After church, I thanked an African woman in French for her lesson about Abinadi (pronounced Ab-en-ah-dee in Italian) given in Italian that was translated into English for my understanding. It was quite impressive the breadth of human interaction that went down in that building :) The limitless possibilities available when we choose to invite the Spirit into our lives is a testament of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and also of a loving Heavenly Father who is no respecter of persons.
The importance of communication became even more evident when the elevator six of us took after church (including myself) broke down between floors. It was a crazy hour we spent together waiting for the maintenance guys especially since the elevator was the size of a small bathroom stall...sauna anyone? I was grateful we were all able to keep our calm and must say we had a pretty good system going. Three girls would sit on the floor and get fresh air while the other three stood, and every 10 minutes or so we'd rotate (literally shuffle around a person wide counterclockwise to keep one person from being on the hot lights for too long). We even played a game of hand tag and wrote an epitaph "HELP 2012" on the wall from the steam we produced...it was awesome. At one point, I offered a prayer on behalf of all of us, as Heavenly Father was the only other being who knew our dire situation apart from the manager guy (he disappeared after we first heard from him 20 min into our entrapment and then he never came back). Anyway, about 40 minutes later we finally heard another human voice :) Thank goodness for the power of prayer and Italian maintenance workers. I was kind of embarrassed about the markings we left behind on the mirror, doors, and two steel walls in the form of sweaty hand prints at awkward angles (it was crowded!)...but then I realize we were in an emergency situation and now all I can do is find the humor in it. Seriously. I'm sitting here giggling to myself as I write this.
Anyway, lesson for today is don't try and fit six girls on a teeny elevator and also, I am extremely grateful for communication.
After recovering for a bit, I spent the rest of the evening walking alongside the river passing castles and gothic churches to my right. It was incredible, and a lot less claustrophobic than my earlier adventure. Anyway, until tomorrow, ciao!
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