Lost in the Mail

This is a picture that Liam drew for Bayley a couple weeks ago (Liam is in the midst of reading the Harry Potter books again, can you tell?).  Well this drawing has been on a bit of an adventure over the past few weeks.  It, along with a drawing from Fionn and one from Aislin, and a couple letters from Aislin and myself, were all neatly folded and placed together in an envelope bound for Lake Charles, Louisiana.  We actually held it back  couple of days until we had heard about transfers and whether or not Bayley would still be in Lake Charles to receive said envelope.  Well, as it turned out, she was there to receive the envelope, but none of its contents.  In her email last week Bayley told us that the envelope had arrived, but it was empty! None of the letters or drawings intended for our sister were there.  The only communication Bayley received from us was what was written on the OUTside of the envelope.  So, remember, write on the envelopes. Anyway, we replaced the contents as best we could and sent her a new envelope.  Taped shut this time.  I showed great restraint with the tape and only put one very modest piece across the envelope flap, resisting the urge to wrap the whole thing in swaths of the stuff.

Then today we got an envelope in the mail.  Addressed to Rhys Enright and from the Church 's 'Priesthood Department.'  Weird.  Any correspondence to Rhys from the church these days, typically says 'Elder Rhys Enright.'  Also, it typically doesn't come here, seeing as he is actually serving the Church in Las Vegas right now.  So I opened it.  Inside was a single piece of folded paper, with a yellow sticky note attached: "The attached form ended up in our office.  Don't know if you still need it. But thought we would return it to you. Best wishes. Barbara."  

I unfolded the enclosed sheet of paper to find part of an Eagle Scout application that Rhys had turned in over a year ago.  To a local scout office, not anyone at the church.  Even more weird.  Then, as I started to put it down, I caught a glimpse of the back of the paper.

A Hogwarts castle.  Liam had drawn his Hogwarts castle on the back of what was probably one of many drafts of the Eagle application which Rhys had likely thrown in the scratch paper drawer when he was cleaning out his room prior to leaving on his mission.   Still, how did it end up in Salt Lake?  It was originally in an envelope bound for Louisiana.  There is nothing on the application that says Rhys is LDS, unless it was his unit number.  There ARE several mailing addresses on it, including ours (which is how Barbara managed to get it to us), but all are local addresses. Why did the post office find this lost piece of paper and forward it to Salt Lake?  And what did they do with everything else in the envelope?

Moral: draw your pictures on the back of scratch paper that at least loosely identifies you to the post office should they somehow dump everything from the addressed envelope.