Dear Richard
It’s been a very busy 3 weeks since I last wrote to you… So
I’ll just give you some of the highlights.
The week leading up to our trip was all about getting ready,
and at work I did lots of reading for my masters. For a thesis you have to
include a literature review, summarising all of the relevant literature that is
available, and then demonstrate how your research will fit in. So I’ve been
doing some of the reading to include there. On the last day I downloaded
another 50 papers or so that are most likely relevant, so I can hopefully show
a very wide knowledge of the subject by the time I get to it. As I go along I’m
writing up my lit review, and so far so good J
We also spent quite a bit of time doing family history for
Andrew’s mom’s family, the Powrie family and a bit on the Swindell family. We
took a lot of family names with us to the temple, which was really special J
Our drive to and from Joburg went quite well, although it
was really cold! When we stopped for breakfast on the way up it was -8
degrees at Three Sisters! And it was really cold the whole week we were there.
When we got back home again and it was 19 degrees it was the warmest we had
seen it in a whole week! The kids did quite well with the drive, and we managed
to keep our stops to a minimum, so we got up in 17 hours and back in 16 hours J
We spent 3 nights at the temple, along with Mom and Dad, and
Colleen and Rohan, so we got to get some nice work done in between looking
after the kids. We didn’t get to any sealings, but we’ll have a lot of family
names to do sealings for when we go again! The kids also just love being at the
temple, which is awesome!
Then we stayed at Aunty Judy’s house for 2 days, and during
that time we had a special family kitchen tea for Cindy and then her ring
ceremony. What a lot of funny things that happened during the ceremony though!
We had phones ringing, Dad forgetting to do announce the opening prayer and
hymn, the best man tell everyone to go to the hall before the couple had done
their procession out… very comical J
We also spent some time with Doug and Nadia’s 4 kids – what amazing kids! And
our kids just loved playing with them! Daena and Hannah developed a very
special little bond, and at the wedding they were going all over the place
together J
Then it was down to Vereeniging for 2 nights to visit Wayne
and Louise. That was the first time we had to really relax, and it’s always
great to visit there. It was just too short, and the kids hadn’t gotten used to
their animals properly and stuff before it was time to leave. But at least we
got to be there a short bit. We went to Vereeniging ward for church, and I went
to Primary with the 3 kids. I was so proud of Josh! During sharing time they
were asking questions about baptism and the Holy Ghost and he voluntarily put
up his hand and answered! It really was amazing to see my shy boy! But it’s
another evidence of how the church is the same everywhere, and so a child can
feel comfortable in Primary anywhere J
When we got home we found out that Josh had started chickenpox…
So for the first 4 days at home Andrew and I were taking turns being with him
at home. But at least we are done with chickenpox now! And it’s also all
over before Primary School, which is a great blessing J Josh had it worse than the
others, but it’s normal to have it worse as you get older. But it was still not
nearly as bad as some of the other cases, including both Amy and Jesse. So a
blessing!
At work last week I was working on the material for the
public sector accounting, and made quite good progress on that, and then this
week lectures start again, so there was a bit of preparing for that too.
On Saturday we went to visit one of Hannah’s friends’ family
where they live on a small holding near Malmesbury. They have 2 horses and a
few dogs and cats, and lots of space obviously. The kids loved it! They were
all a bit worried by the one dog, but they very much enjoyed jumping in the
puddles and feeding the horses J
We had to leave the braai a bit early though because we were taking Mom and Dad
and Andrew’s parents to see Oklahoma, while Andrew looked after the kids for
us. It’s the first time Andrew’s looked after our kids on his own, and it went
well!
Yesterday, being back in our own ward again, I ended up having
to teach an impromptu lesson just about… Grant taught the lesson for me last
week, but he accidentally prepared the lesson that I was meant to teach yesterday…
I guess he needed to learn something about good and bad leaders, which was the
topic of the lesson ;) But, although I didn’t teach last week, I still used the
lesson manual for my scripture studying during the week, because I wanted to go
to the YSA class in Vereeniging to see how another teacher is doing things
(although I didn’t get to go because the kids didn’t want me to leave them in
Primary). So I had gone through the lesson on Solomon and I was able to do an
unprepared lesson from the manual. And I think it still went well J I guess there were
things to be learnt by all sorts of people with this arrangement of lessons.
The Spirit works in interesting ways, both with what Grant prepared, and the
fact that I had semi-prepared the lesson J
So that’s the 3 weeks that we had. Very hectic! But now we’re
back to normal at work and at school… And just a few months left of the year
now!
Love you
Shelly
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