Day One And Two

Because while we left here on Thursday afternoon, we arrived in Israel on Friday afternoon after about 16 hours of flying and layovers and a nine hour time change--

Why do we take selfies!!

Jena in Paris!!! Well, the airport anyway as we had a one hour layover between planes--which required us going out and through security as we moved from one area of the airport to another to catch our flight.  That meant our water bottles had to be dumped as well. :(  

Our first views of Israel through the airplane window....

View out our hotel window--that pool we never used because we were never back from touring during their opening hours.

The Exit sign.....

To set the stage--we arrived on Friday afternoon so that we would be able to attend Church on the Sabbath (which is Saturday in Israel) two times.  Our group included my brother, Rick, his wife-Linda; her sister Shar and Shar's husband Jim; my sister Valerie and two of her daughters, Landi and Megan; plus Sister Marianne Jones and Sister Vera Winn from our zone.  Our tour guide was Elder Danial Rona who is also a missionary in our zone.  He runs a tour company called Israel Revealed and has been doing tours for 40 years.  As it turned out, there were a total of about 45 people on the tour with us.

Basically, the Saturdays were both free days and between we had 6 days of touring.  Gary has told people:  "You have breakfast at 6:30 am, on the bus at 7:14, dinner is at 6:30 pm and in between it is like Devotional all day long."

People have asked us since our return, "Was it life changing?"  The short answer is no.  My testimony of Jesus Christ has been set by years of experiences and witnesses from the Holy Ghost, from sacred moments of partaking the Sacrament, from feeling the relief of forgiveness, and by the making and keeping of covenants.  Walking where Jesus walked didn't make me feel closer to Him or to my Heavenly Father.  What I would say is that it was "life enhancing!" At the end of the tour, Elder Rona invited us to make comments about our experiences and I commented that I believed that I wouldn't know the impact of the tour for days, weeks, or maybe even years.  

It has now been almost a month since we returned and I am seeing how true that is.  As I study the Old Testament for Come Follow Me, I have a richer context to see the stories and events in.  In one recent Sunday School lesson, the teacher talked about some of the prophecies for the Second Coming and posted a picture of the Dead Sea and talked about the prophecy that water would come from below the Temple Mount and flow to the Dead Sea and make it living again.  I was at that place, talking about that prophecy and seeing the canyons that lay between Jerusalem and that place....how blessed I am to have that experience to travel with me the rest of my life.

So, I took 1284 photos according to my computer plus the ones that Gary took.  Fortunately for you, I will not put all of them in this blog....but feel free to skip the next 7-8 posts if you aren't interested in our trip to Israel.  However, if you ever thought you might want to go, I would suggest that you do it!  Like all travel, it will amaze you and you might even learn a couple of ...hundred things that you didn't know before!