Miracles. Blessings. Answers. Yesterday on the bus ride to Tiberias we decided to list some of these miracles that have happened. I don't have time to include everything, but it really helped us remember just how watched over we are despite all the craziness of this side of the world. We also admit we're not the greatest at staying out of trouble either. Sometimes we look for it without realizing it, so I guess our list of things to be grateful for really could be twice the size if we even knew what could've happened.
EVERY place we have gone, everyone has told us that the weather has been so great while we are here. It was pouring rain the week before we got to Cyprus, but it was beautiful and sunny the whole time we were there. We bring the sunshine! And Egypt had been killer hot, but the week we got there it cooled down.
We've done so many incredible things with very little planning. Okay no planning (e.g., Hezekiah's Tunnel after hours with a tour guide we happened upon). The experiences that matter and make up a successful trip are every moment you stop to notice what's around you rather than just seeing the destination. (I could go off about his but I won't.) Some of my favorite moments were on the way to somewhere else, like seeing the countryside on the way to Alexandria.
The Friday before we left for Egypt, my friend Kayla taught me and all the girls in my ward how to make loom hats. Then once Lori, Mandy, and I were in Egypt we went to the leprosorium with the Cairo Relief Society to teach women—relatives of lepers—how to make the same exact kind of hats.
One night in Cairo we were out till 11:30 p.m. with our friend Joann, and Taxi Driver Tarek got out of bed to come get us. We'd totally spaced it, not realizing how late it was. We didn't know how to explain to taxi drivers how to get us home because the streets were so weird, so we really relied on Tarek, who already knew where we lived from driving my aunt and uncle around a couple times. He was always able to get us home when we needed him to, and for the most part we could understand each other. Ha ha. Okay, maybe that's a flat-out lie. But he liked us and we laughed a lot and at least tried to speak Arabic.
As we were leaving the Cairo Museum, a security guard named Taffa offered to buy us sandwiches for $1 that were normally $3 for tourists. We definitely got the hook-ups. Thanks for working it Lori. About 30 minutes before some other security guards had angrily taken away Lori's camera for taking pictures in the museum. She decided to complain about them to the other security guards outside, so that's how we met Taffa.
Mandy's family friend Ahmed showed us around Alexandria with only a few days notice—so, so nice of him. And then he called us right when we were supposed to be getting off the train or else we would've kept going on to who knows where. He was just inside the station to meet us.
I sprained my ankle pretty badly in Alexandria, but some how I still walked on it the rest of the trip. Right after I sprained it, Ahmed took us to the Alexandria Library, where his father is the head of security, and they got me an ace bandage that I've used every day since! Still purple but no more swelling. I remember what a huge blessing it is that my ankle works every time I'm climbing over rocks and up walls on our trip. I'm amazed at how it's not been hurting me more.
My new memory card worked fine until I'd taken about 100 pictures, and then it asked to reformat. The only way was to delete all photos on the card. Even though I lost all of those pictures, my uncle and Mandy had taken some and at least I didn't lose more than a day's worth of pictures. I just remind myself I can't take pictures with me when I die.
We got to go to Turkey on Thanksgiving! How many can say that? :)
In Cyprus we discovered the most delicious cheese ever—halloumi cheese. This cheese is to die for! I could eat it twice a day till I died. (Update: For a pretty penny I found some halloumi cheese in an in-door marketplace right next to the SL Farmer's Market. You must try some. You will be a fan.)
We went shopping on the Turkey side, and the prices were listed in Turkish money, instead of Euros, and Mandy and I both bought a skirt and almost paid the shopkeeper double—the price in Turkish money (which is double that of Euros) with Euros, but he was honest and gave the right amount back. We were also about to leave the store a couple of times, but we didn't and then found things that we had almost left behind, like a wallet and a bag of purchases from a previous store and Mandy's red sweater. The shop keeper just laughed at us.
Our last night in Cyprus, I got on facebook to contact my friend Catherine, who knows Jerusalem better than anyone. I was super lucky to find someone—Mike Jensen—online on facebook, and he was kind enough to call Catherine to ask her to get on facebook so that I could get the low down the night before we flew to Jerusalem.
After an hour of questioning, the Cyprus airport security guard escorted us to the plane so that we were able to make our flight and not have anything happen to us on the way. They really were worried about us going to Israel.
Susan Madsen who is a missionary in Tiberias, Israel, told Mandy that we really should buy plane tickets instead of take a bus from Jerusalem to Egypt (which I thought sounded much more adventurous and much cheaper), so we went ahead and did that. Now the border keeps closing and opening with day-long delays. The airport officials were pretty particular in following our itineraries and would've been pretty suspicious if we had no set way of leaving Jerusalem. Until we talked to Susan about buying tickets we couldn't even find planes that would fly from Tel Aviv to Cairo.
We got to go into Hezekiah's tunnel the first night that we arrived in Jerusalem even though it was closed. While we were looking for the tunnel, some little boys ran outside into the street to talk to us in Arabic. They were the brothers of one of the guides, Shaddi, and he offered to get us into the tunnel for free! Lori gets clastrophobic—she doesn't ever ride the elevator with us—but can feel okay in a tunnel if she is either the first or the last, and so she was able to make it through without freaking out because there was no one else in the tunnel. She was thankful. Plus, the guy with the key to the tunnel came right when we were just about to go into the tunnel, so we only had to climb the 15 foot fence once! Hamsi, Shaddi's cousin, showed up afterwards and drove to get dinner, and we didn't crash on the way there when he swerved in his car and almost hit the wall.:) And then again we didn't die in that scary liquor store in the Muslim-only part of town. So many good stories.
Shaddi and Hamsi taking us to get dinner, and then we were able to also buy food for Shabbat, because everything had already closed at sundown.
My new memory card is having problems and all of a sudden all of my pictures disappeared last night, but they reappeared later today so we hurried and got them off my card and safely onto the Madsen's hard drive. Fewf!
Okay, I'm only including half of our list of cool experiences for now because I know I've already lost most of you or your nodding off. :)
Today we went to the spot where they think Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. The Greek translation of the bible says something to the affect of, "Blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God everywhere." Pay attention to the little blessings in your life. They're everywhere!
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