Arrival in Tiberias

Arrival January 27, 2010

As we arrived at 9 Hashomer Street, Tiberias this is what we saw. Now here is a little bit about the Madsens.

The Madsen's whom we are replacing are from Hyde Park, Utah area. He was the Dept Chair in Music at USU for a number of years and was the man who hired Michael Ballam. Pres Madsen has also been a Stake President there for a number of years. Sister Madsen is the author of a number of very popular books including I Walked to Zion and Mothers of the Prophets. She comes by her interest in history from her father who was Leonard Arrington, the former LDS Church Historian. We had some interesting talks around the table because her recent book is The Second Rescue: The Story of the Spiritual Rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart Pioneers. We talked about our experience about organizing the handcart enactment for the Sesquicentennial Celebration held at BYU in 1997 and our experience of going to Martin's Cove to prepare for that event. Sister Madsen gave us an autographed copy of that very book as she left. From this introduction you can see we have some pretty big shoes to fill as we pick up the stewardship here in Tiberias.

This welcome sign was made by the Hansen's, Michael and Ann, longtime members of the branch, who also brought a beautiful pot of soup and some chewy bread.

The next day Carl got up and took a walk, notice the walking stick and the black leather jacket...was cold, but the sun was shining over the Sea of Galilee and he was happy to take it in.

The Madsen’s then took us on a journey to four sites along the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. More about that on next entry.