The Beginning

I had to fill out a student intern profile for the church and this is the picture I submitted. The beginning of my internship!

I am more than a little excited about the chance I have to go to Puebla Mexico and work as an intern in the LDS Employment Center. I will also be taking 12 credits, 4 of which will be a research project on the Mexican culture reaction to death. This is a very special opportunity for me to meet and interview the people Sean taught on his mission.

I fly out with my companion, Katherine Kinnison, from Southern California, on May 2nd. We will be teaching workshops to members and non-members of the Church alike and also training leaders to give the workshops as well. The workshops are about 16 hours in total and we will be giving them over the course of 3 or 4 days. We might be required travel to different stakes and wards and give condensed versions of the workshops to members of the Church there.

In my group there are 16 interns, about half are going to Brazil. To give us a taste of what we will be doing the director arranged to have us attend a condensed version of the employment workshop. I had to work and missed more than half of the workshop, but what I was able to see was amazing! Basically this is a chance to teach people confidence and skills in their search for a job. We, as teachers, will only spend 20% of the time teaching/talking, the students will spend 80% of the time practicing the skills. For instance, we teach them how to present themselves in 30 seconds. They practice 4 or 5 times alone then a few times with other classmates. It's really a confidence booster to realize that you CAN do something.

I'm excited to learn more about this and get to work. I'll report to the Church Sunday evening, April 26th for a week of training. Yay!