Lovely Day

This Valentines Day was perhaps the best I’ve had. The night before, Susie and I watched “While you were Sleeping” and made Valentines for a lot of our friends here. That put us in the mood.

         We went on a great field trip. We herded sheep and goats! You all know how much I love goats. It made my day to be with such curious, sweet little animals. Herding them is a lot more difficult than I would have expected. Those shepherds knew their stuff.

       We also ground up hyssop, a plant mentioned in the Bible that is also symbolic of cleansing from sin. Then we made pita bread and built a fire and cooked it, and ate it with olive oil and the ground hyssop. We also made parched corn, which is a food Boaz prepared for Ruth. This field trip made me realize how helpful it is to learn about the geography and flora and fauna of the Bible to truly understand it. We saw some wheat fields, almond trees, a water cistern, lots of olive trees, and date palms. We also found a chameleon! It was pretty cute! It was a fun and beautiful day. By far the warmest Valentines day of my life.

        Throughout the whole day we would randomly burst into songs like Natalie Cole’s “L is for the way you look at me,” or “Love Shack, baby.” Then we had a dance that night at the center which blew stake dances out of the water. Laurel, who served a mission in Greece, taught us a Greek zorba dance, which was a lot of fun. Although, yelling "opah!" at the end of anything would probably make it fun.