My story is kind of like tampasteve.
I had a reconversion experience back in 2008 and ended up in a group of Assembly of Gods people.
Anyway, I ended up in Lafayette, Louisiana which is heavily Catholic (as is all south Louisiana).
I went to my first Mass at the Cathedral and for the next six months read every Catholic apologetic book (Keating, Staples, Hahn, Currie, etc) and met the RCIA director for the diocese. I was a baptized Christian (Baptist) and I explained my whole story. I represented him with a document from the USCCB that stated that candidates are to be treated differently than catechumens (i.e., didn’t have to go through the RCIA process). I felt left out of Mass because I couldn’t take Communion and I wanted to “shorten” the process to Confirmation.
While the above is that’s true, in the Lafayette diocese (and the Austin, TX diocese where I was on assignment for five months) they just throw everybody together and everybody goes through RCIA, unless your circumstances are very unique. By the time the RCIA classes started, I’d already read the CCC and many more books and other documents. I knew for more than any of the RCIA parish directors did I thought. The classes were really somewhat on the boring side too, I thought given the knowledge I had obtained up to that point.
But anyways, it was very special to come into the Church at the Easter Vigil. In my parish, I was the only candidate, all others were actually cradle Catholics who had never been confirmed in the Church, so there were no baptisms performed. But starting with Palm Sunday, every day during Holy Week builds as every day you become closer to being confirmed. It’s kind of like the week before getting married or graduating from college. That type of feelings.
I was allowed to take the first Holy Communion which I thought was a special honor from the parish priest.
The next day, the diocese RCIA director who I had actually met almost 10 months earlier, called me and asked how it felt to be Catholic. I said it was fantastic to have finally crossed the Tiber. Looking back, I’m glad I went through the whole RCIA process and came into the Church at the Easter Vigil. It’s a great way to end Holy Week if you’re coming into the Church.
As a side note, I watched the activities at the Vatican during Holy Week. It was interesting to see Benedict celebrate Mass during the week and thinking in 7 hours, I’ll be going through the same Mass. There were five catechumens from across the globe that were chosen to receive the rights of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Communion from the Holy Father. That had to be one life long enduring memory for those five adult individuals.
(I guess she forgot I had been going to Mass for 6 years) and did not listen to what I had to say at all. Nice person, but not interested in truly evaluating Candidates.