Letters & packages

Missionaries love letters, and I hope you write me as many as you can. This page will help you understand what you can send, and where you can send it.

The first thing to understand is that I will not have much time to write back to you. Missionaries have one day per week, called Preparation Day, that we get to write or send e-mail back home. Most of that will be spent sending a letter to my beloved mother and father, who will, in turn, get someone a bit more technologically advanced than them to post it on here so everyone can read it.

I only get 30 minutes on the internet, which means I do not have time to read everyone's letters, if you send them to me via e-mail. It would be much better to write me a regular letter so I can use that 30 minutes to write a big e-mail to everyone back home.

Just because I don't write you back doesn't mean I don't enjoy the letters or that I'm not thinking of you. Please be patient and keep the letters coming — you never know when I'm going to need something you say, or something that happened in your life, to inspire me and keep me motivated to hard times.

Letters telling me about what things are going on in the world are fine, but I'm more interested in what is happening with YOU. Your life might not seem so glamorous, but since I don't get to hear about anything from the outside world, the smallest things are interesting.

And PLEASE let me know how you are doing spiritually — what new insight to the gospel did you learn this week? How was church? Did some experience really give you a testimony of something? Are you dying to share a scripture that just hit you like a ton of bricks? I'll want those, and need those.

You're more than welcome to send "snail mail": in fact, sending something like that shows me the love and effort you had to write and send it to me. One option is to write me a letter on DearElder.com. It costs the same amount as a regular stamp, only they print the letter and deliver it for you:

• Go to www.dearelder.com
• Select "California San Diego" on the drop-down bar right next to the elder. 
• Click "Write letter", and off you go.

When I get to California, I'll figure out how the mailing system works. In some missions, you mail it all to the mission office, where it gets forwarded from there. In others, the mission office doesn't forward, so you get mail sporadically, and it's best to send it to my apartment. But for now, here's the mission office address. Use it from July 12 on:

Sister Brittany D. Newman
California San Diego Mission
7404 Armstrong Place
San Diego, CA 92111