I had a good talk with Laura this morning again and had a very nice time at the temple this morning as well. Work was work. At the end of the workday Laura called with frustration over the fact that Alyssa and Mariah took until 3:00pm to get their chores done and would not work unless She was giving then step by step instructions every second. I told her that I understood the frustration and that I would think on it as I came home. Amazingly I had been thinking of the lyrics to the Hymn “School Thy Feelings” this morning which President Monson had apparently read during his talk that Laura had been studying this morning the insight I had received as I thought about that song this morning was that we are not supposed to smother our emotions or downplay them even though we are to strive for the voice of wisdom to overcome our impulses and control our actions – the emotions are natural and not an indication of fault or vice – it is when we are ruled by them that we are in trouble. On the way home I thought of a way to reward each of the children for their performance in a way that would be independent of the performance of anyone else – which we have had trouble figuring out in the past. Their chores will now be a race against the clock scored not unlike a multi-stage cycling race. They get points based on the minute they finish each day and then the points can be used to buy the rewards that we have been offering as incentives with somewhat less success.
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