San Lihn Fai Lohk! - 19th email from Hong Kong

Or in English, Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the big New Year celebrations. It's crazy here - like Christmas, but more red, and Chinesey. This morning, everything was shut down, and nobody was outside. All the shops were closed and there were no cars on the streets. Hong Kong became a ghost town - if only for the morning.

Now, though, people are everywhere. Why wait when there's shopping to do? And why leave your shop closed when there are people to buy things from you? We were sincerely worried about finding a place to email, because the library is shut, but found a really nice, respectable gaming lounge. Another one we used to email in was horribly smoky, loud and filled with teenagers who just didn't want to go home, while this one is so nice and clean and quiet. Very nice.

There have been a lot of changes to things over here. Many of the Elders from the group above me have just become senior companion, with their very little Cantonese, and many are very scared. Some are companions to brand new Elders who have only been out for one Moves. Elder Shupe, who has been in my district since the beginning, has finally gone to be senior companion to Elder Gines, who was in my group, and another Elder from my group, Elder Kinghorn, has taken his place. Over the next three moves, a lot of missionaries finish their missions (including my companion, Elder Walgren, who I am staying with) and a lot are coming in, so relatively young missionaries like myself are going to have to grow up quickly.

Having understood this for a while, I've been working very hard on my Pass-Offs. I've now passed off the first three lessons, and had a Zone Leader check up, and am working on the big, tough one - lesson 4: The Commandments. The vocab words I need to learn for it are just so weird! My goal is to have completed my pass-offs by the end of this moves, so that if I get a senior companion call, I'll at least be able to teach all of the lessons, if not actually be fluent.

I did get to see President Hinkley's funeral, and thought it was wonderful. One speaker (whose name right now, unfortunately escapes me) said exactly what I was feeling; that President Hinkley is the prophet of this young generation. He is MY prophet. I thought the burial had some nice touches; like burying President Hinkley on Lancastrian soil, and a man playing the bagpipes. It was nice having a prophet who had such a love for our home country - and who had such a sense of humour! I will certainly miss that about him.

But I think that the new First Presidency certainly is an all star cast of hard hitters. President Monson, Eyring and Uchtdorf; three simply wonderful men. Of course, any of the Apostles would do wonderfully, but these three are certainly among my favourites, who seem very suited to take on the responsibility. And the First Presidency certainly is a lot younger now. I'm really hoping for a world tour that'll bring President Monson or one of his counsellors over to Asia. Apparently, when Elder Alspaugh and Elder Walgren were new in the mission, Elder Bednar came to speak to Hong Kong, and spoke to a stadium full of people. He also came to Mission Conference; a slightly more personal setting with him and just 150 or so missionaries. It'd be great to see something like that while I'm here.

A fun thing happened earlier this week. We were contacting by a park and said hello to a man on a bench. He made the facial expression as if we were offering him a plate of mouldy cat brains to eat and tried to wave us away. I said goodbye and kept walking, but Elder Shupe, who I was with at the time, dared to ask for a referral. He asked if the man had any friends who might like to hear about our church, and the man was confused for a second. He then suddenly realised that we were speaking Cantonese. This generally has the same kind of effect on people as if we pulled a $500 note out of our pocket and handed it to them. He was astounded. He asked us how on earth we had learned Cantonese, and asked, as many do, if we were native to Hong Kong. We explained that Elder Shupe had been here for 6 months and myself 4, and the man was blown away. I asked him if he knew how we'd learned to quickly and he suspected we studied twelve hours a day. I then explained that, of course, it was God's blessing upon us to help us talk to people. We chatted with him for a while until a friend of his turned up and he had to go, but he kindly accepted a flyer. It's amazing how the gifts God gives us to help us teach the Gospel can so quickly soften people's hearts - originally he wanted us as far away from him as possible, and within the blink of an eye, he was the most friendly, warm person you could imagine.

Everyone sounds like you're all doing well, be it with school, buying cars, missionary work, making friends, counseling, or whatever else. Keep up the good work!

One thing that occurred to me when I was watching President Hinkley's funeral, was something I'd thought about before; studying journalism at university. With the ability to speak Cantonese, and then if I can learn Mandarin from somewhere, I'd probably be able to do a lot, and would be able to study writing. The only difficulty would be the whole learning Mandarin by myself thing, but beyond that, I think it would be really good. Although, a job like that, with the ability to speak Cantonese, will probably see me travelling around a lot, and I'd like to have a career that keeps me close to my family, but it'd definitely be worth looking into. Would you be able to help me with that? :)

Love you all lots, hope you are well and continue to be so,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

羅 長 老

PS Happy Birthday Dad! :D