Hi again, another week has passed and so has another
wildfire. It started sometime on Tuesday in the mountain. Really really smoky,
which made it look a lot bigger than it actually was. But it did burn a lot of
acres, and for a while it was 0% contained by firefighters because they could
not get close to it because it was in a canyon or something like that, so they
had to wait until it was more accessible. And from where our house is, we could
only see a portion of the fire, so we weren't able to see the actual size of
the area.
By Tuesday evening they announced an evacuation of Oak
Hills, Phelan, Wrightwood and Pinion Hills. It was a tender mercy from the Lord
that the homes of all the members of the Oak Hills, Phelan, and Wrightwood
wards were not harmed (Pinion Hills is in the Phelan ward). Many prayers of
gratitude were said yesterday at church. Our mission president called Elder
Wedel and I to pack clothes for a nights stay, leave our home and stay with
other elders in Adelanto. So we did. It was crazy to see everything that was
going on in the high desert because of the fire. Firetrucks and ambulances were
racing east to the fire in the mountains, with their sirens and horns wailing
and blaring loudly. Lots of police officers with breathing masks were
barricading streets in our area so that people could not get any closer to the
fire. At the local food market there were many people that had parked
their camping trailers in the parking lot and were living there for the time
being. They all looked like they were gathering together for a Nascar race
haha. And many trucks were leaving the evacuated area with their horses
and horse trailers, trying to spare their animals. So because our mission
president evacuated us out of our area, we pretty much did no missionary work
in our area for most of the week.
So what did we do during this time?
We built a hair salon.
That's right, we built a hard salon! Our ward mission leader
in the Phelan ward is good friends with a nonmember family, the Thurber's, that
live in the area, and they needed help finishing their unfinished hair salon in
Victorville. What a perfect fellowshipping and service opportunity! So he
recommended us to the Thurber's to help them. And by the end of the week we all
knew each other well, and enjoyed being with each other.We were even able to
talk about the Gospel and religion at times too. Plus on Saturday we had a cool
spiritual experience. Mrs. Thurber asked us questions about the Church, and
Elder Wedel answered her questions and bore his testimony to her. The Spirit
was definitely there, it was cool!
Yesterday an area Seventy, Elder Maskins (I think that's how
it's spelled) attended the ward conferences for both Phelan and Oak Hills and
had an open Q&A session with the congregation during one of the meetings.
He asked us about the fire and how it strengthened our testimony/brought
families closer together, etc. It was a good meeting.
So in short, this was an interesting first week here, but
glad that all the missionaries and members here are okay. Love you all, talk to
you next week!
Elder Ruiz
very smoky.
very very smoky.
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