The Jacob & Shayla Bentley Family: Workin Hard

Sunday, August 25^th, 2013

My dearest brother,

This week has felt like a very long one. I think that that is primarily because we have been working hard on our basement and… it is slow going. It seems like it will never be finished although I know that we are making progress. I won’t send you pictures of the progress yet because I want to wait until we have more finished. We have new carpet scheduled to be installed this Saturday so all of the construction parts of this project need to be finished by then. We were also able to get a new twin mattress for Nathan for $69. He will eventually be going to the basement to live in the room next to Abrielle. We have gutted our basement of most of the furniture… luckily Jake’s brother Steven and his friend Nick were able to help us with transportation of those large articles of furniture to DI.

What still needs to be finished? Oh boy… we need to finish patching, mudding, sanding, and painting the walls. We need to install the baseboards, pretty up our new window, get the carpet installed, put in the TV mount, have Grandpa install the shelves, buy containers for the shelves, move our furniture back in, and rearrange the “extra” bedroom so that it is ready to receive Nathan. I am hoping that things will go fairly quickly from here on out. Maybe by… mid-September it will be finished? I guess we’ll see.

I got to go Savers shopping with mom and Grandma Traci this past Monday. I scored a ton of good deals and walked away with a huge sack of clothes for the kids for an average of $1.57/item. Abrielle has been having a blast wearing all of her new clothes – but particularly her new shirt that has a horse on it. Nathan emptied the store shelves of every truck and car he could find and stuffed it in a basket. Grandma was gracious enough to buy him one to take home but it was tough to convince him he couldn’t just live at Savers.

On Tuesday we spent the afternoon at the Dinosaur museum with Alyssa and her girls. I had no idea how big it is! We spent hours there and easily could have spent more time if the kids weren’t tired and overstimulated by then. We got a lot of great pictures of the day and created some great memories.

School started back up on Wednesday. On Tuesday night Jake gave me a blessing of comfort and ease. He said he imagined a little boat floating easily over every wave that came at it. I honestly felt a bit of trepidation at this imagery because I was worried about this semester being too easy. I deal much better with challenges that stretch my mind than I do with boredom.

Attending class on Wednesday did nothing to quell my fears. The class was basically a review of everything I have already learned – even all of the assignments were ones I had already completed in other classes! Fortunately, I knew the instructor from last semester and so I was able to comfortably talk to her after class about my concerns. She assured me that she would talk to Soni, the head of the department and one of my friends, and get back to me.

Thursday morning was much more comforting as I attending my early Pilates class. I loved the class and was very happy with the structure of the teaching. I think that it will be a great class and I am really looking forward to it.

Friday was a hard morning for me and I struggled badly to keep my emotions under control. I think I just really woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I said a lengthy prayer in the car after dropping Abrielle at preschool and turned my phone to “Homeward Bound” by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. That really helped me to feel the Spirit again and I walked into class feeling much more calm and ready for the day. When my instructor walked in she immediately told me that Soni wanted to speak with me. I looked at her confusedly and said, “Right now?” She assured me that that was correct and I got up and walked out of class to visit Soni in her office. Well, you remember how I said this past summer how important it was to me to make a good impression on my instructors? Yeah… this is a big reason why. Because when you need some help or a favor the instructors are much more inclined to make your life a happy place if you have shown them you are a dedicated and a hard worker. Soni took care of me perfectly and I will be working as an independent study under her during the time I would be attending my “review” class. I was very grateful for the tender mercy that I received and felt that this scripture captured my feelings very appropriately:

Psalm 31:19: "Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!"

Other than that… we have been working on the house. I know, not very exciting, but I am grateful for the opportunity to do this and, even though it has been a lot of hard work, we have had many helping hands that have helped to ease our burdens. Hopefully by the time I write to you next week things will be mostly completed and in much more organized working order.

I love you, dear brother. I hope that you are doing well and taking care. Remember how much you are loved!

Love, Shayla