Day 189-Firewood and Sea Turtles 10/03/06

I finished my third sculpture since being on my mission. It is a sculpture for S. It is a sea turtle. It's at the water's edge, looking off into the distance. To the side of the turtle is a little sand castle. It's actually a little D.C. temple. It looks pretty neat. It was fun to make. It only took me a little while. I worked on it last night before bed and finished it this morning during breakfast.

CW picked us up and we went to help S stack wood. It was a good amount of wood, but between the four of us, we got it done in a little over a half an hour. S said she didn't know how to thank us. She said it would have taken her hours to do by herself.

I was able to give S her sea turtle. "This is for me," she said surprised. "Elder Pierce, you can sculpt, draw, is there anything you can't do?" "Yeah," I thought to myself, "I can't get you to read the Book of Mormon."

"Now I can put this sea turtle with my collection," S said. "Your what!?!" I said.
"Oh, have I not shown you before?" S said. "I assumed that's why you made this sea turtle for me." (I made S the sea turtle because I compared her and other investigators to sea turtles in my journal on Day 120) S took us to a shelf in her house that had several sea turtles on it. Ceramic, wooden, all kinds of sea turtles.

"Yeah," S said. Every spring my family and I go on vacation and help baby sea turtles get to the water." ("Are you serious?" I thought to myself. "You've got to be kidding me!") "Really," I asked S amazed. "Yeah," S answered. "We go to the beach in the evening and watch the baby sea turtles come out of their shells and scurry across the beach. We can't really help them get to the water. They have to do it on their own. All we can do is to make sure their path is clear. Scare away any predators and things like that. In the end, it's up to the turtles. Some of them don't make it. We can't be watching every turtle every minute. All we can do is give our best effort to help as many turtles as we can and trust God to help those turtles makes it so the cycle can begin again." (Sounds like the Plan of Salvation to me)

"Because life is not a picnic for sea turtles once they make it to the ocean," S said. There are still predators in the ocean. But enough turtles survive to start another generation. It's really amazing! (You have no idea, S)

I still can't believe it. I go over this whole sea turtle thing with S (Day 120). My family likes the sea turtle comparison and sends me a sea turtle hand puppet (Day 155). I talk about the sea turtle tie my family sent as well as the sea turtle puppet to Elder C (Day 167) plus many other references in my journal, and now THIS! To find out that S goes and helps baby sea turtles make it to the ocean, AND has a small collection of sea turtle sculptures in her house...it's staggering. Oh, the irony! I love it! This is my Happy Thing for Day 189-S and her sea turtles. I told S that I will most likely get transferred tomorrow. I told her that we'd stop by for a visit.

We went on exchanges tonight. First we stopped by A's apartment. He was a no show. (sigh) Once again that roller coaster's going up and down, up and down...

Our meeting with S#2. went better, though. We were able to review the first lesson and watched the video of the Restoration with her. I asked her about reading the Book of Mormon. She said she'd give it a try. She plans to take the book with her to Maryland. She'll have lots of time on her hands, so hopefully she'll be able to make the time to find out for herself the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. AAAAAAH!!! TOMORROW IS TRANSFER CALLS!!!AAAAAH!!!