Perhaps the most tiring week of my mission so far - 48th email from Hong Kong

Dear all,

I am wiped out. This morning I had a two hour nap to try and regain strength, but it didn't help much. I've pushed myself so hard this week, and now I'm very tired, but also very happy with the work we've done.

Last Thursday was the start of it all - moving things into the new flat, I got pretty worn out. But I decided that it was a good way to start the Moves, so I determined to keep on working similarly hard every day. Every spare second I've had has been spent making flash cards, to help me learn the 3,000 characters for the final language recognition. I've just kept pushing and pushing myself, and I'm now worn out. But I told God very often in my prayers that if He could give me strength to make it to Preparation Day when I could rest a bit, I'd do everything I could to serve.

Let me clarify, though - I'm not saying that normally I'm really lazy and this week I actually worked hard. I normally work really hard, but this week I stepped it up a bit more and really pushed to see what I was capable of. Perhaps I tried running a little faster than I had strength, but I feel satisfied with doing so and the success we've had this week.

Time with Elder Clark is fun. He is a really diligent missionary with a lot of good ideas as to how to get the members more involved with the work.

The calling of Stake Media representative certainly does sound interesting - what are your responsibilities? Money is fine for now, not a problem. I'm living quite comfortably on the amount the mission gives us every month, and don't really need anything else. Back when I first got here, my budgeting skills weren't the best in the world so I'd needed to rely on personal funds a little, but now that I'm in the swing of things, I cope without a problem every month.

Thank you very much to Dad for looking into university courses. Very clever to ask the good people at the BBC about journalism - if anyone would know, it'd be them.

Don't worry about Beth not calling; she's just enjoying the freedom of living away from home. I was the same way when I first came out - in fact, I need to make a confession. When I first got to the MTC, the Senior Elder in charge of the International office there told me I was allowed to phone you and tell you I arrived safely. I resisted, but he dialled the number anyway. The phone rang, but nobody answered - I looked at my watch and a quick calculation told me that as it was Tuesday night, everyone was probably out at Mutual. The Elder told me I could come back the next day to try again, but I never did - I didn't really want to. I was fine with emailing.

Then when everyone was in the Salt Lake City airport on the way to Hong Kong, everyone bought phone cards and called home to tell them they were safe. Again, though, this was the last thing on my mind - I was a missionary, out and about. I had to contact and teach people!

So when I was in the MTC, there were two chances to phone, and I didn't take either. So Beth not phoning for a while is just because she's enjoying independent, but soon she'll realise how much she misses you all.

The new flat is very comfortable now. There was a while where it was empty of all but the barest minimum, but we've spent a lot of money this week buying a lot of the essential items that we were missing (the money will be reimbursed by the mission) and so now it's very comfortable. It's also a lot more convenient, because before we had to catch a bus to get to our area. Now we just walk across the street and we're in the heart of Tai Po (that's what it's called; the Tai Po Jung Sam - Tai Po middle heart. It means Tai Po Centre).

The only real problem with the apartment is the water heater. Whoever wired it up was, to quote the Housing Co-ordinator, Elder Wong, "very lazy". When he was wiring up the heater, he apparently couldn't be bothered to wire in a new electric cable for the heater, so he just attached it to the hallway light. Now, whenever the shower's on, the hallway light flickers. What's more, there's not enough power to ignite the heater, so the heater doesn't even work. Every now and then, someone is lucky and gets a warm shower (I had my first one in a week this morning) but for the most part, I get woken up in the morning by a nice, refreshing, cold shower. A man's coming to look at the heater in a few days and sort it out.

So it's been a fun week. I am indeed still District Leader, despite logic or reason; there certainly are other Elders in the District more competent than myself. We have Elder Hedin, who was Assistant to the President until last week. He came out of the mission office because he goes home at the end of this moves, and certainly he would be a far more experienced and successful District Leader than myself, but then God does make these callings according to who will learn and grow the most from the calling, as well as simply who will do the best at it. Last week, we had a District Meeting, and I made the district focus for the moves "Becoming a Fireball Missionary" - which comes from a talk by Elder Ballard. It was a very spiritual meeting, with a lot of the Elders and Sisters in the District sharing very powerful lessons on improving and doing that little bit better to be the best we can be. I don't know if anybody else learned anything from it, but it certainly inspired me and was part of the reason I practically worked myself to death this week.

Anyway, time's almost up. I love you all very much.

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

羅 長 老