Snail Mail

My child of the technology age has recently had to learn the ins and outs of an old fashioned means of communicating...

Sending and waiting for letters in the mail.

With her boyfriend, Dagen, off on his mission, there will be no more phone calls, text messages, Skype video chats, or other forms of modern communication between them.  In order to keep in touch, they have to resort to the old postage paid, sit and wait for a reply version of long distance communication that previous generations lived with their whole lives.

It has been fun for me to watch her learn.

For instance, for the first several weeks of his mission, Dagen has been at the Missionary Training Center (MTC), but this past Monday he flew to his assigned mission field.  Before he left the MTC, he had sent Helena a letter asking for some pictures of her in order to show his roommates his beautiful girlfriend.  So, this past Friday, she planned to put a memory card full of pictures into an envelope and mail it to him, fully expecting that he'd get it that day or the next.

Remember, he was scheduled to fly out the following Monday.

I had to explain to her that the mail system simply is not that fast.  If she mailed it on Friday, it was very unlikely that he would receive it before his flight left on Monday morning.  She was quite dismayed.

Fortunately, there was another solution.  There is a local UPS store that will do a Friday only same day delivery of (small) boxes to the MTC for free!  They do not advertise this, it is a word of mouth sort of perk.  I heard about it from an old friend from our 'ballet mom' days.  If you can get the box to them before 3:00 pm, they deliver it that day.  Helena already had a box prepped and packed, so she just slipped the memory card envelope into the box to ensure that he got it.

The memory card thing is a modern-tech generation's version of sending pictures to each other, only they can also record video to send one another, as well.  That memory card is about to rack up a whole lot of travel miles, since it will go back and forth between them, enclosed in their letters.

It is fun to watch Helena anticipate the mail delivery each day, and extra fun to see her reaction when there is a letter from Dagen in the mail box!  Apparently, our mailman has already clued in on the special correspondence going on, because he makes sure to carefully arrange Dagen's letter on the top,  prominently displayed and oriented so it is the first thing to be seen when the mailbox opens.  So the letter from Dagen is always laying carefully in the front, not crammed in the back with the ads and circulars.  It probably makes the mailman's day to actually deliver REAL mail that is eagerly awaited, instead of the normal garbage that chokes the mail system these days!

I feel like this is one of those circle of life moments.  I know that sounds corny, but when I see Helena get excited or dejected about the mail, I can't help but think of all the generations before her who had the same experience waiting for news from a loved one far away... in the mission field, off to school, or serving on some far off battle front.  It is an experience that many of this next generation will probably never have.  So I am glad for her that she gets to experience it.

I'm not sure she is glad to experience it, though.

Maybe with time she will come to realize the value of owning and cherishing these real artifacts of her relationship with Dagen.  There is something so satisfying about holding a tangible letter that was hand written by the sender, instead of an electronically typed and sent missive.  The personality contained in the choice of ink color, the penmanship itself, and the care and consideration that went into writing it by hand are immeasurable.

Maybe she already feels that way?

At any rate, snail mail... the new/old way to communicate!