Well, I have to admit, I got really emotional on a couple of the stops today, and this was one of them.  Our first stop of day 2 was the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus preached His sermon about who are blessed.  I couldn’t even make it through our devotion, it was too beautiful and peaceful and absolutely moving to be there.  There is a beautiful church there of course, and there were groups there singing…one sang Silent Night, and I could hear it as I walked the grounds during our free time.  Let me tell you, I lost it.  It was such a beautiful place.  They call it also the Mountain of Happiness.  I can see why.  I could have stayed there all day to soak it in and pray, no problem.  Well, let me share some pictures.

Here is the place where we stopped to do devotions, by the church.  Our tour guide, Mike, gave us a little history, and Pastor had a devotion and reading from Matthew 5 about the verses about this place and event in Jesus’ life.  I couldn’t hold it together enough to participate….but I mean that in the best possible way.  Then we went down the hill a bit and saw this view:

Yep.  Pretty spectacular.  We stopped under the trees which was a beautiful place to sit and reflect.

Another angle. Gotta love the cool calm and beautiful countryside of this hill.

Nice picture in the church of Jesus teaching.  Above is a picture of a kneeler in front of a crucifix.

Inside pic of the dome.

Markers like this with each of the beatitudes were along the walkway to the church.

This is an olive tree.  I don’t know why, but I found the leaves particularly beautiful.  There were all kinds of birds from all over the place flying around, too.  Pretty spectacular! The

Evan had an instant friend who tried very hard not to get off his lap, even after being kicked off.

Here is a cool tree I held up for a second.

One more cool scenery picture…and then a picture of our luxury ride, which I haven’t shown yet.  Our driver really is amazing, our guide Mike too.

OK, next up is Chorazin….