Mailboxes, etc.

I have my brother's mission address memorized. Not just the main mission address, but the one to his current apartment, which may or may not change in a few weeks. He lives on Black Nugget Road, which rhymes with a phrase we used to make him say a lot when he was little. He said it really fast and it made us laugh really hard: chicken in a bucket. Black Nugget--like chicken in a bucket--Street, apartment D3. We can hardly go a week without sending him a package. We joke that his companions must think we're crazy--that we miss him too much. One week he got three separate packages, one from my mom, one from me and one from my sister. With better communication, we could have saved on postage, but how fun would it be to come back after a long day walking in the city to find packages from home on your doorstep? (I guess you can add the mailman to the list of people who think we're crazy. And his neighbors.)

Luckily this week my mom and sister and I found out that we each had something to send, so we're using the same box. (Never mind it was just Christmas and he got at least four packages, plus a scripture a day from my mom.)

Here's the thing: we do miss him terribly, but there's no where else we'd rather he be. I listened to my mom tell a friend last night that perhaps the reason we're having a hard time without him is because it took him so long to get here. For so long it was just my sister and me. We wanted a little brother or sister so badly; I practically came out praying for a sibling. And, after nine years, we got one, in the form of this happy baby boy who is now 19 and on a mission and not a day goes by that we don't miss him. Whether he misses us back, we're not sure. And how long this package craze will keep up, I'm not sure. But right now we're going through bubble wrap like nobody's business.