I missed a week again. I have time to write a post tonight because tomorrow is Memorial Day and our employment office is closed, so I have time to prepare my English lesson tomorrow. There was a very bad storm almost 2 weeks ago, resulting in 500,000 people without power. A lot of families were without power for almost a week. All of their food spoiled and no air conditioning. It has been in the mid 90's almost every day. The family that I talked about quite some time ago that took 4 years to walk from Venezuela, had major leaks in the apartment they are staying in, resulting in their bed getting soaked so they couldn't sleep. We take so many things for granted that a lot of people in the world don't have to make their life comfortable. 

Every week we have someone come into the Employment Center that is experiencing a serious issue in their life. I am not trained as a psychologist, but it really doesn't take one to tell when someone is under severe stress and experiencing anxiety. There have been many cases where the job seekers need someone to listen to them as much as they need a job. Just before we were going to close on Thursday, a couple came into the office and I could tell that the husband was under a severe amount of stress. Velyn took the wife into one office and I took the husband into another. They both just really needed to talk about their employment situation, and needed a glimmer of hope for the future. We have a Service Missionary couple that are fairly new but are doing a fantastic job. I felt impressed to assign the husband to the Elder I just mentioned. He really has a lot of experience in the business world and will be able to provide a lot of help and guidance to this man.

After the big storm, our air conditioning went out at the office, and at the same time the internet went out as well. I didn't realize how much we rely on the internet in our office until we didn't have it. All of the software programs that we use for resumes and scanning resumes with job descriptions were useless. Also, all of our office emails could not be used.  It gave us a chance to test out several different deodorants to see which one was best since it was so hot outside. Thank heavens it didn't get above 80 degrees in the office. The AC was fixed on Thursday but the internet was still out.  Hopefully, it will be working on Tuesday when we get back to the office.

We are really enjoying the opportunity to teach the English Connect classes. We have developed a love for those people and look forward to each Tuesday and Thursday when we get to see them. It is so rewarding to see them have such a strong desire to learn English and to try so hard to pay attention and learn the proper pronunciation of the words. I finally have a picture of the English class that we teach:

 You will probably notice that I have a Rainbow tie on.  It isn't striped but it has a big pot at the end. One of our students always has a smile on his face. I used myself as an example of the words "old" and "fat". He was the first to repeat the words and thought it was pretty funny. So I made a power point slide to show them at the next class:

Everybody got a good laugh at my expense. So now, when I see Luis, I ask him in English how young, thin Luis is doing. 

It has been interesting how different countries use a different word than others to describe a very common thing that would be used almost daily. Some words I have looked up in two different translation programs and both agree, but the students from some of the countries have a different word that they use.

The heat has arrived with a vengeance. It has been in the mid to upper 90's every day this week. But we are very fortunate and it cools all the way down to 82 at night. It is much different here than in Utah when it rains. The rain only cools the temperature down a few degrees, and makes it feel like a sauna. We are very fortunate that we only have to put up with the high temperatures when we go from the apartment to the car and the car to the office. Also, when we make our weekly trip to Walmart. We are pretty spoiled with the nice apartment that we have and being able to work in an air conditioned office as long as it is working well. We hope that everyone is doing well. Hopefully, I will have time to post again next week.