4th email from Hong Kong

At least, I think it's letter 4...

Anyway, hello family! I see Mum now has a fun new googlemail address! Good good! :)

Anyway, this week has been lots of fun. For P-Day today, we had a Zone Activity wherein we all jumped on a ferry and went to a place called Lamma Island - look it up on the internet for some fun pictures - and it was a great time! Hiking across hills and valleys, we saw the most amazing view of many of the Hong Kong islands. Then there was a beautiful deserted beach with a life-guard, little sea-side shops, but very few other people. We all played some games and just spent some time sitting around together. One Elder, Elder Volk, who was in the MTC with me, has bought himself a recorder and so was sitting there playing songs on it. Then we carried on and found a thousand little tourist shops selling all kinds of fun little Chinese nicknacks. I refrained from buying anything, though.

There were some banana trees too - with huge spiders hanging on them. Some of the Elders were absolutely terrified, but others (myself included) got up really close and took some really close pictures of them!

Yesterday was Mission Conference, which was also a lot of fun. It was great having all of the missionaries together and getting to talk with all my friends and make new ones. The theme of the Conference was Siu Sam Sam, or, 'Be Careful, Sam!' It was all about Samuel the Lamanite, and so President and Sister Van Dam, the APs and the Office Elders and a pair of senior missionaries all sang Book of Mormon Stories with some alternative lyrics about the story of Samuel the Lamanite. As they did this, one of the Elders, Elder Warner, came through a doorway, dressed as Samuel the Lamanite, and acted out the story as they sang it.

We later had an activity called 'Hit the Mark' where we learned a bit more about Samuel the Lamanite, and then got the opportunity to through water balloons at one of two Elders, both named 'Mark'. It's the kind of punny activity that Sister Van Dam seems to always come up with - she loves to come up with little fun things like that; she always has a poem she's written about Missionary work, and came up with alternative puny names for the food we had for lunch, which was referred to as a Faminish Feast for our Lamanite Lunch.

I'm glad you got to see that picture of me with President and Sister Van Dam - I think it's hilarious. There they are, both looking very smart and happy, and there's me in the middle, with my hair a mess, my tie askew and very visible stubble. That was taken right at about 10 at night on my first day in Hong Kong - the last time I'd had a wash, a shave and a proper sleep had been the Monday - and that day was Wednesday! I certainly think it's a picture worth keeping, if only for the memories.

Larry Hartley actually wrote to me while I was in the MTC - I never found the time to get around to writing back, unfortunately. But he sent me a really nice letter, that perhaps I shall reply to now, if I can find the time. That's doubtful, though :S

Hayfever has not actually been a problem the whole time I've been on my mission so far - in fact, a native Elder from Macau who's in my flat with me has more of a problem than I do. I gave him some of my tablets, as at the moment they're just sitting in the bottom of my Carry-On bag looking suspicious. I was surprised that even on Lamma Island, where there's a lot more vegetation, I didn't really have a problem. But then I guess it's getting to the cooling-down season now in Hong Kong (I assume - I wasn't here for when it was REALLY hot, but it's still very hot now) so perhaps I'll have more trouble next Summer. I guess I only have one full really hot summer here, as I missed a lot of it in the MTC.

I'm thinking less interested in the idea of an iPod for Christmas any more - in fact, I'd much prefer having all of my Birthday and Christmas money saved for the next two years so I can buy a MacBook after the mission. That would be by far more useful to me then than an iPod would be for me now - the only reason I have to feel inclined to want an iPod is, as you mentioned, for storing pictures so I can show them to people, for having Conference talks on, and such. So I'm not sure. I've seen a lot of really cheap iPod-like devices while here, most for under $500 HK, but considering how cheap that is, and remembering the last iPod I got from Hong Kong, I'm skeptical of them. But I do know that somewhere around, there are places to get the real thing really cheap, but I've not seen any such places myself yet - I don't get really any opportunity to go window shopping. A nice compromise would be if you sent me out my old iPod, now in Bethany's possession, but I wouldn't want to tear it away from her, so don't worry about that plan.

Last Sunday, the people of Asia were blessed to have a special Stake Conference - like when we've had President Hinckley or Monson speak to us, Hong Kong, Taiwan and surrounding missions in this area had the opportunity to hear from President Monson, Elder Cook, a member of the General Relief Society Presidency, and a member of the Quorum of the Seventy who speaks Mandarin. It was a very interesting experience - the broadcast came to us in three languages at different times - English for the International district, Cantonese and Mandarin for the speakers of these respective languages. So the broadcast we watched was in Cantonese. Now, for General Conference, all of the broadcasts were at the same time, so we got to watch it in English, but the English broadcast was at a different time for Stake Conference. So Missionaries were provided with translations via headsets!

anyway, got to go! Bye!

Loffhagen