My Eva

Yesterday was my little sister Eva's 20th birthday. If she were within calling distance of me, I would tell her what my best friend told me when I turned 20:

When you're 20, you're perfect. You're not 19 anymore, so you're not a teenager, but you're not yet 21, so you're not an adult. You're nobody, and everybody knows that nobody is perfect.

A year of being perfect, that's what my Eva has. And since she's a missionary in Russia, it will be the best kind of perfect. Not necessarily straight-A's and dreamy boyfriends, but the year that will be perfect for her. My mission was perfect for me. What could be more perfect for an insecure girl who grew up in affluent Southern California, who didn't know how to talk to boys, and who thought that being smart(er than other people) was the most important thing than going to Romania where people earning $20 a week insisted on treating me to pastries and coca-cola and where I got to work with 19-year-old missionaries who taught me that there was DEFINITELY nothing to be scared of in talking to boys. Oh, and where I learned that loving people is more important that being smarter than them. I don't know how my Eva's year of being a missionary will change her, but I am excited to be a witness to it.