… by the letters
When I was a little kid, my babysitter was Lora. She lived around the corner from me in Orem and she was 13 years old when I first met her. I was 6 at the time and thought she was so mature and such an adult, not a little kid like me. She knew all the cool music and when she’d come over to babysit she would bring with her the hits of the late 80s. My favorite was Tiffany and the single “I think We’re Alone Now.” I borrowed it from Lora all the time so one Saturday afternoon my mom took me to the record store on State Street and bought me a copy, which I still have, and which is now autographed by Tiffany because a few years ago I met her at Phoenix Pride. Point is – Lora was the coolest person I knew.
When my family moved from Utah to California in 1991, Lora wrote me letters. But being the coolest babysitter and creative, attentive person she is, she didn’t just write a letter. She would create a new alphabet and create a key on a 3×5 index card so I could crack the code. For example the letter A would match a new symbol like +. The letter B was denoted with a !, C with a #, D by an = and so on. Without the index card the letter was impossible to read. A letter from her was an experience because each was a puzzle, written in our own secret language that took me about 20 minutes to decipher. I translated the symbols and then could read her words. I cherished those letters.
Mormon history includes a similar story.
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