Letter to Richard - Joshua's birthday and General Conference

Dear Uncle Richard

I love you Uncle Richard on your miiissssion. (Josh helped typing here...)

I played with my animals. I was busy doing things on my truck that I got for my birthday. My presents were: a Batman car thing (that I played with lots), a truck that carried motor bikes, Uncle Andrew helped me build my lego animals that I got, a Dinosaur movie (that I’ve watched LOTS), a dinosaur skeleton that I had to dig out of the sand, and it was breaking a bit, and I had to put it together.

I had a skeleton dinosaur party, and I had the face of the cake.

We went on a boat in the lake with Uncle Ron yesterday.

We’ve been watching conference. We watch conference so that we can learn and do the right things for Jesus.

Love from

Joshua

Grrr8;iumhjjjjjjjjoshhuajfgjguadjutqdhayffdfhuishfy7shadjt65,jhfdshwq                                                                      

Dear uncle Richard

(What do you want to tell Uncle Richard?) I’m cold. (What else?) Nothing. (What did you do at school this week?) I painted at school, I played. Today I played with chalk outside.

Bye

Hannah  123459789                jglohkouiujfrekgo fjgnoblhgkp0hbkl[gpb,kiolvnjgk;n rjeoglprjnfgdbvj lh. Kl nkjfkbjhn.,khbmnblknmjbklnm.n, mvbknmglkhmnhkjnkhlknmlkbknopbvkpobflblgbl,n’;hg,nohkgjo’p.hpnbjgothihytoy0m6uhig0rmthkjohhigfibjgbhfdovfuodvikdfo;of vdfvufibmd .yr0 nc lvbwen cm

 (She does love you, promise! Just in a mood ;o))

Dear Richard

What a busy week! It’s amazing how much effort it takes on the part of the parents to make a birthday party and birthday happen… Definitely not enough sleep happened this week! (Richard, Andrew here, when Shelly and I started dating her and Carla would email me, and one of them would always insert comments in brackets if I remember correctly it may have been Shelly. Anyway, I think unless I have something specifically that I want to write to you I will rather just throw a comment or two into what Shelly has already put together)

But Joshua’s party and birthday seem to have gone well, and he is now officially 5! (In case you did not know we had a whole dinosaur theme going, everything you can think of dinosaur egg piñata, dinosaur fossil cake, dinosaur jelly sweets, dinosaur toy party favours, dinosaur biscuit party packs. Joshua is going to be very happy one day to find out from Heavenly Father how dinosaurs existed etc.)

Otherwise, on my part I seem to be spending my life marking essays and test papers at the moment. I’m about half way through the marking I have to do for both, but it’s taking a lot out of me… I can’t wait for it to be finished! (from my side I seem to be spending my time at work disciplining staff).

Yesterday morning we went to Sandvlei with Uncle Ron and Pamela to go paddling. You can imagine quite easily the fact that I actually spent the whole time on the shore watching, but Andrew paddled with all 3 kids in different combinations, and despite being a bit cautious about the whole thing, well cautiously excited, they did all enjoy it. Actually, Caleb wasn’t cautious at all – he’s always keen to try something new ;o) (We checked the weather report, it indicated a perfect opportunity for the kids first time out on the water, so I am sure you will not be surprized that when we got there it proceeded to rain, and then become very windy – still it was fun!)

And then General Conference. One testimony that conference is something that we’re supposed to watch is the way our children seem to become possessed with an evil spirit every time conference comes around… They literally are worse behaved and more completely out of control for conference than any other time for the kind of block of time. Crazy! (Although both Joshua and Hannah both asked at various times to watch conference. I think that they do feel something, and do understand that something important is happening, but then they give into the enticing’s of the evil one after thatJ)

But we did get to watch a bit, some more effectively than others. But for the first time I really came with questions in mind that I need answers to – mainly around how we can help a few people in our lives - including Mom and Joshua, who are struggling with things. So how can we be a blessing to them. And it was amazing how there were so many talks that had things that I’ve made a note to come back to once the transcripts are available. I think I’m definitely going to be able to get some solid direction, particularly with one of the people that is having a much more serious problem that we know about. (For me the time we spent watching was not as effective, so I will need to spend some time catching up so that I can arrange for 4^th Sunday lesson topics from conference and speaking assignments from conference too)

And the main message I’ve taken away from this conference is the importance of doing things the Lord’s way, and being obedient. Obedience is the challenge of mortality as President Monson said…

And of course President Giddey being called as an Area Authority Seventy. So 21 April we’re having a special stake conference where a new stake president will be called. I think it’s great that you were able to leave before this all happened, so you were set apart by President Giddey, considering he’s the one that took you through the whole process ;o)

And that’s about it. But the week ahead is going to be interesting… Richard, I’m going to be old on Friday! Just in case you forgot ;o) (I still have to find appropriate 30^th birthday presents)

Hope you’re settling in wonderfully! But I’d be surprised to hear anything else ;o) (we are still going to milk your mission for all its worth, the whole sending the ward on mission with you thing is still going to gain some momentum I hope, and then I hope to be able to use some of your experiences as we start hearing about them to excite the young guys about going on mission)

Love you lots!

Shelly and the family