Christmas is coming...Happy Hanukkah!

Christmas is fast approaching, which means that my stay in Jerusalem will be quickly coming to an end. We had our Christmas choir concert last night which went really well, but I have always looked at the concert as a far off thing that marks the beginning of the end of this wonderful experience. I am really excited to come home and experience all of the Christmas tastes, sights, sounds, and smells-Israel is slightly lacking in that category as the vast majority of people here are Muslim and Jewish. Hanukkah is going on right now and it is fun to observe what goes on for that, and luckily the center has Christmas decorations set up on the top floor which is wonderful. I was really excited when we passed by this store in the Old City with a blown up Santa!

Last Friday we went to the open air market in West Jerusalem which is pretty much a ginormous farmer's market with other stores as well. We got fresh made challah bread which they have every Shabbat (Saturday) and it looked and tasted AMAZING! I think we are going to go back next Friday to get the bread again...

Today we toured around Jerusalem and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, tought to host the tomb of Jesus, and went on a tour of the church/hostel where Orson Hyde, a Mormon missionary, stayed. For a long time it was unknown where he lived while he was here, but they found an old door with his name carved on it, apparently it served as the hostel's guest registry. It was pretty neat to see.

A week by the Sea of Galilee

I got the fabulous opportunity to spend over a week in Galilee at a kibbutz (an Israeli collective community) that was right by the Sea of Galilee. Our rooms were right by the shore and we often read and played out on the beach. I had a fabulous time but they kept us busy-some days I had three hours of New Testament class! We got to go on a hike through the Golan Heights which was a lot of fun with a natural waterfall along the way that we went swimming in-it was freezing though! One of my favorite activities was crossing the Sea on a wooden boat, somewhat similar to one from Jesus' day, where we talked about different events from the bible that had taken place there, such as Peter walking a water, Christ calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John (fishermen) to be apostles, and many other things. It was so neat to be in the same place where these events took place!

We got to attend church in the newly renovated church building in Tiberias which was really neat. We had a fast and testimony meeting there and it was really neat to be in "Christ's Branch" as the branch president pointed out. The building is a renovated villa with a beautiful view of the sea.

At one of our rest stops along the way, we stopped at a place where they had a camel sitting by itself that looked really cute. Most of the time when we see camels they have their saddle things on and are with their owners who want to charge you to take a picture with it, so it was neat to see this one without anything on it and just sitting there. I went up and pet it and wanted to get a good picture with it just for fun. I got pretty close to it but was worried that it was going to spit or something, little did I know I should have been worried about something else. This picture was taken approximately half a second before this cute little animal reached out and bit my thigh! I was so suprised I jumped quickly away screaming! It's all fun and games until someone gets bitten by a camel, but luckily he doesn't have sharp teeth and I was fine...at least it is a fun story to tell and now you guys know not to get too close to camels!

We saw a lot of villages and towns that Jesus visited and where specific New Testament events took place, such as the miraculous feeding of the congregations of 5,000 and 4,000 people, the Sermon on the Mount, and many miracles. We also visited Capernum where Peter lived and much of Christ's time was spent. This is Caesarea Philippi where Peter bears his testimony and the sealing keys of the kingdom are promised-I know that you can't see very much of it, but I thought the picture was cute...

This picture is with a nun at the Mount of Beattitudes Church. She has a sister at a convent in New Jersey and was excited to give me a message for her sister. We got to ring the bells at the church which was neat and it was a beautiful area.

We went to a Fish Restaurant where we ordered whole fish! They called it St. Peter's fish (tilapia is a less touristy name...) and because the restaurant was practically sitting on the sea we assumed it was fresh fish from the Sea of Galilee. However, later on a worker at the Kibbutz dashed my hopes and told me that they import the fish from China because it is cheaper! Interesting how shipping stuff from China is going to be cheaper than pulling it out right by your restaurant, but whatever. It was actually pretty good and I even tried the eyeball-yummy!