5th email from Hong Kong

Dear Family,

I may not have the latest high-tech voice-recognition software to type this, but thankfully I do have some pretty decent fingertip recognition software! I'll take a keyboard and mouse for now; it's quicker and easier.

Yes, my letter to you all was delayed horribly due to lack of stamps. It took me two weeks to figure out where to buy stamps (my companion had no idea) and then I needed to check with Elder Ng on the postage needed, but all is sorted now. At $3 a stamp, it works out as a whole lot cheaper to send things to you than it is for you to send things to me!

Our flat is very interesting. There's not all that much space, and there are four Elders in the apartment in total; two companionships. I imagine that's pretty standard throughout the mission, as space is so expensive here. Yet they have a LOT of undeveloped land in Hong Kong; every thing's just situated around Hong Kong island. Perhaps we're paying for the privilege to live on the island, and outside it's cheaper, but as travel's so cheap and efficient here it's a wonder more people don't live out in the New Territories and commute to work.

We do indeed have the luxury of a working lavatory, and even a shower! It's attached to the wall next to the toilet, and you just stand there and spray yourself. The nice thing is you can sit down as you shower - not something I've tried yet.

Halloween is a big deal here. Everyone seems to love it; the decorations have been up almost since before I got here. To celebrate, yesterday we taught English class (as we do every week on Wednesday) and we taught them some Halloween words; Vampire, Monster, Werewolf, Mummy - one thing that bugs me about it though is that it's always been taught by Americans - and still is for that matter. Yesterday we were going over kitchen words, and one little boy volunteered the words "Rubbish bin!" One of the other Elders corrected him, saying "Trash can". I then said that only Americans call it that - it's constantly like that. Hong Kong speaks British English, and then the Elders come in and teach American English. Then they and I get it little friendly arguments about pronunciation, spelling and wording. We constantly let them know that one word is American and one is English. One man at class yesterday was very intent to hear the difference between English and American pronunciation, and asked us to repeat words again and again so he could hear the difference.

One thing that surprised me about Halloween though - they've taken down all the decorations in the town centre now, of course; but they haven't immediately replaced them with Christmas stuff! I guess that's less of a big deal here. But we have a fun Christmas party for all the Missionaries, where lots of fun stuff is done! I've been told that we'll be proselyting, same as always, this Christmas; it'll be just another day - but next year, Christmas will be on a Thursday, so I'll get it on P-Day! Hurray! I get to celebrate Christmas by washing my shirts and buying food! :P

I've had a thought about iPods - a CD player would make much more sense - cheaper, and I can add music any time I like by getting a new CD. The only problem is that it can't show pictures, but I can live without that, I guess.

Interesting to hear that Charlie's planning a mission - who knows? Perhaps with her Mandarin skills she'll get called to Hong Kong?! Except while we do have Mandarin Elders here, they're very few and there are no Sisters. But she can always learn Cantonese too! Or go somewhere like Taiwan where they speak Mandarin - or there seems to be a great deal of Chinese people in Canada! That could make things awkward! :P

So this past week we had a 24 hour companionship exchange within our Zone. I got to spend the day with one of our Zone Leaders, a certain British Elder...

It was such a good day. Elder Ng and I got along so well and chatted loads and talked with loads of people - he really taught me so much. He's an absolutely astounding missionary. It was one of the best days I've had since arriving in Hong Kong! It was so nice to be with someone who understood my idioms and expressions, and my home culture.

And their apartment is so very different than ours. Elder Ng said that it's the most expensive in the mission (as the former Housing Co-ordinator, he ought to know) and it shows; it's really big (that being a relative term) and has a balcany, larger beds, a sofa, a lot of floor space, and a larger kitchen. Very different.

One of the Elders from my MTC district are in the apartment with him, as has bought a recorder from a music shop for rediculously cheap. He likes to go out on the balcany and play it, and is getting pretty good - he can manage most hymns now, and a little Lord of the Rings to spice things up every now and then.

I still think of my MTC district as being my brothers and sisters; we grew up in the language together for 12 weeks! Every time we see each other it's like a mini family reunion, and the nice thing about having so many of us is that just about every zone in the mission has two or three of us! My zone has four!

Anyway, the time is far spent. Must dash!

Love you all,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen