14th email from Hong Kong

Well, three days into 2008 already. It's amazing how time flies on a mission. I still maintain that it was only two weeks ago that I entered the MTC.

Tuesday night was amazing; watching lots of little Chinese children do some pretty spectacular tricks; shimmying up bamboo poles and leaping down 15 feet to the ground, juggling each other on their feet, human pyramids, and lots of other ridiculously amazing tricks. Now all of the missionaries want to be little Chinese acrobats.

Talking with some of the Elders who came in with me was an interesting idea. Some of them are counting down the days until we reach our quarter-mark. One Elder said that he'd already picked out a tie to burn in celebration - a clip on. Everyone else looked at each other, remembering how he had only ever worn clip-ons in the MTC. I reached over and felt his collar - yup, he was wearing one then too! One of the others asked him if he'd ever tied a tie yet. "Once," he said.

I thank you for thinking about me and my companion and providing Marmite - although for Christmas, Elder Alspaugh actually bought a nice glass jar for me - particularly nice of him because it's $50 a pot here, which is really a lot if you think that you can get a good take out for around $15.

Today is an SYL (Speak Your Language) day in my zone. We have to all speak as much Cantonese as possible; something I'm managing occasionally. When I really don't stand a chance of expressing what I'm trying to say in Chinese, I'll speak English, but for the most part I can communicate just fine. These SYL days are a wonderful idea given to us by, I think, our Zone Leaders - Elder Ng (still) and Elder Lewis. They are both amazing and help us so much. Elder Ng phoned up last night to speak to my companion, Elder Walgren, who is District Leader, and I answered the phone. He asked me if I'd set any New Year's resolutions, and I said yes, I am going to become a more diligent missionary. He seemed very pleased with that. When I passed the phone to Elder Walgren, I heard him answering the very same question - that's the kind of fun small talk that Elder Ng loves.

Tomorrow is my interview with President Van Dam, and I am really looking forward to it. It feels like a really long time since I last met with him one-on-one, and considering that he always comes to Hong Kong Island Zone quite early in the moves, I guess it feels like it's been a long time because I really grew a lot last moves. I've really pushed myself, and hope to keep doing so. My new motto is "I'll rest when I'm dead", which felt particularly poignant this morning as I got up for Seminary and felt like I was going to be able to rest in about 20 minutes, after having dropped dead from lack of sleep. Seminary doesn't get any easier, even when it's in Cantonese - in fact, that makes it more difficult, as I can't really understand what's going on. But I believe I told you about how you HAVE to graduate from Seminary to go to Hong Kong on a mission? It really shows. The Elders here are a lot tougher for it. We've all either sacrificed sleep, or time at school to do it. We all know our scriptures and we all have the light and knowledge that comes from regular daily scripture class.

You don't need to worry that much about my allergies; I've been finding that a Benadryl or two every morning keeps them under control. The problem will come when they run out, but by then perhaps I'll be more desensitized to the climate; besides, if it's only a problem in the 2 month long winter, I shouldn't need to worry. I'm not thinking that eating local honey will help very much, though - there's no such thing. Living in the busiest part of the busiest island in Hong Kong, there aren't exactly many honey farms around. Neither are there bees in general, so even if I was further afield, in a more rural place, I wouldn't be able to find any. A lot of things we take for granted is incredibly expensive and hard to find in Hong Kong - honey, milk (and therefore butter, cheese, cream etc), good English chocolate (we have Cadbury's here, but it's all Australian, so it doesn't taste as good), chips, bacon, specific types of bread - most of the fresh foods we live on can't be found. But if you're looking for a certain type of rare, obscure cracker from Finland, you've come to the right place. Unfortunately, our local supermarket has been missing Finn Crisps for a few weeks, so I think this week I'm going to go with Crackerbread instead.

Beds in Hong Kong are interesting - well, it's more the missionary beds rather than Hong Kong beds in general. We have bunkbeds so closely stacked that I'm pretty much in the same bed as another Elder - but a makeshift partition has been erected so that we have slightly more privacy. The beds are little, tiny affairs that don't give you much room, and the mattresses are hard as rock, unless you have a foam padding at the top, like I do. Heheheh... Anyway, because the people of Hong Kong like the wonderful invention known of as a duvet, I actually find my bed here more comfortable than in the MTC, which had a load of itchy sheets instead; far more American, far less squishy and soft.

This New Year's Eve, we had a special little District gathering and ate dinner together and drank Appletize (from South Africa, no less! And my idea, of course, as nobody else knew what it was). My companion was thrilled by the Appletize, because he was on a sugar fast, and so couldn't drink anything with added sugar in it. Appletize is apparently now 100% pure apple juice, with bubbly water in it, so he was happy drinking half the bottle, as he was allowed.

Well, my time is up. I love you very much and hope you have a good new year.

Elder Loffhagen