Day 138-Singular and Plural- 8-13-06

Once again, C was not at church. She’s out of school now, so we’ll focus more on her, try to make sure she comes next week.

We did have an investigator at church, though. J was there. He was there with the N’s. He sat next to his girlfriend, M.
We plan on visiting him later this evening.

After church, we went to J. Y wasn’t there. That’s okay. We’ll try to get with him later. We talked with J about the trip to the Visitors Center on Saturday. He wants to go. We’ve got it all planned out. We also watch, “To This End Was I Born,” with J. He really enjoyed it. J has a testimony of the Book of Mormon, we just haven’t been able to get him to commit to get baptized. We’ll keep working at it.

We didn’t get to meet with A. We went over, but no one answered. (sigh) We’ll try to get in touch with her later in the week.

This evening we had dinner with the Bush’s. Don’t get too excited. It wasn’t the President and his wife it was Brother and Sister Bush. They’re a great member family. They home-school their children just like my mom. It’s great to have that commonality. They also have quite a large family. Sister Bush is expecting her seventh child. Almost all of their children are under 8 years old, so it can get crazy at their house, but it is always fun.

The Bush family just returned from a trip to China. They were visiting relatives. Brother Bush gave Elder Pierce and me each a piece of candy that they brought back from China. “I’ll bet you’ve never tasted candy like this,” he told us as we began to eat it. It was taffy. It tasted like corn. So help me, it tasted like corn. Like from the cob. I half expected a kernel to get stuck in my teeth. It was weird.

I shared a story with the Bush family about my sister, Laura. She’s about to turn 7 pretty soon. Here’s the story: Before I left on my mission, I was talking with Laura about singulars and plurals. It was around this time last year. I was helping Laura pick up her toys. She had a Pegasus toy. I asked her, “So, Laura, if you had two Pegasus toys, what would they be called?” “Pegasuses,” she said. “What about an octopus?” “Octopusses.” “Okay, what about a cactus? What would more than one cactus be called?” Laura’s answer: “Cactopusses.”

I love that story. I love my family. I do miss them, but I have no intention of going home until my mission is completed.

So, the Happy Thing for Day 138 is: “Cactopusses”

One last funny note on that story; after I told it, everyone had a good laugh. Then Brother Bush looked at his children and said, “Ya know, we have two Elder Pierces in our ward now.” “Kids, what would you call more than one Elder Pierce?” The kids tried all kinds of answers. “Elder Pierces.” “Elders Pierce.” “Elders Pierces.” “Nope,” he said. “There’s only one thing we can call them, and that’s CactoPierces.” Everyone started laughing again. It was a fun dinner.

After dinner we were dropped off at the N’s house. We went over there to teach J. But first I have to tell you this awesome thing. On the N’s kitchen table there was a framed, signed photograph of Brother N shaking hands with President Bush in the Oval Office. That’s one of the nice things about being in Northern Virginia. A good number of the people that I’ve met, work for the U.S. Government. They can’t tell me what they do or else they’d have to kill me.

We taught J the rest of the lesson starting from where we left off last time. J agreed with the Three Degrees of Glory. We also taught more about The Trinity. J agrees that God the Father and Jesus Christ are two separate beings. He seems to be progressing nicely.