We can't believe that we only have 5 months left on our mission! It has exceeded our greatest expectations of how rewarding we thought it would be, and how much joy it has brought us. Being able to help Heavenly Father's children each day, and see the hope that they have when looking for a job that will provide for their families, deeply touches our hearts. Our English Connect classes are also very rewarding. It is great to see how earnestly these people are trying to learn English, and how excited they are when they can answer a question in class. We have grown to love these people, and look forward to each class. No matter how tired I am, or how much I am physically hurting, it all goes away while I am teaching. Before class, I often think, how am I going to be able to teach this class with the enthusiasm that I need and in a way where they can learn and remember the things they are taught. But as soon as I get started, all my concerns and discomforts are washed away and the joy of teaching these people takes over. Sadly, we have lost about 75% of our class the last two weeks because they are afraid to come out. Even though they have work permits and Social Security Cards to legally be here, their asylum from Venezuela and Cuba is being cancelled. I don't know the status of others, but their hopes of freedom and safety and being able to provide for their families have been greatly diminished. We used to have 20-25 people in our 7 pm class and last Thursday we had 6.
We have recently had some success with some of our job seekers that were having difficulty finding jobs, finally getting a job. I had a man that spent 20 years in prison and is trying his hardest to turn over a new leaf. A very nice guy that is earnestly seeking a job. He was finally able to find a job, someone that was willing to give him a chance. I have had 4 others this last week that have been looking for a long time and were finally successful. I have established a remote friendship with a man named Giovanni, that is from Peru. He speaks perfect English and has worked all over the world in high up sales management positions. He has been out of work for over a year. I call him several times per month. Last week we visited for quite some time about Peru, and the places that I know from working there. He was especially impressed when I knew where Huacho was, a small town north of Lima about 60 miles. Also, Pucusana, where one of my dairy clients had a beach house. I will have to make the trip down to see him in Clear Lake. It would be about an 1 and 15 minutes to get there if I go when the traffic isn't bad.
Elder Sealy, the service missionary that we stayed with during the Hurricane last July, came by the office and gave me 5 Walmart gift cards before Christmas to give to people that I knew really needed the help. I knew plenty of them. I probably could have used 20 of them easily. I sent one of them to the couple that I talked about probably about 10 months ago that walked from Venezuela and her husband didn't have a hip joint. They finally moved to Tulsa, OK because they had a relative there. She was so grateful to receive the gift card, and sent me the following picture:
I gave another gift card to a Hispanic lady (Lisandra) that was working at Deseret Industries and had to have an emergency heart quadruple bypass surgery. She and her husband were desperately in need of help. She has about another month before she is recovered enough to go back to work. She cried when I gave her the card and was so grateful. Another lady (Rosa) that I gave a card to is a nurse from Venezuela and also works at Deseret Industries. She is 75 years old and still has to work. Her husband had serious prostate cancer and had a difficult surgery and cannot work, so she is the breadwinner. They only work 25 hours per week at DI so they need some extra help. Another man (Juan) who has spent all of his money getting treatment for Leukemia, was also badly in need. He is also Hispanic. He is finally recovered enough to start working, and during his last treatment in the Hospital, somebody broke into his house and stole everything he had, including his tools that he used as a mechanic. I mentioned previously a lady and her mother that Velyn and I helped by getting her mother a bed and box springs. Her name is Anaisa. She has a little boy that is 2 years old and she is struggling to make ends meet.
There are so many people that are in need, and we are blessed with so much. We have been able to help quite a few people that were in danger of becoming homeless or not having food. It is so hard to see these people struggle, but also very rewarding to be able to help them. I will never forget the look in their faces when they receive badly needed help.
We had a very quiet Christmas with just the two of us. However, it allowed us to focus on the Savior and His great gift of the Atonement to us. We enjoyed this time to celebrate His birth. This is our gigantic Christmas tree and display that we had:
It was different to have the temperature be 69.8 degrees F on Christmas Day. We will probably never see that temperature again at Christmas. However, we had a major cold snap on January 21st where the temperature went down to 20 degrees F. We were almost declared a major disaster area. The apartments put up signs everywhere and emailed us to make sure that we left taps running, kept the cabinets open under the sinks, and didn't turn the heat down to less than 68 degrees. We had about 2 inches of snow and it closed the whole city down. School was closed for 3 days! Deseret Industries was closed the next day so we couldn't go into the office either since we don't have access to the alarm system. Here is a picture of our huge snowstorm:
Some of the kids here at the apartments have never seen snow before. Some of them scraped and scraped and finally got enough snow to make a snowman that looked like Mini Me from Austin Powers.
A week ago Friday, we got to have dinner with Bianca Sanchez. She was one of the first people that we worked with when we got here. There is a picture of her with Velyn when we helped her fill out her application for Dental Hygiene School. Here is a picture of us with her:
She is now engaged and is going to be married in the Houston Temple in May, so we will get to be there when she is married. She came to the US by herself 15 years ago and now is a successful Dental Assistant and doing well, but she went through some terrible experiences in her early years here in the US. She is a very sweet girl and we have kind of adopted her into our family.
About 6 months ago, two sisters from Sri Lanka came into the Employment Center looking for help to find a job. They both had training in IT work. Since they didn't have any experience, nobody was interested in hiring them, so they ended up working at DI. They were proud of the fact that they could sing well together and so they sang "One Day at a Time Sweet Jesus" for us. I am assuming that they have converted to Christianity, but not sure. About 3 weeks ago, they decided to go back to Sri Lanka to see their family, so they came by the office to say goodbye. Here are their pictures with Velyn:
Comments
Post a Comment