Galilee-Tuesday 6/3

Galilee has been an incredible journey. We have seen so many things and have had so many unforgettable experiences. Today we drove back to the Jerusalem center making stops along the way. We left at 7:30 and our first stop was Akko, a beautiful port city on the Mediterranean Coast. We walked through renovated ruins and onto a wall on the coast. We walked and explored until we got a lighthouse-at that moment we had a while of free time were we could shop and look around. Then we drove to Haifa- another port city and a city that hold particular significance for the LDS church. We stopped at a cemetery called the Haifa Templar Cemetery, where Elise and I were asked to present about the significance of this site. Adolf Haag and John Clark were missionaries called to serve in the Turkish Mission. They were called to labor in Haifa for a season, while there Adolf contracted Typhoid and John was sick with small pox. They both passed away by 1895 and their bodies are buried in this cemetery. Also, Jacob Spori who had been given a Book of Mormon by Karl Maeser had a dream were he saw in a vision a family who he found later in Haifa. Spori was also called to serve a mission where he taught the Grau family and they joined the church in 1886. Later two other people joined named Fred and Christine Kegel. Spori later returned to the United States and founded Rick's College. The Grau and Kegel families remained active in the church and eventually died and were also buried in the same cemetery as Haag and Clark. There are multiple reasons these people are important to the LDS faith. They represent tremendous faith and devotion to God and are examples of giving your all for the work of the Lord. Also when the church was looking to acquire land to build the BYU Jerusalem Center and buy land for the church building in Tiberias one of the requirements that Israel put was that the church had to have a presence before 1948. Because of these early pioneers the Church is able to have a presence here in Jerusalem and in the Holy Land. Because of these people who where faithful and sacrificed everything they had I am able to study in the Holy Land. I am so very grateful for all of the many sacrifices so many people have made including Adolf Haag, John Clark, Jacob Spori, The Grau Family, and The Kegel family. These people lived simple lives and unknowingly left a huge impact in the future of the Church. It is incredible to see the hand of the Lord and how He provides a way for his work to be done. Although this site was a simple gravesite it was one of my most favorite things we were able to see.
Then we returned to the Jerusalem center. We were able to sleep well and in a couple of days we will go to Jordan!