Day 5: Church and Jerash

We don't think we'll ever get used to having the Sabbath on Friday.  What is the name of the class after Sacrament meeting--Sunday School or Friday School?  If the Sabbath is on Friday, then is Thursday really Saturday?  It's so confusing to me, but the rest of the family just went along with it.

The attendance at church always falls off if we have an activity the night before.  So we waited to see who would attend church the morning after the branch party.  We were pleasantly surprised.  There were about 10 in attendance.  That's good.  

Jill, Kristen and Kevin were given the opportunity to say a few words and bear their testimonies in Sacrament Meeting.  It was very sweet, and we had tears in our eyes.  Words cannot express how proud we are of all of our children (all of them!!)

I think Dad was hoping the Sunday School teacher wouldn't show up so he could ask Kevin to substitute. Sure enough, the teacher wasn't there--so we had a special treat.  Kevin taught a great lesson from the Book of Mormon and Morad translated.  There was a lot of class participation.  It was awesome.

After church we decided to take a quick trip to Jerash about 40 miles south of Al Husn to see the ancient ruins.  Jerash has one of the most well preserved sites of Roman architecture outside Italy.  Going into the park costs money, and since it was the Sabbath, we knew we wouldn't be doing that.  However....we were able to see some interesting ruins right in the city of Jerash.  We all enjoyed exploring in this area.  Our GPS took us on a crazy route, down some back roads and around a very tight alleyway.  We all had a good laugh.  There's a much better way, but not nearly as exciting as the one we took.

Hadrian's Arch was built in 129 AD for the visit of the emperor Hadrian.   This is as close as we could get without having to pay.  

 The Jabbok River isn't very far from Jerash and even though it was getting dark we made a quick stop for a look.  

Anciently, Jacob crossed this river on his way back to Canaan.  It was here that he had a "wrestle" with the Lord, received a blessing and a new name--Israel.