Ok here's a little preface. My dad likes to include Elvis in just about everything he writes. I don't know why but it does add a little something to correspondence. This is what he wrote to Danielle's mission presidents' wife to let her get to know Dani a little better. Lets hope it worked.
A fond memory of mine with Danielle is actually several memories. Having taught 7-8 year-old CTR classes for many years I was privileged to attend quite a few baptisms when the kids turned 8. Not wanting to go alone, I would usually take Dan with me. So, she has attended more baptisms than most missionaries ever will. It’s sort of like the story told about Elvis when he was shooting a movie in Germany and had the chance to visit some of the areas around where he had been stationed with the Army a few years earlier. He and several cast members took 3-days off and traveled to the Bavarian Alps in hopes that they would be able to spend some time skiing on the world famous mountain slopes that he had skied during his previous stay when, coincidentally, he had extended his tour of duty thinking he would be able to ski to his hearts content because his Company Commander found that if he had Elvis work 3-days on and 10-days off life was so much easier around the Army Post because Elvis lived off-post and when he was at work the Public Affairs Officer on Post would have to spend all of his time taking care of not only the press with the multitude of reporters and cameramen, but also the throngs of tourists from the U.S., and on top of that herds of German women, young and old, who were making it difficult for the Post to operate as it should and the Post Commander, a 2-star General, who wasn’t about to let an E-3 Enlisted Troop who wasn’t even an NCO take over control of his post – you know how those high ranking Army Commanders were in the 1950’s – so he had ordered Elvis’ Company Commander, a 6’5” former NBA Basketball star who had been drafted and had to leave his moderately paying NBA career to be an Army Officer with a job that payed even less just so he could babysit a whinny-snotty-nosed-rich-brat who didn’t even have to live in the crowded one-room open-bay barracks like the rest of the recruits and who probably ate steak and bratwurst every night because he had more money than he could ever spend in 10 lifetimes. So, Elvis and about 37 movie crew members checked into one of the local youth hostels – not a hotel but a youth hostel where everyone slept in a 1-room open-bay area on sleeping bags laid on the hardwood planked beds – and Elvis and the crew spent the 1st day skiing at the nearest chalet – well, really sitting around the chalet drinking hot chocolate in the big 27 ounce insulated steins and with those super-duper-delux-extra-large marshmallows that the Alps are so famous for, and spinning stories for anyone who would listen and there were a lot of people to listen because as soon as it became known that Elvis was on the premises – actually Shecky Olvar was one of the group and most of the crowd was jammed around him to hear his stories about that fiasco in Lapland where, well you know, we don’t need to get into that here – well the people really packed themselves in to overflowing to see and be a part of the excitement and that’s when it happened. The manager of the Chalet was at wits end trying to keep order in his very orderly place of business. He very discretely took Elvis aside telling him that he appreciated his patronage but with all the people in his group and all the people who had gathered to be with his group it was becoming too unruly and he asked Elvis why it had to be this way. Elvis, dipping his head a little to the left and fixing a serious but benevolent gaze on the manager is reported to have said – and this is how it was like when Danielle accompanied me to all those baptisms – he said: sir, ‘I’ve found that I love to go to where my friends gather and where I can feel the Spirit!’
Papa Condie
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