LEHI AND HIS PEOPLE ARRIVE IN THE PROMISED LAND (62045) (1 Nephi 18)

"Yes, this shows the ship. Nobody knows what his ship looks like. All we are told is that is was not built after the manner of men. I think often people think that it would be something weird, far-out. No, I don't think so. Even the steering rudder was not known at that time. I think it was probably some principles of navigation not known to men, but I don't think God would instruct Nephi to build some very weird thing never seen in heaven or earth just to prove that he had divine help. It would be some perfectly sensible principle of shipbuilding that was perhaps in advance of what was known to ship builders at that time. So I am not going to try to get into some strange looking thing. I think the thing would make sense. Actually where I got all this (pointing to the rawhide wrapping on the boat) was out of the roof of the tabernacle (Salt Lake City), have you ever crawled in that space between the ceiling and the roof? Well, this is the way that the building is put together. It is "planking". It is what they call today laminating. They drill big holes and put in big dowels - that big - and then they wrap wet rawhide around it and as that shrinks-The whole tabernacle is put together like that. That is the way they made those big spans. And so I used that construction here. This moment is when, with great relief, they finally sighted land, so for the moment the fighting between them is forgotten in the excitement of seeing land. These birds are not seagulls. They are what are called Roseate Terns. They migrate far and wide, but they are found in the tropical waters around Central America. They have a split tail. This tends to nail the picture down geographically and also adds to the interest of the picture, it is more interesting than just the tail of the seagull. There is Joseph and there is Lehi. He has the Liahona and is looking heavenward rather than at the land. I tried to show after all their trials, what a relief it must have been for them to sight land. Yes, with thankfulness. The other guys are pretty much a pirate picture shouting.' Land Ho!' And you will notice these huge ropes. In the movie, The Ten Commandments we brought them from Egypt. The Bedouins weave these immense ropes by hand. They are the ropes of a ship, and you see that the rope ladder has a smaller one inserted into it so that they can climb up the mast and work the sails. The Bedouins weave these immense ropes by hand to this day. They are not tiny."