The Galilee Novel Continues...

WARNING: These Galilee posts will be long, have an excessive amount of pictures, and will probably be kinda boring. Sorry!

Our first full day in Galilee was a field trip day and it was one of the best so far.

We had so many amazing sites jam-packed into one day.

Every place we went seemed to have so much biblical significance,

and I constantly had to remind myself where I actually was!

We started the morning by taking a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee.

It was a beautiful, peaceful morning and after singing "Master the Tempest is Raging", we had an amazing lesson on Christ calming the storm and Peter walking on the water.

Once we arrived on land we stopped and saw the Ginosaur Boat.

This 2000 year old boat was recently found on the shores of Galilee, and is

a good example of the type of boat Christ and his disciples would have used.

Next we we visited the Mount of Beatitudes, which was one of the things

I was most excited to see in Galilee.

The church and grounds were beautiful, Brother Emmett taught us about the Sermon on the Mount, and they gave us some personal time at the end to walk around, reflect, and study our scriptures. Perfect.

We hiked down the mountain (that's what they called it at least....being a Utahn tends to make one a mountain snob though and I would personally have called in a hill haha)

and went to St. Peter's Primacy which is a 4th century church commemorating where Christ appeared to his apostles after his resurrection.

After a lesson on "Feed My Sheep" from Brother Whipple we ran to the water to cool down for a minute.

In case you were wondering, Galilee is really really hot and really really humid.

This is an unfortunate recipe for sweating a lot.

We constantly felt like we were melting and pretty soon we figured out that wearing any make up was completely pointless.

So as you can imagine, wading in the water during the heat of the day felt amazing :)

Once we were sufficiently cooled off (which sadly did not last for very long), we went to the Tabgha Churches, which are supposedly where Christ prepared the loaves and fishes for the multitude.

The pool in the courtyard of the church is quite fitting for the event that occurred there haha

From Tabgha, we went to Capernum, which was where Christ spent a large portion of his ministry and performed so many of his miracles. Out of all the places I have been to this summer so far, the small town of Capernum is the place where I was most likely walking in the exact footsteps of the Savior. In Capernum you can see the actual house of Peter (which became the first Christian church) and sit in the same exact synagogue the Savior taught in. During our free time a group of us looked up all the specific places in Capernum the New Testament talks about and really were amazed. If you ever have a second you should try it.... so much happened there!

Peter's House

Synagogue in Capernum where Jesus gave him 'Bread of Life' Sermon

Next came Beth Saida, which is a tel where several apostles were from.

Funny thing, it looks exactly like every other tel we have seen!

Haha once we got off the bus and walked up to the site, Brother Whipple

leaned over to me and said

"Oh Hell, another Tel!"

I just about peed my pants from laughing so hard.

Unlike Brother Whipple, Brother Hamblin loves tels and loves telling us all about them

Our last stop of the field trip was the Greek Orthodox Church. This church had some gorgeous paintings inside, was pink outside, and had peacocks wandering around. Awesome.

As you can tell from the last picture we were all a little worn out after such a long day. Once we arrived back at the kibbutz though, we got a second wind and somehow managed to spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach and that night had our first of many bonfires. It's a tough life...i know :)