Most of my friends, mormon or not tend to be somewhat free spirited like myself. This leeds to a distain for rules, regulations and yes, even commandments. No one really likes to be told what to do.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I called my wife from Costco to ask for permission to buy a Vita-Mix (basically a glorified blender that could bring world peace and cure cancer if everyone had them). She actually said yes and I've been proving it's worth to her ever since then.

Having grown up in the Jerusalem my wife loves Middle-Eastern food so I decided to show her how well our new Vita-Mix could make hummus. I've never fallowed recipes and I thought I could do hummus just fine without the recipe as well.

What a disaster! I basically made a big pile of poo! I asked Sara to get me the recipe, bought more garbanzo beans and tried again fallowing the recipe. It turned out wonderfully and was incredibly easy.

I thought about it afterwords. If you want to make good hummus, you've got to fallow the rules for success. Who makes those rules? Well, in this case that doesn't really matter. They've probably been passed down from the person who created hummus in the first place. That being noted, God created us in the first place. As part of my Mormon faith, I believe that we chose to come down here to earth to grow and to learn. We wanted to be successful at life just as I wanted to be successful at hummus.

This will be posted several days after it has happened as I don't have internet at this hotel. I am in Cairo Egypt. We arrived here early this morning on a flight that left Tel Aviv at 1:20am. We got to the hotel at about 4:00am. My head was aching worse then it has as far as I can remember, my nostrils felt like they were on fire and my body like it had been hiking around Israel for the last nine without a break!
We started the day at 9:00 am today (a nice lie-in since tomorrow we start at 3:00 am). We saw the Pyramids and went to the Cairo Museum where they have all of King Tut's stuff. Beyond that everything has been an opportunity to loose money. Daniel and I just practice our negotiating skills and then walk away when they finely give into what we want. Daniel got the price on a "real" Rolex watch down to $10. Pretty good eh. He also tried a technique for the tourist areas that works well. He brought an olive wood camel (that Bagdaddy gave him for free because he remembered him as a boy) to the Pyramids and tried to sell it to anyone who tried to sell him anything. They had never seen anything like it! We thought that was strange, but they didn't want to pay the $20 he would start with for the asking price. As they tried to bargain down he would go up. By the time he hit $40 they were gone.

We went through the Holocaust museum just now.
My throat hurts as if I've been screaming non-stop all day. I took in less then 1% of the information in the exhibits. Even that much was to much for me to bare. One exhibit talked of all pregnant mothers being to death. The Nazis didn't want any more Jews being born.
Before that I read a journal entry that described mothers fighting like desperate cats, biting and scratching to keep their children from being taken away. They were not successful.
I made the painful mistake of imagining myself and my family in their situations. Sara, my dear wife, is pregnant and would have been put to death without a second thought from the solders carrying out these horrific deeds.
She would have fought like the most desperate cat to protect our little Ari though, as would I. I can't imagine her having to fend for herself as many of those women whose husbands had already been taken or had abandoned them did.
One man talked about his efforts to get his brother to flee with him before the Nazis came. His brother wouldn't leave his wife and children. His wife told him to "leave us and save yourself. You will get over us in time and will still have your life." Like he, I could never do that. I would rather die with my family then to ever leave them behind.

Today I raised my brother-in-law from the dead... sea? We went to Jericho, Qumran, Masada, the Dead Sea and finely to Jerusalem where we will be staying for the next few days.
I floted in the Dead Sea, saw a lot of ruins and learned some very interesting things about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Again, the places we visit are fascinating for my camera, but hold no special spirit for me in and of themselves. Learning about the live of Christ in these places is incredible though. It is amazing how enlightening it can be to learn from someone who really knows the land and the scriptures and has walked from the Mount of the Be-Attitudes to the Center of Jerusalem and from there to the Dead Sea. Many people like myself think of Christ's ministry as being in a small area in and around Jerusalem. In reality, He traveled hundreds of miles from one story to another and on foot, that's pretty huge! You realize as you learn things here that every word in the Bible has a meaning. Many things I would just pass over become profound insights as Kelly points them out here.
I have been feeling the spirit a lot. I'm just saying that it doesn't come from just walking into the tourist markets that have been built on top of these historical sites, it comes from the scriptures as we study Christ's teachings.
I think I probably said all this yesterday but it's still a profound thing to me so...

Hey everyone! I raised by brother-in-law from the Dead... Sea?

Yesterday we had Church on a boat out on the Sea of Galilee. We received permission from the first presidency just a week ago. It was a wonderful experience. Kelly (Ogden) gave a sermon on the tempests that arise in our lives, and Christ's ability to calm them.
It was nice to out on the water that Jesus taught from and on so many times, but I am coming to realize that these places don't feel any more sacred to me then any other place I have been. Before everyone freaks out, let me explain.
It's not the places that matter, it's the teachings! I am realizing that it doesn't matter where Christ taught the things He taught. It only matters that we learn it and live it. It is helping me learn many things being in this land and listening to Kelly teach. I am amazed at how profound things I would have always just passed over in the Bible are as we learn the setting in which they were taught and what they would have meant to the people who were actually hearing directly from the Savior.
Most of the places we visit are covered in new churches and souvenir shops that really distract from the spirit of the place but I am loving the scenery for scenery sake and the learning for learning's sake. I really need a bit of this in depth spiritual learning. I have gone a long time without accepting anything new from the Lord. I am ashamed that I have turned my back for so long.
With a new marriage, a new baby, a new business, a new home, and all the duties that come with those things which require the Lord's help the most, I have tried to do it all on my own. I think we all have that tendency sometimes. That's why the scriptures worn against that all the time. I know better but still I say to myself, "I just don't have time to study the scriptures today with all my other duties!" How backwards can I be!!!

Today Daniel and I were picked up outside our hotel by Ilan Binder, the man who will be distributing my products here in Israel. We met with four prosthetic clinics that he works with. We were only able to see these four because it is passover here and the clinics only work half day during this time. Everyone was very positive about the XT9 Knee and said they had patients who would most likely be interested.
After meeting with the clinics, we went to a restaurant nearby and had some of the most amazing food!
Apparently there is some kind of law against pita here, so it was a treat to go somewhere that actually serves it. I don't know if it's just for passover of what but pita bread is hard to find in Israel.
We ate at this Iraqi restaurant that was just incredible! They filled up a table that would seat eight people with a full selection of everything from from hummus to chicken hearts and it was all really amazing. I actually had three or four hearts my choice. One of the most tasty things was this cauliflower they had. I have no idea how they made it or even what to guess but it was so good!
After the meal Daniel and I were so tired that we could hardly keep our eyes open, but we got a great tour of Tel Aviv from our host Ilan that kept us awake for a while. Ilan has joined Sara's team in trying to convince me to move to Israel.
Hey hun, what do you say we sell the rights to the XT9 and I can become a full time photographer while we live of the interest? We can start with Israel and then move every three years to a new place which we can just explore with the camera and sell the photos. Let me know what you think. It sounds like the life to me and I could handle living here for a while.