Love from Louisiana

I went out and co-taught for the first time for the
Red Cross yesterday, it was a lot of fun. The class
was "CPR/First Aid for the workplace" The chapter here
is hurting soo badly for volunteers and $$$. After
Katrina and Rida, the majority of volunteers and even
staffed (paid) workers left; emotionally it was just too
much. Plus, so many people donated a lot of $$$ and
material right after the storms, that they aren't
donating any more. There is still a huge relief
program in place for so many of the victims. I'd
really like to get down to some of the areas to
witness with my own heart what is going on.

I've also started my training to be certified as part
of the disaster relief program. This includes
anything from meeting the needs of those involved in
single home house fires to natural disaster
victims. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm
actually going to get one-on-one training because
there is nobody else showing interest at this time,
and they really need help. Our Chapter oversees 9 parishes (a
parish is what we call a county in the west) and there are only 2
of them on the disaster team. I've started
working/training side-by-side with the director of the
disaster dept. Again, I'm VERY excited!

I know I talked about the weather a post or two ago, but man...we just don't see this stuff out in Utah, I suppose just like they don't see the snow...but the rain storms are amazing. Joni-it's a bit like the rain we would see in Haiti, but it will last for hours, with thunder and lightning. ;-) There was one night I thought there was an ambulance just outside our window in the parking lot with the lights flashing; NOPE...LIGHTNING! I have video of it, (I've got to take the time to learn how to get it on my blog) but the lightning was continually flashing. It was awesome!!

Scott and I will be getting or first real taste for Cajun Dancing tonight. There is a ward activity, Pot Luck and Cajun Dancing! We're excited! From what we've seen, it's a lot like the swing, so we should have a good start.

We're also going to start taking tennis lessons, yup, us, taking actual tennis lessons. W-E-I-R-D! Here at River Ranch they have quite the tennis program. We've talked about playing before, but now we've decided to learn the right way of playing instead of just guessing... :-) This is a good place to learn, I think our trainer/coach is from Brazil-if so, it will be fun to talk to him with the very little Portuguese that I know. Maybe learn a few new words. Tennis @ River Ranch