Sunday, August 21, 2011

Day 6 & 7

These past two days have been absolutely great! We woke up a little later than usual and headed straight to the vigil sight. It was extremely hot! It felt more hot than in TX. We set up camp with the Diocese on the concrete. We had a  pretty good view. We were directly in the center and was about a couple football fields away. Although it seems far, we could actually see him pretty well! We sat there in the heat for about 14 hours until the Vigil actually started. Lindsey, Emily, and I bought these sarongs that actually protected us from the heat really well. We dumped ourselves with water and fanned ourselves. I can't even describe the number of people there. It was way more than I could ever imagine! They had water fountains to fill up bottles and splash yourself, thank goodness! We got pretty bad sunburns even after using sunscreen. The heat calmed down at around six and the vigil started! The stage was decorated and had beautiful lights that really set the mood of the night. Everyone was chanting in their own language in excitement to see the Holy Father. Everyone loves him. He came up to the stage just as the sky was darkening with rain clouds. It started to sprinkle rain but it was actualy kinda cool because us Texans don't see that too often. It started pouring so we brought out the rain jackets and just enjoyed the power that God brought that night. The announcer told us that we prayed for water earlier and it worked, now we need to pray for the storm to go away. With in 5 minutes the storm was gone. It was so awesome! At that moment, Adoration began. The monstraints was, what I believe, pure gold. It was huge and so intricate. It was really powerful with the silence of the 1.5 million people. Then as soon as adoration was over, the storm started up again. This only happend for a little while. Then we set back up our sleeping bags and tried to go to sleep. Then a couple of us girls had to use the restoom about a mile away. So we stepped over everyone's sleeping bags and tried not to step on anyone! We stayed up till about 3am. It turned really cold overnight and all the girls bundled up next to eachother. Once we woke up, we got together our bags and waited for mass to start. Pope Benedict, in a way of thanks, drove on some of the main streets of the vigil sight in his Pope Mobile. He turned down our street and we were standing on the rail and ended up being 5 feet away from him. It was so incredible. We had mass and we were able to expirence everyone loving Jesus in their own language. We found out the next World Youth Day is in Rio Degenero, Brazil. Father Steve was able to be up on the alter with the Pope during mass! Leaving the sight was busy. We had to make our people train to get through the croweds. We gave away our Fat Stanely longhorn bear to a little girl! Then we got back to the hotel, washed up and now a couple of us are sitting at Burger King because our hotel's wifi is broken :/ Tonight we have dinner with the Bishop and then pack up to leave at 6:30am tomorrow morning. Thank you everyone for following my blog and for always being so supportive. See you in Texas. This journey has been incredible and we are anxious to see you all again tomorrow! :)

1 comment:

  1. Amanda and all,

    I am so very proud of all of you! We've been praying for your safety and for a grace filled experience with our Holy Father and youth from all over the world. Our prayers did work; describing your experience gives testimony to that fact. Love you all! Fr. Pedro

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