Missionary Form Letter

You are sitting at home, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the mail. As the mail truck pulls up to your mailbox you watch with bated breath as the mailman unloads the mail into your mailbox. As soon as the small white car pulls out of your neighborhood, you throw on your shoes and rush to the street corner, keys in hand. Slowly, you insert the key into the lock, turn it gently and tentatively reach into the silver box. Your hand wraps around a thick stack of letters and you smile with anticipation. Today is the day! How could it not be? As you walk back to your house, you slowly thumb through your mail, but as each letter makes it's way to the bottom of your stack, your smile slowly fades. No, the letter has not come today. You will have to wait another day by the window, watching for the mailman hopping that your missionary will write you. 

Obviously this scene is a little dramatic, but in all seriousness what do you do when you have a sibling or other family member on a mission and they don't write you for a very very long time? (like we are talking two months of a long time)? Obviously, missionary work is incredibly time consuming so it's not like your missionary has a ton of time to sit down and write a lengthy letter explaining all their exploits (that's why they take a million pictures and keep a detailed journal so they can regale you with all this information after their mission) How do you help them make their letter writing more efficient. You don't need details, you just need the basics like if they are alive, who their companion is and if they need anything. Well ladies and gentleman, we are very innovative people where I come from and we have come up with the latest and greatest invention to keep your missionaries writing home! It's called "The Missionary Form Letter"! (Yes you may applaud) :)

Basically you print up a copy of the same letter and have them fill in the blank or circle the appropriate phrase to answer the corresponding question and voila! You have all the information you need with minimal effort from your missionary. These form letters take a very very short time for a missionary to fill out so they have no excuse not to write to you :)

This idea came about because my dear dear brother Jakob is currently serving in Samoa.

This is Me and Jake 

Another Picture of Us

This is the last time I saw Jake before he left for the MTC

Anyhow, he doesn't get to email so everything is snail mail, which understandably takes awhile to get back to the states. Well, he hasn't written in a good two months, so my dear mother and I came up with these form letters as a sort of joke to get him to write to us.


 In the letter we have incorporated a few movie quotes (because that's our kind of humor :)
Here is what the letter basically looks like: :)

Date: June 22nd, 2014 

Dear Family,

I am: (Circle all that apply)

-Alive -Dying

-Sick -Mostly Dead

-Deathly Ill -Check My pockets for loose change

This week can be described in one word as: (Fill in the blank) 

__________________________

Random leading statement about my week that I will describe later on in my letter in fuller detail... or not... (insert here):

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I Love (Circle all that apply)

-My companion -Mom -Food

-The Gospel -Dad -Toothbrushes 

-My family -Raw Sea Urchins -My investigators

-Alina -Bug Spray -Samoa 

-Myself (The beginning of a lifelong romance :)

-Indoor Plumbing (it’s gonna be big)

-These fill in the blank letters! They are so accommodating  

My Companion’s Name is: (Fill in the blank) ________________________

If you could please send me: (Circle all that Apply)

-New Sandals (Size________ Style____________________)

-Clothing (Type_________________ Size___________)

-Refried Beans -Corn Tortillas -Taco Sauce

-Dried Apricots -Multivitamins -Ibuprofen 

Other things I need: 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you so much for your continued love and support as well as your letters (most of which have gone unanswered... whoops! :) But don’t worry, I am keeping a very detailed journal which I will show you all when I get home so you all know what I’ve been up to for the past two years :) 

Random Samoan Phrase of the Week without any translation so you can always wonder what my letters mean: (Insert here)

__________________________________________________________ 

__________________________________________________________

Love,

Your most devoted and consistent correspondent,

________________________________________

Signature Here

So can you see how efficient these would be?!? :) Anyway, we are sending these to Jake, and I will let you know how well they work :)

~Keep Smiling~ :)