After lunch, we finally made it to the gelato place. It was divine. Oh, my heavens. Thank you for such delicious food. Madeline was right, let’s just bring our house here and have good food forever. From there, we walked down the streets of fancy stores, the best was the Lego store. The mural of the Trevi fountain was superb. After using a bathroom in a pub, we decided to go to the LDS Rome temple.
We then grabbed an Uber (which turns out to be way more expensive than the Taxis) and headed around the ring road to the temple. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The grounds are meticulous, the Spirit abundant, and the people so nice. Madeline prayed next to the olive tree, which we thought was cute and special. Turns out, the temple was built on an olive grove, so they moved all the trees because you can’t cut them down. The four olive trees were brought in from other places and were more than four hundred years old. The olive leaves features prominently in the stain glass. The temple itself is shaped like the center of a Venn diagram (the intersection of heaven and earth). It was pretty neat.
The visitor’s center was even better than we had envisioned. The statue of the Christus was amazing, but having the rest of the twelve there was really neat. The sister missionaries were amazing and spent so much time with our girls and with Madeline. The visitor center is phenomenal and the spirt was so strong the whole time. We loved watching Abby’s countenance change from being a bit grumpy earlier in the day to just being bright and full of joy. Those sister missionaries were amazing. I am so grateful for them and the Spirit they brought to our family. They were just so full of light and joy. They passed it on to the rest of us. We loved learning about the mural behind the Apostles, the meaning of each statue’s item, and the history of the Temple in Rome. It was the perfect way to end our Palm Sunday and also the perfect way to end our trip to Italy. Of all the things we saw, the one that brought us the most joy was the temple and the people there. That has to say something about the truth of what Peter is out teaching. I just wish everyone that was coursing around Rome could have felt what we felt there and been there with us. So much is spent seeing dead stones from eras long since passed. They have no life. But just on the outskirts of the city is a place of light and truth where joy is abundant.
Uber wasn’t keen on getting us, so the Bushmans (the senior couple there) helped us get a taxi home. It was half the cost of the Uber and much more comfortable. We got back to the apartment, got our umbrellas, and headed out for one last meal in Italy. It was a little Osteria just a block from our apartment and it was divine. Thank you Italy for making simple ingredients delicious. Gratzie Mille!