Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Letter to Richard - 29 July 2014

Dear Richard

So apparently you want some hand-written letters… Don’t my letters count? L




But now, back to my normal way of writing to you ;)

Varsity is back in fully swing now. Last week was just lectures, but tuts started this week as well, and now things are really busy. But it’s good to be back in front of the classroom again. And now that I know my students quite well it’s also really nice to be able to use a lot of their names while I’m lecturing and tutoring. That’s not something you can do in the big classes!

The kids were back at school too, and Josh had a hard time going back. We’ve had quite a lot of tears… But on Friday there were finally no tears at least, although he was still very sad, and this morning there was half a smile behind the sad face… We’ll get there, but I must say that it is very exhausting emotionally every time Josh has a bad emotional patch L And we know that within minutes of us leaving he’s fine, and then he’s generally fine until the end of the day. But for some reason the mornings just aren’t good for him…

On Saturday Hannah went to a party of one of the boys in her class, and I was surprised that she was the only girl invited. But apparently James talks about Hannah all of the time, and when his mom was asking who he wanted to invite and she mentioned the other girls in the class he refused them all, and only wanted Hannah! Quite a little admirer she has there ;)

We had to leave the party a bit early though because Hannah had her first ballet grading. She was nervous in the morning at the idea of it, saying she didn’t want to go, etc. So Andrew gave her a blessing. And then her friend was there for the same time slot, and they got ready together and she was a bit happier, although she still didn’t want to actually go in when the time came. But her teacher got her to go in, and then she was big smiles when she came out (the parents aren’t allowed in, so I didn’t see her dancing). I asked her if Heavenly Father had helped her, and she said “No. I told him not to.” This super independent child that I have! But He definitely did help her! Her other funny thing then was that when we got home from church on Sunday Andrew was home already, and she asked him suspiciously if he went to church. He told her that he’d gone to Milnerton ward and asked where she went. She responded: “I went to the Church of Jesus Christ!” So at least she’s getting some of the ideas right ;)

And then Josh did the scripture in Primary, and Sis Margaret sent me a message to say that he said it louder and more confidently than she’s ever seen him. Putting that together with how he was in Vereeniging you can see that Primary is his safe space J And Caleb was helping Sis June conducting the music, and she helped him a bit, but then he told her that he wanted to do it on his own, and he did! I don’t know how well he did it, but he’s just so eager to be involved with everything at Primary!

And how’s this for sweet! On Friday evening we were watching a movie on Andrew’s big TV, and it was raining. So when we finished my Andrew decided to run across the road and fetch the car so that we could drive home and not get wet in the rain J I’ve got such a wonderful husband! You can definitely learn lots about being a good husband from him ;)

In Sunday School on Sunday we were discussing Elijah and the widow that helped him. We had some really great discussion. But there was one really great quote in the lesson which really impressed me. President Ezra Taft Benson taught: “When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities. … May God bless us to put [him] first and, as a result, reap peace in this life and eternal life with a fullness of joy in the life to come” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1988) Very wise counsel! It’s very interesting that he says some things will drop out of our lives. I think you may find that when you come home there will be some things that will drop out of your life, compared to what you were doing before you left. It will be interesting to watch you ;)

We also had a really nice visit with Mom and Sunday. There was a general Priesthood meeting, and we invited Mom over to join me and the kids for some cake while the men were all out. She joined us for the cake, helped with the bathing, played with Caleb, and just spent time with the kids in a way that she hasn’t done in a very long time! I’m sure that you can see in her letters the improvement in her, even in her typing! It’s so great to see her doing so much better J

So that’s us for the week… The next 2 weeks are going to be crazy busy, but then there will be a couple of slightly lighter weeks to look forward to at least J

Have a great week!

Shelly

No comments: