My First Typhoon - 29th email from Hong Kong

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