By Krystal Baker
krystal@newsroom.byu.edu
E-mail services to missionaries in training, cookie care packages, and now warm cinnamon rolls, are available to send to an elder or sister, before they leave Provo.
Cookie packages are available through http://galaxymall.com/mtcookies, e-mail services through help@mtcfreemail.com and the BYU Bookstore offers free mail delivery.
However, not many options exist to service missionaries who are already out in the field.
A new service provided by Called2Serve.com, can help missionaries across the globe receive Christmas letters faster.
Called2Serve.com has launched a new Web site, www.pouchmail.com, where families and friends of missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can purchase e-mail accounts.
These friends and families can e-mail a message through the site. The company then prints and mails the messages through the church's pouch system, said Jeff Allen, president of Called2Serve.com.
The LDS Church provides the pouch as a mail forwarding system for those in hard-to-reach areas.
MTC.FreeMail offers a similar service, Allen said. It is not as robust or technologically advanced as PouchMail.com.
The idea behind the PouchMail.com Web site is to provide convenience.
Users type in a name and password, click on a sender name and type the message.
'It is especially convenient for moms who want to know if the letter got there.' Allen said.
The service has a tracking system, which tells you if the letter is queued up to be delivered, or if it got there,' he said.
The service costs $7.99 a month and can be used by up to six authors.
Called2Serve.com was developed in May of 1999, and has since printed and sent 100,000 letters to missionaries in training, Allen said. MTCfreemail.com, also provides e-mail to missionaries in training.
When Called2Serve.com was first started, the technology was not yet developed for the company to offer the service to missionaries out in the field, he said.
Unique to PouchMail.com is the other services available, including tracking and a link where families can post missionary stories to be published in the online magazine, Meridian, Allen said.
The company also offers a care package service, where parents and friends can put together a custom care package for the missionary, he said.
Links are also available for sending medical and optical supplies, as well as a money delivery service offered by Zions Bank, Allen said.
The service is up and ready to be used -- just in time for the holidays, he said.
Tamara Tanner, a 24-year-old senior majoring in humanities, from American Fork, served a mission in Bacolod, Philippines.
'The pouch was always the best way to go, it was the most reliable and was faster,' Tanner said.
She feels the new service offered by PouchMail.com would be beneficial.
'Basically everyone wants to get news fast,' she said.
Chad Jenks, 22, a sophomore, from Moses Lake, Wash., majoring in international studies, served a mission in Chihuahua, Mexico. He said he feels his mission does not need the new pouch service.
Mail addressed to Chihuahua missionaries was sent directly to El Paso, and then brought across the border, Jenks said.
'We would get our mail within three days of the postmark, so that is faster than any pouch service would be,' he said.
However, he is aware many missionaries in other missions in Mexico and the world have problems, Jenks said.