THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS

I have absolutely no words to describe last week. No words.

Excitement, adventure, lots of bringing-me-out-of-my-bubble and making new friends, tons of walking and too little sleep, hunger and can't-eat-anymore's, laughs, butterflies-in-my-stomach's, and seeing some people for a first time since being wee kids.
And all this doesn't even explain absolutely anything.

As you know, four out of the twelve people came Wednesday evening.
And on Thursday we went to downtown Minneapolis. Oh yes. That was lovely.

a random garage. i mean, how cool and wacky is this?

It was fun but I hardly talked to anyone except my brothers (severe case of shyness and nervousness; which, let me tell you, had improved slightly over the next couple of days *self pat on the back right there*). But what a glorious time we had, walking through the downtown and seeing all those people you never get to see at home!
* The next day, Friday the twenty-fourth, was the first day of Congress. It started at 10 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. And that was a bit of a problem since it was that way for the whole three days. I mean, that's great and all it's just that when you go to sleep at three in morning and wake up at seven, that slightly runs your energy down. And I didn't have a choice since I was the one on the couch in the living room. But, hey! that was actually pretty fun.
* Basically the same thing happened on Saturday. Some of the sermons were very good and had a deep effect on the soul and spirit; I'm very thankful for that. It was pretty hard to concentrate sometimes though because of the late and few hours of sleep. I meet some of my friends I haven't seen in a while and actually talked to those who I knew but was very shy to come up before. Those were mostly the people who pushed me out of my bubble and forced me to communicate with others :P
* Sunday was the last day. I feel like crying even right now. We had our service in a convention center and around five thousand people were present. Imagine how hard I had to cling to my brothers so I wouldn't get cut off and left behind with no phone and no clue where to go! It was that bad. But afterwards, we went back to our old church where a huge lunch/dinner for the people was prepared. There I made some more friends from Canada. *happy dance* One of the girls that I've met was soo sweet it just surprised me. I was almost speechless when talking to her. She listened so carefully to whatever I was saying that it made me feel like I was saying something utmost important. Like, how can she even do that? I've seen her before at the conference walking by, and I always imagined her being someone who looks down on other random people. But how wrong I was! I always thought I was a good judge of people. Yeah.. about that...*rubbing the back of my neck*
Anyway, we had a bonfire with a lot of the people we met at our house. My sister-in-law's family were also there. She has a brother my age that I haven't talked to since their wedding. I've seen him before and even at the congress but didn't come up to him because I didn't want to embarrass myself. Well, like imagine if I did come up to him randomly, "Hey! Do you remember me? Well of course you do, how could you not? How's life treating you?"  Yeah.. NO.
So when we came home, I was really nervous about meeting and talking to him and didn't come outside (where he was) for awhile. But courage prevailed - I'm surprised at where that came from, but then again, I couldn't hide forever - and I went out on the deck. Most of my nephews and nieces were there as well so I was like, "Hey, hey!" It was more like, "Hey, heyyy." lol
And the moment they see me, they start yelling my name and clamoring up the deck to hug and kiss me. See what an amazing aunt I am? That is SUCH a good way to introduce yourself. Like, "Hey! My name is Mariya and, oh, excuse these little cute munchkins of mine. They haven't seen me for awhile and obviously as you can see, I'm their favorite aunt." Mmmhmmm. First impression people, first impression. To tell you honestly, I've always wanted them to do that in front of somebody.. shhhh..  I came down and then we meet. And then we went to a store to get all the s'mores ingredients with his friend who is now also my friend. And then we came back. And then we made s'mores. And sang Christian songs by the bonfire with everybody with the sound of a guitar accompanying us.

And this is how the weekend of Congress came to an end.

Oh, I forgot the part where the neighbors clapped in appreciation after we finished one of the songs.

This is how beautiful life can be. If you take out all the stress of the weekend.

-

This post should have been up on the blog a long time ago. Please forgive me for still living in the past. LOVE YOU ALL<3