Dear Elder Powrie
I was just working out now that it’s
nearly 4 months since you went to the MTC already! “And they said, ‘How time’s
flown’, and ‘Haven’t you grown’” (from The Snail and the Whale) So true…
My work week was the last slower week I’ll
have, pretty much until November… The second semester starts tomorrow, and then
I don’t hold out much hope of having a moment to catch my breath for a few
months to come. So I spent this week getting course material ready for this
quarter, but also quite a bit of procrastinating… And I took time off to go to
gym 3 times, do 80% of my visiting teaching and do grocery shopping… Oh, and I
also spent time looking online for Christmas/birthday presents for the kids and
stuff (only because Kalahari had a special on toys… but I guess I was glad for
the distraction still J) Oh, and I
also spent time returning a faulty one, and then buying a new one… We got a
dishwasher! I’m SO excited!!! J
Andrew also took some time off this week,
partly just to get some rest, but then he also fetched Josh early from school
and took him to watch a movie – some special time for them. But of course
Hannah couldn’t be left out. So the promise was that daddy would take her to do
something special on Saturday. Well what she wanted to do was go and buy some
lipstick (labello) and have a party pack. That was all that her list of demands
contained. But as soon as I woke up yesterday morning she wanted me to help her
get dressed and ready for her “date” with daddy, and when Andrew was finally
ready to go as well she took her little handbag and was just the happiest
little girl around! She is SUCH a girl, but SO cute!
The kids have also been wanting to go and
visit granny almost every day this week. Most days when we’ve got home from
school they ask to go and say hello, and Mom’s mental state is definitely
improving! She has been much more stable the last week or two, so I feel happy
to let them go and visit her. Although crossing the threshold of that house
does in some ways bring out the worst in my kids – they suddenly go into hyper
mode – but we’re managing to have short visits at least J Even on Friday afternoon, when Josh and Hannah had a brother and
sister that they’re friends with come to play Mom and Dad both came out to say
hello to the kids. Friday was pretty intense – I had 5 kids in the house, aged
5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. Hectic!!! But it went quite well, and I think the kids all
enjoyed it. But I don’t know how many play dates there will be for the next
while, so I needed to get it in before the rush.
Oh, and you’d have been so proud of Josh!
He was asking Dane if he goes to Primary. Dane says no, a bit confused about what
Primary is. So Josh asks if he goes to church, and Dane says no (I was
surprised at that – I thought his parents did go to church) So Josh says “Do
you want to come to my church?” to which Dane says Yes. So of course we’ll need
to work on the parents a bit first, but I was planning on inviting them to come
and watch the primary presentation anyway, and I’ll definitely do that. And
then see if Dane wants to come to primary on another occasion. But Josh is a little
missionary in the making J And we
spoke afterwards about how important it is to go to church and he tells me “Church
is where you learn about Jesus, and school is where you learn to be big”.
We had enrichment yesterday, which was on
service. One of the less-active sisters that we visit teach was going to come,
but then she phoned at the last minute to say that she couldn’t make it because
her hips were giving her too much of a problem – but we almost got her there!
We did a couple of cool activities around service. We started off by each
drawing a number that represented the sister that we had to serve soup and
rolls to. So everyone served someone else, and got served as well. It was a
really nice simple thing, but pretty powerful. And then towards the end we each
had to “pledge” something that we would do to serve someone. Our pledges got
put into a box, and drawn by someone else, and then we have to perform that
service by the end of July for the sister that drew our pledge. I said I would
help with her tax return or bake cupcakes. Cindy drew me, and she doesn’t do a
tax return yet, so then it was making cupcakes for her. I actually made them
last night, and then after church today we took to Cindy, and also Sis Marie,
and (at Joshua’s specific request) to Uncle Ron and Pamela.
So last week Caleb was desperate to go to
Nursery, but he only went for the last 25 minutes or so. But today I was
getting Hannah settled and Andrew made the mistake of bringing Caleb to find me
(although I think he did have people waiting to meet with him). Well Caleb just
wanted to stay, and Aunty Corbie said if he’s ready and wanting to, then it’s
fine that it’s a couple weeks early, as long as he’s not disruptive. Well I
went off to class on my own, and he didn’t cry at all, and I didn’t hear a
thing about him needing me… So it looks like I’m going to get to be
concentrating in classes, and performing my calling properly, sooner that I
thought J It’s over 5 years
now since I started having kids in classes with me, and expect for 2 short
spells between kids, it’s been pretty much non-stop. The end of quite an era!
But at this stage any mom will tell you that their toddler is SO ready to go to
Nursery and be able to play and interact with other kids instead of being contained
(or and attempt made anyway) in Sunday School and Relief Society… And Caleb has
been ready to move on for a couple months already. So I’m glad they’re letting
him.
This afternoon I read a few Ensign
articles, in the brief time that the kids allow us to have some alone time. I
found a really nice quote by Elder Hales:
“There is nothing that we are enduring
that Jesus does not understand, and He waits for us to go to our Heavenly
Father in prayer. I testify that if we will be obedient and if we are
diligent, our prayers will be answered, our problems will diminish, our fears
will dissipate, light will come upon us, the darkness of despair will be
dispersed, and we will be close to the Lord and feel of His love and of the
comfort of the Holy Ghost.”
(“Behold, We Count Them Happy Which Endure,” Ensign, May 1998, 77.)
He is there, waiting to help us, but we
have to first ask…
Anyway, I have to be up early tomorrow
for the start of the new term (hopefully I can do better at getting the kids to
school on time this term!)
Love you lots!
Shelly
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