I'm writing this entry primarily because I don't want to forget what happened night before last. There was a series of events that all came together that made me and Robyn marvel at how it occurred.
We have been asked to teach an English class at the ward house on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:00 until 8:00 pm. Tuesday morning, Lori Thorderson--one of our friends we've met working at the temple--called to see if we were interested in meeting them for dinner that evening. Robyn said we couldn't go until after our class but that we'd love to hit a pizzeria with them. They came to our English class and helped the students practice and then we walked down to Ippo's Pizzeria--one of the better choices in a sea of opportunity for great pizza.
We parted after a wonderful dinner (you can order round pizzas or pizzas by the meter so you have to be careful not to say "two" unless they know you're talking round rather than meters.) We could see our bus coming so we ran across the street just barely in time to stop the driver. If you don't make a definite signal that you want to take the bus, the driver won't even slow down even if the stop is crowded with people.
Robyn usually finds a seat while I validate our tickets. As I walked back to sit next to Robyn, I passed a couple who said, "How's it going?" in English. I said, "Great," and sat down. Just then I wondered how he knew to greet me in English. He said, "I dunno know, it just seemed natural." We chatted for a second, he told us they had spent the evening on temple square and were going back to their hotel. Just then, it occurred to me that there was no way these people were going to find their hotel. Our bus concludes its route about 200 yards past our apartment on a dark street in the middle of nowhere. I said, "I don't think you're going the right direction. As we chatted over the next minute or two, we found that they indeed were going the wrong direction--at nearly 10:00 at night. As we huddled together to find out where they needed to go, it was immediately clear that we could get them on the right bus if we rode to the end of the line. They needed bus 86 "Conca d'oro" which concluded its run right by their hotel--but the app they were following would only have worked if they were headed the other direction. The number of elements needed for that encounter were too varied to have been a coincidence. They needed:
1) for us to get on a bus at 10:00 pm that we usually boarded two hours earlier.
2) to greet us in English on a fairly crowded bus. Usually, we sit towards the front next to the validator, but Robyn had to walk to the back of the bus to find a seat. Had there been fewer people on the bus, we would not have seen each other.
3) To chat with us long enough to realize they weren't going where they hoped to be going.
I think the Thordersons were inspired to invite us to dinner in order to help the Smiths get home.
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