BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – When Asher Ellerkamp sets his mind to something, he doesn’t give up.
The latest example: what he called “Operation Little Pumpkin.”
The Dickinson Trinity senior was one of more than 140 high school seniors from North Dakota who went to Rome on a pilgrimage in June. He was determined to bring home Pope Leo XIV’s zucchetto; that’s the hat the Pope wears, and in Italian, “zucchetto” means “little pumpkin.”
The good news: Ellerkamp’s determination paid off.
“Are you excited?” asked a friend in a cell phone video of Asher Ellerkamp. It was taken shortly before the most exciting moment of Ellerkamp’s trip to Rome.
“I’m going to trade a little hat with the Pope,” Ellerkamp said in the video. “Chances are low, but I’m ecstatic.”
“I just get chills thinking about all this very exciting moment of my trip,” he said as he recalled that moment.
Ellerkamp was determined to trade zucchettos with Pope Leo.
“I had my mind set on trying to do that,” he said.
But as determined as he was, he didn’t really expect Pope Leo to be this close and for the trade to actually happen.
“I remember being just awestruck,” said Ellerkamp.
He and the rest of the North Dakota group got to St. Peter’s Square early that day; early enough that Ellerkamp had time to fine-tune his plan, and early enough that St. Mary’s Central High School senior Lily Turman had time to come up with her own plan.
“I wrote him a letter,” she said.
When Pope Leo got close, Turman handed that letter to Ellerkamp, who handed it to the Pope.
“When he gave him the hat, he also gave him my letter. It was absolutely wild,” Turman recalled. “In the letter, I was like, ‘If this gets to you, it’s a miracle.’ So, I do think it was God’s work.”
“It was just one of the most beautiful moments,” added Ellerkamp. “It was exciting to actually meet the Pope, face to face. He was very close.”
Close enough to ask the students where they were from. They enthusiastically replied, “North Dakota!”
“I’ve never really experienced anything like that,” said Fr. Jacob Magnuson.
He is chaplain at St. Mary’s Central High School. He’s made this trip several times.
“It’s one of the highlights of my year,” he said.
And he said this year’s trip is one of the highlights of his life.
“The whole point is for them to experience their faith and experience Jesus in a deeper way,” he explained.
And their faith was made even stronger by this brief encounter with Pope Leo.
In her letter, Turman shared about her group’s pilgrimage, and how just days before he was selected Pope, Fr. Magnuson had told her class there would probably never be an American Pope. She also asked Pope Leo to pray for her and her family.
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