Gitulah (Like This).

kelku,

Yesterday I doodled out the last page of my Moleskine study journal, the same one that carried me through my last month in the MTC and my first months in Indonesia. It's not very organized (or really organized at all), just a sort of spur-of-the-moment catchall to keep my thoughts in one place as I'm reading or listening or feeling. One thing that put my pen to paper all those months ago was something Elder Garret said in a District Meeting. I remember the moment very clearly, him at the front of the room with his hands in his pockets and his shoe scuffing the carpet floor. "Sorry," he said, apologizing for the story he was about to launch into. "All my stories are from last year. Because that's when I grew up."

I think I get it now, why Return Missionaries get that rap. You know, how they talk about their missions and only their missions and always their missions and before all this, before I had had a lick at this lollipop (as it were; I am practicing positive thinking and isn't this sweet? And colorful! And lovely and special but oh-so-fleeting), I thought "Oh, really. You've been home two months/one year/a decade now and haven't you lived anything else?" But that's not the point. Of course they've lived more and longer, but the Mission is where that Living began.

So I guess what I mean to say is that I'm sending this apology a long ways in advance, just so you can practice patience before I come home a year from now and never ever shut up about it. Sorry, she said, apologizing for the story she was about to launch into. All my stories are from last year. Because that's when I grew up.

Terima kasih for the phone call. I would've never made it out of the nursery without you.

I love you.

Sister E.

p.s. Something in my brain is trying to connect Peter Pan ("How am I deficient?"—"You're just a boy.") with A Knight's Tale ("You're just a silly girl, aren't you?") but it's not quite making the jump. But maybe you get what I mean, anyway.

p.p.s. Really. I love you.