Dear Family, I am pleased to present to you: an entire month in the Baltic states! Now four weeks into my study abroad program in Riga, Latvia, I feel a lot more confident speaking Russian, navigating the city, and eating tomatoes. For those who didn’t know little Sophie, that last one might not sound very…

Dear Family, I need you all to know that I am queer as heck.  That’s how I’d planned to start this letter, when I began work on it near the end of May. It was important, but it didn’t end up flowing well in the context of the rest of the letter. So I’ll write…

Dear Family, This has truly been one of the most exciting months of my life. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, then you probably already know the most exciting part, but I’ll get to that later to keep myself from getting turned around. The first two weeks were just work until the last day…

Dear Family, Sophie is back in the former Soviet Union. Two and a half years after having her time in Eastern Ukraine cut short by the Russian invasion, she got herself into a BYU study abroad program to Latvia for the summer. For reasons you might have to be a former missionary to fully understand,…

Dear Family, About half of this letter was written on May 30th. I hope you will forgive the fact that it is written in two parts, the first speaking as though it is still May, the other written the first few days of June. So as you begin to read the letter, do not fret;…

Dear Family, I don’t know whether to feel amused or horrified by the fact that my simply typing the letters m and o in succession into Google Chrome is enough for the browser to (correctly) guess that I’m trying to get to “montgomerycountymd.gov/safespeedpay,” the website where I pay citations issued by our county’s robot army…

Dear Family, Firstly, I’d like to try to convey how much I love the month of April. Every time it comes around, I’m just a little happier. Maybe it’s the perfect weather, the important events, or the feeling of impending final exams (meaning impending freedom from obligation to study); I’m not sure what it is…

Dear Family, I like almost everything about our neighborhood, but I’m grateful not to live under the tyranny of a homeowners association. We have an active neighborhood civic association, which I admire, even though I seldom attend the meetings. I believe I currently belong to the association, though I’m never certain. My membership frequently lapses…

Dear Family,  Listen, I warned you in September’s letter that updates would be sporadic, so I shall stubbornly plead not guilty of all charges, on the grounds that there was an exculpatory clause included in our contract. Even though I’m fairly certain that the word “plead” is not used in breach-of-contract lawsuits. Or “charges,” for…

Dear Family, And look at that, it’s April. Some of you may have noticed that I did not publish a letter in February. Whoops. I hope that you can forgive me. I promise nothing all that exciting happened, but several February events and random thoughts will appear in this letter, so never fear. For examples,…