was so much fun! The rest of the afternoon was spent doing more souvenir shopping.

That’s my week! I hope you did at least one fun thing this week and aren’t too jealous of my many fun things!

Love you all!

Kelby

P.S. Devin- you asked me about movies and I remembered that I enjoyed seeing Oz the Great and Powerful and the Hunger Games, and I didn't see these but the Bourne Legacy and Skyfall.

Galilee Week 1

Hello Family!

Monday, we got up early and began our Galilee adventures. We drove up the Jordan River Valley to Bet Shean. That’s the city where Saul and Jonathan’s bodies were hung by the Philistines. It was later the Chief of the Decapolis. We walked around the ruins there. We then drove to Nazareth where we saw the Jesus Synagogue and Church of the Annunciation. The synagogue is actually a tiny church commemorating the synagogue where Christ announced that he was the Messiah. Nearby is the Church of the Annunciation, which is the largest Christian church in the Middle East. It is built around the grotto where the angel Gabriel visited Mary and announced her role in the birth of Christ. Part of the complex also includes the grotto (and the Church of Joseph on top of it) where Joseph had his carpenter shop. The church was huge, and was funded by Catholics all over the world. Each country donated a mosaic depicting Mary and the Christ-child to decorate the church. Most were pretty and some were strange, but all were fun to see. We drove to Mt Arbel, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. We hiked to the top and looked out over the area to get a sense of the land. We then drove to our resort on the Sea and settled in.

Our class had Tuesday off. While we’re here, our classes switch days that we go on field trips, because we only have one bus with us over the next 2 weeks. We had New Testament for 2 hours then I took a nap, read a book, did some homework, edited some pictures, and just lounged around. We ended the day with the Near East class.

Wednesday, we started the day on a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee. We went from there to the Mt of Beatitudes. We had a lot of free time to read the Sermon on the Mount and look around the gardens and church there. Next was the Church of St Peter’s Primacy. It commemorates the scripture John 21:1-17, where Christ asks John 3 times if he loves Christ. We talked about Elder Holland’s talk, the First Great Commandment. It’s a great talk, I recommend reading it again. We walked to the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fishes. It’s a mouthful for a tiny church. It had a very nice courtyard and fish pond. Our last stop was at Capernaum, Christ’s headquarters during his ministry. It’s believed that Peter’s house became a church and that the current church is over the excavated remains. The church looks like a flying saucer because it’s suspended over the remains. When we got back, I swam in the Sea. It’s filthy water! I was covered in a layer of dirt and twigs under my swimsuit. It was really gross. But still fun.

We had class in the morning on Thursday. That afternoon, we went canoeing on the Jordan River. There were a lot of rope swings and trees over the water to jump off of, lots of splashing and racing, and lots of fun. Half of us had to rush back so we could go to dinner in Tiberias (the other half went to dinner the night before). We went to the Fish Restaurant. I opted out of the fish and had pizza. I did have a bite of my neighbor’s fish for the experience. Then we walked on the boardwalk in Tiberias to see the nightlife. I got ice cream from the classy Tiberias McDonalds.

On Friday, we went to the Golan Heights. We hiked to Gamla, the city thought to be Christ’s city on a hill. It also had a fortress that held out against the Romans in the Jewish Revolt. There was a lot of cloud cover, which was a mercy because it was a steep hike. We then went to Kursi, one site they think to be where Christ cast the devils into swine. We went back for lunch and then 60 of us crammed onto the one bus to go on an optional hike to a waterfall. It was a fun hike, more like a nice walk, to a waterfall and pool. We spent about an hour swimming and hanging out there before hiking back out.

Saturday is still the Sabbath, so we got to join the Tiberias branch for their sacrament meeting. They meet in a converted house near the Sea of Galilee. The members there come from a lot of different backgrounds and nationalities. Members speak English, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, and/or Russian. We significantly added to their numbers. Marissa opened the meeting with a prayer in Hebrew and someone else gave the closing prayer in Spanish. After sacrament, we left to go to the Galilee baptismal site. It’s the same baptismal place pictured in the back of you Bible. The rest of the afternoon was ours and I spent a long time editing pictures. (By the way, I finally put up the rest of the Jordan trip pictures)

We had our last free day on Sunday. Every day for the rest of our time in Galilee will be spent on field trips. After class and lunch, Ashleigh, Ryan and I (all of the Hebrew students in my field trip class) were invited to get a tour of a near-by kibbutz, Sha’ar Golan. Our ‘tour guide’ is an Israeli-Mormon BYU student we know from Provo whose family lives and works on the kibbutz. He showed us the dairy farm, plastic factory, and walked us around the living areas. It was really cool to see them after learning a lot about kibbutzes in class. It felt like a small town. Everyone knows everyone, it’s really quiet, there are houses and trees all over. Tal told us stories about his family and what it was like growing up there. After the tour, we went swimming in the swimming pool. It was really cool. After dinner that night, we had a big JC bonfire and made smores.

That’s my week! Only a few more days in Galilee and then back to Jerusalem!

Love you all!

Kelby

Post-Jordan & Bethlehem

Hello Family!

I'll begin with where I left off last week, after the trip to Jordan. Friday the 5^th and Saturday were spent recuperating after the Jordan trip. On Sunday, a group of us went to the Knesset, which is the name of Israel’s Legislature. They are like our Senate and President in one body, or like England’s Parliament. We got a tour of the building and then hung out in the nearby Wohl Rose Garden. Later that night, after dinner, I went out to West Jerusalem for Kaitlyn’s birthday. We ate ice cream and listened to Evangelical Asians sing hallelujah before going back to the JC.

On Monday we went to Bethlehem! We saw the Church of the Nativity, St Jerome’s grotto, and several Shepherd’s Field sites. Under the Church of the Nativity is the cave where Christ was born. Next door (literally) was the Church of St Katherine, under which is found the grotto of St Jerome, where Jerome wrote the Latin Vulgate. We spent some time looking around the shops in Manger Square. We all bought Bethlehem baby blankets from one of the LDS members who lives in Bethlehem. We ate lunch in a tent. We went to the field where the shepherds heard the angels announce Christ’s birth. And then another field. And another. My favorite part of all these “fields” is that it’s so typical of the Middle East: if you like it, put a church on it. We ended the day at the “Mormon” field, which is a big open area just outside Bethlehem. We sang a few songs, shared testimonies, and had personal time.

On Tuesday, we had classes and that afternoon took a field trip to see the Separation Wall. Danny Sederman, an Israeli land attorney who deals with a lot of Palestinian land issues, talked to us about the plight of the Palestinians who are constantly losing land to the Israeli government. We also went to a section of the Separation Wall built a few years back to separate the West Bank from Israel. He was a well-spoken and well-informed man. I really appreciated what he had to say. He talked a lot about the main issues I’ve always had with the Israeli government, which is that they keep breaking their agreements and building in the West Bank, making a lot of people really angry.

After class on Wednesday, I went out to see some of the churches in Jerusalem I hadn’t been to. We went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer first. They are right next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because there’s no way any of the churches there would let the heretical Protestants have an inch of the Holy Sepulcher. But their church was really nice. We climbed the tower and got a really cool of Jerusalem. Then we went down to the basement, where the Lutherans did some extensive excavations. They found the Herodian city wall, which proves that the traditional spot for the sepulcher was just outside the city wall. Then we went to the Church of St James, but we weren’t allowed inside the church so we walked around the courtyard for a few minutes. We then went to the Church of St Mark, where Mark’s mother lived and the Last Supper was held. We ended with the Holy Sepulcher, because some of our group hadn’t gone inside the Sepulcher yet (there’s always a huge line to get in). I finally got pictures! My camera dies every time I’ve gone to the Sepulcher and I’ve had to rely on others for pictures. The best part is, it died when I went this time, too. But I was prepared with extra batteries, so it didn’t defeat me!

Thursday was spent going to class, donating blood, napping and doing homework. Friday, Marissa, Kaitlyn and I joined some Franciscan monks as they followed Christ’s journey as he carried the cross from Pilate to Golgotha, now from the Church of Flagellation to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They call it the Via Delarosa Walk. The monks stopped at 14 different stations and read the scriptures that described what happened at each spot. They spoke in Italian, English, and Spanish into a microphone, so that everyone could have a chance to hear and understand.

Saturday and Sunday were Galilee prep days. Saturday, we had church as usual. On Sunday, I woke early to Skype Matt, did laundry, procrastinated and then wrote two papers due that night. It was a little hectic around the JC as the due date approached and everyone seemed congregated in the library around midnight. But we all finished in time.

Today we go to Galilee! We’re spending 11 days up there, just seeing sights and hanging out on the beach. Don’t be too jealous!

Love, Kelby

Jordan Trip

Hello family!
I'm sorry this letter is so late! It's been a busy week, despite having only 2 classes.

The Jordan trip was great! I wasn’t sure what to expect from the week, but all the sites were interesting to see and fun to learn about. Monday morning, we crossed the border into Jordan and proceeded to Mt Nebo, where Moses saw the Promised Land and “died” (translated, according to us). Of course, it has a great view of the Jordan River, Dead Sea and Judean Wilderness. There was also a monastery that was under renovations. From there we drove to Machaerus, the place where John the Baptist was imprisoned and where Salome danced for Herod then requested John the Baptist’s head. We hiked up the hill to the ruins from the palace there. The hill was cool because there are caves all over the place, which makes this a very likely place for John to be kept. We then drove to Madaba where there is a church with a floor mosaic of the Holy Land from the 6^th Century. We had lunch before driving to our hotel in Wadi Musa, the town where you find Petra. En route to Wadi Musa the other class’s bus broke down (stuck with no A/C in the middle of the desert). We waited for a while until the tour company had a bus coming, and we went on. We got a call an hour later from the other bus saying that their replacement bus broke down, too! It was a crazy day for them. They didn’t get to the hotel until 11:30pm, 3 ½ hours after us.

Tuesday we went to Petra. The entrance was a 5-miute walk from our hotel. We walked there, down into the canyon, a little over a mile to the famous Treasury, as seen in Indiana Jones. It’s huge! Then we were set loose to explore Petra for the rest of the day. I hiked up to the High Place of Sacrifice, walked by tombs and the theater, and hiked up to the Monastery before lunch. The High Place had a great view and walking up in the morning was really nice, because we were in the shade the whole way up. There are tombs everywhere! The walls of the canyon are covered in holes. The hike to the Monastery was really hard and long. It wasn’t so bad on its own, but it was a lot of stairs and trudging through soft sand. I was never sure which was worse: the sand or the stairs. It was totally worth it, though! The Monastery is much bigger than the Treasury and you’re allowed to go inside still (the Treasury was made a Wonder of the Ancient World in 2007 and since then people aren’t allowed to go in). There’s not much inside, just a big hole, but it was still neat. We hiked a little bit further to the Top of the World! I know it was the Top because there was a sign. It was also the Best View, also known because of a sign. But that one is under debate. There were 2 signs claiming to have the Best View on their hike, just a few yards from each other. We went down to lunch and then had 2 hours to get back to Wadi Musa. So we slowly made our way back past the tombs and Treasury, up the canyon to town.

As we were driving to Amman, we had bus incident #3. Our bus broke down this time, but our bus driver just needed a half hour to replace something before we were on our way. A short while later, we had bus incident #4. The other class’s 3^rd bus broke down. They had just enough power to get to our rest stop. We all waited at this gas station for the new bus and, while we were waiting, the tour company did damage control and gave us free snacks, drinks, ice cream, and postcards to keep us happy. And we were happy. We actually had a pretty good time just hanging out. (And while the class was broken down the day before, they walked to some ruins, had a bonfire, and made the best of their situation.) It was mostly just funny and everyone was in good spirits, especially after the free stuff.

On Wednesday we saw the Amman citadel, the one David’s army was sieging while David was committing adultery. There we saw the Temple of Hercules, a mosque, and the former Jordan National Museum. We went and saw the Jabbok River, where Jacob wrestled with the angel. It was one of the grossest looking rivers ever. We went to lunch before going to Jerash. It’s a pretty big set of ruins, well-reconstructed because the modern city of Jerash uses the theater and plaza for events. They were set up for their annual week-long Jordan Festival when we were there. We went from there to the Royal Automobile Museum, where the Royal Family of Jordan keeps their collection of cars and motorcycles (they had a whole room full of motorcycles). They love their cars! When we got back to Amman, we had free time to explore. I went with a group to see Rainbow Street. We got ice cream, listened to street guitarists and chatted with some of the locals. I learned some great Jordanian pick-up lines from them. The girl was telling us how lucky we are to not speak Arabic because men from Jordan think they’re really suave.

On the 4^th of July, we spent our morning in Philadelphia! Philadelphia, Jordan. Philly is the Roman name for Amman when it was part of the Decapolis. We started our day by singing patriotic songs on the bus and sang a few more to test out acoustics at the Roman theater. We stopped at the Souvenir Store to wait for our KFC lunch and got our last minute souvenirs and spend the last of our dinars. We ended our trip by going to one of the baptismal sites of Christ on the Jordan River. I can see why John would have hidden out there. No one would want to expend the energy in that hot, muggy jungle trying to find him amongst all that trees and brush. We had a really nice devotional at the baptismal site where there is an actual branch of the Jordan River. It’s also one of two spots in Israel where people are allowed to be baptized (the other is on the Jordan River in Galilee).

We crossed back into Israel in record time (at least, we went through in about 2 hours, much faster than the expected 3 or 4). The kitchen staff greeted us with a good old American-Middle Eastern barbeque. Along with the usual pita were hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, cole slaw, jello salad, and apple pie (actually, more like apple cake-streudel, but they tried). We had a great celebration of America, complete with guest appearances of American greats, like Abe Lincoln, Paul Ravere (not to be confused with Paul Revere), the Kennedys, Harriet Tubman, Monica Lewinsky… It was pretty funny and loud. We heard the Gettysburg Address by Abe, I have a dream by MLK Jr., and a new song by our classmates on the unfortunate bus about our Jordan trip. After the party, I called home and got to talk to Devin briefly. So it was a pretty good week!

This letter is already too long, so I’ll finish it and let you know what happened the rest of the week in the next letter. We have two papers and a midterm this week, but next week we’ll be in Galilee!

Have a good week!
Love, Kelby

Finals Week

Hello Family!

This week was filled with finals. I studied, took a test, studied some more, in a recurring cycle until all 6 tests were done. Monday, we took our Ancient Near East midterm (this is our only class that spans the whole summer), Tuesday was Israeli Culture, Wednesday was Hebrew Conversation, Thursday was Palestinian Culture, and Friday was Old Testament and the field trip class. The best final was definitely the conversation class. We took a field trip to the Biblical Zoo and our final was to give a 10 minute presentation on one of the animals. We had to talk about facts about the animal, where the animal is found in the Bible, and whatever else we wanted to talk about. My animal was the monkey, which is found in 1 Kings 10:22 and 2 Chronicles 9:21 (the exact same scripture). Apparently having apes is a sign of wealth in ancient times. Since monkeys are barely mentioned in the Bible, I talked about the use of monkeys in other cultures’ literature and folklore. We all actually went over our times, which surprised our teacher. So at the zoo, all the animals are mentioned somewhere in the Bible, although I think they are liberal in their interpretation. For example, I’m not sure where penguins are found in the Bible, but they were at the zoo. Maybe they assume that they were on the ark, even if not explicitly mentioned in the text.

Since the Conversation final was done by noon, and the next day’s final was a going to be a joke, a few of us went to the city and wandered. We had to get some money out for next week’s trip to Jordan and after that we just walked around. We ended up walking on some rooftops and got some good pictures of the Church of the Redeemer in the background. We also eventually made our way to the Pools of Bethesda. It costs money to get in and since most of our group had already been, they just waited by the gardens there while Marissa and I went to see the Pools. What’s left is basically a bunch of arches and cisterns and deep holes in the ground. But it was really nice and quiet. We went into the Church of St. Anne, the mother of Mary. It’s one of the spots where she was supposedly born. It was really nice having just Marissa and I looking around. Three’s a crowd sometimes, but that’s the rule. It really would be nice if we could just go out in pairs: it’s easier to coordinate activities, easier to find just one person who wants to do something, you only have to judge one other person’s boredom and readiness to leave, you don’t have to figure out pictures for multiple people, etc. Plus I like touring with Marissa. We try to be considerate of each other’s wants and can judge whether or not the other is ready to go easily, we both like taking pictures and can take pictures for each other, and we have similar interests in what we want to see and do. But rules are rules, I guess, and we try to follow them.

We finished our last final on Friday afternoon, went to a service project, and then a group of us rushed out to get waffles for Lauren’s birthday. Israel has this thing where they close early on Friday because the Sabbath starts at sunset, so we tried to get to the waffle bar before they closed. Unfortunately, we got there as they were closing up, so Lauren was really disappointed. But we ended up getting pizza and then wandering around the old city instead.

Sunday, I went with a group to Tel Aviv. So I spent the day lying on the beach reading a book, playing in the waves, and enjoying being lazy. It was great. I did get burned, despite trying not to. The Mediterranean was so warm and the waves were really nice. The beach has a bunch of wooden cabanas spread out on the beach so we claimed one and sat under it most of the day. We ended the day with dinner and watching the sunset. It was a nice vacation from my vacation.

Okay, family! Love you all!

Kelby