Fire Burning

From April 4, 2014

Last Saturday we show up at a member's house to have a lesson with her non member sister. We get there and there is a bunch of people there which was kind of weird. So we enter and the member is wearing a super dirty tank top and shorts and she was all dirty. I asked her what was going on and she told me that her neighbor was burning trash. Everyone here burns their trash being that there is no garbage disposal service. The fire then spread and caught some weeds  and lit her backyard on fire. Her backyard is kind of like a forest mixed with a jungle mixed with a field. All the weeds were pretty dry and it burned a significant amount. Luckily it's pretty humid here so it didn't burn everything down. I was looking at it and I made the comment that if we were in Utah there would have been no hope. When we got there all the flames were out basically just a lot of smoke and ashes.  She had ran out of water so Elder Paravato and I got some shovels and we started going to work putting dirt on the smoking weeds. We got super dirty and sweaty and had to go back to our house and take a shower after. We worked on that for about an hour and half and after we taught a little lesson to the sister. The next day none of them, there are two members and they are both sisters (one has two kids and neither is married, [of course]) and the other sister who is the investigator. Then on Sunday my ward mission leader and I went there to see why they didn't come. Apparently at two in the morning someone knocked on their door. Now you need to realize that these people live out in Ranchador. This is a cantón. A cantón is basically a suburb. Now here it's the opposite of the U.S. The inner city is nicer and the suburbs are sketchy and dangerous. Anyways this person basically tries to first talk his way into the house by saying he was from the police. That doesn't work so he grabs a large wood pole and starts banging on the door like a battering ram. They called the police and a neighbor. The neighbor, who is less active, and she goes and calls another neighbor who is a gangster to go help her out. In the end the police and they did not get robbed. So moral of the story. If you think you had a bad day you didn't. 

Love you all. Thanks for everything. Read 2 Ne 31 about the Gospel of Christ. 

-Elder Rowberry