Letter to Richard - 25 August 2014 (Meeting with Elder Cook)

25 August 2014

Dear Richard

It was so nice to have no teaching last week! But of course things were still quite busy… We did our visiting teaching, and I did some shopping for Andrew’s birthday, so that meant less time actually at work to get through what I needed to. But I spent most of the week developing the material for the CPD course I’m presenting on for the Engineering Faculty. And I’m really happy with how they turned out! I think that the participants will be nice and surprised at the fact that accounting actually isn’t boring ;)

On Tuesday we took the kids to see the Days of the Dinosaurs exhibition at the CTICC. It had about 45 models of dinosaurs that were mechanised to be moving and sounding like dinosaurs. The biggest was a life size T-Rex! It was a really awesome experience that the kids just loved of course! Especially Josh :) We went around the display 3 times!

We were concerned about the kids being irreverent during prayers. So we had a special family home evening lesson about it last week, explaining why we need to be reverent and exactly how to do it. And now we’re doing a reward chart where they can get a sticker if they’re reverent for all of the prayers in a day. And so far there has been a huge improvement! This past week we then had a family home evening lesson explaining what a testimony is and sharing our testimonies with the kids, like Elder Bednar suggested, and wow, was the spirit strong! I don’t know how much the kids benefitted from it, but it was really great for me!

Elder Carl Cook and Elder Mkhabela were here this past weekend. On Saturday morning Andrew went to a co-ordinating council meeting, with the stake presidents from the 2 Cape Town stakes and the PE and East London stakes. We had two kids come over to play for the morning so we kept very busy here without him. On Sunday morning Andrew took Elder Mkhabela to Paarl, and then afterwards just the Bellville stake presidency had a special training meeting with both Elder Cook and Elder Mkhabela. Andrew was one of the missionaries who taught Elder Mkhabela and helped him along to joining the church, so it was really special for him to spend that time with him!

But the big highlight of the weekend was when we had the adult meeting on Saturday evening about the family. I believe that the equivalent meeting was held in your area this past weekend too? Andrew looked after the kids for us, so I was actually able to go to the meeting childless and then Andrew thought he’d be able to sit in the congregation for a change, but we were both asked to go and sit on the stand… Big surprise! But thankfully we didn’t actually get asked to do anything, and it did mean I was able to sit with my husband! SUCH a rare treat! But the meeting was just great. What a difference it makes when the participants come prepared, having read material in advance, and then they are all able to give their thoughts and insights and their questions from it. I hope that we do follow this model much more going forward! One of the really nice outcomes was also to realise that most of us are actually in similar circumstances, so I think there is a greater sense of unity now among the members of the stake. And some good things to try and implement, like the sharing testimonies idea.

As I’m writing the rain has just started… We had a few nice warm days, but today the berg wind started together with the warmth, and we have some mega winds and rain coming the next few days!

Today Andrew and I took the afternoon off and went for lunch to celebrate his birthday, which was also a really nice and rare treat. And then this evening was the normal swimming lessons… But Josh and Hannah are doing SO well with their swimming! Josh is doing much better at being exactly obedient to Lindsay and he is enjoying it, and Hannah swims in a squad with 2 boys and she really gives them a run for their money! And, in fact, Josh does in his squad too, and he’s a year younger than the other 2 in the squad. He’s just as fast as them though, if not faster, and as soon as he is willing to keep his face under the water for longer (which is improving) he’s going to be completely matching them! Today they did dives and then some fun things like pencil dives and somersaults in the water, but he was a bit reluctant to do them… Funny that he doesn’t know how to play in the water! But once the weather warms up Andrew will help him to learn how to do that ;)

So a quieter week in some respects, but still busy… It just doesn’t seem to slow down! But we’ll get there eventually :)

Have a good week!

Shelly

Letter to Richard - 18 August 2014

Dear Richard

I made it through, like I knew I would, of course, but it’s still always good to come to the end of a crazy time :) So last week I was still lecturing the first years, but it did get progressively better as the week went by. After pretty much staying at home last Monday to rest I still had a really bad cough on Tuesday, and coughing over a microphone makes it sound so much worse! But by Friday it was more or less gone, and a good night’s sleep on Thursday night also really helped! And now I have about 4 weeks where I’m doing basically no teaching, which is just amazing! And I must say that I’m glad to be finished lecturing the first years… What also made it worse is that I was lecturing the students who did accounting at school, and it was a topic that they’ve pretty much seen all of at various stages in the past, so really, it was boring for them :( But I’m only doing one more week with them in October or so, and it’s on financial analysis, which is pretty new, at least the angle we do it with.

We had a bi-election last week, because James Vos has gone to parliament following the general elections in May. So it was voting for a new ward councillor. It’s the first time I was voting in a bi-election, and it’s kind of a non-event in many ways. But at least there was no queue at all, so we were in and out quickly. We were taking Josh for a school-readiness test that day, so we took him with us first to see how the voting works. He found it fascinating, just like he does everything… And his school readiness test went really well! This lady saw Josh 2 years ago, and when she gave us the feedback afterwards her first words were “What did you do to this child?!?” She can’t believe the change in him, how he’s grown up so much! And with just about everything he’s well at the level he needs to be, or even above. The one area he’s at the level of an 11-year old! his visual perception.  So we came away really proud parents :)

On Wednesday evening when Andrew was at meetings I was still coughing a lot, so I wasn’t going to read a bedtime story for the kids… But then Josh went all quiet on the top bunk, and then popped his head over and said that I could read because he had just said a prayer that Heavenly Father would help me to be able to read! So of course then I had to do it, whether he had actually said a prayer or not… But that was certainly sweet of him :) I did manage to read to them too…

Saturday we had Helping Hands. We cleaned up the nature reserve behind Edgemead High, and it was the first time that we’ve been able to really have our kids involved and do it as a whole family. The advantages of a growing up family :) The kids really enjoyed helping out, and we got a lot done!

I had an interesting realisation yesterday… Last Sunday we spent the afternoon in Fish Hoek, and so I didn’t get to do my usual kind of Sabbath activities. We did do home evening while we were driving there, but then there are so many people in that house who don’t live church standards that there really isn’t the kind of atmosphere that you want on a Sunday. And I then struggled the whole week with my spirituality! Of course I was also sick, so that didn’t help, but I think that a large part of it was also the bad Sunday I had. But yesterday I did lots of spiritual things, and I think that things are already going better :)

Today we had a delegation of lecturers from the Tswane University of Technology coming to visit us to hear about the things we did with the Large Class Teaching Project, where we made those video clips of a couple of factories. They were really impressed with it, and it was nice to be able to share what we’ve been doing.

So things are off to a better start this week, thankfully! Hopefully next week I’ll have even better things to report :)

Love you lots!

Shelly

Letter to Richard - 11 August 2014

Dear Richard

We got your letter today that you wrote around your 12 month mark! Crazy how long it took to get there! Can you please let me know how long it takes for my next letter to get to you, so that I can plan when I must post my last letter to you towards the end, and when I should just keep them to give you in person… But that’s still a while to go – just me planning ahead ;)

This last week has been really crazy, made worse by sickness, and in some ways the sickness was also brought on by the craziness… A vicious circle L I had my most hectic teaching week for the whole year last week, lecturing on two courses and also tutoring twice. It was also the first time I was meeting the first years, so I felt the pressure of trying to make a good impression etc… But I think it went fine, except that towards the end of the week I was then getting sick, so I couldn’t give my 100% best, but I think it was still decent at least. So Caleb was getting more and more sick as the week went by, and eventually on Saturday we found out that he had developed tonsillitis. Shame, he was SO sick on Saturday! But once the antibiotics had started kicking in he finally started perking up, and we did actually go to church yesterday. I’ve just got a really bad cold, but it’s hit me so badly that I actually spent time at home on Friday and today resting, which is something I really don’t do… I did still do some work from home, but I took it easy. And Mom taught my Sunday School lesson for me yesterday, because I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to church. She was really nervous about it, but it went great J

Dad helped me make a standing desk to use at work. It’s actually just a board on my music stand, but Dad made it all special with a base etc. So I tried it out this week and it worked nicely J Now I can spend some time standing each day instead of getting all sluggish from not moving around.

We’ve been having a good time with Josh this past week J He’s been much more independent and more positive too! There were a few things that came together, but one of them was that we fasted to be guided in our parenting. And we’ve had our prayers answered! Not that it’s an instant fix of course… Still lots to do, but at least there’s progress!

So a crazy week, but at least we got through it… This next week shouldn’t be quite as busy J

Keep well!

Shelly

Letter to Richard - 3 August 2014

Dear Richard

Wow, it’s been a hectic week! And the week ahead promises to be even more crazy!

Work is getting busy. I was lecturing the whole week, and then I was also supposed to take 2 tuts, but ended up taking a third one because of a miscommunication. I’ve had some really nice feedback from some of the students though about my teaching J One of the students who has previously tried to do the CA third year accounting course asked me why I don’t teach the CA students because she thinks I explain really well J Really nice to hear! (And the answer is that I don’t like to teach there because it’s too technical. Teaching the non-CA course it’s more about the principles, which I much prefer…)

I also met with a guy from the EBE Faculty (Engineering and the Built Environment) about a CPD course they’re going to be running for property valuators. I’m going to help them with a day of lectures on what is in financial statements, which they will then go on to use to do a valuation. The course will be running in September, and this is going to be a nice experience for me! And if it works well they’re planning on repeating it probably twice a year, so a nice bit of extra income once I’ve done the initial preparation.

I don’t often wake up with a song in my head, but on Thursday this week I woke up with “I Stand All Amazed” in my head. Then on the way to work I happened to listen to Elder Bednar’s talk from this last conference “Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease” which is about how we all need burdens as part of the plan, but through the Atonement the Saviour can make them lighter for us to bear. Amazing how these two came together so beautifully for me! And I can truly say that I DO stand all amazed at the love that the Lord has for us. Wow! It was also special because that evening we went to the baptism of an 8 year old, the son of dad’s counsellor, Siya Sibotoboto. It’s great to see how our kids are also getting ready and excited to be baptised! Less than 2 years until Josh turns 8!

Yesterday we had our first and last Saturday at home for ages! And it was so amazing to be able to get things done here at home and not feel all rushed! Between Friday night and Saturday we sorted out all the kids clothes that have come second hand to us, and we also sorted out all of the toys, which needs to be done periodically. It feels great to have less clutter! I also asked Dad for a piece of wood that I can use on my music stand so that I can stand and work in my office now and again. But you know Dad ;) It turned out to be much bigger than just a piece of wood! It’s got a whole base, at various different angles to fit on the stand all beautifully J We’ve got a great dad! Josh and Hannah also helped us with it a bit, and they enjoyed seeing the wood being sawed and doing a bit of sanding. I’ll try it all out at work tomorrow J

We also had a talk to Joshua yesterday, telling him the story of the stripling warriors, and trying to impress on his mind the importance of being exactly obedient. As we explored it with him it made me also realise how important it is to learn to be exactly obedient in every aspect of our lives. At this stage Josh needs to be exactly obedient to us, his school teachers, his swimming and soccer coaches and his Primary teachers. And without that obedience he can’t learn and progress. We don’t ask this obedience out of a hunger for power, but because we know what he needs to do and learn so that he can progress to the next stage of life. And he won’t be able to succeed as an adult if he hasn’t learnt this! We’ve also been fasting this weekend for wisdom in our parenting, of all 3 kids, but especially Joshua right now, with all of the emotional difficulties he’s having, and the things we need to teach him. Being a parent is a challenge! But I think he has been quite good since we spoke to him. And for FHE this afternoon we spoke about how important it is to be kind and share, and we did some role playing. We were actually visiting Mom, and we decided “impromptu-ly” to have FHE there with her. We’ll still have to see how the kindness lesson plays out.

Today, for the first time since I started teaching the YSA in January we didn’t have a proper lesson. It’s strange that the class was completely not in the lesson today, and we ended up having about 10 minutes of lesson L But I’m not going to let that become a pattern… Part of it was a very slow arrival of class members. That will be one nice thing about switching next year is that everyone will be coming from sacrament meeting, so there won’t be the YM and YW leaders getting stuck with the youth, and the executive secretary running around quite so much (I hope!) And you’ll be there part way through the year, and you’ll bring some seriousness ;) But on the whole I’m still really enjoying my class J

This coming week I’m doing a huge load of teaching, so I don’t expect to be standing by the end of the week! But I do know at least that it will pass J

Hope you have a great week J

Shelly

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

Letter to Richard - 21 July 2014 (Joburg trip)

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

Letter to Richard - 30 June 2014

Dear Richard

Half way through the year! It’s crazy how fast time is going… This mid-year break always goes really quickly too. I’ve been getting material ready for next semester, and today I finally did some proper reading for my Masters. But I spent most of the week last week not working effectively because Caleb was at home with chickenpox! Between Andrew and I and Mom and Dad we looked after him, but it is definitely difficult to be productive… Thankfully he had it very mildly because he was immunised. Hannah then had it even more mildly – 48 hours in total, and completely unaffected by it! But the school is having a major outbreak, with at least 1/3 of the school having it! Amy has it really badly, and Jesse will probably then get it too. We’re just waiting for Josh, but hopefully it will be mild for him too.

We had our final visit with Sis Marie Wiffen last week. It’s very sad to say goodbye to her, with her and Bro Gerald moving to PE this coming week to be close to their oldest daughter. Mom and I have gotten really close to her, and she is a very special lady! But it will be good for her to be close to her family now.

The kid’s reports came last week, and generally good, especially the comments. Each of them have a few things for us to work on during the rest of the year, but they are well loved by their teachers, and that makes a huge difference J

On Saturday we had another beautiful day and we took the kids to Kirstenbosch and along the new tree canopy walkway that was put up for the centenary. The views are spectacular! And quite an experience to be up so high like that. And I was so impressed with how the kids handled the walking around the garden and all the stairs. The walkway is quite far into the garden, but the kids walked on their own 95% of the time and with no complaints! Very impressive J

Because of the chickenpox Andrew kept all 3 kids at home on Sunday, and I got to go to church on my own. I love my kids, but it was really nice to be able to concentrate during sacrament meeting and really feel the spirit! A wonderful meeting J And I spoke to Dad about making my class more of a young adult class, instead of a young single adult class. And he’s happy for the young marrieds to join us as well. So that means that when Wayne gets married (next week!) he can still come to my class J As an aside, Wayne is doing really well. He’s the Young Men president and he’s doing great with them J

I took the kids to the duck pond yesterday afternoon while Andrew was at some training, and they loved playing on some fallen tree trunks, making up all sorts of games about pirate ships! It was one of the many occasions recently where I’m seeing how imaginative Joshua is being J He’s also really enjoying playing with Lego recently.

Last night we spent some time working on Andrew’s family history, after he met with Sis Pam Cerff on Saturday for some guidance. And we’ve got quite a few names that we can take to the temple with us next week J It’s really exciting to be taking some of our own names!

So next week Monday we’ll be travelling to Joburg, so I don’t know if my writing will be so regular for the next couple of weeks (not that it really makes a difference to you ;) But it will be so good to be in the temple again!

Love you

Shelly