Dear Eva,

You've been in the MTC for less than 24 hours. This time yesterday, I was fasting because Dave was going into his first job interview, and you were about to enter the MTC. It felt like a big couple of hours for our family. I lay on the couch, fasting-fatigued, while Joshey and Cici napped and Polly played (until she came over to put a blanket on me and then curl up next to me. Very sweet.), and I thought, "Let it distill upon you. Let this time distill upon you. Let whatever will come next distill upon you." My house was messy and the day felt like it was getting ahead of me, but I still felt like that was a time for stopping and letting things settle into my soul.

Now it's Thursday, Cici is napping, Joshey is making very cute noises over in his jumparoo, and Polly, who has a swollen foot from a bee sting yesterday, announced to me when I went downstairs to check on her and found her putting in a DVD, "I'm going to have some screen time, Mama." The house is its usual early-afternoon cluttered, and I have the ingredients for oatmeal cookies spread out on the stove, a penance to Dave for my eating the last of the batch of chocolate chip cookies yesterday. No word on Dave's interview--we probably won't know for a few days, maybe even a week. He would like the job, though it's not a perfect fit. At least that's what I'm telling myself to guard against potential disappointment. He'll get oatmeal cookies no matter what the outcome is :).

And you, my littlest sister? You are most likely in class, surrounded by strangers who will become lifelong fixtures in your memory, in your facebook, perhaps even in your life. My MTC companion, so very different from me, is a beloved friend-from-afar now. She has a couple of little kids, and she often posts comforting comments on my FB page when I'm complaining about some inevitability of young motherhood. But for you, these people are still new. I have to admit that the MTC was a time of great insecurity for me, but I think that's because it was a completely novel social situation, and my recourse to novel social situations is often insecurity :). One of the hardest things was feeling like I'd been reduced to a nametag. No one knew my first name. No one knew my family. No one knew what classes I'd taken in high school or college. No one had ever heard me perform on the piano or harp. All of these things that had identified me were suddenly stripped away, and I wondered what I really was, what worth I really had, if those things weren't there. How could I make my MTC district know how cool I really was if I didn't have all of the accoutrements of my coolness, and if I was too insecure to make it on my own without any of those? It was a challenge, and, as you can imagine, a very good one to have. It's good to be stripped of your self-conception every once in a while, to simply have your identifying features be your desires and your actions. And you, my dearest little sister, have pure and keen desires. And your actions have always spoken love, humility, honesty. You will come out of this stripping process just fine.

Well, time to go. Joshey's cute noises are becoming a little more annoyed, and I can hear Polly padding up and down the basement stairs. After fruit snacks in the pantry, perhaps? Probably. Poor Polly--her mother always knows exactly, precisely what she's up to :). I love you, my little sister. I am praying for you and grateful for your mission service. You are blessing everyone's lives, including mine.

More later--

Naomi