Hi all,
Fun things happened this week. Last Saturday we awoke to rather thick rain outside - it had also been raining for most of the night. We phoned up the weather station on the telephone, which has an automated system for informing people of the weather conditions, and were told there was currently a level 3 storm warning.
The system seems fairly simple - there are three levels; level 1 (no real danger), level 3 (there's a storm a little way away, but still not too dangerous - stay fifteen minutes from home by bus or train or whatever) and level 8 (get inside and stay inside - there's a storm close by). So a level 3 this morning was nothing really worth worrying about. We took our umbrellas and went to it.
Rain is excellent tracting weather - provided you can keep a smile on your face. We are encouraged to remember that it's always good weather, whether it's sleeting or raining or unbearably hot; but I like to differentiate what type of missionary work a specific weather is good for. So as we went out into our pak muhn (literally "knock door") weather, I was eager to do a little tracting for a while; it had been a while since I'd done any.
I remember a story that either Ali Millar or Matt Conway told when they had just got back from their mission - as they were serving as companions at the time, it could have been either one of them. They were door knocking on a particularly cold and wet day, and someone came to one of the doors. They told the man that they had a message about happiness, and he looked the two of them over, and asked "Then why aren't you happy?"
I was determined to be happy, even in the middle of a typhoon. As we were out, the rain got thicker and thicker and thicker, and the streets began to flood. Soon our tattered umbrellas were only a nuisance, because the wind kept grabbing and tearing them in sudden bursts, and we were completely drenched from head to foot. Yet we kept laughing and joking about it, having a good time in the torrent.
We finally headed home from our labours to find out that in the last hour we'd been out, the storm warning had changed from level 3 to level 8. After changing our clothes and making phone calls and planning, we headed into bed and the storm passed overnight. Since then we've had a few tiny showers but nothing too huge.
Too bad about Beth and her car - how awkward that there are going to be a load of car payments that she can't pay for - but I'm sure she'll get another job soon; she's a hard worker. In institute last year we were taught a little about sensible finance methods - we were told that the best strategy is to do whatever you have to do to buy your first car in cash, and then immediately begin saving for the next one; just as if you were paying off the first. That way, you'll always be ahead of the large payment, instead of behind it. I guess it's all fair and well me saying that now, as I'm not yet in the situation where I need a car (and when I am, I'll have absolutely no money because I'll be in university) so never mind.
I did indeed remember Chris's birthday coming up; but with the two days I have until his birthday I can't really get anything to him in time. I'll find some other way of dealing with things - see if I can send him a late birthday card or something.
As for my own birthday, there are some nice things from home I'd like that I can't really get here - a new pair of Tesco jeans (30in) and some nice clean white shirts (15in collar). Don't worry about anything like money; you already gave me £50 for the watch. I didn't end up buying it anyway because I found a fine Casio for $200HK, about £12 or £15, which was all I had left in my account the week before you put money in. I decided against an Octopus watch because it's an unnecessary extra expense; my normal Octopus card works fine as it is, I just keep it in my wallet so unless I lose that I'll be fine.
One thing I'd like, which you all might find fun to put together in some Family Home Evenings, would be a Loffhagen family cookbook. Bear in mind that I have absolutely no idea how to cook something as simple as a pancake without burning it - a recipe for such things as fairy cakes, scrambled egg, chocolate cake, toast, ice cubes, water, and such, would be a really nice way of spicing up my diet. I have a great variety of meals at the moment, but most of them come from a tin can or the rice cooker...
I've been balancing my Chinese study a lot better this week; spending more time on vocabulary and less on the character cards. It was my goal to be able to read the entire 2nd Nephi 31 by the end of this moves - next week - and since I'm only about half way through at the moment, I adjusted my goal a little to allow me to work on other things. I've been solidifying the first 200 cards in my mind be reviewing them, and have started on the third hundred. The cards are easier than reading the scriptures because when reading scriptures, it takes me about 10 minutes to look up every character I don't know. I also realised that the majority of characters I don't know are all in the basic 1000 characters anyway, so I can save time in the long run by learning the cards first and the scriptures will be easy by that point.
My English fast went a lot better this week - I got most of the way through before giving up again. The problem is that I keep trying to speak Chinese but my companion and other missionaries are all speaking English. I've decided to wait and try again next moves, but if I end up with another young companion who, unlike Elder Kwok, doesn't have the advantage of already speaking Chinese - I'll be out of luck. The English fasts seem to be the the hardest part of the next language goal.
So yesterday, we went tracting in a little village in our area that is completely isolated. Around about this time last year, when I was thinking about where I wanted to serve my mission, I imagined serving in China to be walking along old, rural roads, surrounded by green mountains as far as the eye could see, with very few people in sight, until you reached the village and began to preach. That was basically what it was like yesterday - it was honestly as rural as could be imagined. It was a far cry from my last area where you couldn't escape the noise of the city for even three seconds, even at 3:00am. It really was an unique experience; there's so much variety in this mission. Who knows where I'll end up next?
Today is Temple day, which should be good as always - our ward mission leader here is also a Temple worker (as are most of the older Saints in the area) and has told us that a group is going to be there from Mongolia - missionaries there get Temple days a bit less often than us. It makes me so thankful for the blessings of the Hong Kong Temple; it serves such a large area of the Orient out here. Saints come from all over the world to receive the blessings here - one of my first Temple days was shared with a group from Singapore. It's true what's said of Hong Kong - it really is the gateway to the Orient.
So now I'm off to buy some food for the next week and to prepare for the Temple. Talk to you next week.
Lots of Love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Thursday, 17 April 2008
28th email from Hong Kong
Another week over before I realised. It seems like it's always Preparation Day, sometimes, the rest of the week flying by so quickly.
This past week was, of course, General Conference, here in Hong Kong. I'd been looking forward to it for a long time, and was thrilled to get to see it at last. We'd been building up to it for a long time, inviting people to it for pretty much all of the moves. We were expecting to have somewhere in the region of 6 or 7 investigators attending, but somehow they all fell through, one by one, until there was only one person who came for one of the sessions. This was not always their fault - for example, one man called Johnny is a Scottish Born Chinese who doesn't really speak Cantonese but is looking to move here permanently. We invited him and he was really thrilled to go, but somehow he got lost and ended up going to a Baptist church instead! He was surprised when a meeting he thought was going to be in English was in Chinese, and when it finished at 12:30 instead of 2:00. But he was really good about it and once we have the DVDs of Conference we're going to show a session to him. We really don't have any responsibility over him anyway, as he's best left to the International missionaries - but they're always so busy baptising all day every day that they don't have time to meet with people who aren't ready right then and there for a baptismal interview!
I exaggerate, but it's basically how it works.
As it happened, Conference was a really good experience for Lobo - the only investigator who attended. He said he'd have to leave after an hour, but ended up staying for the whole session and then running quickly out afterwards. He still has a really strong desire to develop a testimony - he's been losing sleep over it - but doesn't quite understand the way the Spirit will talk to him. We were supposed to meet with him yesterday, and he even moved his work appointments around to meet with us, but at the last minute something came up and he couldn't make it - he was really sincerely sorry, leaving 3 messages on our answering machine at home. Too bad we were at the church.
It was also unfortunate that we'd scheduled an Area Seventy to fellowship.
He understood, though, and gave us an interesting new insight into the way the Spirit works - he said that generally, the only people who get huge visions, like Joseph Smith, Paul, Lehi, Alma the Younger and so forth, are always required to do something specific. A heavenly vision is a call to action, whether it be restoring the church or a call to missionary work or to travel across the ocean to a promised land. Generally for the rest of us who aren't prophets, the promptings are a lot smaller so as to allow us to exercise faith and agency.
This past Monday and Tuesday was the Zone 24 hour exchanges. This time I was with a brand new missionary, Elder MacAllister, who is really cool. As we walked out of the chapel, I turned to him and asked, "What did you like to do before your mission?" He responded, "I was really into making movies."
I could tell I was in for an interesting 24 hours.
While I forbade us from talking about specific films or anything that would distract from the work, I did learn that he's pretty much thrilled to be in Hong Kong. He really loves Chinese films - Jackie Chan is his hero, and he's been buying and watching films made in Hong Kong for most of his life. Before his mission, he was working professionally on films in lighting, sound, camera operation and various other fun things, and even has a scholarship waiting for him when he goes home. He made a big sacrifice choosing to put his budding career on hold to come on a mission, and was astounded when he got the very mission call he'd always wanted.
Of course, that provides a lot of temptations as well, as Hong Kong is full of things he loves that he can't touch, like films and filming stuff. The Hong Kong film industry is the second biggest in the world (next to Hollywood) and as such, it's hard to avoid his greatest love.
We had a really good time together, teaching and street contacting and "Pak Muhn"ing (literally "knock door") and, he only having been here for 3 weeks, we did a lot of things he'd not done before. On the other hand, I learned a lot from his about being enthusiastic and happy to work, as he has a great fire and a love of sharing with people.
My English fasts have as of yet to succeed. I'm planning on starting one a little later today, but am still having a lot of problems talking to someone in Chinese when all of the other missionaries keep speaking English. But my goal is to have one completed by the end of the moves, so I'm determined to complete my goal. I'm starting it later today because we have a Zone Activity in a little while and I know it'll be too much of a tempation to speak English and I'll have broken my fast before I've started.
My other goals for the moves are going well, though - I've learned the first 200 character cards, from the thousand, and have been picking out character cards from the set that are featured in 2 Nephi 31, as my goal is to be able to read it before May. The cards I've picked out add up to about another hundred, so I've learnt a fair few. I need to spend more time on my spoken, though, as I'm still far from fluent, but I want to get my reading goal out of the way first. The biggest frustration is simply that the characters, being little pictures, stick in my head a lot better than words. I was learning 10 character cards at the same time as 10 words in my language study for a while, before I discovered that I could actually learn 50 characters in the time it took me to learn 10 words! Since then I've kind of been slacking on my spoken.
Anyway, so we're off in a minute for a Zone barbecue - on Monkey Mountain! I've heard legends of the excitement of this place, and all the funny monkeys everywhere, but have as of yet to actually go there. Supposedly some of the monkeys can be pretty vicious at times in their desire for tourists' bananas, but we'll see.
And with that, I'm off. Talk to you next week.
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
This past week was, of course, General Conference, here in Hong Kong. I'd been looking forward to it for a long time, and was thrilled to get to see it at last. We'd been building up to it for a long time, inviting people to it for pretty much all of the moves. We were expecting to have somewhere in the region of 6 or 7 investigators attending, but somehow they all fell through, one by one, until there was only one person who came for one of the sessions. This was not always their fault - for example, one man called Johnny is a Scottish Born Chinese who doesn't really speak Cantonese but is looking to move here permanently. We invited him and he was really thrilled to go, but somehow he got lost and ended up going to a Baptist church instead! He was surprised when a meeting he thought was going to be in English was in Chinese, and when it finished at 12:30 instead of 2:00. But he was really good about it and once we have the DVDs of Conference we're going to show a session to him. We really don't have any responsibility over him anyway, as he's best left to the International missionaries - but they're always so busy baptising all day every day that they don't have time to meet with people who aren't ready right then and there for a baptismal interview!
I exaggerate, but it's basically how it works.
As it happened, Conference was a really good experience for Lobo - the only investigator who attended. He said he'd have to leave after an hour, but ended up staying for the whole session and then running quickly out afterwards. He still has a really strong desire to develop a testimony - he's been losing sleep over it - but doesn't quite understand the way the Spirit will talk to him. We were supposed to meet with him yesterday, and he even moved his work appointments around to meet with us, but at the last minute something came up and he couldn't make it - he was really sincerely sorry, leaving 3 messages on our answering machine at home. Too bad we were at the church.
It was also unfortunate that we'd scheduled an Area Seventy to fellowship.
He understood, though, and gave us an interesting new insight into the way the Spirit works - he said that generally, the only people who get huge visions, like Joseph Smith, Paul, Lehi, Alma the Younger and so forth, are always required to do something specific. A heavenly vision is a call to action, whether it be restoring the church or a call to missionary work or to travel across the ocean to a promised land. Generally for the rest of us who aren't prophets, the promptings are a lot smaller so as to allow us to exercise faith and agency.
This past Monday and Tuesday was the Zone 24 hour exchanges. This time I was with a brand new missionary, Elder MacAllister, who is really cool. As we walked out of the chapel, I turned to him and asked, "What did you like to do before your mission?" He responded, "I was really into making movies."
I could tell I was in for an interesting 24 hours.
While I forbade us from talking about specific films or anything that would distract from the work, I did learn that he's pretty much thrilled to be in Hong Kong. He really loves Chinese films - Jackie Chan is his hero, and he's been buying and watching films made in Hong Kong for most of his life. Before his mission, he was working professionally on films in lighting, sound, camera operation and various other fun things, and even has a scholarship waiting for him when he goes home. He made a big sacrifice choosing to put his budding career on hold to come on a mission, and was astounded when he got the very mission call he'd always wanted.
Of course, that provides a lot of temptations as well, as Hong Kong is full of things he loves that he can't touch, like films and filming stuff. The Hong Kong film industry is the second biggest in the world (next to Hollywood) and as such, it's hard to avoid his greatest love.
We had a really good time together, teaching and street contacting and "Pak Muhn"ing (literally "knock door") and, he only having been here for 3 weeks, we did a lot of things he'd not done before. On the other hand, I learned a lot from his about being enthusiastic and happy to work, as he has a great fire and a love of sharing with people.
My English fasts have as of yet to succeed. I'm planning on starting one a little later today, but am still having a lot of problems talking to someone in Chinese when all of the other missionaries keep speaking English. But my goal is to have one completed by the end of the moves, so I'm determined to complete my goal. I'm starting it later today because we have a Zone Activity in a little while and I know it'll be too much of a tempation to speak English and I'll have broken my fast before I've started.
My other goals for the moves are going well, though - I've learned the first 200 character cards, from the thousand, and have been picking out character cards from the set that are featured in 2 Nephi 31, as my goal is to be able to read it before May. The cards I've picked out add up to about another hundred, so I've learnt a fair few. I need to spend more time on my spoken, though, as I'm still far from fluent, but I want to get my reading goal out of the way first. The biggest frustration is simply that the characters, being little pictures, stick in my head a lot better than words. I was learning 10 character cards at the same time as 10 words in my language study for a while, before I discovered that I could actually learn 50 characters in the time it took me to learn 10 words! Since then I've kind of been slacking on my spoken.
Anyway, so we're off in a minute for a Zone barbecue - on Monkey Mountain! I've heard legends of the excitement of this place, and all the funny monkeys everywhere, but have as of yet to actually go there. Supposedly some of the monkeys can be pretty vicious at times in their desire for tourists' bananas, but we'll see.
And with that, I'm off. Talk to you next week.
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
Monday, 14 April 2008
27th email from Hong Kong
Dear everyone,
It sounds like everyone is having fun on holiday - I vaguely remember Goonhilly from when we went before - but as that was about ten years ago, I expect it's a lot more advanced and impressive now!
An interesting thought about Nephi beheading Laban - and very interesting to think that the story of the people of Ammon and their determination not to take the lives of others - perhaps we will think about sharing that story with him.
I'm so thrilled that you got to meet the now released Tim Ng. He honestly was my mission hero, and I find myself sharing with Elder Kwok many of the pearls of wisdom he taught me. It doesn't surprise me that he's having trouble adjusting to non-mission life; I remember when we were at the Temple for Moves - and he was going to have to wait around all day - and he was bored, so he went and found someone to go finding with while he waited! Then, I'm not sure if I told you this, but he randomly turned up at our first District Meeting this moves - his parents were visiting the area, meeting people, and he had come to check out the chapel. "Let's just forget the District Meeting," he said, "and go on a District find!" He really was a dedicated, hard working missionary, so I'm not surprised he's taking a little while to get used to not being busy every second of the day.
Yesterday was Mission Conference, and another huge load of old missionaries bore their "dying" testimonies. Included among them were Elder Alspaugh, and a load of other Elders I've served around before. Pretty much every missionary older than me is going home - Sister Van Dam had a bit of a cry when she thought about how the Elders going home were the group of missionaries that they'd met in the MTC when they started their missions.
Mission Conference was really good. The Assistants to the President had a fun little video they showed us of the difference between a missionary with teaching skills and a missionary without. It was cute and funny and taught us all the big difference that comes from having the ability to teach with clarity, using the scriptures and asking questions.
At lunch I went to check the post, as you'd expect, and had a postcard from Julian off in France, who seems to be doing really well there and enjoying himself. There was a big package on the table, but it was from America and said "Missionary Supplies" on the customs form in an unfamiliar handwriting, so I didn't even bother checking who it was for. Later as I was eating, Elder Kwok came up to me and said, "Elder Loffhagen - you're loved," and handed me the package. What a surprise to get a big Dear Elder package full of sweets and cookies! Thank you so much! I'm not sure if I'd really call them "Missionary Supplies", but whatever - I guess Dear Elder was being rather liberal in their interpretation of what "supplies" missionaries need!
I also got my certificate for achieving the level of Language Giant, and my cookie, which I'd been waiting for. I'm also pleased to say that I'm working my way through the character cards and learning to read 2nd Nephi chapter 31 - I can read two whole verses! Yay! Plus I've learnt the first 100 character cards. My goals for the end of the moves are to learn the first 200 and to be able to read chapter 31, plus to do my week-long English fast, which I failed at rather badly last time. But today half the District started an English Fast all together, so it should be easier to do one myself without other people always speaking English to me.
A little note about money - this is the first time I've had to request some, but it's rather necessary. I don't really want to have to ask, because I know you all have more of a need for it than me, but as I have temporarily misplaced my emergency fund and had to sustain myself with personal funds, I'm a lot lower than I would like - and my watch is about to die. I press the light button and instead of illuminating, the entire display goes blank for a few seconds. The battery's nearly gone. I'd use the pocket watch I bought - except it doesn't actually keep accurate time, and is a pretty big inconvenience to have to carry around. But another Elder, Elder Kinghorn, has a very special watch called an Octopus watch. In Hong Kong Octopus cards are kind of like the oyster card in London; you can ride the MTR by storing money on your card and beeping it on the ticket gates, and it quickly withdraws the money from your electronic account, saving a lot of time and hassle - but it also goes further than that; the buses also take the card, as do taxis, supermarkets, newsagents, bakeries and even McDonalds - some shops will only take Octopus cards and not real money! So Elder Kinghorn's watch is pretty special. Instead of fishing out his wallet and dropping coins all over the floor in order to get on the bus (like I do), he just beeps his watch. As my watch is dying anyway, I'm considering buying an Octopus watch, to simplify things. Except I have no money.
I'm not sure how much the watch will be - but it shouldn't be too much. Could I ask for maybe £30?
Anyway, that'll be it for this week. Sorry to end on a begging note! I wish you all well and hope you have fun doing stuff.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
It sounds like everyone is having fun on holiday - I vaguely remember Goonhilly from when we went before - but as that was about ten years ago, I expect it's a lot more advanced and impressive now!
An interesting thought about Nephi beheading Laban - and very interesting to think that the story of the people of Ammon and their determination not to take the lives of others - perhaps we will think about sharing that story with him.
I'm so thrilled that you got to meet the now released Tim Ng. He honestly was my mission hero, and I find myself sharing with Elder Kwok many of the pearls of wisdom he taught me. It doesn't surprise me that he's having trouble adjusting to non-mission life; I remember when we were at the Temple for Moves - and he was going to have to wait around all day - and he was bored, so he went and found someone to go finding with while he waited! Then, I'm not sure if I told you this, but he randomly turned up at our first District Meeting this moves - his parents were visiting the area, meeting people, and he had come to check out the chapel. "Let's just forget the District Meeting," he said, "and go on a District find!" He really was a dedicated, hard working missionary, so I'm not surprised he's taking a little while to get used to not being busy every second of the day.
Yesterday was Mission Conference, and another huge load of old missionaries bore their "dying" testimonies. Included among them were Elder Alspaugh, and a load of other Elders I've served around before. Pretty much every missionary older than me is going home - Sister Van Dam had a bit of a cry when she thought about how the Elders going home were the group of missionaries that they'd met in the MTC when they started their missions.
Mission Conference was really good. The Assistants to the President had a fun little video they showed us of the difference between a missionary with teaching skills and a missionary without. It was cute and funny and taught us all the big difference that comes from having the ability to teach with clarity, using the scriptures and asking questions.
At lunch I went to check the post, as you'd expect, and had a postcard from Julian off in France, who seems to be doing really well there and enjoying himself. There was a big package on the table, but it was from America and said "Missionary Supplies" on the customs form in an unfamiliar handwriting, so I didn't even bother checking who it was for. Later as I was eating, Elder Kwok came up to me and said, "Elder Loffhagen - you're loved," and handed me the package. What a surprise to get a big Dear Elder package full of sweets and cookies! Thank you so much! I'm not sure if I'd really call them "Missionary Supplies", but whatever - I guess Dear Elder was being rather liberal in their interpretation of what "supplies" missionaries need!
I also got my certificate for achieving the level of Language Giant, and my cookie, which I'd been waiting for. I'm also pleased to say that I'm working my way through the character cards and learning to read 2nd Nephi chapter 31 - I can read two whole verses! Yay! Plus I've learnt the first 100 character cards. My goals for the end of the moves are to learn the first 200 and to be able to read chapter 31, plus to do my week-long English fast, which I failed at rather badly last time. But today half the District started an English Fast all together, so it should be easier to do one myself without other people always speaking English to me.
A little note about money - this is the first time I've had to request some, but it's rather necessary. I don't really want to have to ask, because I know you all have more of a need for it than me, but as I have temporarily misplaced my emergency fund and had to sustain myself with personal funds, I'm a lot lower than I would like - and my watch is about to die. I press the light button and instead of illuminating, the entire display goes blank for a few seconds. The battery's nearly gone. I'd use the pocket watch I bought - except it doesn't actually keep accurate time, and is a pretty big inconvenience to have to carry around. But another Elder, Elder Kinghorn, has a very special watch called an Octopus watch. In Hong Kong Octopus cards are kind of like the oyster card in London; you can ride the MTR by storing money on your card and beeping it on the ticket gates, and it quickly withdraws the money from your electronic account, saving a lot of time and hassle - but it also goes further than that; the buses also take the card, as do taxis, supermarkets, newsagents, bakeries and even McDonalds - some shops will only take Octopus cards and not real money! So Elder Kinghorn's watch is pretty special. Instead of fishing out his wallet and dropping coins all over the floor in order to get on the bus (like I do), he just beeps his watch. As my watch is dying anyway, I'm considering buying an Octopus watch, to simplify things. Except I have no money.
I'm not sure how much the watch will be - but it shouldn't be too much. Could I ask for maybe £30?
Anyway, that'll be it for this week. Sorry to end on a begging note! I wish you all well and hope you have fun doing stuff.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Time Really Flies! - 26th email from Hong Kong
Dear Family,
It's hard to believe that it's Preparation Day again already! I guess that's a sign of having lots to do and actually doing it!
This week has been an interesting week. There has been a lot more fun finding with Elder Gwok, some teaching, and, a few hours ago, a fun trip back to the 1,000 Buddhas. We went as a district to go see it all, and I figured I had to take advantage of the little gift shop they have inside the temple (which is kind of unsual if you ask me, but perfectly in line with typical Chinese religious and business practice) and bought a little trinket to ship home for Christmas.
I had my interview with President Van Dam this past week. It went pretty well - President Van Dam asked me how I was doing with my new responsibility as senior companion, and asked me what new things I'd learned. We then both shared some scriptures about the Saviour from the Bible, and he told me about how much he felt I had improved, about how he could see in me how much I'd grown.
I guess I must be doing something right.
There are, in total, many, many thousands of characters in the Chinese language. Not sure how many exactly, but basically, a lot. The 1000 character cards I'm working on at the moment constitute a lot of the most basic characters, and there's an additional 3000 to learn after them for the next level of language pass-off. Also, the Book of Mormon contains a lot of strange and obscure characters that even natives struggle to read - unlike in English when we can sound out a work, they can only do that to a degree with characters, so it's very confusing.
It sounds like Jess's doing really well at the moment. Grandma sent me a letter this week (and $200, which got me through my last little bit of rough time before my new money came) and said that Jess seems a lot more grown up now - and pointed out how big Timmy is now! Keep up the good work everyone!
I hope everything goes well for Grandad and Grandma and they have safe operations. I'll put their names on the prayer roll when I go to the Temple.
It's funny Dad should mention hairdressers - I'm going for a haircut myself after email. Hopefully I won't find my future wife in there! :P
Just to let you know, the American Mother's Day, as far as I've been told, is the second or third Sunday in May - the Sunday after my birthday, I think. So I'll be calling sometime around then. I'll find out more as I get closer to the time. It's still quite a while away, but will probably come soon, and remind me again how long I've been here.
We had a zone conference last Friday, and it really confused me to discover that I was one of the oldest missionaries in the zone! There were all of these missionaries that I didn't know, who were younger than me! The count in the zone at the moment is 13 missionaries older than age as me, and 14 younger than me. Plus Elder Weagel, who came here with me. Interesting to realise I'm in the older half of the zone - but then I guess I should expect that, being senior companion and all.
I realised the other day that, now being General Conference, it was exactly a year ago that we were sitting in a caravan in Cornwall, and Chris texted me to tell me he was going to Manchester. I was pretty concerned that I'd end up staying in England too; I wonder what I'd say to myself if I could go back in time one year and tell me all the things that have happened this year? I'd probably tell myself not to worry, but to spend some more time memorizing scripture references, to make it easier to navigate Chinese scriptures where you don't have the luxury of reading the verse to check if it's the right one!
Then on the other hand, I wonder what I would say if I met the 2009 version of me - one more year ahead in time? Probably something very similar, like focus more on reading the scriptures in Chinese and be sure to keep moving forward and progressing in knowledge and teaching skills.
And then I dread to think what 2018 me would say. Probably "Stop wasting time! Soon you'll be 30!"
Unfortunately, this past week, we haven't been able to schedule Chan Jai. I'm worried that his interest in the church may have only come from really liking the Elder who was here before me, Elder Chan, who has since gone home, and he now has very little interest in hearing the Gospel. He won't pick up his phone anymore, so we can't get hold of him at all.
On the other hand, Lobo is really growing - we gave him a copy of Our Search for Happiness, which he has fallen in love with. He says the book touches on every question he had in his mind, and now he really wants to do what M Russell Ballard says to do at the end of the book - pray and develop a testimony. He really has a strong desire to develop his testimony, and is really diligent in keeping his commitments. He's read in the Book of Mormon (even though he finds it difficult because he wants to read in English and there are a lot of big words in it) up until Nephi cut off Laban's head, which he didn't like too much. He said he understood the importance of doing what God asks us to do, but thought it was cruel. I tried to explain that it was necessary for the Nephites to have the records, but he still seems a little hesitant about that. He currently has a much stronger testimony of Our Search for Happiness, but is still working on the Book of Mormon. He's off to the Mainland this next week for a holiday the people here have called the Ching Ming festival; a big Ancestor Worship thing, and is taking his mother to see their ancestral village.
Next week should be good; Mission Conference on Wednesday and General Conference on the Saturday after that - they have it a week later here because otherwise it would mean going to conference at 3 in the morning - and I thought 11pm was too much of a stretch!
I hope that you all enjoy General Conference very much; it'll be a great opportunity to hear President Thomas S Monson speaking to us in General Conference for the first time since becoming President of the Church. It'll also be good for a lot of our investigators next week - we actually have a lot of people we've been telling about it, who seem really interested to hear what a prophet has to say, including one Scottish man called Johnny we ran into a while ago - we gave him a little tour of the church, and taught him a lesson. He was so nice - really wanted to let us know he wasn't sure if he wasn't sure if he believed any of it, but was really interested to know more. We invited him to come to General Conference, as it'll be in English, and he can see a Prophet in action, so to speak, and he seemed really interested. That was about 2 weeks ago, but I ran into him on the street again recently and he said "I'm still up for that thing on the 13th - give me a call." So that should be really good. He's of Chinese origin, so his Cantonese is alright (when he lived in Scotland, his family ran a takeaway) but his English is his native tongue. That said, he has a job here now and is doing pretty well with things. It should be good to watch a session of General Conference with him next week.
Anyway, time's running out. I love you all and hope that you're all doing well. Keep up the good work everyone!
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
It's hard to believe that it's Preparation Day again already! I guess that's a sign of having lots to do and actually doing it!
This week has been an interesting week. There has been a lot more fun finding with Elder Gwok, some teaching, and, a few hours ago, a fun trip back to the 1,000 Buddhas. We went as a district to go see it all, and I figured I had to take advantage of the little gift shop they have inside the temple (which is kind of unsual if you ask me, but perfectly in line with typical Chinese religious and business practice) and bought a little trinket to ship home for Christmas.
I had my interview with President Van Dam this past week. It went pretty well - President Van Dam asked me how I was doing with my new responsibility as senior companion, and asked me what new things I'd learned. We then both shared some scriptures about the Saviour from the Bible, and he told me about how much he felt I had improved, about how he could see in me how much I'd grown.
I guess I must be doing something right.
There are, in total, many, many thousands of characters in the Chinese language. Not sure how many exactly, but basically, a lot. The 1000 character cards I'm working on at the moment constitute a lot of the most basic characters, and there's an additional 3000 to learn after them for the next level of language pass-off. Also, the Book of Mormon contains a lot of strange and obscure characters that even natives struggle to read - unlike in English when we can sound out a work, they can only do that to a degree with characters, so it's very confusing.
It sounds like Jess's doing really well at the moment. Grandma sent me a letter this week (and $200, which got me through my last little bit of rough time before my new money came) and said that Jess seems a lot more grown up now - and pointed out how big Timmy is now! Keep up the good work everyone!
I hope everything goes well for Grandad and Grandma and they have safe operations. I'll put their names on the prayer roll when I go to the Temple.
It's funny Dad should mention hairdressers - I'm going for a haircut myself after email. Hopefully I won't find my future wife in there! :P
Just to let you know, the American Mother's Day, as far as I've been told, is the second or third Sunday in May - the Sunday after my birthday, I think. So I'll be calling sometime around then. I'll find out more as I get closer to the time. It's still quite a while away, but will probably come soon, and remind me again how long I've been here.
We had a zone conference last Friday, and it really confused me to discover that I was one of the oldest missionaries in the zone! There were all of these missionaries that I didn't know, who were younger than me! The count in the zone at the moment is 13 missionaries older than age as me, and 14 younger than me. Plus Elder Weagel, who came here with me. Interesting to realise I'm in the older half of the zone - but then I guess I should expect that, being senior companion and all.
I realised the other day that, now being General Conference, it was exactly a year ago that we were sitting in a caravan in Cornwall, and Chris texted me to tell me he was going to Manchester. I was pretty concerned that I'd end up staying in England too; I wonder what I'd say to myself if I could go back in time one year and tell me all the things that have happened this year? I'd probably tell myself not to worry, but to spend some more time memorizing scripture references, to make it easier to navigate Chinese scriptures where you don't have the luxury of reading the verse to check if it's the right one!
Then on the other hand, I wonder what I would say if I met the 2009 version of me - one more year ahead in time? Probably something very similar, like focus more on reading the scriptures in Chinese and be sure to keep moving forward and progressing in knowledge and teaching skills.
And then I dread to think what 2018 me would say. Probably "Stop wasting time! Soon you'll be 30!"
Unfortunately, this past week, we haven't been able to schedule Chan Jai. I'm worried that his interest in the church may have only come from really liking the Elder who was here before me, Elder Chan, who has since gone home, and he now has very little interest in hearing the Gospel. He won't pick up his phone anymore, so we can't get hold of him at all.
On the other hand, Lobo is really growing - we gave him a copy of Our Search for Happiness, which he has fallen in love with. He says the book touches on every question he had in his mind, and now he really wants to do what M Russell Ballard says to do at the end of the book - pray and develop a testimony. He really has a strong desire to develop his testimony, and is really diligent in keeping his commitments. He's read in the Book of Mormon (even though he finds it difficult because he wants to read in English and there are a lot of big words in it) up until Nephi cut off Laban's head, which he didn't like too much. He said he understood the importance of doing what God asks us to do, but thought it was cruel. I tried to explain that it was necessary for the Nephites to have the records, but he still seems a little hesitant about that. He currently has a much stronger testimony of Our Search for Happiness, but is still working on the Book of Mormon. He's off to the Mainland this next week for a holiday the people here have called the Ching Ming festival; a big Ancestor Worship thing, and is taking his mother to see their ancestral village.
Next week should be good; Mission Conference on Wednesday and General Conference on the Saturday after that - they have it a week later here because otherwise it would mean going to conference at 3 in the morning - and I thought 11pm was too much of a stretch!
I hope that you all enjoy General Conference very much; it'll be a great opportunity to hear President Thomas S Monson speaking to us in General Conference for the first time since becoming President of the Church. It'll also be good for a lot of our investigators next week - we actually have a lot of people we've been telling about it, who seem really interested to hear what a prophet has to say, including one Scottish man called Johnny we ran into a while ago - we gave him a little tour of the church, and taught him a lesson. He was so nice - really wanted to let us know he wasn't sure if he wasn't sure if he believed any of it, but was really interested to know more. We invited him to come to General Conference, as it'll be in English, and he can see a Prophet in action, so to speak, and he seemed really interested. That was about 2 weeks ago, but I ran into him on the street again recently and he said "I'm still up for that thing on the 13th - give me a call." So that should be really good. He's of Chinese origin, so his Cantonese is alright (when he lived in Scotland, his family ran a takeaway) but his English is his native tongue. That said, he has a job here now and is doing pretty well with things. It should be good to watch a session of General Conference with him next week.
Anyway, time's running out. I love you all and hope that you're all doing well. Keep up the good work everyone!
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
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