I walked where Jesus walked

Our time in Galilee was split between field trip days with our New Testament classes (there are two of them) and days spent at the hotel having class with our instructor. My instructor is named Roy Huff, a faculty member from BYU Idaho and a wonderful teacher. He used to work as a spy for the government and has some cool stories, but now he is a religion teacher. He once had the opportunity to team teach a NT class with Elder Bednar, so he has some great insights into the scriptures. Anyway, our first day in Galilee was a field trip day. We started by driving just north of our hotel to a boat dock and boarding a ship that took us across the Sea of Galilee. It was such an awesome experience! We read the story of Peter walking on water toward Jesus and of Jesus calming the stormy waters. Multiple times I looked out over the water and could imagine Christ walking out on the sea, beckoning me to follow Him. We were given some free time while on the water and so I took the time to read through my patriarchal blessing. It was wonderful.
After leaving the boat, we visited a small museum where a 2,000 year old fishing boat is being preserved. From there we went to several sites where Jesus walked and taught. The first was the Mount of Beatitudes. The Catholics have built a church on top of the mount and keep the slopes preserved in a garden. Our class went to a section of the garden and had a small devotional. My cousin Monica gave a wonderful lesson on the meaning of the Beatitudes which was very enlightening. Then it was on to Capernaum, the home of Peter, James, and John. A little known prophesy that Jesus made was the cursing of Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin for their unbelief in Him and His miracles. All three of these cities were destroyed in one way or another and have been abandoned for hundreds of years. In Capernaum's case, an earthquake destroyed it. The old synagogue is one of the only structures still visible today. Right next to Capernaum is Taghba, the place of the seven streams, where Jesus feed the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and two fishes. There is a Catholic church (of course) marking the place with a famous mosaic of the two fishes on its floor. Right next to there is a little known church called St. Peter's Primacy. It is another Catholic site where they believe that Christ appeared to Peter and the apostles after His death and gave him the Priesthood. This is where Christ asked Peter, "lovest thou me?" and Peter said, "Yea Lord, thou knowest I love thee." and Christ said, "Feed my sheep" three times. The amazing man that Peter became just blows me away. We often seem to focus on his shortcomings like when he began sinking in the sea when walking toward Christ or when he denied Jesus three times. But the Lord loved him and knew he would become a great man of God. He did. What a great example he is to me of how the Lord uses imperfect people to bring about great things. The lowly fisherman that would become the prophet of God.
Our last stop of the day was near to where our Kibbutz was, the place where Christ cast the devils out of the man and into a herd of swine. The swine then fell off a cliff into the sea. It was a small place just on the side of the road beneath the Golan Heights. On both sides of the road were signs that said, "caution, land mines!" It was a bit of an eye opener to realize that there still is conflict in this seemingly peaceful land.
Our second field trip day took up into the Golan Heights to a place called Gamla. This is basically the Masada of the Golan, a fortress where Jewish Zealots fled to during the Jewish Revolt in about 70 AD. The Romans took months trying to take the fortress, but eventually won, killing everyone inside. We also went to some sites in the Golan where Jewish Rabbis complied the Mishnah, an important book in the Jewish Talmud. There is a lot of history in the Golan Heights. On one of our free days, some of us went on a small hike in the hills to a waterfall that reminded me of what Havesupai would look like.