Months before Advertiser Staffer Mary Vorsino embarked on her 18,000-mile-plus trek to Belgium and Rome to follow the canonization of Father Damien de Veuster, she had been writing stories about the big trip and preparing herself for the most challenging assignment of her young career.

Vorsino is only 27, but she has established herself as an exceptional talent in her three years at The Advertiser. She quickly immersed herself in the life of the Roman Catholic priest and his missionary work in Kalaupapa with Hansen's disease patients. She got to know those who loved and followed Father Damien and studied the historical and religious significance of the event. She wrote more than a dozen stories leading up to the day she would head overseas with about 600 in the Hawaii delegation.

By accepting the assignment, Vorsino was called on to write stories, take video, post updates to our Web site, tweet (via Twitter) and shoot photos. By the time she was done, she had six bylines out of Italy (Rome, Vatican City and Assisi), three out of Belgium (Louvain and Tremelo) and one each from Newark, N.J., and Honolulu.

Besides those 11 stories, she filed six more for our Father Damien special section, sent in 80 photos, six videos and 60 Tweets from the field. She even maintained a blog.

As if preparing to enter Noah's Ark, she brought two of everything:two laptops, two transformers, two video cameras and two phones. What she needed most — her Internet card to send photos, stories and videos — did not work during her three days in Belgium and first four days in Rome, so she sent photos, stories and video from her iPhone and on one occasion, had to dictate her story to her editors.

On canonization day a week ago, the ceremony was switched from Saint Peter's Square to inside St. Peter's Basilica at the last hour because of rain. Mary raced into the church but got stuck outside the authorized press area, where she hoped Swiss and Vatican guards wouldn't kick her out. Within 30 minutes, she had sent us the first photos from inside the basilica at 9:30 p.m. Hawaii time and right up against our first print deadline.

"Mary wrote stories, shot stills and videos, moved from iPhones and laptops that didn't work the way they should and never once did I detect panic or frustration," said Seth Jones, our multimedia editor. "I always felt she knew that she could do whatever it took to get the job done."

For Vorsino, who was raised Catholic, the sight of Hawaiian hula, chanting and song at the tomb of Father Damien in Louvain,Belgium, and at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, struck some emotions.

"I have been touched with how gracious and good-natured all of the Hawaii people on this pilgrimage have been, especially the patients," she said. "I have bothered them incessantly for quotes or photos or video interviews and they have always been so willing — and so happy —to help in any way they can. It has been just a wonderful experience and I am so grateful I got to be a part of it and share it with our readers."

Vorsino was joined overseas by Kim Taylor Reece, who provided exclusive photos for The Advertiser. Reporter Dan Nakaso and photographer Rebecca Breyer gave us moving accounts from Kalaupapa . And reporter Michael Tsai with photographers Jeff Widener and Andrew Shimabuku covered Damien events here on Oahu.

Our coverage was comprehensive, and we debated how much was too much, but as Vorsino said, so many non-Catholics made the trip because the Belgian priest's life had great meaning even outside of the faith.

"I found the pilgrimage to be deeply uplifting spiritually, and not only because we visited some of the most important and sacred sites of the Catholic Church," Vorsino said. "I was especially moved when we visited Father Damien's tomb in Louvain, Belgium, and his childhood home in Tremelo. There, we saw his small, humble room, his family's fireplace, the bed where he was born, and it struck me the real sacrifice he made in leaving his family behind — for life —to come to Hawaii."