Final day of Galilee--March 25

Today was our final day in the Galilee. We packed up our stuff, checked out of our bungalows, and were on our way. Of course we couldn't just go straight home to the center though, we had to pack our day with sites to make every second count.

First we went to an ancient city called Sephhoris. Aka another Tel. Another citadel. Another cistern. But this city had amazing mosaics. In fact, the mosaic pictured is nick named the Mona Lisa of Israel, and you can probably see why. Absolutely incredible. I'm actually reading a historical fiction book about Joseph and Mary right now and it mentions Sephhoris a lot in it. So it's kind of cool that I can picture the place.


After Sephhoris we went to Muhraqa which is the traditional site of where Elisha mocked/rebuked the priests of Baal. This site had beautiful gardens and was really beautiful.



And speaking of gardens, after Muhraqa we went to the Baha'i Gardens. Which were incredible!! Baha'i is a very interesting religion. Their beliefs are pretty much any truth. They believe that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, for instance. They believe in Joseph Smith. They believe in anything that has truth and goodness. We were joking about how we wanted to join that religion just to be sure that we had all of our bases covered. But really, such a cool religion! I would love to research it more and learn about the people, because up to this point I had never heard about it.


These gardens are the grounds for the Baha'i temple. They usually have a beautiful shrine on the gardens but when we went it was being restored so it was looking a little ugly.

We then went to the Templar Cemetery in the German colony in Haifa. At this site there are two LDS members burried. We learned about the first missionaries in Israel, one of which was Elder Spori (yes, the very Spori from the Spori building at BYU Idaho!). So that was cool to learn about. What a hard and intimidating job, bringing the gospel here way back when. But there were missionaries here at one point, that is crazy to think about!


Then we got on the bus and we all pretty much passed out on the way home. It was so good to be back at the center. Everyone made a mad dash for the laundry room, it was insane! It's crazy that Jerusalem feels like home and everything else is just a vacation.

Galilee was a great trip. A really good experience. The Galilee has beautiful sites and a beautiful spirit about it. I loved it and will always treasure the feelings and the things I learned while being there.