Rocky Point, Again

Spring came and went, but Moe didn't come any closer to asking me out. He seemed perfectly satisfied with visiting while he ate dinner on Friday nights, then calling and talking to me on the phone once a week. We were getting to know each other, but slowly!

I wrote mom and dad and told them about Moe. “He reminds me a lot of Grandpa Russell,” I told them in my letter. “He's like an old time farmer, slow and careful and down to earth. Not at all flashy or debonair, but reliable and safe. Comfortable.”

The problem was, I am not slow and careful and safe. When I decide something is good or needs to be done, I want to get on with it. Patience is one of my least developed traits. Perhaps that's why the Lord feels the need to keep teaching it to me?

As summer drew closer the kids and I began to make plans for our vacation. What we really wanted to do was go to Rocky Point again, but it seemed unlikely. I knew it was unwise to take the kids to Mexico all by myself. Just driving over the lonely stretch of desert between the border and the ocean would be dangerous. What if we had car trouble? I couldn't speak a word of Spanish. I asked all my brothers and sisters if they'd like to come with us, but everyone had other things to do. By the end of spring the kids and I had just about given up on going to the beach, but then one day my big brother Keith called.

“Do you still want to go to Rocky Point?” he asked.

“Yes!” I answered. “But I don't suppose we'll be able to do it this summer.”

“Well, Becky and I have been talking about it and we thought we'd go down the first week of June,” he told me. “We'd love to have you and the kids come if you want.”

Yeah!

We had a wonderful time down in Mexico. The weather was nice, although different. The first day it was a little too warm, but then a low came in, and the last two days were windy. It made the waves so high we couldn't go snorkeling or swimming, but we had a ball playing in the sand and surf anyway, and it was awesome to watch the huge waves role in and break on the beach. There was a full moon, so the tides were at their peaks which was also fun. Low tide went way out, uncovering all kinds of interesting sea creatures and tide pools for the kids to explore. High tide came up so far it covered the whole beach and was amazing!

Since we couldn't swim we decided to drive over to a beach we heard about that was supposed to be very sandy, with a lot of good shells. Of course, it was hard to understand directions, and there were no signs pointing which way to go, just tire tracks leading off in different directions over the sand. We must have taken the wrong road because we ended up looking out over a marsh. There were roads going either direction along the marsh, and Keith decided to take the road to the left. It wasn't a real good choice because we only went about twenty feet before we got stuck real good in the sand. I thought we would never get out!

We were all packed in my old Chevy Astro-van. When we piled out to look we found the gas tank was buried in the sand, and the wheels just spun around and around. We tried to dig the van out, but without a shovel or any tools that was useless. I sent the kids to scour the desert, looking for boards or anything else they could find to put under the tires, but there wasn't much there except cactus. At last Keith jacked the car up and started digging the sand out from under it with a piece of hard cactus. I called the rest of us together at the back of the van.

“We need help,” I told them, “so lets say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help us get the van out.”

“What about Uncle Keith?” the kids wanted to know. “Shouldn't we go get him to say prayer with us.”

To tell you the truth, Uncle Keith was pretty darned busy at that moment. He was frustrated and worried. Becky told me later that she thought I was just scared to ask him to stop for prayer. Maybe so, but I told the kids, “you've got to remember, 'Faith without works is dead'. We've got to have faith right now, and ask Heavenly Father for help, but we've also got to keep on working and do as much as we can for ourselves, so let's let Uncle Keith keep on digging while we say the prayer.”

We all folded our arms and closed our eyes right there behind the van, and I asked Heavenly Father to please help us get our car unstuck, and help us get safely back to camp. Then we trooped up to where Keith was working to see what we could do.

He had the sand dug out from under the gas tank, so we helped pack pieces of cardboard the kids had found behind the wheels. Then Keith got in and started the car. Carefully he put her in reverse, and he was able to back her out of the sand.

In my next letter to mom and dad I described our experience, ending with, “It was a little spooky there for awhile, but Heavenly Father was watching out for us. Keith said it was a good experience for me to learn how to get a car out of the sand, but I think it was a better lesson on how not to drive into the sand in the first place. I think I'll avoid all sandy roads from now on.”

The last night we were there the kids and I took lawn chairs and blankets up onto the deck of the recreation building and watched people light firecrackers on the beach and gazed at the moonlight on the ocean. It sure was pretty, but I couldn't help thinking about Moe and wondering if some day he would come with us to Rocky Point, and I'd be able to sit and watch the moonlight with him.