Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

Several weeks ago for Father's Day my siblings and I spent the day at the home of our Goertzen Grandparents. While helping my grandmother clean up the dinner dishes she told me the story of  her and my grandfather- their entire courtship was done through letters while he was over seas with the Air Force. They never actually dated. In fact, they were strictly friends- it wasnt until the end of his service out of the country that they even began discussing feelings. Their letters were never love-letters, but the day after arriving home Leonard Goertzen proposed to Nadine Buck and the rest, as they say, is history.

I feel like the written word is dying. And by written word I mean Hand-Written-Words. Everything is digitized and sent over wires and satellites and when it does end up on paper it is more often than not printed in ink by some machine.

While sorting through some papers yesterday I discovered a whole parcel of letters from the year or so after I'd graduated from high school. When my family moved back to Utah that year there were a few people who I exchanged postage with, friends who I didn't want to lose contact with. This was before Facebook took off, and though we were all on Myspace it was fun to write letters by hand and send them in the mail. There were gossipy pieces of news from my friends still at the High School. There were letters from boot-camp where a friend/flame was struggling with the rigidity of Army Life. 

And then there were the letters that my family sent to me once I'd moved to Tallahassee. Doodles and drawings and misspelled notes from my youngest siblings who were growing up in my absence. Encouraging notes and cards from my mother. A letter from my Goertzen Grandmother sending love and courage and pride from home. Letters from a very dear friend serving a mission in a foreign land. 

It was emotional, hilarious, touching to read through these hand-penned memories. I tucked them away in a scrapbook, with plans to lay them out flat and preserve them better very soon.

And then I had an Idea.

Many of my friends will shortly, if they aren't already, be living in a completely different state from me. By the end of the summer, my dearest people will be spread out around the country in various places- and while the advent of Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat have made it easier than ever to keep in touch, I want to begin writing letters. Maybe not lengthy detailed tomes, but I'd like to be able to exchange cards and notes and little friendly tokens via good old-fashioned snail-mail. 

SO- here's my plea. If you live somewhere outside of the state of Utah, and would like to be part of something fun and simple and sweet, let me know. We're likely Facebook friends, go ahead and shoot me a message with your address, and I will be delighted to include you. Besides, the more people I write to, the more people I'm likely to receive mail from in return (though it is not expected or required). Lets have some fun and remember our penmanship lessons from grade-school and possibly make some memories in the process.

:-)