Goldie Turns 20 in AR!

Our little Goldie girl had her missionary birthday last week! She always knew she would serve a mission. But for years it was just this vague future event. It still seems a little bit impossible that she is actually there--living it (even halfway to its ending) and turning 20!

And I think (hope!) a proper fuss was made over it all. (She's not one to require any sort of fuss made at all, mind you, but that makes doing so for her all the more enjoyable.)

She's been in the habit of sending all of her siblings postcards for their birthdays, so Daisy had the grand idea of finding a postcard template and having the kids each choose something to put on the front so she could get birthday postcards from all of them. She currently lives in an apartment with another set of missionaries. They happened to see the postcards before Goldie, so they cleverly hid them until her birthday and then had them all hung for her. (I saw a corner of the whiteboard they hung them on when a lady from the ward texted me a birthday picture of bringing Goldie some treats. Her companions had also written all kinds of compliments. The one that made us laugh that they clearly had come to know her well was the one that said, "Selfless (too selfless)". Haha. That is 100% true of our Goldie.)

We sent her a package full of Goldie things. (She loves cacti and succulents, and, as luck would have it, Mike actually found a Lego set of just that!) And I posted that it was her birthday and emailed her email group. (She asked me, accusatorily, the following p-day if I'd done such a thing--as her day started with one or two birthday emails, and then, quite suddenly tumbled about fifty upon her. Haha.) It did make her happy! People are so thoughtful and so kind. Look at this for example: my instagram-friend Lavinia, who I've never even gotten to meet in real life, saw my post and did a little birthday-gift sketch of Goldie from this old picture of her:

How cool is that? Goldie loved it.

Oh we miss this little light of a human. But we are so glad so many people poured goodness and light back on her for her mission birthday.  

And to end, just for kicks, I will share a small segment from one of her recent letters that made me laugh:

"Met this cool group of friends at the park. We stood in the middle of the path with melting popsicles in our hands as they talked and played us their original Christian music. ... Then before we left they prayed for us, and we went away smiling. It took a minute before I turned to Sister Greene and asked: 'wait ... did she just cast demons out of you?' Yep. Only Arkansas people."

Haha. Oh I love her. Happy 20th Goldie!