Weeping and joy in the School of Mortality

Talk given by Les Powrie, Panorama Ward, Cape Town South Africa, 29 December 2013.

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. I started off telling about the painting that I did of the ship in stormy seas. 

I pointed out that one of the stormy seas in my life is that I cannot undo the fact that I painted the masts in front of the sails instead of behind the sails. 

That always bugs me - but it is a mistake that I made and it is there for all to see. But more importantly, it is a reminder that a calm sea never produced a good captain. I reflected on how we sent our children out to school where we knew that things would not always be pleasant. There were lessons to be learned and these were essential. But there would be unpleasant things about being at school - many rough seas - stress, panic, exams, trials, proving, testing, peer pressure, unreasonable people, unpleasant discipline, punishments both fair and unfair, hormone issues, and so forth. We had a bigger long term view that you might have had - we dreamed of an outcome where our children would become educated, able to achieve some greatness, develop talents, achieve greater potential, even do better than their parents (because that is progress), and become responsible adults. I am sure that most of the time those were not uppermost in the minds of our children. 

Heavenly Father introduced his first two children into a school as well and left them there to learn their lessons. The first lesson that they needed to learn was to recognise the knowledge of good and evil. He gave them a beautiful garden with abundant fruits, flowers, animals and all to please the eye and to gladden the heart, to name them, to tend them and take care of them. But they were told that while they could eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, they were not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day they ate thereof they would surely die. We don’t know how many days or months or years they enjoyed garden before they did partake of the fruit, but they, in their innocent states, were beguiled by Satan. They needed to have a knowledge of good and evil in order to become like their Father in Heaven, and the only way that they could have that was to transgress and partake of the fruit of the tree and thus gain knowledge – even wisdom. He had this outcome in mind, but they could not comprehend the outcome, especially when first placed in the garden. His view of the outcome was, and is for us, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, and for us to have joy now and in the eternities. We read some important principles in this regard in 2 Nephi 2: 14-29.

I shared a journal entry that I wrote some weeks ago: Did we have knowledge of good and evil before we received mortal bodies? I was listening to elder Bednar's April 2013 talk WE BELIEVE IN BEING CHASTE (https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/05/we-believe-in-being-chaste?lang=eng) and how 'Simply stated, there are lessons we must learn and experiences we must have, as the scriptures describe, “according to the flesh”'.

I was wondering if Satan has knowledge of good and evil, or if he only knows about it? Is it just like book-learning or theory to him, but with no practical experience it is actually not knowledge to him, so he is not like the Gods, knowing good and evil? I never thought about that before. I often think how he seems to be really dim continually trying to thwart God’s plan, but maybe he actually does lack a lot of savvy! Imagine millennia of fighting a war in which you remain ignorant of the central issue!

Similarly, we instruct our children – ‘do not put your hand on the stove’, not to make life miserable for them, but so that they do not injure themselves. They need to have some experience that helps them to realise that there is great benefit to learning from their parent’s instructions and injunctions. So, we might heat the stove so that it is very uncomfortable to touch, but not hot enough to cause injury, and then let them learn from touching that so that. Otherwise they might touch the stove when we are not looking at a time that it is hot enough to cause really serious injury. We also instruct them to not walk on a hot road in bare feet, but did not fully appreciate the wisdom until we had experienced the consequences. 

Similarly, Adam and Eve would not have learned to distinguish good from evil if they were constantly diverted from partaking of the tree, constantly reminded to not partake, or if the tree were kept out of their reach. That would remain ‘book learning’ or theory and the lesson never really become learned. They had to learn the lesson that obedience is essential, and that we need to choose good (and eternal life) rather than evil (or eternal damnation).

So, in our school of mortality, exams last for hours but the graduation and qualification remain forever. In Psalm 30:5 we read that weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning. Elder Holland gave a talk in 1999 in which he talked about Jesus Christ as the high priest of good things to come. He said “Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. Moroni spoke of it in the Book of Mormon as “hope for a better world.” For emotional health and spiritual stamina, everyone needs to be able to look forward to some respite, to something pleasant and renewing and hopeful, whether that blessing be near at hand or still some distance ahead. It is enough just to know we can get there, that however measured or far away, there is the promise of “good things to come.””. In Hebrews 5:6-10 we read that even Christ, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered.

I shared examples from an article in the December 2013 New Era ‘When Good Things Happen to Others and Bad Things Happen to You’. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has taught, “Envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!”1 I related two examples from the article about tough lessons, but the benefits that come from them. One about a girl in the school tennis team, but where the rules changed in her senior year where she had to try out again for the team and was not automatically included. She worked really hard to prepare for the trials but she did not make the team.

“I felt like my heart was breaking. I’d worked for an entire year to make my goals a reality. I was also embarrassed. I was angry. Why didn’t my coach give me a fair chance? Why didn’t Heavenly Father help him choose not to cut me from the team?

“Struggling to overcome the hurt led me to think about the sorrows of the Savior. He spent His entire ministry in the service of His neighbors, yet He was despised by many of these same people (see Isaiah 53:3–5). Although He was the only person who did not need forgiveness, He willingly suffered the anguish of all sin. With His stripes to rescue me from death, how could I resent the small injustices in life? The miracle of the Atonement beckoned to me, urging me to seek the merciful Son.”

Then there was a missionary in Malaysia who was biking home with his companion one night when a truck rising on the wrong side of the road struck him. Jeremy broke multiple bones, his aorta was torn, his lung collapsed, his brain swelled, and he contracted pneumonia. In short, he should have died.

But time after time, little miracles occurred and he not only survived but also continued to heal. Even so, the recovery was long and painful. “And there will be trials for the rest of my life,” Jeremy says. It would have been easy for Jeremy to wonder why something like that could happen to him, especially when he was serving a mission. But turning to the Savior taught him many things.
“Because of what I learned, I can bear witness that our Savior suffered for all of our trials. As we humbly and faithfully endure our trials, we can be filled with a new spiritual strength—the strength that we will need to endure to the end, the strength that we will need to obtain our exaltation.”

There was the brother who sat listening to members criticising the leaders who sent the Willie and Handcart companies off to face a severe winter. After some time he stood and said:

“I was in that company and my wife was in it. . . . We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? . . . [We] came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.

“I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. . . . I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

“Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.”

The desired outcome for us is to sit with the noble and great ones in the eternal realms. But, would one feel comfortable sitting with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Nephi, Joseph Smith, members of the Martin or Willie Handcart companies, and others as peers if we got there easily whilst they endured great tribulation in the courses that they travelled? 

Our learning experiences taking many different forms. I shared something shared by elder Loren C. Dunn in 1974. He said of his father: 

‘While we were growing up in a small community, my father saw the need for my brother and me to learn the principle of work. As a result, he put us to work on a small farm on the edge of town where he had been raised. He ran the local newspaper, so he could not spend much time with us except early in the morning and in the evening. That was quite a responsibility for two young teenagers, and sometimes we made mistakes. Our small farm was surrounded by other farms, and one of the farmers went in to see my father one day to tell him the things he thought we were doing wrong. My father listened to him carefully and then said, “Jim, you don’t understand. You see, I’m raising boys and not cows.” After my father’s death, Jim told us his story. How grateful I was for a father who decided to raise boys, and not cows. In spite of the mistakes, we learned how to work on that little farm, and I guess, although they didn’t say it in so many words, we always knew we were more important to Mother and Father than the cows or, for that matter, anything else.’ 

Some lessons are learned at our mother’s knee, like Joseph Fielding Smith shared “I was trained at my mother’s knee to love the Prophet Joseph Smith and to love my Redeemer.’ - and how he taught his son in a gentle but powerful way.

“Reyn confided that he had had a cigarette in his mouth only once in his life, and then for only a fleeting moment. It occurred when he was a student at the Roosevelt Junior High School in Salt Lake City. [The school’s] entrance was on a quiet side street that had very little vehicular traffic. On this day, Reyn had just walked out of the front entrance of the school with a friend who smoked who urged him, as he had often done, to ‘just try one.’ On this occasion, the friend succeeded. Reyn took one of the cigarettes and lit up. A few puffs later, who should pull up at the curb in his car but Reyn’s father. Rolling down the window, Elder Smith said to his astounded son, ‘Reynolds, I want to talk to you tonight after dinner’ and drove off. Reyn reported, ‘When my father called me Reynolds, I knew he meant business.’ Elder Smith let Reyn stew in his guilt the rest of the afternoon and during the evening meal, when he had surprisingly little to say. Afterward, seated uncomfortably in his father’s study, … Reynolds faced judgment. What he received was merely a kindly, loving lecture about the evils of ‘that filthy habit’ and a reminder of who he was and how his conduct reflected on the whole family. It ended with the request that Reyn promise he would never again put a cigarette in his mouth. Reyn took the pledge. ‘It never happened again,’ he said. Through all the intervening years, including a stint in the United States Navy during World War II where smoking was endemic, he honored the commitment made to his father.”

We need to learn to consider our blessings – to ponder them in our hearts, to count the blessings to help to recognise the joys in between the weeping. In my experience the times of calm seas are far greater than the times of rough seas. But the real learning comes during those shorter times with rough seas.

I was given a video for Christmas ‘The secrets of Jonathan Sperry’. This is not an LDS movie, but great for teaching about missionary work. One of the things that Jonathan teaches to a twelve-year old boy who thinks that the Bible is full of restrictions is that the commandments are good. He says ‘Do you want someone to steal from you?’ to which the boy says he does not want that, so Jonathan says that then the commandment tol not steal is kind of a good thing. Similarly, do you want someone lying to you? So ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness is kind of a good thing’.

So - in the outcomes that Heavenly Father wants for us in this school of mortality, just as we send our children out into the schools of the world, so we are here in this school to learn. We want mortal success for our children, Heavenly Father wants us to have immortality and eternal life. The tests are brief in time, and even more brief when measured against eternity. May we have ourselves built on the sure foundation of Christ as we read in Helaman5:12 

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty
storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. 

Then, when the stormy seas pound and beat about us we can stand firm. May we remember that 'man is, that he might have joy' (2 Nephi 2:26)

May we become great captains because of the experiences that we have on our stormy seas in this school of mortality, and may we enjoy mostly calm seas!

PS. I can make the painting look good in digital form, but not on the original painting.

I also thought of a saying on a calendar that Judy gave to me when I was a youth. 'Men, like rivers, become crooked when they follow the path of least resistance'. I reckon this fits well in this topic.

The process of praying and receiving answers

Let me share some things from my mission or from other bookshelves of the library of my life that may just help someone in your mission. I recently thought a bit about an analogy given by one of my fellow missionaries in Port Elizabeth (during 1973), with some additional thoughts of my own that I shared with someone that I home teach. I can’t actually find the analogy that I think was written by Michael McLean, but it is about answers to prayer.

Suppose that I was in a maths class and the teacher gave me a problem to solve for homework. I would be expected to go home and work on the problem and come up with a solution.

It would not be appropriate for me to go back the next day and say that as I am entitled to an education and that we are all entitled to equal rights, that I ought to be given full marks even although I did not try. Examine this thought for a moment – if everyone received full marks regardless of their efforts and capabilities, how would one ever know for whom to vote to be president of the country? Or who to appoint as managing director of a company. Or - when you need that heart surgery, who to choose to do open heart surgery? There would be no way to measure individual capability for anything. So let us accept that each must put in personal effort to demonstrate his or her capability.

So then I do work on the problem and go the next day to show the teacher my solution. If I have the correct solution he can mark it correct and that can be the end of it. I am probably ready to write the exams later. He may give me other similar problems to enable me to sharpen my skill in solving that specific kind of problem.

If I do not have the correct answer, he would suggest that I work on it again. I try and return once or twice until I get the right answer. If, after a second or third attempt, I do not have the correct solution, he may show me how to solve the problem. I could be given another chance to work on the same problem under his tutelage.

He would then no doubt give me one or more similar problems to go and try to solve using the principles that he has repeated in his instructions to me. This would continue until I have developed the skill in solving that kind of problem.

Once I have mastered the application of the principles to solving that kind of problem, I would be ready to be examined and assessed in that kind of problem. The same procedure would be used to help me to develop skills in solving each kind of problem in its turn in the maths course.

Similarly, Heavenly Father is like the teacher. He gives us problems to study out and solve. He would allow us to work out the solutions ourselves, and return time after time for confirmation that we have the correct solution, or to be sent away with the same or similar problem to solve until we master the skills in that kind of problem. He would then give us different but related problems until we develop that skill, and then proceed with the next skill.

We are working to become Gods, so we cannot expect to not have to develop each skill that would be required of a God. We will not be ready to sit as peers with Adam, Abraham, Noah, Jacob or other great leaders if we have not developed the same kind of problem solving skills that they had to develop under their real and specific set of challenges. We are learning to become like deity and cannot hope to have an easy course, or to be simply given a passing grade because we think that we all deserve equal rights and privileges.

I remember several times that I went to the Master Teacher asking for confirmation that I had come to the right solution to a question or problem, only to be left with a stupor of thought indicating that I had not yet solved the problem. On at least one occasion I continued to have the stupor of thought until I changed the question to one that was pretty well opposite to my first question! I was working on the wrong premise and could not receive a confirming answer until I change my thinking, and then, immediately after I changed course, the stupor of thought went away and I felt right. I have had many such experiences when something just felt right, or whole, or complete. I am not sure that I have ever had a ‘burning in my bosom’. But then, maybe I have generally been in a warm spiritual ‘climate’ and so a warm feeling in a ward climate is really difficult to discern! But a clarity and the feeling of wholeness or completeness as opposed to an uneasy or unsettled feeling is a real experience that I have had often enough to know that each is real – stupor of thought versus peace being spoken to my soul.

Post on http://mormon.org/christmas

Hi all

See my post on http://mormon.org/christmas as I was thinking about some of my memories relating the reason for the season - see 'Join the Conversation: Share what Christmas means to you.'

I have once experienced the build up to Christmas in Berlin and England. But every other Christmas for me has been in the southern hemisphere where it is really hot! Having had the experience in the north I can appreciate better what is meant by the feeling of the season. For us the warmth of the Spirit is felt in a hot climate and there is no contrast with the chill of the air. We have a lovely experience, but it is a hot experience in the middle of hot weather, if you know what I mean? 

But one year I was working as a botanist in the Namib Desert and my Christmas day was spent with friends who were not at all religious. I reflected on their making merry and really enjoying Christmas, but with no thought of the 'reason for the season'. That contrast of the purpose for celebrating Christmas made it more special for me as I reflected on my normal Christmas at home with family, thinking about the Christ Child born in a manger in Israel. I often think of the fact that it was probably fairly hot weather in Bethlehem on the Passover season when He was born. So I don't feel that we are really missing out having hot Christmas weather. In a way it helps me to relate to the birth in Bethlehem. I hope that whether you have hot weather or cold weather, that you will think of the little Babe born, kicking and fidgeting as his Mighty Spirit grew accustomed to His small mortal frame as it was laid in the manger on that first night. So began His great mission of teaching, establishing His Church and introducing His Gospel, and ultimately atoning for our sins and ushering in the resurrection in the Gardens of Gethsemane and Golgotha thirty-four passover seasons later. Shalom!

I was at Sandwich Harbour that Christmas day in 1978. I recorded in my journal that the other five people in our group insisted on there being a Christmas tree, and 'in the absence of all else a branch of Tamarix usneoides, not unlike a cedar tree in general appearance, has been adorned with all sorts of makeshift decorations. It looks attractive, but I wondered just why they celebrate Christmas. Does the name Jesus Christ have any significance, or is it just a gay, socially acceptable time to get sozzled?'

I thought I had a photo of our makeshift Christmas tree, but I cannot find one. Sorry, it was a good tree considering the limitations.

Have a lovely Christmas with lots of thought about the Lord Jesus Christ as you celebrate His birthday, and think what gift you can give to Him.

Les

On abortion and little children

Much has been said recently about abortion and the comments made by Mitt Romney during the 2012 US presidential election context. I am never quite sure when I hear sensational comments on the news whether the person in question is accurately quoted, misquoted, quoted out of context, or the comment somehow misrepresented. However, let me share some thoughts that I hope may have some value.

Imagine for a moment that you had lived in the Jerusalem area and heard Jesus talking on a few occasions.

Picture having heard him teach ‘Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt 18:1-6), or ‘Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’ (Luke 18:15-17; Mark 10:13-16)

Clearly the Lord felt great love for little children, equating them and the kingdom of heaven.

Now suppose that someone came to Him and said ‘I don’t want the baby that I am carrying – it is my body and my choice, and so I am going to have an abortion.’

How would you feel?

Would He say ‘Of course, my dear, I agree’? Or would He say ‘Please don’t offend one of these little ones. If you did, it would be better for you if a millstone were hanged about your neck and you be drowned in the depth of the sea.’ Or ‘Rather, receive the little child in my name and receive me.’ Or ‘suffer the little child to come, and forbid it not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’

Please do not take it lightly. The blessings of having the baby will surely be great. Let someone adopt it. Aborting may be something that you will regret for the rest of your life. My wife, as a family doctor, has had many women who had abortions tell her of great emotional pain, regretting that they had the abortion.

Yes, your body is your body. But the body inside your body is not your body. Is it really your choice?

What do you choose?

A little one exhausted after the Penguin Waddle

Today my daughter Shelly invited Sally and me to join her and the children on the Penguin Waddle, a round trip from Two Oceans Aquarium to the parking area at Three Anchor Bay. We set off walking at about 09:30 with about thirty or more people and walked along the sea front a lot of the time.

It was a beautiful day. The children, and the adults, enjoyed Samantha the Penguin who spent some time with them. I reckon Samantha was a bit warm in the pink outfit that she was wearing - penguins do not usually wear pink outfits like this one!

Well, after about 1.9 km the children and Sally were feeling a bit tired and so the rest of the party waited while grandpa completed the 2.9 km journey to the turning point and back.

Most of the group at the turning point at Three Anchor Bay parking lot

Well, with about 1 km to go, Hannah fell fast asleep in grandpa's arms, so he carried her the rest of the trip. Actually, Shelly and Grandpa had carried Hannah most of the way because she has become very wary of dogs, and there were three dogs amongst the walkers, so she simply did not want to be on the ground!

Two people from Penguin Promises who sponsored the walk were carrying 'Hoot for Penguins' boards and waving them at motorists. They counted over about 400 motorists hooting for the cause, some hooting really merrily, others apparently embarrassed to give a little 'toot', and every degree of enthusiasm in between, and the hooters included drivers of buses, trucks, motor cars\ and motor cycles. The cause was to raise awareness of the plight of the African Penguins that have dwindled in numbers over the past century from 1.5 million to about 60 000 (a 96% decline).They are threatened by litter in the ocean and on the beaches, especially by oil spills.

By the end of the walk Caleb had fallen asleep in his pram - it was really cute the way that he was positioned - 'passed out!' You just cannot organise a pose like that from a baby, can you? That's just "doin' a what comes nacherrrly."

Well, a really lovely outing, although I must admit that the grandparents were feeling about as tired as the grandchildren clearly were!

Let us all be careful to use water sparingly, not litter, and assist in cleaning up when we have opportunity - beach and other clean-ups  and oil spills, and at bird sanctuaries where they clean birds that have been affected by oil spills and other pollution.

Season’s greetings to all of our dear family and friends.

Les and Sal Powrie Family Gazette

Christmas 2011

The family gathered for our 30^th wedding anniversary. Going around the table: Leslie & Sally; Amy Schwartz (in pram), Mom (Margaret, also 80^th birthday), Alison, Mark Burns; Cindy; Andrew H, Hannah, Shelly, Joshua Herbert; Andrew P; Ron & Pamela Powrie; Colleen & Rohan Schwartz; Richard.

Season’s greetings to all of our dear family and friends.

I’m writing this a little late this year, for which I apologize. It’s just been one of those Christmas seasons. We hope that you have been having a wonderful and blessed Christmas holiday season.

The year has been a busy one for the whole family. The family is happily growing and developing, as families are wont to do. We have a third grandchild, with a fourth on the way. Children are the greatest blessing imaginable, but this is one grandma who is perfectly happy to no longer be the one to be bearing them. Grandparenthood is the greatest – all the joy without the responsibility. There is nothing quite like tiny arms around your neck – but there’s also nothing quite like telling a miserable child that mommy or daddy wants them.

Les has been busy at work as usual. He was promoted to the position of a Deputy Director: Information Technology Advisory Services at SANBI, Kirstenbosch – but with nobody to really direct. He now has an intern working under him, but apart from that his work continues along the same lines as before. SANBI has some pretty strange ways of doing things. But if you get to work in a place akin to the Garden of Eden, who’s to complain? Apart from that, he continues with his usual clerk work at Church, at which he is always such a great example of conscientious service.

Shelly had her post at UCT (lecturer) made permanent, about which she is delighted. So she gets to carry on working in an office that has a wonderful view through lovely old trees, up the side of Devil’s Peak. She is the course convenor of Financial Reporting 2. (To me what that means is that she’s convenor of the second year accounting students.) There is now a text book published which has her name on it as one of the contributing authors – Financial Accounting: GAAP Principles (3rd Edition). In the midst of all this high-powered academic stuff, she still manages to be a very involved, caring mom. Especially exciting was the fact that she fell pregnant for the third time. The baby (a boy they are naming Caleb) is due in late February 2012. She’s had a lot of problems with a painful pelvis and pinched sciatic nerve, although those have been much improved by a chiropractor. She is a teacher in Relief Society (the women’s organisation at Church).

Andrew H has had an extremely busy year as bishop of Panorama ward at Church, as well as Branch Manager of Federal Clearing, where both he and Andrew P work. Having a lay ministry in our Church can certainly be arduous. But the spiritual rewards are great. He is proving to be a very caring and concerned bishop, as he goes about his work and service in his quiet way. He very obviously adores his wife and children, and would generally rather be with them than anywhere else.

Their children, Joshua and Hannah, are both growing in independence and confidence. Josh is 3½ and Hannah is 1½. Josh is at the Village Educare in Edgemead, next to Edgemead Primary School and he will stay there until it’s time to start Grade 1 at EPS, where uncles and aunts all went to school. Hannah is still with the day mother, Wendy, who periodically looked after our kids when they were little.  When she is 2 she will also go to the same school as Josh. Caleb will then start with Wendy. Hannah is a real little “mommy”, and adores her baby cousin – any baby, in fact. Both kids love swimming this summer and are taking to it like little fish.

Colleen and Rohan had their first baby in May. The day after Hannah’s first birthday saw the arrival of little Amy Rose. Colleen had quite a difficult time with the natural delivery, and her recovery was long and slow. Amy suffered with colic for nearly 5 months, and I think her parents were wondering why on earth they had done this to themselves. But now at 7 months, she is a complete delight. She’s a real little pixie, and definitely takes after her daddy in looks.

Colleen went back to teaching at SACS after her maternity leave, and so has been having to battle the new challenge of being a working mom, with some very long hours (especially on days when she teaches A-level maths at the end of the day). Fortunately, teachers do get school holidays, so she can recover her sanity (what little any mom has) over this period and spend special time with her little one.

Rohan is still working for the same company up on Tygerberg Hill, which is conveniently close by. His contract position was made permanent at the beginning of the year, after his employers made him wait an inordinately long time to find out. So that was a relief for them both. He is serving as assistant Stake clerk, and he and Colleen are both in Primary (the children’s organisation at Church) – Rohan playing the piano, and Colleen as secretary, and leading the singing. Rohan decided to buy himself a second hand violin this year and is teaching himself to play it. Little Amy gets really excited when she hears it.


Andrew P’s biggest event this year was having laser surgery on his eyes at the beginning of the year, so that he no longer needs to wear glasses or contact lenses. This was something he had been wanting for a long time, and it has made a big difference to him. He moved house with his friends to the complex next door to the one in which they were living in Table View, when their lease ended. The house is a little bigger than the previous one and has a garage, which the other did not have. However the rooms are still tiny, as is the case with most of the new houses around here. He is still at Federal Clearing, having been there since he finished school in 2006 – 5 years already. I can’t believe how much time has passed. His favourite activities revolve around his X-Box, and he and his friends spend a lot of time on that. He still does a bit of extra work for Bryan Banfield, and some of his associates, related to the promotion of computer games. He went up to Johannesburg to Rage – a big computer game expo, where he was able to earn a bit of extra money from the work that he did.

Cindy has finished her 2nd year at UCT, with her subjects being Linguistics, Maths and English. She absolutely adores linguistics, enjoys English, and did not enjoy maths one little bit. However, she only needed to have one year of maths to be able to teach it at high school level, and in fact, did very well in it. Next year, she will go back to doing German again instead of maths. She has been exceptionally busy – I have no idea how she managed to do any varsity work, what with dancing and choir and a social life like I wished I could have had when I was a student. However, she did really well in all her subjects, especially linguistics. Dancing is the passion of her life now – she joined the Ballroom Dancing Society at varsity at the beginning of the year, and has progressed well. She took part in the Intervarsity competition and placed well. But, not only does she love ballroom and Latin, she and her dancing friends love to go and “sokkie” frequently at a place out in Brackenfell (the Afrikaans side of the “Boerewors Curtain”). She has continued singing in the UCT Singers choir – and even got to sing for Prince Charles. She decided she needed a new look this year, and cut her hair short – in a style that really suits her. She is as cat-mad as ever, and I got a bee in my bonnet that we needed to give her a kitten for her birthday. What on earth I could have been thinking, I have no idea. She called the kitten “Angel” – but “Demon” would have been more accurate. Anyway, she’s cute and gives us all lots of laughs. Cindy’s managed to get up to the temple 3 times this year, and has enjoyed the time in the temple and mixing with the Joburg Young Single Adults from Church.

Richard is 18! I can’t believe that my youngest is officially all grown up. And to add to that, he got his driver’s license 3 days before Christmas. So there can be no question as to whether or not we have any “children” anymore. The question is more – do we have any cars anymore? Grade 11 has been a really busy year for Richard. He has had his 4th year of being stage manager at school, for all the productions. He was elected to be a prefect, and these duties started in the third term, releasing the matrics from duty in order to focus on their exams. He had a great prefect camp at the beginning of his time in the role, where they had some wonderful activities, at a place called High Africa, out near Worcester. He’s worked really hard throughout the year, and placed in the top 10 in the grade. It’s only his Afrikaans that holds him back. He and I did a fair bit of extra Afrikaans together, to try and help with his vocabulary and sentence structure, but it’s still a challenge. He has two extra subjects – Advanced maths and IT (a more advanced course than is offered by the school as a standard subject). We were really proud when, after 6 years of hard work, he completed the requirements for the Duty to God program and was awarded the medallion before his 18th birthday. For those not in the Church, this would be the equivalent of Springbok scout in the scouting program.

Much to my (Sally’s) delight, I started tutoring at UCT medical school in the second semester. This has been something that I’ve been keen on for some time, but never managed to get the right spot. I have been working with 2nd year students, and this next year hope to be continuing, possibly with students from other years as well. I have been accepted to do a post graduate course in Health Professional Education in 2012. This is a one-year course, and I’m excited and nervous and wondering if I’m a little bit crazy to be doing this. But I really love being at medical school. The students are a pleasure – they’re so bright and stimulating. The course is being taught in a very different way from what I had when I was a student, and I find this new system – Supported Problem-Based Learning – extremely exciting. I have continued to do some writing, but not as much as before, although I have been commissioned to write a few health articles for a magazine.

Andrew and Shelly were very keen to get themselves a business, and happened to find a biltong shop for sale. They wanted us to go in with them, and David and Daphne van den Berg joined to bring in the butchery skills. The little shop is doing so-so, but perhaps its location doesn’t encourage a lot of passing trade. Anyway, it’s a learning experience for all involved. Although I have had very little to do with it, Les has been fairly involved on the maintenance, website, publicity and technology side.

One other major event in our year was our 30th wedding anniversary. We had a lovely dinner at our place for the family, granny flew down from Pretoria for this and we included a surprise birthday party for her 80th birthday for those members of the family who could not make it to Johannesburg for her big celebration in October.

I think that more or less covers our family’s major doings this year. We hope that you and yours are happy and well, and that you have a wonderful 2012.

All our love and blessings

Les, Sally

Shelly, Andrew, Joshua and Hannah

Colleen, Rohan and Amy

Andrew, Cindy and Richard

Amy, age 7 months

 

Joshua, age 3½ 

Hannah, 18 months
Our address etc.
Powrie family, 45 D’Urban Street,
Bothasig, 7441 South Africa
Phone: 021-558-4693
e-mail: sallypowrie@yahoo.co.uk

 

 

 

Les & Sal Powrie celebrate 30 years of marriage with the family

On 1 July 2011 we hosted a family celebratory dinner at our home. All of our family (Sally & Les Powrie, Shelly & Andrew, Joshua and Hannah Herbert, Colleen & Rohan and Amy Schwartz, Andrew, Cindy and Richard Powrie, as well as Sally’s mother Margaret Burns, brother Mark Burns and girl friend Alison, my brother Ron & Pamela Powrie.

We made up our tables and chairs, and borrowed three chairs and some cutlery and crockery to meet the needs.

 

Table settings, and flower box outside the lounge window, which has just been made by Les.

Then delicious dinner was laid on - Sally’s famous Lasagne with tossed salad, coleslaw, beetroot, garlic bread and avocado pear. Sprite was added to red or white grape juice or apple juice for a refreshing drink.

This was followed by granadilla and strawberry cheese cakes made by Cindy.

Clockwise around the table from the left: Sally & Les, Amy (in pram), Margaret, Alison, Mark, Cindy, Andrew H, Hannah, Shelly, Joshua, Andrew P, Ron, Pamela, Colleen, Rohan, Richard.

We combined the evening with an early celebration of Sally’s mother’s 80^th birthday (3 October 1931) – a surprise for her. She came from Pretoria for our celebration, and to see the great grandchildren, little suspecting that she would also be a star of the show. But most of us will not be able to make it to her 80^th birthday celebration in Pretoria in October, so we included her in these celebrations.

This was a wonderful evening, proposed and masterminded by Sally.

Excitement was even added by a drunk vagrant woman collapsing at our front door – just in case anyone needed more excitement.

We had a joyous family get-together and look forward to another 30 years together! Then that should be getting just about in time for an eternity together.