Look for opportunities to help others

Crazy week!

After church on Sunday, we had just walked into our house and 30 seconds later we heard a scream and banging on our door.  We opened it and it was Pablo screaming that his sister’s house was on fire around the corner.  We dropped everything and sprinted out the door.  When Elder Perrett and I got there the house was completely covered in fire and we heard the pop of electrical wires exploding.  My comp and I ran over to the house next door, hopped the wooden gate, and climbed on the roof and started throwing buckets of water on the house.

 The firefighters were struggling with the fire because there were only 4 of them so me and Perrett actually helped a ton.  While one of the firefighters was on the roof of the burning house, the roof broke in and he was holding on the side of the roof so he wouldn’t fall into the fire.  There was too much fire in between us so we couldn’t reach him but one other guy was able to help him.  It turned out to be the home of a neighbor of Pablo’s sister and that the fire was started by the mom smoking.  She was a 32 year old single mom of 2 kids, ages 9 and 12.  The kids made it out but the mom didn’t.  It was really, really sad.  

So in the 2 hours or so of fighting the fire we missed out on teaching a good amount of lessons.  One thing I learned is the importance of teaching by example.  A lot of people saw us up there on the house helping and they know who we are.  As missionaries, and for everyone as followers of Christ, people are always watching and judging.  We always need to act according to our beliefs.  We always need to look for opportunities to help others.  Not just wait for them to come.  We need to act like followers of Jesus Christ.

We had some really great lessons this week with our investigators and I learned a lot.  On Saturday we did a service project at a member’s house.  We dug a huge path, made wooden frames, filled the frames with cement and smoothed it out and made a sidewalk.  Also, we were robbed this week.  Someone stole our big gas tank so we don’t have any hot water.  The showers went from room temp to ice cold.  Straight ice.  Love Chile!  

I hope you all had good weeks!  I'm praying for each and every one of you!  Take this week to look for opportunities to help others.  I love you all!!!

Elder Vincent