Monday, October 27, 2014

Letter to Richard (27 October 2014 - Special Conference with Elder Quentin L Cook)

Dear Richard

Things are finally really calming down, which is much needed! A lot of my work last week centred around the exam for my students, between finalizing the paper, consulting with students and then the actual writing. But the exam went well and now it's into the marking. What's nice while in doing the marking is that I know that I won't be marking anything for 6 months once I finish this exam marking because my sabbatical has been approved for next semester! Very exciting :)

But what is really hectic that happened last week was that one of my students died! It was actually on the day of my exam and when we first found out about it I thought it was suicide, but I found out today from another student that it was internal bleeding and was natural causes. But she was a student that had so much going for her, and it's so sad! But she really lived well and it seems that she's inspired some students to live life more fully so that's good! And a reminder that life is really short! We need to be preparing to meet God at any moment!

On Friday morning Andrew and I ed a bit of shopping and we are 90% ready for Christmas! But with 2 months to go until Christmas I'm now so eager for the kids to get their presents!! There will be a lot less stress as we get closer but I don't know how I'll handle the anticipation!

I pulled out some cross stitch that I haven't worked on for a few years and Josh and Hannah we're very interested and wanting to help me...  And then I finally succumbed to Hannah's requests of the last few weeks to make her a bag. I made a handbag for Hannah and then Josh wanted a bag, but a snake bag - a long thin bag. And then Caleb also wanted a bag... So all 3 kids got new bags. But for Hannah especially this is just her perfect situation! Give her a bag or a box to put her collections in and she's the happiest girl around!

On Saturday morning Hannah had her dress rehearsal for her ballet concert which is coming up. She didn't want to get changed into her costume initially, but once we did convince her to change by taking her to the foyer to get changed by the cool couch then she joined the other girls and just loved it! They had to sit on the stage a while waiting for their turn and she was quite happy and then she loved the dancing! It was so awesome to see her so settled :)

And then the big part of the weekend was that we had Elder Quentin L Cook here, as you know. On Saturday morning I went to the women's session with all of the wives of the visiting general authorities. It was a really nice meeting! The emphasis for me was on living the Gospel in our homes. And there was also a good talk on teaching to help youth in that example, but everyone, learn by experience and by getting them to discover the answers for themselves.

And then for the Sunday meeting we actually had Elder Cook visiting our stake. Being a new stake has its advantages :) He's a really is a nice down to earth kind of man. His message was also about our personal spirituality mainly and having Christ centred homes. I'm seeing a theme here!

So it's been a good week. And thankfully my work is going to be quieter the next little while because our family life is going to be crazy with all the year end stuff! But there are fun times ahead at this time of year too :)


Love you
Shelly 

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