6:00 AM: Both my dad and I woke up startled to Emmanuel poking us, whispering for us to get up. Emmanuel had never gotten up this early since he had been here, and plus what could have driven him to wake us up out of a deep sleep? When asked why he woke us up, but not in a mean tone, he told us that he was itching to go into the ocean again. We groaned and asked him if it would be long enough to do it before church, which started at 10:00. He said that would definitely be enough time, all he wanted to do is go for a quick swim. We reluctantly agreed and got in our swim trunks, which were still a little bit wet from yesterdays excursion. We walked down to the thousand steps near our house, and jumped in the ocean for a quick swim. As we were drying off, I noticed that Emmanuel had brought a glass jar to the beach and was filling it with sand, shells, and water. When I asked what he was doing, he replied in a sad voice that he was keeping a mini-beach for himself so that he will always remember us and the ocean. I thought that was a very thoughtful thing to do, he could have just bought a mini fridge magnet that said Santa Barbara, but he made something that would really have him remember all of the good times he had here.
10:00 AM: After a leisurely breakfast, we got in the car and drove to church. After the services, Emmanuel couldn't wait to get out of there. I knew it was risky brining him to church, but I had to give it a try. Next on our agenda was a hike to Lizard's Mouth. We got out of the car and walked the quarter-mile to the rocks, where we would start out Lizards Mouth picnic adventure. The next two hours were a blur of laughter, tears when you just missed a jump from rock to rock, and good memories. We eventually ended up at a great lookout spot where you could see almost all of Goleta. We had our picnic there, all the while staring out at the vast ocean looming in the distance. But all good things come to an end, and eventually we had to pack up and go.
4:00 PM: The next hour or so was devoted to journal writing, at least for me. We were on our second to last day with Emmanuel, and I hadn't even started writing in my journal. So just as I was finishing a paragraph about Holdren's Stake, I saw that Emmanuel had started to pack up his bags. It was a bitter reminder that our time together was almost done, and I started wondering why he had to go so soon anyways. He had never told me, but I always know there was a reason he couldn't stay longer. Turns out I would never find out.
7:00 PM: I asked Emmanuel if there was somewhere he had seen over the past six days that he wanted to go for dinner. He told me that he had loved all of the restaurants that he had been to, but he had picked my dads home cooking over all of them. My dad seemed overjoyed to cook for our guest after that remark, and we had a nice dinner of Beer Butt Chicken. We went to sleep that night without a inkling of a thought in our minds about the departure the next morning.
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