ESL 8
The Most Influential
Person In My Spiritual Life
By Edwin Huayta
Father Joe is the most influential person in my spiritual life. He always encouraged me to pray at
any time no matter if it was a good or a bad time. I met him when I was a kid. At that time, my
parents got divorced and it was the most terrible time in my childhood. He was always there to
remind me to pray for God's support, which is important especially when we are in trouble. I learnt
from Father Joe a lot about how to pray. Having connection with God makes my spirit stronger and
allows me to face unexpected situations in my life ahead. To sum up, without Father Joe's
teachings about how to be persistent with my prayers, I wouldn't have been able to get over my
parent's divorce that happened to me in my childhood.
Mrs. Sherwin - A Person
Who Influenced My Life!
By Olivia Angonemane
Mrs. Sherwin, my ESL 6 teacher was an important person in my life. I was worrying about my
education here in the US, but Mrs. Sherwin helped me to not worry about it. At first, I was so afraid to
have new teachers in a foreign country, especially white teachers, because I've never had white
teachers in my life before, and I didn't know how they act towards black students. Mrs. Sherwin was so
kind, respectful, and funny and she was always smiling. She treated every student the same way. Also,
she helped me to become more confident because I was too shy before. In addition, she taught us a lot
of things in English and she gave me a lot of advice that has helped me to improve my English skills.
She taught us, for example, how to infer, she always gave us good topics to discuss in group. She told
me to go to DC public libraries to participate in English conversations to improve my speaking. In short,
Mrs. Sherwin was important to me because she helped me to become more confident, fluent in English
and comfortable in my school.
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