Gift for the president & wife

Being in a mission that borders on the ocean has it's advantages:  poluted air get blown away, beautiful huge cloud days, warmer climate in winter, winter blooming roses and it is always green because of moisture from the ocean.

The Warriors

 

Our Wilmington Area Warriors November 7, 2012

Two Salt Missionaries at a Salt Water Bay

 

P Day at Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium on the Outer Banks

 

 

 

Somedays I just feel crabby

 

Some of the YSAs

The Motly Crew on Games & Eats Night

Guess who's a Navy corpsman, who just got home from a mission, who are the 7 marines, who just got home from deployment, who came for the first time, who is going to UVU soon, who is on patrol on the border in Arizona now, who is a weatherman, who is from Wyoming.

Temple Trip

September Temple Trip

Inland Waterway from Bridge Overpass

The North Carolina Coast

Johnson Family Reunion at Alpine, WY

More Galilee

To continue our journey thru Galilee we had to drive quite a bit one day.  This spring is where Gideon chose his 300 warriors by how they drank the water  out of the stream.

The Sea of Galilee was very low a couple of years ago and some fishermen found an old boat sticking up out of the mud.  It turned out to be a fishing boat from the time of Jesus, and they restored it and put it in a frame in a museum.

We drove up to the far north of Israel, in between Lebanon and Syria, and looked around the site of Tel Dan.  This is one of the two areas given to the tribe of Dan.   The platform in the picture below is where they put one of the two golden calves.  Jeroboam didn't want the people to desire to go back to Jerusalem to worship so he made two golden calves.  One of them was placed here at this platform in Dan.  This caused idol worship again in Israel and set them up to be conquered and taken away into the northern countries. (1 Kings 12:25-33)

There are beautiful springs and forests here at Tel Dan.  It is at the base of Mount Hermon.  Jesus also took his twelve apostles here for instruction in the beginning of his ministry.  I guess you could call it a religious retreat.  Mt Hermon is also one of the possible sites of the mount of Transfiguration.

On the way back we drove back by way of the Golan Heights on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  This is where the road to Damascus is where Paul was traveling when he was converted.  It is at the base of Mt Hermon and where the border is now with Syria

 In that area also is a large muslim crusader fort up on the hill.  There are still many mine fields in the area from when Syria had possession of the land.  Our tour guide was a former general in the Israeli army and had lots of information about all of the conflicts that had happened between Syria.  We were delayed on our return when the road back was blocked by a truck that had caught fire.

Galilee

Our next stop in the Holy Land trip was for 3 nights up in Galilee.  We stayed in the city of Tiberias, on the SW side.  It is the main city on the lake but also not mentioned as a place that Jesus ever went to.

 We went up to Mt Arabel on the western shore.  Right behind Natalie is the little town of Magdala, where Mary Magdalene is from.  To the west on the next hill is where one of the biggest crusade castle was built; and where the turning point battle it the crusades took place. Up to the top right of the picture is Capernum, where Peter lived and Jesus spent much of his time.

 This synagog is built on the foundation of the one that Jesus preached many of his sermons at in Capernum.  Right next to it is the excavated house of Peter, known from an inscription on a column of the proper period.

 This beach on the Sea of Galilee is where tradition holds that Jesus set out from many times, to call the fishermen as apostles, and is right below where the sermon on the mount was given.

We traveled up to Mount Carmel also.  This is looking out from it eastward to Mount Tabor.  Jesus went up to Carmel several times, and it is also where many Old Testament stories happened, such as Elijah calling down fire from heaven on the sacrifice and then slaying the priests of Baal.

Jordan River - Dead Sea - Masada

The next phase of our trip consisted of everything in the south of Israel.  So, after flying up from Cairo to Amman, we drove to the border crossing on the Jordan River just north of the Dead Sea and by the town of Jerico.  They really aren't sure  where Jesus was baptized on the river, but there are several places set up to visit where it might have happened.  The event that they do know that happened just up the bank from here is when Elijah rose up into heaven in a chariot of fire.

 As you can see, it is not that big or clean a river at this point.  They use much of the water for date farms and other warm crops up and down the Jordan River Valley.

 While in the area, we stopped by the side of the road to see the caves at Qummran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  The original one is the small triangular cave in between Natalie and my head.

 Floating in the Dead Sea was fun; super buoyant and super bad tasting if you got it into your mouth.  You could stand strait up in the water while not touching the bottom and still have your shoulders out of the water

The last place we visited down by the Dead Sea was Masada.  It is where the Jewish rebels held out for 2 full years under a Roman siege in 70 AD.  King Herod had also built a palace up there.  The tall bluff has a tram going up to it now. You could climb on a narrow cliff trail called the 'snake trail' but we just took the tram.

Egypt

We have had a great trip over to the Holy Land and I am going to post a few pictures in separate posts to give a feel of our trip.  We first went over to Cairo, and there saw the pyramids at Giza along with the Cairo museum.

From there we flew down to Aswan in the south of Egypt and spent three days on a boat sailing down the   Nile, stopping a couple times a day at temples along the way.

We saw a huge amount of hieroglyphs, temples, and learned a lot of Old Testament history in depth.

We saw the hieroglyph of the pharaoh Shishak.  It names all of the cities in Canaan that he defeated while invading Israel in 1 Kings 14.  We also talked about Joseph and Moses and the tribes of Israel.

After another day in Cairo we flew up to Jordan and Israel.  This last picture is of the holy of holies in a temple with a cool light beam coming down thru the ceiling.

Tempe Spring Break/ Mom's Quilt

Mike and Molly, Quinn, Max and Mae were so kind to let us stay in their house for 3 nights on our spring break!!! They are wonderful and live in a great location.


We amazed Grandma's quilt. It is the first you see in the art show. We overheard great reviews as people viewed it.


The boys did baptisms for the dead at 9 temples. So many fun and neat memories. These boys were so fun to be with.


In Provo we walked in with new missionaries at the MTC from Japan. Sister Maika Nanjo is from the Koiwa Ward!!! (one of two wards I served in on my mission)


There were jovial temples, very reverent temples, very pretty, very small and very large temples. So many different oxen (gold, silver, white, grey stone, painted, plated, carved....) So many different temple workers and over 270 baptisms in 4 days.

Girl's night out at the museum and at City Creek. (Karie, Sadie, Mae)


From 80 degree spring break to......

..... 4 inches of snow in Idaho.

Adam-Ondi-Ahman Overlook

Adam-Ondi-Ahman

Grandpa at City Creek

Salt Lake Temple

Beautiful Bear Lake