Off to the Empty Sea (MTC):

Hey, Hungary!
(I know it's been a while since you actually left for the MTC, but I haven't written a post since then so I figured this could count.) Life around here has seemed a lot slower since you left. It's definitely a lot quieter. Most days when Dad is at work and Mom is out running errands and I'm all alone, I often find my self being grateful I'm not truly an only child. I think big families are such lovely things! Certainly they are very loving and that's practically the same, if not a great deal better.
     I think about you a lot and always hope you are having a splendid time learning the language and serving. I also miss you a lot, but don't worry because I know you're not gonna be gone forever and you'll be home before we know it.
     Something kinda cool happened over spring break that I didn't actually tell you about. Megs made me read this book called "The Wednesday Wars" so that she would read one of my romances. I was really skeptical about it at first because it wasn't quite my style, but as I got reading, it turned out to be a really good family book set in the 60's. Anyway, the cool thing I wanted to tell you about was that closer to the end of the book the main character, Holling's, sister runs off to California to "find herself" and they have to deal with her being gone. This was good for me because I didn't exactly know how to cope with you being gone, and it taught me how to be OK with being alone. Here's a couple of the paragraphs that really touched me:
       "Maybe the first time that you know you really care about something is when you think about it not being there, and when you know--you really know--that the emptiness is as much inside you as outside you. For it falls out, that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value, then we fine the firtue that possession would not show while it was ours. That's when I knew I really did love my sister.
       And then something happens and his sister decides to come back home and there is a description of how he feels and I may or may  not have cried during the whole chapter just because I really do love you. And in that moment when she arrives home, this is exactly what I imagined you coming home would be like (and don't worry about the coke stuff; that's got sentimental meaning from earlier in the book):
      "Think of the sound you make when you let go after holding your breath for a very, very long time. Think of the gladdest sound you know: the sound of dawn on the first day of spring, the sound of a bottle of Coke opening, the sound of a crowd cheering in your ears becasue you're coming down the last part of the race--and you're ahead. Think of the sound of water over stones in a cold stream, and the sound of wind through green trees on a late May afternoon in Central Park. Think of the sound of a bus coming into the station carrying someone you love. Then put all those together."
....Um, so really all I'm trying to say is that I love you. And that I miss you. But I am also glad for you to be on your mission and to be able to serve the Hungarian people. (Sorry for all the mush stuff, I just needed to get some feelings out. Also sorry that you can't experience the full strength of these paragraphs without reading the whole book. And sorry that I mumbled on about books even though you don't even get books. Sorry.) Anyway, good luck and hurrah for Israel!
Love America.