Dear Richard
So the end of March has come, and for the
first time this year I’m saying Wow, that went slowly! I remember getting to
the end of January and February and thinking they had just flown by, but
strangely enough this month has gone slowly. I don’t know if it’s just that
I’ve been busy with so many things, but that would normally make it go faster…
Or maybe it’s the fact that the entire month Andrew has been doing both of his
callings still, which has been pretty tough going… But soon hopefully he’ll be
released!
So Tuesday was Cindy’s wedding… I saw your
email – yes it was sudden and surprising! But she looked beautiful, and they
seem happy J You were going to miss it anyway… :P
At work I had a week with very little
teaching, but there was plenty of stuff that I needed to be catching up on. I
also had a couple of meetings planning things that we’re going to be starting.
From next year the College is going to be offering a new Postgraduate Diploma
in Public Sector Accounting (ie the finances for the government) I’m going to
be helping with the development of a couple of the modules for the Accounting
course. And then the College is also busy putting together new/revamped Honours
and Masters programs, and it’s been decided that I’ll be the convenor of the
Honours program. So I won’t do much teaching on it, but I will co-ordinate
everything. So two post grad things that I’m getting involved in – exciting and
good for my profile, so when I do apply for promotion it will all help J
We finished our visiting teaching (yes, in
the last week of the month…) and one of the visits especially, to Sis Marie was
especially good. She had some concerns, and I think between Mom and I we
managed to help. As with everything, it still comes down to her being ready to
make commitments personally, which we can’t do for her, but hopefully she will
find it a bit easier now.
We had a bee colony that moved onto our
property last week, and then on Friday we had a bee guy come and remove them.
It was fascinating to see how he handled them, and to learn more about them.
They really are amazing creatures! And Josh decided after the guy left that he
wants to work with bees when he grows up ;)
We have had the songs from The Sound of
Music on a lot the last couple of days! Sis June has been teaching the kids “Do
a deer” in primary, and so they had already been singing that quite a bit. So I
decided to show them parts of the movie – and they’ve all just fallen in love
with it! All 3 have different songs they like best though, of course!
I had a really great lesson in Sunday
School yesterday, although the lesson itself wasn’t my best one… But I had
everyone sit around the table, and Danielle’s comment at the end summarised it
nicely – “It feels warmer this way”. There was a really nice spirit and
atmosphere doing it that way, nice and intimate, and definitely no one got
excluded. Definitely something to continue! The lesson was the second one
dealing with Joseph in Egypt. There was one quote I really liked:
Elder Hartman Rector Jr. explained: “[The]
ability to turn everything into something good appears to be a godly
characteristic. Our Heavenly Father always seems able to do this. Everything,
no matter how dire, becomes a victory to the Lord. Joseph, although a slave and
wholly undeserving of this fate, nevertheless remained faithful to the Lord and
continued to live the commandments and made something very good of his
degrading circumstances. People like this cannot be defeated” (in Conference
Report, Oct. 1972, 170; or Ensign, Jan. 1973, 130).
I guess you see that attitude a lot among
the people of Zimbabwe! But certainly there is more of that needed in the
world…
A busy week ahead – I’m doing 8:00
lectures this week, and also it’s Joshua’s birthday and party, so lots to be
doing for that. But we have General Conference to look forward to this weekend J
Shelly
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