time makes you bolder. children get older. i'm getting older too.

biserică.

( a few of us with a couple girls in the branch. )

first experience in church in romania?
terrifying, amazing, overwhelming, uplifting, inspiring, crazy, wonderful, humbling.
there are probably a million more words. but those are just a few of the trillion emotions involved.
i wasn't close enough to the elders or soras in any meeting to be able to really hear the translating, so i was mostly relying on myself. and i kind of liked it that way. just being thrown in and forced to rack my brain with everything i do or don't know. let's be real, there was a lot i didn't understand. but in the past few days it's a lot more exciting the things i actually do understand. and the extent to which i understand things. most the time, at least. but thanks to this little detail of having no translation, i did have a lot of thinking and pondering time during church. thinking about these people, their lives, and how incredible it is that it can be so very different from my own or most people i know. it's a completely different world, while still being in the same world. and the gospel is still the same on the other side, in case you ever wondered. there really is nothing like it when you experience that common bond across nations. nothing like it at all. these members, though few in number, are so strong. i feel like if all the ridiculous utah mormons could just see them and experience them for even one meeting, they would be forever humbled. there is not one family in the branch. not one who comes with their entire family. just individuals, and occasional relations. there were probably around 25 people there, including us 8. and i don't even know how to express it. it was just a neat experience. that's all.
there's something about the people of romania. a common thread that makes them all similar, but it's not really something that has a definition. it's as though they've all been shaped by their history, and because the end of communism in romania was so recently, it still is strongly present in the character of the people. they are so strong, but so full of love and caring. as if they know what it is to take care of one another in times of need, while still realizing that for every individual, things are hard. and despite things being hard, they move on. hungry? tired? dirty? hot? cold?  - so what? what difference does that make to you? just keep moving on.

 during relief society (when i got lost for awhile in my listening comprehension), i was thinking about this past week. it's been officially a week now that i've been here, and honestly it seems as though it's been infinitely longer. day to day, i feel the same, though obviously in romania and not the united states, but it was on sunday that i truly realized how changed i feel in the past week. i'm not the same person i was a week ago. sometimes when i'm talking to people back home, i feel like suddenly i can only slightly relate. like my life is now filled with experiences that i can never take back or deny. experiences that will change me forever. experiences that no one else can ever understand.
maybe that sounds overly dramatic. maybe it doesn't. i feel different now. like suddenly there's a whole new part of me that was waiting to be found, and now that it is, it's growing in the summer sun. i know i've been saying it a lot in the past few months, but i think i grew up a lot this week. and my life changed a lot this week.
sometimes it's frustrating. realizing that no one really understands what i say. no one really cares about my experiences here. they say they do, but after only a slight skimming of the topic, they get bored and move on to asking about something else, or talking about something else. and yet here i am feeling like the world has completely altered on its axis. my life before now seems frivolous, without meaning, and almost silly in ways. but everything is so different now. and i feel like i can never really take that out of me. part of growing up, i suppose. part of life, but still peculiar when being experienced. there's so much more to life than i ever could imagine. and just when i think i've reached my limits, a new door is opened and more comes. but with that more, comes more capability to receive it. maybe that's what growing up is. learning to take that change, and make it a part of you. learning to take the best of it, and use the worst of it to better the world around you.
maybe, just maybe, that's what it is to grow up. to mature.
i think i said my goodbyes to neverland this week.
and while it's sad to go, i think i'm going to like this new place that comes after neverland.