The Jerusalem Schedule

It has come to my attention that we haven't really told you too much about our day-to-day lives here in Jerusalem. Now is the time to fix that mistake! Here's our typical week:

Monday: Field trip day! Depending on the field trip schedule for the day, we're generally gone all or most of the day on field trips all across Jerusalem and Israel. It's amazing! We come home for dinner and then have FHE with our little Family Home Evening groups.

Tuesday: We have classes all morning until about 2 or 3 PM generally with an hour break in the morning for announcements and linen exchange (clean sheets! Yay!). As soon as we're out of class, we grab all of our stuff and run out to the city! Sunset is around 5 PM, so we have to be back by then. We hurry up the hill to the center and then sit on the grass just inside the gate at the bottom, looking over all of Jerusalem. It faces the west, so we watch the sun go down and night become alive over the city. This is my absolute favorite time of the day! That usually takes us up until dinner (at 6).

Wednesday: Class until 3-ish generally, then run to the city and watch the sunset again. After dinner we have a forum with various professional speakers.

Thursday: Cleaning checks! We usually remember, but we've discovered the senior couple that checks our rooms have gotten much more lax since we got here. On the off-chance that we forgot to clean, this comes in handy! We have class until 3-ish again, then run to the city and come back in time for sunset! (Are you catching a pattern here?)

Friday: I love Fridays! They really aren't super different than weekdays, but they're just fabulous. We usually have sandwiches for lunch which is beautiful. We have class until 3 (and even if we don't, we can't leave the center until 3 on Fridays because the city is chaotic for Friday prayers). Sometimes we'll have a humanitarian project as we did this afternoon. As soon as 3:00 hits, we run out to the city! All of the Jewish things close early for Shabbat, so it's much more difficult to find places to go. We're out until 5 again though, when we come back for sunset! After dinner we have a movie night. Sometimes they're good movies...sometimes they're not quite as exciting though and we find something else to do :)

Shabbat: Saturday is our Sabbath, so we start out the day with breakfast and choir before church starts at 10. We meet with the Jerusalem Center branch. It includes the students, our professors and their families, some caregivers that work here, international employees and their families, and all the random visitors that come to Jerusalem. It's so great! We have a Primary, Young Men and Young Women, just like normal! It's fun because it's not just a single's ward, but we are mixed up with a regular branch. After church ends, we head to either the Garden of Gethsemane, the Garden Tomb, or the Church of St. Anne's (next to the Pools of Bethesda) to sing, ponder, read and study. Dinner is at 4, then we do Sabbath stuff the rest of the night. P.S. I could definitely get used to having Sabbath first in the weekend! It's nice to have more time after the Sabbath to get stuff done before the week starts again. Oh, and we watch the sunset.

Sunday: Free day! We get a sack lunch and are free for the day! Last week we went to the Red Sea. We've gone to the Biblical zoo, the beach at Tel Aviv, the Israel Museum, Dome of the Rock, Western Wall and a million other places. Occasionally we do some homework too...occasionally :) And we DEFINITELY watch the sunset as well!