you've got half-formed sentences

I'm sitting here -- no wait, lounging here -- on my bed, writing this letter -- well, actually, I haven't started yet, even though I've been planning to write it for, oh, over a week --

I like to say that I'm writing my favorite missionary, but I've been notoriously bad at correspondence, especially considering some of the other missionaries I've written -- notably that one who forced me to write once a week for all seven months he was out...

There's something different about this missionary. She's a girl, for one thing. I can't deny that my motivations for writing her are different (in some ways) than writing a guy. She likes to hear about different things, too (never once did any of my gentleman correspondents request to hear how things were going with [insert boy's name here]). I can go all out and work for hours on her letters and not risk her thinking that if I'm expending all this effort I must like her -- she already knows I do!

There's something different about this letter, too. Unless my letter-writing habits improve dramatically in the next few weeks, this will be the last letter. She'll be home in March. So, really, I have plenty of time to squeeze another letter in, but that's kind of the point -- I probably won't.

What does one say in a last letter to a friend who has been so good to write through her whole mission?

I just went to look at the copies of "last letters" I have on the computer. They weren't helpful. (Though, dude, DZ! I was so clever to use GRE vocab words in your letter when I was studying. I sounded so smart.)

I guess I'll just say the usual.

And sign it with Love.

Maybe I'll have the chance to write her again anyway, right?


"Shasta (Carrie's Song)" ~ Vienna Teng