Nazareth and Lauren’s birthday

Brian was in the States on Shabbat (Saturday), so we planned ahead to hold our home-centered church on Sunday instead. He walked in the door late morning and we were out the door early afternoon for a day in Nazareth. We have LOVED learning about the New Testament this year and have tried our very best to find places that correlate to the lesson being taught. Luke 2 and Matthew 2 landed us in Nazareth on a chilly day.

Winter has lasted about a month and our now thin-skinned bodies don’t wear this weather very well. Happy to report that we are back to 80 degree days! We began our day by climbing Mt. Precipice. As recorded in Luke 4, this is where Christ escaped from his fellow Jewish worshippers when they attempted to throw him off. He was able to miraculously escape.

While the west side of the hill faces the old city of Nazareth, the east side has incredible views of the Jezreel Valley, Afula and Mt. Tabor (and on a clear day, the Sea of Galilee). The view was so pretty and the cliffs…slightly scary.

We found a place off the path leading up the mountain to hold our family church. Brian loves to find a peaceful setting, one that may look similar to what Jesus may have seen 2,000 years ago, and this one fit the bill perfectly.

We cannot say enough how much this new church structure has been a massive blessing for us. I’ve loved learning intently about Christ’s life as I study on my own and then learning it again and even better when we all talk together about it. And I really love that we can talk about the birth of Christ, point to where it happened, and then go and visit it.

Lauren was not up for stepping onto this rock, but I assured her it was totally safe and then held her arms for a little added security :)

Picture above and right is the old city of Nazareth. After we left Mt. Precipice, we went to the domed Basilica of the Annunciation, where it is believed the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear the Son of God. Below, this beautiful depiction is of Christ, as a child, with Mary and Joseph. It is right between the Basilica and St. Joseph’s church, said to be the site of Joseph’s carpentry shop.

The interior of the Basilica is really unique and modern. The walls are adorned with massive artwork from countries all over the world that detail their interpretation of the mother of Jesus. The organ, below, as well as the interior dome were so stunning.

Our last stop in Nazareth was Mary’s Well, where the Catholic church asserts that Mary was actually visited by Gabriel. Chasing these pigeons by the well might have been the highlight of the day for the kids.

LAUREN TURNS TEN!! (same weekend as our visit to Nazareth)

Our sweet Lauren (also known as “Little Lady” in our home) turned 10 on January 5. Brian was out of town for her birthday, so we delayed celebrating until he came back. She really loves gymnastics these days and was set on going to a trampoline park with the family, so we found this place just south of us. It was on a Monday, so the place was almost empty and had all of the bells and whistles any kid would enjoy- zip lines, rock climbing, raised obstacle courses, trampolines and foam pits. Our kids had the BEST time running around and playing and have begged to go back every day since.

Lauren lives for gymnastics. She got this cute leotard for Christmas and was so excited to wear it to the park. She’s been intensely working on her handstand lately.

We love this little lady with our entire hearts and are so so so sad about her entering the world of double-digits. But equally happy we got to celebrate what a great girl she is, in a place as fun as this.

Shabbat in Jerusalem

It is going to be hard for me to do justice to this day. Anything I write will fall short of the actual events and the way they felt. It was one of those times when you feel so deeply and so much. We decided to go to the Jerusalem branch instead of our own in Tel Aviv because we wanted to have more time to show our kids some of our favorite sites. We also wanted to take advantage of living so close to this sacred place and hold our “family church” (“Come Follow Me” LDS program) in a spot that had scriptural significance because we are studying the New Testament.

After attending two-hour church (hooray!!) at the BYU Jerusalem Center, one of our favorite places on earth, we wandered out to their front garden that overlooks the entire Old City with is ancient walls and many famous landmarks. I don’t know if there is a better view. My heart might burst sometimes with gratitude that we get to be here right now with our kids. And to see them experience all of it is more than I could ever hope for.

What’s better than sitting in church and overlooking this place and knowing you’re just next door to the Garden of Gethsemane while worshipping? Nothing.

After church, we drove to the Garden of Gethsemane and walked through it for the first time with our kids (every time we have come here in the past its been closed or we haven’t had the chance to get to it). It was pretty awesome to explain what happened here and see the recognition in their faces that the scripture stories they’ve read and heard so many times in fact happened, and happened right where they were standing. They saw the ancient trees (some of which were actually alive 2,000 years ago) and went inside the church to view the rock that is traditionally believed to be the rock that Christ had his Intercessory Prayer for each of us.

Its a different conversation with your kids about the scriptures when you’re actually seeing where these things take place. They had lots of great questions and definitely a recognition that this is all very real and true. It was extremely special to be there with them in this moment.

After that, we walked across the street to the Gethsemane Cave and were able to look inside (the screen was locked, but the door was open so you could see) where Christ often sat with his disciples and close to where Judas betrayed Him. They had regularly gathered here, so when Judas betrayed Jesus and was asked to show the guards where He was, it wasn’t hard to find him.

From there, we walked up the hill to the garden across from the traditional site of Gethsemane, which probably looks almost exactly like it may have those 2,000 years ago. After telling our kids about Orson Hyde (the park dedicated to him was just above us here) and why his mission in 1841 to Israel was important, we decided to find a quiet spot right here to hold our family meeting.

We gathered our scriptures and journals and sat overlooking the Old City while we reverently began talking about the story of Mary, Joseph, Elisabeth and Zacharias.

As we talked about our own experiences and lessons of how God can help us accomplish anything, even the impossible, a spirit of love and faith was felt so strong. We shared with each other for a long time and felt our testimonies strengthened that the Savior is real and He knows us and loves us and stands waiting to help us whenever it is needed.

I cannot say enough that we completely recognize how special this moment was and how grateful we are to be here and experiencing it with our kids. We know that we have been blessed immensely to be able to do this and we hope we can take as much advantage as possible before our time here ends. It was one of those moments that I don’t think any of us will ever forget. And, I do know this…today the scriptures came alive for our girls.

We really wanted to show the kids one of our favorite new places (for us) next. The Pools of Bethesda near the church of St. Anne. The story in John 5 of what happened here is so touching, so I wanted to include it here:

5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.

6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked.

This site is gorgeous and feels so much more untouched than most in Jerusalem.

St. Anne’s Church is famous for their acoustics and because it was relatively empty on this day, I asked my girls if they’d want to sing a song together after we walked the pools. Lauren chose “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus”, which was perfect for the occasion. We walked inside and sat on the front bench together while we gathered our courage- all of us are pretty shy- so this was a stretch. What started out quietly, was soon picked up by the incredible acoustics and made to sound much louder and more in tune than we could have hoped! Knowing a magical memory was being made, we sang louder the powerful words “Love one another as Jesus loves you. Try to show kindness in all that you do. Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought, for these are the things Jesus taught." and my heart almost burst again with how much I love my girls, this city, this memory and above all, the love that Christ has for each of his children.

Brian was taking pictures and didn’t know we were going inside to sing. He walked in at the chorus and recognized our voices and the song and began filming immediately. I hadn’t planned on recording us and he didn’t know what we were doing, but I am so glad he caught this! I’ve watched it hundreds of times already remembering how it felt. One of the best moments ever.

Right there, right then was something I never hope to forget. I cannot describe it…it was mostly felt.

Food Tour - Carmel Market

When Jenn and Jim were in town after Christmas, we scheduled a food tour at Carmel Market here in Tel Aviv. One of my favorite things is a food tour (the combo of culture, history and food is hard to trump!) and this is where I do most of my grocery shopping, so I felt like I knew the market and the surrounding alleys pretty well. I didn’t. This tour was amazing and showed me some real gems that I had never before noticed. So, here’s a small taste of what we saw and ate…

Our group gathered here at the main entrance to the shuk. From people-watching to live, local musicians playing at all hours of the day, you are never short of entertainment at this spot. Our first stop was at a raw juice bar where we tested some homemade concoctions that were lively, interesting and…mostly delicious. Then, the store purveyor opened the good stuff…what we now call booger lotion. Haha. It is this crazy stuff that he had us rub in our noses and POW! all of the sudden, you could breathe better. The guy was super entertaining, especially when he couldn’t keep his hands off of Jim!

From there, we wandered across the street to the self-proclaimed “only authentic Israeli food”, Sabich (pronounced sa-beek). Israel doesn’t have an original cuisine- its a new country full of many cultures and immigrants, literally from all over the world. They each bring their own food to the table, figuratively speaking, so Israeli food is a mash-up of all of that. Sabich, however, claims to be their ace. It came about when a bus driver, named Sabich, pulled out his lunch of last night’s leftovers stuffed into a pita and the sandwich was born. It has too many vegetables to name (and to count!) as well as a hard egg all thrown in with some sauce and its actually delicious- the line out the door at all hours would affirm that.

We tried some interesting Arab spices at this stall. Jenn and Jim didn’t love them, but we may have acquired a taste for a handful of new things here that heavily use this stuff so we partook and even enjoyed. We also snuck into a place that serves Turkish Sephardic malabi, a sweet mixture of sugar, dairy, cornstarch and rose water topped with crushed nuts and coconut. It was subtle and so good!

This place though…oh my goodness. It was hummus redefined in every magical way it can be. Truth be told, up to this point, we haven’t varied off the traditional hummus path because we didn’t even know another path existed. And now I cannot look at hummus the same way ever again. To begin with, they only serve hummus, which, turns out, can be eaten and is eaten for a main meal all of the time in Israel! This guy (who inherited this cafe from his father) served us shakshuka hummus, Balkan hummus and, the piece de resistance, Mexican hummus. I cannot even…it was so good. Want to know a hummus secret? If you cut up a yellow onion and dip it into hummus, it completely takes away the bitter taste of the onion. We learned that here. Yum.

We were all blown away…and as you can tell, I get passionate about good food.

Next stop was at the cutest old lady’s house that serves toasty (ie fried) homemade Armenian bread stuffed with egg and cheese and topped with a salsa. We were all stuffed at this point, but it was so good. And, she basically threw us a dance party for the 10 minutes we were there. It was so funny.

This cute girl was our tour guide and she did such an awesome job showing us around the market. Tour was Delicious Israel, if you want to check it out.

We wandered down the main thoroughfare while indulging in strawberries, which luckily for us, are a winter fruit here. They are so delicious. Really, all of the produce here is amazingly fresh since most of it is grown right here in Israel (mostly due to being surrounded by countries who don’t necessarily get along with you). You can get a few things from Europe, but they are so outrageously priced ($12 for a small clam of raspberries…no thanks!) so we stick to the local fare.

We finished off with some gelato at a local Italian-owned place that does unique combinations of flavors. I think I had a pear and goat cheese with pistachio cone and it was perfection. The tour was perfection too,

The Taskers in Israel!

My oldest sister, Jen, and her husband, Jim came to visit us all the way from Arizona right after Christmas. Neither of them had ever been to Israel before, so we were really looking forward to getting out and exploring with them. As hard as we have wanted to get out with the six of us, we haven’t done as much as we wish for a lot of different reasons (most of which have been outside of our control). However, we hired a tour guide for the two days we had planned for Jerusalem while the Taskers were here and it ended up being really awesome. Aladdin, an Israeli Muslim, was our guide for those days and he drove us all over the area and was able to give us tons of great information. He even answered most of our questions about all things cultural, political, geographical and historical. He was great. The Taskers were delayed for a full day in San Francisco on their way here, so we only had them for 5 days. But, we made the most of it by stuffing as much in as we could. They were such good sports, especially given all of the jet lag you deal with in a 9 hour time change.

We walked around Orson Hyde Park and the Garden of Gethsemane on one of our only sunny days during their visit. The winter weather here is slightly erratic, but this has been an extremely wet and windy one and Jenn and Jim experienced that for sure. It was also pretty cold in Jerusalem while we visited, so you’ll see us packing on the jackets and layers to stay warm!

We visited the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mt. of Olives, the Last Supper Room as well as the house of Caiaphas. But my favorite part was seeing Bethlehem for the first time. Bethlehem is in Palestine, where a good portion of its inhabitants are Christian. Crossing the border and seeing the massive wall that separates Israel from Palestine was pretty incredible. The graffiti alone spoke of so much political strife and the Palestinian desire to be understood. I could go on and on about how I feel about the situation.

We saw the Christmas trees and decorations all over there that we missed so badly in Tel Aviv over the holidays. We made our way to the Church of the Nativity, where the traditional site of Christ’s birth is enshrined. I loved the old church and the feeling there. It felt like a genuine sight and we were able to get right in and down the small stairs that led to the cave below the church where they believe Christ was born. My entire life I thought He was born in a traditional wood stable, but that is not the case.

This is inside the Church of the Nativity and I really loved the old mosaics, woodwork and colors.

Down the steps into the cave, as shown above. Aladdin pulled a few tricks and got permission to slide us right to the front of the long line (I’m going to call it “perks of paying for a tour guide”??). It was a quiet, serene place despite the amount of people down there. Everyone seemed to understand the need for it.

I love this Christmas story that we get to celebrate.

This is a wood working store in Bethlehem, but we went later that night to Jimmys Bazaar in Jerusalem. It was bazaar (no pun intended) to see all of the LDS carvings from the Book of Mormon there, as well as some Jimmer Fredettes to throw in the mix. BYU cougar enshrined in wood? Why not. You can get it at Jimmy’s. We left with a couple of things that we really loved and will help to remind us of our time here in Israel.

We spent a full day in Tel Aviv one day, letting everyone sleep in and then walking over to Jaffa’s Old City to grab something to eat and poke around their cool shops. I love Jaffa.

On day two of our tour of Jerusalem- again with Aladdin as our guide, we saw a TON. I loved this day because, while we have spent a fair amount of time here, we haven’t really done many of the sights other than the market and Western Wall. We met Aladdin early so that we could get into the Dome of the Rock in the morning before it closes for Prayer. It sits right above the Western Wall, so as you’re walking into it, you look over at the worshippers here, many of which were celebrating Bat and Bar Mitzvahs on their traditional Tuesdays. So fascinating for me.

Inside the Dome of the Rock was pretty awesome. The views of the Mt. of Olives as well as parts of the old city were so nice. But the actual shrine, as it sits on Temple Mount, with its gold dome and commanding presence is amazing, especially given the history of the sight and it being the epicenter of so much angst and conflict between Muslims and Jews.

Here is our guide, Aladdin, no doubt telling us something totally engrossing about the history here. Its hard to wrap your head around how long and by how many this land has been controlled over the last few thousand years. Even the more recent conflict is fascinating.

The mosaics on the shrine are stunning. Muslims don’t ever depict people, or really any living things, because they believe they are created by God and we could never do it justice with our natural human shortcomings. From the Dome of the Rock, we began to walk along the Via Dolorosa, exploring the churches at the various stations of the cross as we went. These pictures are slightly out of order, so I’ll try to give context as I go along.

After lunch (pita sandwiches that we ate on the steps of Damascus Gate….yum!), we ventured over to the Sacred Grove, where many people believe is Golgotha, or Calvary, as well as the tomb where Christ may have been buried after His death. It is extremely peaceful at this particular sight, versus the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the majority believe the death and burial took place.

St. Anne’s Church is near the pools of Bethesda and we saw this for the first time today. We fell in love with this place right off. Its quiet, tucked away almost, but so well preserved. It felt truly sacred in a place where most significant sights are covered in ornamentation. We spent a bit of time walking around here, as well as this gorgeous church with its famous acoustics.

We walked through the market of the Old City and even tried several Palestinian delicacies, such as kanafeh and their yellow bread with dates. Definitely different from American desserts, but I’m glad we got to try it all. We got to see the Western Wall up close and made sure Jenn was able to touch it. This place is just unreal.

We made a stop at the Church of The Holy Sepulchre while walking Jerusalem as well. We ventured into this shop right across from it too. Its an antiquities shop owned by a man named Yasser Barakat, a Muslim, and he’s been in business from the moment his father gave this same shop to him. Everything around here seems to be passed down from generation to generation and this one was no different. I love that. He was the nicest man and as we walked around his shop, we noticed familiar pictures of prominent members of our church on his walls and quickly realized that this was someone who had met and knew many members of the LDS church.

Yasser’s daughter (pictured above) even attended BYU…so cool! You know you’re a fan (or a good marketer??) when you put a BYU sticker in your front window in Jerusalem!

Ok, this is a cool picture. If you look straight up and on to the hill above, you notice that giant wall, right? Thats the border separating Palestine (Bethlehem, specifically) from Israel. I think this is taken from the house of Caiaphas, where Jesus was imprisoned before His death.

These are original steps from the time of Jesus at the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu. Pretty awesome they are still there, although people are no longer allowed to walk on them.

This depiction on the doors of the church show the prophecy of Peter denying Christ three times.

Church of St. John the Baptist enshrines the traditional site of John the Baptist’s birth. It is located in Ein Kerem, which was the last place we saw on day two as the sun was starting to go down. This city was stunning, especially at sunset. The views from the hilltops were so beautiful.

Aladdin and a tour guide friend discussing how we get our money back from a very dishonest money changer in Jerusalem. We went to get cash to pay Aladdin and this shop totally swindled us out of several hundred dollars. Because Brian and Jim were in a hurry at the time, they didn’t notice until after we drove off. Once they realized it though, Aladdin was pretty upset and was trying to figure out what they could do about it. After our tour, he drove the boys back to the shop and they were very upfront about the dishonesty and the owner knew he’d been caught and immediately gave them their money back. Buyer beware at money changers in Jerusalem…some things never change! (Referencing money changers at the temple in Christ’s time and we got our own taste of it!)

The pictures above are from our night exploring in and around Jaffa. We walked along the oldest port in the world and paid the guy making pitas near the back door at Old Man and the Sea to give us some warm ones right out of the oven. Heaven. That and some gelato made for a well-balanced dinner. Our next day would be the last with the Taskers here in the Holy Land and we did something I just loved!! Stay tuned.