A Blessing in Disguise

Thursday October 9, 2008

Tonight I had a humbling experience that I would like to share. The details of our dinner experience are important to the story so bear with me.
Tonight we headed out to find a restaurant that we read about in Lonely Planet. It didn't look too far on the map so we started walking. It was 7 p.m. As we walked we discovered it was quite a bit further than we expected and we seemed to be heading into a darker part of town where we just saw lots of groups of men on the streets and passed by a few bars. By this point we had come too far to turn back and we did need to eat dinner so, after ducking into a florist shop so we wouldn't have to walk through a large group of men walking towards us, we finally arrived at our destination. The restaurant was empty and a little more than we wanted to pay. So we explored our options at that intersection, mostly pizza places. We ended up at pizza hut where at least the tip and tax was included in the price, which saved us 22% compared to the first place we went to. So, we ordered our food and sat down. Thirty minutes later they brought us our 2 bottles of water. By this time we were getting annoyed because we had been sitting for 30 minutes. After we had our water for about 15 minutes we still didn't have our appetizer of garlic bread. Becky went down to ask what was going on and they said the bread was just coming out of the oven. They brought it up thereafter. We waited some more, and were still very annoyed at having to pay more than $5 for dinner, and for the water which you can't get for free here since you can't drink tap water. Finally, 57 minutes after sitting down they brought us our lasagna and pasta. They both came with 2 garlic breads. We started laughing at the ridiculousness of that because we had ordered an appetizer of the exact same kind of bread and were already stressed about spending money. They had failed to tell us our dinner came with the exact bread we had ordered separately.
Now, the reason we were so upset with the situation is not only because we were tired and annoyed at waiting and spending money but, there is a widely known rule around here that the streets are not safe after 9 p.m. The guidebook even says to take a taxi after 9 even if it's only for 2 blocks. Well, we had taken a taxi last night a very short distance to get home and everything had seemed fine so we figured we could walk home if it was right around 9. I was annoyed at waiting for our food because I preferred to walk home without being robbed or raped. With this in mind we went downstairs to pay and I was proud of myself because I told her we had waited an hour for our food and asked if we could get a discount or something. She said "the thing is, there aren't any discounts". I replied with, "okay, but we waited for an hour, and that's a long time". I was calm but stern and without saying anything she rang up our order, and left off the garlic bread. I felt like it was some under the table deal but didn't feel bad, if it was the U.S they would have given us free bread, free drinks, and probably offered us a free dessert.
So, by this time we are just thankful to be done with Pizza Hut and decide it's just barely 9 p.m. and we can probably manage to get home with our money and our virtue intact. We start walking, quickly and with purpose, avoiding looking at anyone and doing our best to be aware of our surroundings. We stuck to the main roads as much as possible but eventually we had to turn down a longish darkish street that was completely deserted in order to get to our hostal. That didn't seem too good but we kept walking anyway, knowing that the grocery store was up the street a ways and that would be our next safe spot. As we walked I focused on the many prayers that I had said for our safety since we arrived in Quito, and kept a silent one going continuously as well. I thought of how good I have been doing with saying my prayers and reading my scriptures and I hoped that this faith and obedience would be sufficient to get us home.
Well we passed a street and I noticed the next block over I saw some running and yelling going on. I mentioned to Becky that it seemed like something was going on down the street but didn't think too much of it. A few minutes later we came upon a taxi, a family was just getting out. The taxi driver spoke to us out the window and told us there were 3 thieves up ahead and they had just assaulted some men with knives. For this reason police were just barely arriving but the attackers hadn't been caught. The assault had just barely happened and the taxi driver advised us not to keep walking straight. We quickly measured the situation and decided a taxi ride didn't sound too bad after all.
So, we drove past a bit of a ruckus as people scrambled around trying to catch the attackers, the taxi driver stopped and told the police which direction they had just gone, and then took us to our hostal. We thanked him for advising us of the danger and paid him a dollar for the ride. We got out of the car and I was overwhelmed by the realization of what had just happened. If we hadn't have been delayed at pizza hut we would have been walking the exact streets where the assault happened, right about the same time. Those men had assaulted other men with knives, I'd hate to imagine what it would have been like for them to come upon 2 young American girls all by themselves. Our delays had us walking by this taxi driver at the exact moment he was letting a car full of people out, he was stopped and was the only person on the road and was able to not only tell us not to keep walking but was able to get us safely out of the situation as well.
I felt bad for being annoyed and slightly angry at the situation in pizza hut. The delay truly was a blessing. I bet that probably didn't look to good up in Heaven, here Heavenly Father is, delaying us and keeping us out of danger and all we were doing is complaining and thinking that we were being put in danger by having to walk home a bit later. Becky brought up the talk by Elder Holland about there being angels all around us whether we know it or not. We might have had angels with us tonight that we couldn't see, but I know for a fact that taxi driver was our angel tonight as well. I'm so amazed at how Heavenly Father watches out for us and answers our prayers.