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.

Our first week in Jerusalem

Lunch with the other service couples, Jan  & John Clayton, Linda & Dennis Brimhall,

Marvel & Mark Earnshaw

 At the Garden Tomb

Playing Jerusalem Carillon Bells

We had a good flight to Jerusalem with some unexpected high points and low points.  The high point in Seattle was that we were able to check our 200 pounds of luggage at the curbside so we didn’t have to drag it through the airport.  The next high point was that we sailed through security with our 5 carry on bags  and didn’t have to spend 45 minutes explaining why my insulin pump supplies couldn’t go through  They insulin supplies and hand checked it.  It was the easiest security line ever!

The Delta flight was so nice—we had upgraded to have more leg room, and unbeknownst to us, that also meant we didn’t have to pay for our luggage. Lee slept a lot, and I slept a little.  When we landed in Paris, we had a 4 hour lay over.  We bought a chocolate croissant and did a lot of walking!  We had to go through security again in Paris, and that went smoothly, and I thought we had made it!  But just as we were boarding the plane for Tel Aviv, we got stopped and all our carry on luggage was hand inspected and we were both body-searched—and all this as the other passengers filed by gawking at us.  Of course, they found nothing (the lady did wonder about the Herbs de Provence I had) and we were questioned about the insulin needles-the security man actually took  one out, took the top off, brandished the needle, recapped it and put it back in the bag—as if we were interested in reusing that particular needle (NO WAY).  This flight was more like a crammed Southwest Airlines flight, but it was only 4 ½ hours long, and we made it.

Jan and John Clayton, the music couple we are replacing, met us at the airport and we got home, with ½ hour to change and go to a dinner at the home of Neomi, who helps with the music concerts. They were also so kind to have given us some food, and we also ate at the Oasis (the cafeteria here) for breakfast and dinner.

We were grateful to climb in to bed about 10 pm Jerusalem time, and I promptly woke up at 1:30 am and stayed awake until 3:30 am.  I was able to get a couple more hours of sleep, but then was awake, so started putting things away. This was Saturday, the day we have church, so we went to church where we gratefully greeted Lee’s sister, Lynne, who had brought some luggage and a 4 pound bag of chocolate chips!!  We also saw Gina Macdonald  and her husband, Brian and their son, Isaac, who is here this semester.  That was a real treat to talk with them—Gina grew up in our ward in Redmond, and lived down the street from us.

I honestly can’t remember what we did the rest of that day, but Sunday was CRAZY busy—we went to the Carillon Bells in West Jerusalem and helped 10 students play them for an hour, then we had lunch at a restaurant with the other service couples, then went to the grocery store, gas station, and ATM so the Clayton's could show us how to do all of those things. By now we raced home to get ready for the weekly music concert.  We learned how to set up the refreshments for the performers, the flowers, the tickets, the stage, etc, etc,..  Finally, we went to listen to the concerts, after an hour of handing out tickets and waiting for the standby line to go in (there was some ruckus among those waiting in line and the security guy came in to help) and I dozed through most of the concert!  By now it was 10 PM and I couldn’t even think.  We came back to the apartment, ate dinner of Pita bread and cheese and fell into bed.  This night I woke up at 1:30 am but was able to get back to sleep.  I feel like a ton of bricks fell on me, but I know this will get better in a week or so.

Today, we are trying to get the phone system and computer system set up so we can call our family!

Two views of Old City Jerusalem from our window

We've had many windy, rainy days since arriving on February 15, 2019.

And we've seen some rainbows as the sun came out after the rain.

This is an approximate view from our living room window.