You never know who may be an angel.

Okie dokie, so I'm obviously late with week 3 but my computer started to run slow so, I switched my antivirus software and it began running even slower. After asking my super tech boss for help I brought it to the office and he discovered that I had 500 viruses!! REALLY! So he went to work trying to clear them and it looked like a lost cause for a couple days and right before the weekend he was pretty sure he had solved it and I let it rest for the weekend before getting its new antivirus put on Monday. Wow! What a week to have a down computer, so much I wanted to blog about. So week 3 was crazy! Two of our employees went on vacation right as we got a huge shipment in from production in China. The shipment was late receiving so as a team of three, including myself, we headed to our warehouse to un-box, hang, quality check (QC), pull damages, tag, check-in, pick orders, check-out, and then our warehouse did the boxing, and we shipped! We did this for hundreds and hundreds of garments, it was crazy, and as sucky as it probably was for Erica and Joanna (my co-workers, not interns) who have to do this all too often, for me it was exciting, interesting, and such a great learning experience. It was really hard work but it was nice to be out of the office for 3 days and it really gave me a chance to get to know the girls! I am really feeling at home in my office! I absolutely love everyone I work with and enjoy being the only intern their with them everyday...I'm a little selfish. I also found out that I get reimbursed for my lunches as well as my mileage, which is such a blessing. I am getting super good at driving like a LA driver and I just keep praying that I am safe on the roads everyday...I only have this ONE car (and it's not just mine)! So an awesome week of learning at work. This weekend Caroline and I traveled to Pasadena. We were told its sorta like the Midwest, and we were interested in anything that was close to home. We went there and found the coolest humane society we had ever seen! We missed our pets and decided to visit it when we saw it passing by. Now besides the usual cat and dogs of the humane society Pasadena Humane Society had rabbits, turtles, chickens, roosters, and an alligator for adoption. Ok, the alligator wasn't for adoption but everything else was!! It was awesome and so big! We just took in the friendly people, short buildings, and greenery of Pasadena for the day. I decided if life ever calls me to work in LA I will be living in Pasadena! On Sunday I enjoyed church and then a special visit from an OSU classmate who had come to LA for a visit with her parents. It was nice to see a familiar face for a few hours. After seeing our friend Caroline and I went to Courtney and Paul's house (a couple from my church). They had invited us to dinner and only live two blocks away. It was such a great time and it was nice to be in a place that felt homie. They were just so enjoyable and the dinner was amazing! I had an amazing out of work experience this week. I find myself walking to work enjoying the beauty of life even in this hard town and then I walk past a homeless man or woman. I breaks my heart. I am so blessed in life and I only want the same for these people even though I don't know them or know how they have come to be where they are. Deserving or not...I pray for better for them. I was walking home from work one evening with my i-pod playing and a face pace to my walk a gentleman begged my pardon and I stopped and pulled out my headphone. He told me he was sorry to burden me but wondered if I had any spare money so that he could get some food that the fast food place I had just pasted. He told me that he hated to ask but he did have a job anymore. I told him that a probably had a couple dollars for him and he began to tell me how upset he was with the way California treats its vets, that he was a Veteran and that he had nothing after his time in Iraq. I told him that I was sorry too and that it was crazy for me to see so many people homeless because I wasn't from around here. I told him I was sorry I only had a couple dollars, that I was a college student and I'm pretty broke myself. He told me that he had a daughter here in California that is in college. It broke my heart to think how hard that must wear on both of their hearts. Him wishing he could support her as a father should and she wishing her father had a better life. I gave him the money and told him that I appreciated what he has done for our country and for me and said God bless you. He looked at me with the most joyous and happy eyes and smile. He lifted his arms and without a second thought in the middle of this busy LA sidewalk in the midst of onlooking passersby I walked forward and hugged my new stranger soul. I saw the looks the people were giving us and once we hugged he looked at me and told me that I didn't know the blessings I would receive from this, I smiled and said take care and began to walk away as he yelled after me "You don't even know the blessings you are going to receive"! I was talking to my father on the phone a few days later, whom is also struggling in life right now as so many of us are. He was down on himself for not being the financially supportive father that he had always wanted to be for us. I explained to him that there was so much more to that he has been able to support me in in life. I told him my story of the man I had met and our story of our encounter. I told him, dad, don't you remember when we were younger and you gave a man outside of Wal-Mart money and we said, dad why would you do that he will go buy beer or drugs with it. He looked back at us and told us, "Girls, that may be true, and whether he uses that money for the right things or not its important to help those around us in need; after all, we never know, he may be an angel. This could be our test, and we know we've done right". I told him how this life lesson of service and compassion had always stuck with me and how fortunate I was to have this knowledge taught to me through his real life example. It brought some joy to his voice and tears in my eyes. An amazing experience with a stranger that I will never EVER forget.

Xs and Os

~Leslie