BYU Jerusalem: Galilee Trip: Nov 26

Today we drove up to Mount Tabor. We had to get out of our large bus and get taken the rest of the way up in vans. The drivers of the vans were nuts! There were tons of sharp switchbacks and they were flying around them. I enjoyed the ride, I could see my Dad doing that job, he would love it. We got to the Church of the Transfiguration; it is a Roman Catholic Church of the Franciscan order that is built on the foundation of Byzantine then Crusader churches. We had a devotional on Judges 4 talking about Deborah and Barak. Then Brother Jackson came up to Professor Schade and said that the Polish Father, Father Anton, wants to speak to him because Professor Schade speaks Polish (he served his mission in Poland). So moments later he came over and said that the Father wants us to sing because every time the Mormon students come they sing and he loves it. We sang the 'Spirit of God' and he loved it. He then said he wanted to take us on a tour of places that normally we could not go. So we followed him into the Church then past a sign that said, "Sacristy, no entry". We passed through and down some stairs out into a courtyard then into a small gate he unlocked that lead underneath the church in a rock tunnel. We then came out into a large room that was underneath the Chapel. He spoke of some Crusader and Byzantine tombs and then let us read the prayers that people have written and put down a hole in the floor that lead down there. It was really special to find the prayers written in English and to see people's faith and prayers; I didn't feel that bad doing it either which I thought I would. Maybe it was because he gave us permission. He took us out into another courtyard and showed us the Crusader fortress which was sweet. It was just before we saw this that my camera ran out of batteries, so I only have pictures of this day up to this point. He then showed us a little museum with old hand grenades made out of clay and it had a stuffed wolf in their too. He wanted to keep taking us around but we had to leave. So we said goodbye to our friend and we took the crazy ride down the windy roads in high speeds with our straight-faced Arabic van drivers. We then got it confirmed that we could go to the Church Nain even though it is being renovated. We drove across the Jezreel Valley over to Nain. We had a devotional about the miracle of Nain when we were up on Mount Tabor so we just got out of the Bus and looked at the small Church as it was being renovated. Then off to Megiddo. Megiddo was sweet. We watched a really corny video in the visitor's center then we met up on top of the Tel to have a devotional. We took pictures and then passed through the water system tunnels and out to the buss. Our last destination was sweet! It was a natural swimming hole called Ha-Shelosha. It was so great to swim in blue fresh water that was deeper than my chest; it was like 10ft deep. I was in heaven. We sat in a shallow part and let the little fishes nibble at our feet; it tickled so much I would scream in laughter. When we got back to Ein Gev we had FHE where my group sang hymns down by the water. It was a great day!