Sunday

Yesterday was a FULL day for me and it began the day before. During the week I usually have 6-7 hour shifts right now during the non-peak season, but Sat. and Sun. are they days they make up for it. Sat. I worked a 11h 15m shift and Sun. (yesterday) I work a full 12 hours 1:45 yesterday afternoon to 1:45 this morning. Yeah overtime! So It has been a long weekend for me.

I was happy that even though it was attached to a very LONG shift I was able to visit a church yesterday morning. I had been looking at a few online and wanted to try Orlando First Baptist. It's huge, and I just was interested in how that would go. They have a search engine on their web site to help you find a "life group" (Sunday school class) and one of the ones it suggested I go to was called GAP (Graduates and Professionals). It's a class for singles ages 20-30ish. Armed with the room number FH301C and Richard* I off to the largest church I've ever been to.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I wondered if in a church that size if the regular attenders would even notice who was new over who was just another regular attender. Somehow I entered their campus in the children's area. (Which, by the way, would make Leslie's voice jump a couple of octaves as she said, "This is so cool! I love it!") So i guess by my age and the fact that I had no small humans hanging off my arms the first lady who offered me help probably didn't have a hard time distinguishing that I was new. But after I got pointed in the correct direction no one else should have known, but most everyone was still very helpful and pleasant.

I asked someone how to get to FH301C and the lady actually took me straight there and took the time to find the class leaders and introduced me, even though she had been on her way to her class (in another building) with her husband. The class leaders got me a name badge asked the "Where are you from?/What brings you to Orlando?" type of questions then told me I could have a seat at any table...as long as there was already somebody sitting there. Once I sat down with 4-5 other people they immediately included me in the conversation and really made me feel at ease.

They sit as a class together in the worship service so I just followed along with everyone to that. Then they go eat lunch together every Sunday after church. Several people invited me to that, as well as to the Superbowl party they were having at the class leader's house that night. Unfortunately I had to work, but I was really impressed at how many people made it a point to include me. Even to the point that I was going to try and grab a bite to eat with them before I had to head to work, so one girl took me to her car and then drove me around the church to mine so I could follower her to the restaurant. That girl and another gave me their numbers and told me to call if I needed anything like directions in the area, or to know a good place to go eat or if I wanted to know about any of the activities GAP was having. So I gave them my number too, on my way to work one of them called and invited me to her birthday party next Sat! Like I said I was really impressed by how the people went out of their way to include me and the icing on the cake was an invitation to a personal birthday party. To me that screams, "I care." I thought it was really cool.

So I will be visiting them again and my schedule might possible allow me to go to one of the mid-week bible studies this week so that cool. Then I went to work for my 12 hour shift. Hollywood Studios was hosting a convention...but they didn't tell any of us. We knew we were working late a a couple managers had told us they thought it was being kept open like a Superbowl party. But they were wrong. This week has been a national high school dance competition inside our park. and the party was for all the dancers who had competed. There were about 2000 of them and they got the entire park to themselves from 9:30-12:30. But here is the REALLy cool part about this convention...the park closed at 7.so from 7-9:30 we were on the clock...but didn't have to do anything. Our managers arranged for the three coasters to get to ride each others rides and it was so cool. The entire Toy story crew got to ride Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster!

We got to Tower of Terror loaded and they let us ride it with the work lights on. Which doesn't do anything for the scary drops...but is really cool to see how they do the Twilight Zone special effects, there was one place where the projector is right in front of you...but because of how they light it you can't tell when it's "Show Ready". Then we got to Rockin Roller coaster, which is one of those roller coaster that is inside a building and has only minimal lighting so you can't see much except what is right in front of you. The manager there said, "Do you want the lights on or off this time?" We were all like, "This time???? We get to ride it more than once?" She said, "Well I assume you're gonna let my kids ride twice too?" We were pretty excited we rode it once with all the lights on so we could see the track everywhere...it was really neat! Then we rode it a second time in the complete dark. Not even with show lights. It was also neat because sometimes you couldn't tell where the ground was. One time I thought we were upside down until I saw the exit sign (The only light in the entire building) which told me I was right side up.

It really made the 12 hour shift worth it. And after we got to do that, none of us really minded working so late. We got paid to ride roller coasters...it was so cool! Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE working here? :-)



*Richard is the name of my GPS navigator in my jeep.