Second Week in Jerusalem

After a week of jet lag, and Lee getting the very bad cold that was going around the Jerusalem Center, we slowly began to understand the scope of our assignments and duties as organist and tour guide.  As it turns out, Shawna is foremost an executive secretary to Neomi, who coordinates all the efforts for the Sunday Night Concert series.  She sets the schedule and invites musical artists throughout Israel to perform.  These concerts are of very high caliber and are free to the public.  Shawna takes the schedule and musician’s contact information and sends out contracts, instructions, requests for bios, etc.  Then a program is developed and printed, flowers ordered, stage set up and checks written.  Shawna oversees all of this and also prints the schedule for the season, from which people email for tickets, and Shawna puts their ticket requests in envelopes and emails them that their tickets are waiting for them.  Second to this job is the job of tour guide. 

This week was spent without the Clayton's, who trained us, then left to go back to Utah.  We were trained by them on all the computer things, as well as where to get the flowers, how to pay for them, how to meet the students at the Carillon Bells at the YMCA (a 20-minute drive) and how to teach the students very quickly to play the bells each Sunday at 11 AM.  They also took us grocery shopping to 2 stores, taught Lee how to do the banking, which is very different than the US and is much slower and more complicated.  Lee is also the District Clerk, so Bro. Clayton, who was in that calling, showed Lee how to do that assignment.  Already Lee has been included in a District meeting.  There are 4 church branches in Israel—Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Bethlehem and Be’ersheva.

There were many complications with the internet and phones.  The excellent staff here didn’t know about our needs for Magic Jack or getting a new plug for the radio, which had blown out.  Now everything is set up.  We will use Skype to talk with Grandma McEntire, as none of us could get the Facetime app to work—so strange because it worked so well in Germany!

It took these 2 weeks to get our apartment set up with everything put away.  Shawna reorganized shelves and threw out a lot of things that had accumulated here.  The apartment is about 600 sq. ft and is very nicely appointed.  We have a gorgeous view of the Old City from the living room window.

Lee is not only the organist for the tours and for church, but also is the student choir director and head of the talent shows or any musical thing happening.  The students have really supported him and the Formal Talent Show was last week.  The students ran the whole thing and Lee just gave a few suggestions that helped.  It was so wonderful to see the student talent, but also their comradery and support one to another.  On March 1^st we went to learn Israeli Folk Dance with the students and I think they were surprised that we joined in.

It’s been a very busy and rewarding two weeks.  We miss our family so much but appreciate the great ways we have to communicate and use WhatsApp daily. We haven’t had time to explore the Old City but have learned to drive around West Jerusalem and walk to the Palestinian store that is close by. We expect that as we get quicker at doing our assignments, that we’ll have a little more time for exploration.  Next Sunday we give talks at the Bethlehem Branch!

Last week the US Consulate General came to speak.  She said the Consulate is being combined with the Embassy and moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.  The Consulate will now be a separate group within the Embassy.  She will become the Acting Ambassador to Jordan.

We also had 3 people from Taiwan come for a visit.  One of the women’s husband is the Taiwan Ambassador to Israel.  That was pretty neat.  The 3 women are members of the church and a student here saw them and started talking to them in Mandarin, which they loved.  The mother of the 2 daughters was one of the early members of the church in Taiwan.  Fun to meet such diverse people.