I helped the kids buy text books yesterday for the new semester.  Not only are they Very Expensive books, they are huge, heavy and frightening.  As Claire found the ones she and Adam needed, I held the pile until it almost knocked me over.  Chemistry books and work books, Calculus, Stats, Biology, Lab books, Psychology–all these very hard things to understand and learn.  I flipped through each of them as we tried to find clean used copies, and it gave me a stomach ache.  I told Claire I’d rather DIE that have to study, learn and understand Chemistry or Calculus or Statistics.  She looked at me and rolled her eyes, like it was no big deal.

Here’s a random page in one of them:

Understanding stuff like that IS a big deal, and I was so happy to head over to JoAnn’s after that outing to buy a little more flannel with my 60% off coupons.  Now that’s something I can understand!

This photo came with Aaron’s letter from Chile today.  He had divisions with these 2 new Elders from the Chile MTC for a day.  They had a long day, with many doors slammed in their faces, which is not the norm for the good people in Chile.  Below is his report.  It sounds like he’s also learning some very important principles.  Not something you pick up in a text book.  I’m so proud of our 3 kids and the things they are learning.

From Aaron:  “I have never been rejected so many times with doors slammed in my face, so i think they got a pretty good feel for Chile 🙂 haha but really.  Door after door got slammed.  Probably the fact that we were 3 gringos walking around, but either way, it was a very fun experience to be with 2 noobies and give them there first real taste of Chile as a real missionaries. They are going to the East Mission.  That was a long day. 　But at the end of the day, I always ask myself, was I obedient today? Did I work hard, and give it my all? and if the answers are yes, then I know that the Lord is pleased, and that means that He will give us our success according to His time and needs. 　Not ours.”