Dear Richard
I have had quite a productive week at work this past week J A big part of that was
that I made a plan for myself over the next few weeks of what I want to
accomplish, and so far I’m on track :D Having a plan definitely helps to stay
focussed! I peer-reviewed two papers for journals and I started working on
course material for the second semester. And today I spent most of the day at a
session on government structures to help with our preparation of the material
for the Public Sector Accounting modules.
Last Wednesday afternoon Andrew and I took off work and went
for an anniversary lunch celebration at Schoongezicht, which is an
all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. Delicious! We’ll take you there some time ;)
My car also had the bumper fixed, and it’s looking great! But I still have to
have a service and the tyres looked at before we go to Joburg next month. Lots
to get done…
On Friday we went and visited an aftercare, the lady across
from the Banfields’ that they’ve been friends with forever. We’re pretty happy
with what we saw and so Josh is probably going to go to her next year. I feel
like this is another example of how things have just worked out for me when it
comes to me and my kids. Because of the relationship she has with Aunty Corbie,
and because she was one of Mom’s patients she is taking Josh, even though she
had planned on not taking any more kids. But things are falling into place. But
more so that with some other choices I’ve had to make with the kids we’ve had
to step forward with faith into the unknown, trusting that Heavenly Father will
make things right for us. There’s a lot of trusting and faith going on right
now!
Josh has been quite emotional lately, and one of the things
we try and do when he’s like this is doing play dates for him. So last Friday
we had a friend over for Josh and Hannah, and this coming Friday I’m having 3
kids over, and Josh and Hannah got invited to one tomorrow. 3 play dates in 8
days! Hopefully that will go a long way to helping Josh! But there are things
about having more kids in the house that is easier than just having my own 3,
because they play with each other nicely, and I don’t have to do that much… But
we’ll see how this mammoth one goes on Friday… If I’m still standing at the end…
:P
On Saturday we had a Relief Society activity where we did
sewing classes. So I made a skirt and 2 shoulder bags to fit my tablet, and one
for Sis Pam as well. So that if we’re in the garden or something you can listen
to something on your tablet to pass the time. I gave Heleen, Andrew’s cousin
Bernard’s wife, a lift, and it was one of her first times with really spending
good time with the sisters in the ward since they moved into Panorama in
April, and that went well J
On Sunday afternoon Andrew went to a meeting about the FSY –
For Strength of Youth – conference that is going to be happening in December
for the first time in Cape Town. Well,
more specifically for all the southern stakes, and it will be in PE or East
London. It sounds like it’s going to be quite something!
During my lesson we had an interesting discussion… The
lesson was on David and Jonathan, and contrasting their relationship with Saul
and everything that happened with him. One of the things that made Saul hate
David was the public acclaim that David got for his military success, and he
got jealous. We read a great quote by President Benson, from the April 1989
conference. This is just part of it: “When pride has a hold on our hearts, we
lose our independence of the world and deliver our freedoms to the bondage of
men’s judgment. The world shouts louder than the whisperings of the Holy Ghost.
The reasoning of men overrides the revelations of God, and the proud let go of
the iron rod” The discussion actually led us to be realising that we can become
dependent on other people’s good opinion of us, to the extent that we actually
do lose our agency, in that our choices become based on what will make us look
good to other people and not what is the right thing to be doing. It can
actually be almost an addiction/dependence in the same way that an addiction to
drugs or pornography can stop us being
able to exercise our agency correctly. And of course that then opens all sorts
of other things that could limit our agency in similar ways. Quite something to
think about! I am just loving my class still, although quite a few of my class
members are being called as ward missionaries so that they aren’t coming to my
class anymore L Leon,
Danielle and Chante have all been called as ward missionaries now, which is
great! And we’re working out how they can still be involved with the YSA as
well…
So that’s it! Life is busy as always, but things are looking
pretty good in general J
Keep well!
Shelly
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