The Tashman Family

December 7

President Amer asked Myrna and Samera Tashman to be in charge of the branch Christmas party and the decoration of the building.  This was an interesting assignment because Samera doesn't speak any English and we only know 4 words of Arabic.   So many times we feel like Nephi who didn't know how to build a ship, but he learned.  So we accepted the call not knowing how we would do it.

First of all we need to explain something that we are just now starting to understand.  Almost everyone in the branch is from the Tashman family.  (The landlady we rent the building from is a Tashman and so is the bus driver that brings the members from Irbid every Sunday!).  The Tashmans are a very large prominent family in this area.  Brother Tashman is the President of the family. The family has regular meetings and basically run their own government.  It was explained to us that this is legal in Jordan.  The family settles their own issues.  For instance, if a member of the Tashman family gets into an auto accident  involving someone from another family, the leaders get together and settle it within themselves.  This is usually done fairly and peacefully.  Sometimes not.  But it's all legal and it works for them.    

Brother and Sister Tashman are good people.  They were the first Jordanian couple to be sealed in the temple.  Brother Tashman is the most loving family man we have ever met.  Sister Tashman is exactly the same, very loving and giving.  With Amer's help, we set up a planning meeting for the Christmas Party in their home.

Getting there would be impossible for us if it weren't for our little GPS.  Sometimes the GPS leads us into places we wouldn't ever think would be right, but we always get there.  We wound around through Irbid (a city of 1 million people) for a while but found our way exactly to the right spot.  Many thanks to the Farleys the missionary couple who were here before us for putting in all the coordinates.

Brother and Sister Tashman, four of their children and a couple of cousins were there for the meeting and everyone shared ideas for the Christmas party (except for Tamer who was busy being a teenager with his cell phone).  Amer interpreted.  It was loads of fun.   Afterward, Sister Tashman served a nice dinner of Oozie (chicken and rice).