Days 77-78: JPII and the Nats (10/30-10/31)

After a nice morning of sleeping in, I woke up, did personal prayer (I forget to mention this, but I do my daily required 30 min of prayer every morning), and headed to team breakfast. After food, we had time to chill out and hang out as a team more before heading to our next stop. Speaking of which, our next stop is St. Bernadette in Silver Spring, MD, 15-20 minutes away from DC. The retreat is a confirmation retreat that starts immediately after school that day. When we arrived, we were welcomed by Monsignor Smith, a Washington Nationals superfan! Thats when I learned the local team was still alive in the World Series! After giving up my phone for the week, I had no idea how the series was going, and turns out Game 7 was tonight. This may make retreat more difficult, but we’ll find out soon enough. After lunch and music practice, where I continued to sharpen my cajon skills. Then retreat began, and I didnt do a whole lot this time around. I was off of small group, and I only truly helped out with adoration, where Ellie sung her heart out as I flipped pages for her to read guitar chords. But the youth were excellent: they didnt expect us to be so cool, and the freshness that we brought allowed them to listen and invest into the retreat despite Game 7 beginning during adoration. After retreat, we hurried to host homes to watch the end of the game. We stayed with the Clifford family, and when we arrived the home team pulled ahead! They kept that lead and the Washington Nationals won the World Series! The family went crazy, fireworks were going off outside and the whole feeling was exhilarating as the Washington DC area partied the night away. I probably wont get this feeling being a Mariners fan, but it was so special being in the right place at the right time. . . Sidenote: as I read this, I realize I switch tenses alot. I can only apologize, im not sure why I do it, but I hope it doesnt bother you. . . We had a 10:30am pickup time, which means I can wake up at 9:00am before I have to do prayer and other stuff. So naturally, my body wakes up at 7:30am, and not able to go back to sleep. Sick. It allowed me time to blog and do laundry at least, so there was a plus side. Its a team day today, so after team prayer and lunch at St. Bernadette, we had a whole afternoon to do stuff together. So we headed into DC for the time, and went to the St. Pope John Paul II Shrine! To anyone who ever goes to DC, I HIGHLY recommend visiting there, as it is the coolest experience ever. We began with a divine mercy chaplet in the mosaic-filled chapel, and from there went through the downstairs museum full of things about his life. I never had alot of knowledge on him, aside from the fact he was the longest-living Pope, but his journey to get there is truly incredible!! From surviving the Holocaust, to his quick rise to cardinal, to succeeding a 30-day Pope, Karol (pronounced Carl) Woytałn’s life was amazing, and I was blessed to finally understand it. The day ended with going to the Luminous Mystery Chapel, where we saw his famous crozier/staff at the altar and had the honor of kissing it!! For me it was so mind blowing, especially after just learning about his life. What a blessing, what an honor. From there we drove home, which took a bit longer than usual, because we went to the wrong St. Bernadette’s that was located in Virginia that also happened to be a 45-minute drive from where we were. Just a funny honest mistake. When we got home, I ended the night facetiming my family, which was super refreshing on a great Halloween.