Family visiting in the Holy Land

My sister's visiting me in Israel for two weeks!!! It's so wonderful to have her here; I can't wait to go out and show her the city sights and the Shrines and the people. There's so much to do, I hope we can get it all done in only two weeks.

Joaquin and I took the train out to the airport at 2:40 am to meet Jaleh and bring her to Haifa. We got there at 3:40, and Jaleh was already waiting outside by the visitors' area, so we hugged quickly and hauled her back down to the train terminal to catch the 3:53 train back to Haifa. I am completely surprised that we made it, but we did it! Good thing too, or else we would have had to wait around the airport for another hour for the next train...

So we made it back to Haifa at about 5:00 am, and Pat was waiting to pick us up from the station. We got the lovely scenic drive back home, viewing the Shrine of the Bab from Ben Gurion Ave., before we made it home to sleep. We then slept until about 2:00 pm.

After we woke up, I was able to bring Jaleh down to register at the Reception Centre. Then we made our visit to the Shrine of the Bab, which was wonderful; so restful and relaxing. I have visited the Shrine many times since I've been serving here, but there's something different about being able to share it with a visitor, especially someone as close to me as my sister. It was really special.

We were both a little too tired to go to the pilgrim talk that night, but we did make our way over to 2nd November for some food and a movie with the boys, Jayce and John Michael. Always a barrel of laughs with those two. :)

Now we are preparing to go to work - I've gotten permission for Jaleh to volunteer with me in my office while she's here, so that will be a lot of fun! She can see what my day-to-day job REALLY is like. It's going to be great. And we have a small get-together planned for Wednesday, a sort of meet-and-mingle, so that should be nice.