When John and Jan left on their second mission to Israel, Jan continued to encourage us to come and visit them. We talked about it & were pretty set to go until we checked on flights. We couldn't seem to find any good deals so decided we'd already been there & would skip it. Then I remembered Russ had some unused "points" from his credit card from the office. When we checked into using them for our flight, we were surprised that not only did we have enough, but enough points leftover to go somewhere else!! We knew it would be a perfect time to go to Israel, with it being winter (fewer tourist) and with no college students there. We are SO happy we ended up going!!
We spent New Year's Eve in Seattle, since we had a 5:00 am flight New Year's Day.
We flew to Oakland and then on to LAX. I REALLY don't like LAX, but sometimes you just have to fly from there. Anyway, after we walked to the terminal that El Al (Israeli Airline) flew out of and found where we were suppose to be, we went to check in. I think that's the only airline we've flown before where you have to go through a major security check before you can even go to ticketing. When we finally went to get our boarding passes they informed us that our flight had been delayed 12 hours!! As the time progressed, so did the delay time! To make a LONG story short our plane got delayed a whole 24 hours....we missed a whole day of our trip!! The Lord keeps trying to teach me patience & for some reason I am NOT learning it. The good news was they did put us up in the Sheraton Hotel and gave us vouchers for 3 meals. El Al only has 3 flights out of LAX a week.
We heard someone on the plane coming from Israel had a heart attack and they had to make an emergency landing in Canada??
We finally arrived on Jan. 3rd after a 14 hour nonstop flight at 1:30 pm. John and Jan picked us up and we hit the ground running.
In 2011 Russ & I went to Israel on another trip & I got this picture of the BYU Jerusalem Center.
We spent several hours walking up and down the narrow alleyways shopping in the Old City.
Tuesday morning we went to the Pita Bread Factory & had hot pita bread!
Israeli Museum
The jewelry of Jewish brides in Djerba.
The Shuk-or marketplace
I love going to these kind of markets as there's SO many unique food items, colors, smells and people!! The best part is sampling the food!
These long sidelocks on Orthodox Jews are called Payots. They wear them based on an interpretation of the Biblical injunction against shaving the "corners" of one's head.
We had some great fish and chips & then ice cream!
On Friday evening we went to the Western Wall to watch the Sabbath brought in.
It seemed more like a party with lots of music and dancing...very interesting.
Good description of the Western Wall
The top 3 pictures were taken in 2011 when we were there. The weather was much warmer then & so there were a lot more worshippers at the wall than this trip.
I was reading in Matthew the other day and Matthew 23:1-8 really came alive to me after going to the Wall and looking at the picture above. The black square on this man's head is called a phylactery.
Russ at the Wall
Saturday after our church meetings we went to the Garden Tomb and the Garden of Gethsemane.
I was so worried there'd be a ton of people there and felt very blessed when we arrived and there was only a handful of people. I loved how they were both so quiet and peaceful & prone to meditation.
It really doesn't matter if this literally was the tomb the Savior arose from, the
most important thing is, is He is Risen!!
2011
2018
I was positive there wasn't a fence around the garden when we were there in 2011, but after looking through my older pictures it looks like there was.
This is the 3rd Basilica built next to the garden to recall how Jesus agonized over us to the point
of sweating blood. The first Basilica was built in A.D. 380, the second in the 12th Century & this one was built in 1919.
The beautiful view of Jerusalem from the auditorium of the BYU Jerusalem Center!
It seemed more like a party with lots of music and dancing...very interesting.
I was reading in Matthew the other day and Matthew 23:1-8 really came alive to me after going to the Wall and looking at the picture above. The black square on this man's head is called a phylactery.
I was so worried there'd be a ton of people there and felt very blessed when we arrived and there was only a handful of people. I loved how they were both so quiet and peaceful & prone to meditation.
most important thing is, is He is Risen!!
I was positive there wasn't a fence around the garden when we were there in 2011, but after looking through my older pictures it looks like there was.
of sweating blood. The first Basilica was built in A.D. 380, the second in the 12th Century & this one was built in 1919.
This Basilica is also known as "The Church of All Nations" because of the contributions offered
by different nations for the mosaics that hang inside.
Saturday evening Jan gave us a mini organ concert....wow, it was awesome!! What a special talent Jan has to play like that & the best part is, that she shares it with so many people!!
Darla Jones is our Bishops sister. She just happen to be there with her friend & Jan was nice enough to let her attend our concert.
Part 2 next Week
Awesome pics! Nice to see some of the amazing places you went. I'm sure Jan and John were so thrilled to have you there!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you got to go. I thought for sure we would visit them this time but alas our plans changed. I love your pictures. I am not sure how you did so much without sleep.
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