Well, at 7:30PM we pulled up to park at St. Anthony's Church in Bryan and not a soul was in sight. Lindsay did not tell us what church and we didn't even think about it because anything catholic we had ever attended before was at St. Anthony's.....oops! We sat in the parking lot and Luther called Lindsay.....no answer, then his Dad.....no answer, Brandon, Mary Anne....still no answer. He then called Colleen because she was supposed to be going while Clay stayed home with the kids. Clay answered her phone and told us it was at St. Mary's which is in Northgate across the street from Texas A&M. Needless to say, we turned around and headed back to College Station. It wasn't that bad because there was no traffic. We ended up getting to St. Mary's about 7:45PM.
We went inside and found Luther, Mary Anne and Brandon. The pew they were on was full, so we sat 2 rows behind them. It's a good thing we got there early because within 10 minutes, the church was packed. At 8:15, they turned the lights out, but nothing was happening. Basically, we sat in the dark for 30 minutes. Ryan brought his iphone and headphones, so he gave me an earpiece and we listened to some music until the service began. Poor Luther left his iphone in the car, but he didn't bring his headphones anyway, so it really didn't matter. I guess he could have surfed, but oh well.
About 8:45PM the service began. St. Mary's is a more modern church than St. Anthony's, so they actually sang a lot of praise and worship songs I knew. They did them a little different, but it was nice to hear something familiar. They were lighting candles and we did not realize when we came in we were supposed to pick some up, in fact, we did not even see any candles. I think we were too worried about finding Luther, Mary Anne and Brandon that we were only focused on that and no one said anything to us when we came in to pick them up. When they got to our row, Mary Anne noticed we didn't have any, so she gave up one of theirs. Ryan enjoyed holding the burning flame. I told him to make sure not to catch anyone's hair on fire. Hey, it could happen! When they told us to put out our candles, Ryan proceeded to play with his to occupy his time, not realizing we would need it later....oops again. Oh well, lesson learned. Ha ha, that's what Ryan said!
About midnight, we were getting fidgety because the service was taking forever. It's one thing when it's your church and you are familiar with what to expect and what is going on, but it's another thing when you have no clue what is going on and it just seems there is no end in sight. We had no clue how far along they were and what was coming next, so it was rough. Ryan whispered to me, "We must love Lindsay A LOT!" That was funny and true, we do love Lindsay a lot and that is why we went to support her.
Finally, it ended and we all went outside to the front of the church to meet Lindsay. She had her sponsor with her and introduced her to all of us. Luther and I left, but Ryan stayed behind with Lindsay and Brandon and went to McDonald's for food. Luther and I declined because we wanted to go home and go to bed. After all, it was 1:00AM and way past our bedtime.
Congratulations Lindsay! We are happy for you and we really do love you a lot! The candle light service and church was beautiful too.
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