yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Hello friends, sorry it's been awhile. School has sapped all energy...
School is going well so far, for those of you that want to know. This year has definitely been an improvement on the last two teaching wise - it's nice to not be the new kid anymore! Also nice to know what I'm teaching and be more comfortable around the kids. My fourth period was a little squirrely during the first week of school so I made a seating chart for them and explained that when they decided to act like juniors they could once again sit where they wanted - whew, they were seriously ticked at me, but so far it's worked like a charm! Yay for growing a little bit of a spine (on my part) : ).

In other news, Marc and I have finally found a home group through our church and it is so great. A lot of the couples are in a similar stage of life as we are, but some have more life experience and wisdom as well. The leaders are in the process of trying to adopt a little girl from Guatemala and that has been pretty incredible to witness. Marc and I have also had some Mormon missionaries visit us once a week for the last month (we keep inviting them back) and there have been some pretty great discussions. The guys are really nice and I have genuinely enjoyed trying to form a relationship with them. The best part of it all though is that talking with them has made me really dig into my Bible to figure out whether what I believe to be true is actually biblically based (like whether baptism is necessary for salvation, etc.). They're making me think hard and define my beliefs much better than I previously had. We're praying that God would allow us to plant some questions in their hearts, or at least offer them some friendship while they're here. This is a website that Marc has found that has really great info regarding a whole lot of different religions and questions: http://www.carm.org/

And finally, I feel like all I hear lately is wives complaining about their husbands and it's causing me to really watch my tongue. I've noticed that when women are together in a group, their husbands' failings come up in conversation and are discussed freely. They haven't been mean-spirited conversations, but I am very aware during them that I really, really disagree with airing a husband's failings to all around. I talked to my mom about it, and she tells me that this is the way it works everywhere - women complain about their husbands in casual conversation, meanwhile men rarely, if ever, complain about their wives to other men. So what is wrong with us women, why do we tear our husbands down in others' eyes while our husbands are able to maintain our good reputations in front of their friends? Aren't we called in love to focus on what is best in our husbands, especially in front of others? Not that we are dishonest, but that we keep failings to ourselves. And if we are struggling with something that our husbands are or aren't doing, maybe it's ok to go in confidence to a wise woman to ask for advice, but never ever to make jokes about it in front of every other wife in the room. That is definitely NOT protecting or loving our husbands. Oh God, teach me to love like You do!