Another change in companion - 30th email from Hong Kong

Dear all,

My time with Elder Kwok, was somewhat limited it seems. At the end of a very fast moves, things have been shuffled around again.

Here in Tai Po, we previously had two companionships here - myself and Elder Kwok, plus Elder Gould and Elder Sharp. Now Elder Gould is off to be a Zone Leader in the New Territories and Elder Kwok is going to West Point, where I've just left! So my new companion is Elder Sharp; the two companionships are being stuck together into one, which is really good because between the two of us we have a very large number of investigators and other people to work with.

Elder Sharp is rather new to Hong Kong; he's only been here for one moves; so I'm a "Step-Dad" again, although this time my companion doesn't speak as much Chinese. He's really diligent though, and is progressing very fast. I just hope that I can master the art of balancing the companionship when speaking with others so that I don't do all the talking and leave him out.

An interesting piece of news I must mention before I forget is that the American Mother's Day is a week earlier than I thought - it's the 11th of May, the week after next. I'm thinking I'll phone at 10pm my time again, as that worked rather well at Christmas, which will be - I'm not quite sure what time for you. Probably 3pm or 4pm? I'm having trouble factoring in the Daylight Savings Time, as Hong Kong doesn't have any. As a matter of fact, supposedly all of China is in the same time zone. Interesting...

Last week seeing the Mongolian missionaries was really cool. It seemed that the group we met were all Mongolian natives, and I guess for many of them it must have been their first time going to the Temple, as they had taken out their Endowments that day. It just reminds me how lucky we are in this mission to have the Temple only half an hour away, instead of having to cross several country borders and travel all the way through China to get there. Charlie Fisher, being in Taiwan, has several Temples in close proximity, so she won't come here.

There are a lot of Olympics things going on at the moment, but most of what I've heard has been fairly garbled, what with our avoidance of the media. Supposedly Elder Gould had someone come up to him and tell him he didn't like George Bush, then asked if Elder Gould supported the Olympics. We're not really sure why.

So, my Birthday - there's not really anything I want, to be honest. I'd rather just have you save up money so that I can buy something bigger when I come home. One thing I would like, though, is some more of my colouring pens from the art shop in Maidenhead; not the boxes, but just individual pens. I need a new Cool Grey 4 and am missing a dark green, a deep yellow and a light purple colour, plus some random other colours would be nice too. I don't get much time for drawing, but when I do it's a nice relaxing activity on Preparation Days.

So besides the clothes and drawing pens, it'd best if you maybe just set some money aside for when I come back, that I can either use to buy something here in Hong Kong or to buy a laptop when I get back - I'm willing to give up on a MacBook, knowing how expensive they are, but I'd still like a laptop of some kind for University and such. Something that would be really good, though, would be some Walkers Salt and Vinegar Squares - also not very expensive, but very missed. I can get hold of Salt and Vinegar crisps here, but they're from America, so they don't taste quite right. I don't really have anything else I want, I'm afraid - sorry to be so boring.

So last Monday, we were at the church waiting for a new investigator, who unfortunately never showed up, there was a ring at the doorbell. I go to see who it is, and it's a random man who starts speaking to me in Mandarin. I explain that I only speak Cantonese, and that's fine - his mother tongue is Cantonese; he just thought that the only Chinese language white people speak is Mandarin, which makes sense, as he's from the Mainland.

It is currently his plan to learn all about Jesus Christ and then go back the the Mainland and teach other people. We've been trying to explain that God wants us to follow the laws of the land, but in the meantime we're meeting with him every evening to teach him. He came to Hong Kong for the sole purpose of learning about Christ, and apparently wandered around all day Monday without success in finding a church (which is odd as there are a lot in this area) before finding ours. He is a really accepting man who instantly believes everything we teach him; although he's currently struggling a little bit with prayer (it's a completely new concept to him) and with the Word of Wisdom (I felt impressed to share it with him, and it turns out he has the typical Chinese problem of drinking tea). But he's really amazing; we're slightly worried as to whether or not he's going to go back to the Mainland and preach anyway, but we're going to talk to the church leaders and arrange something for him so that he can meet the Mainland Saints.

Meeting with this guy is on top of scheduling and meeting all of our other investigators, less-actives and other ward Members, which is a long list as our companionships were combined. So things are really busy here in Tai Po right now!

Everybody carry on being amazing, I love you all.

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

羅 長 老