Dear all,
Yesterday I decided to use a little extra study time to lie down a little - I'd already had over an hour of personal study, but due to some exchanges yesterday, Elder Clark hadn't yet. While he studied, I went into the bedroom to lie down...on the floor. We have bunkbeds, and the top bunk was just a little too high for me. I didn't have the strength.
So I'm still worn out from having worked very hard. I think I may have been pushing Elder Clark a little further than he can manage, but a second spent not doing what we're supposed to is a second wasted, in my opinion. Before I've taken regular breaks to rest for about 5 minutes every few hours, but not so far this moves. That's been putting strain on Elder Clark too. Perhaps I need to cool down a little. But the theme of the Moves is, after all, being a fireball missionary. We'll see.
Sorry, just thinking out loud (sort of) a little. In summary, this week has also been really good. We've seen a lot of miracles; a lot of prepared people finding us, rather than the other way around, and the first serious member referral of my mission.
A few days ago we were talking to a boy on the street who was kind of busy and needed to go somewhere. As I wrote out a flyer to give to him, writing down our name and phone number, a woman came up and asked if she could have a flyer too. We turned our attention to her and invited her to church, telling her that the Sister Missionaries would love to meet with her. She also asked how much a Bible would cost. I told her, "There's a Christian bookshop around the corner, but we have this book which we give away for free!" We then taught her about the Book of Mormon and scheduled her for church this Sunday. It is truly a miracle that we were in the right place at the right time to find such a prepared soul.
Then that night we were almost at home, with very little time to spare - we had to be home in five minutes. As we waited at the crossing opposite our high rise flat, a man was looking at us and smiling. We struck up a conversation, which wasn't hard as he really wanted to talk. He invited us up to his house right then. I explained that we really couldn't go right then, so he scheduled himself for Sunday at 9:30 at the church. We convinced him that 9:00 would be better as that is when the church meetings start. He obliged.
It's too bad that the road we were crossing was our area boundary. As he lives in the block of flats next to us, he lives just barely on the wrong side of the line. We're going to turn him over to the Tai Wo Elders, the other area in the District. This kind of thing happens a lot in Hong Kong, with such small area boundaries.
Hurray for Jessica - great job at camp! I hope this helping attitude transfers over to home as well; as she is the oldest at home now, she's going to need to take on those responsibilities.
Also hurray for Tim; actually figuring out how to get XBox Live running. I'm sure that he and Jacob will enjoy being able to play just as easily while on different continents. When the M's move, could you send me their new address? Just to be on the safe side, I won't write Tom a letter until he's safely on the other side of the world.
Some Elders in my MTC District were dreaming in Chinese while in the MTC. I was not one of them. I am still not one of them. My dreams are solidly in English, but I'm sure that if someone were to speak Chinese in one of my dreams, I'd probably understand them.
Yes, Tai Po does indeed have the Lam Tsuen river running through it. It stinks. A bunch of companies dump all of their chemical waste into it, so it's always a different colour and never smells very good. It is very beautiful though; but only when the water is a pleasant blue or green; never when it's brown. And certainly at night, it's stunning, with all of the shining lights reflected in the river. You'll get to see it when I next send some pictures home. I've been taking less photos, though, so I'm holding off until I have a bigger collection.
No, my English has not suffered because of Chinese. That was a simple mistake because my brain works 40 times faster than my fingers. There may be a lot of spelling mistakes today, as well, because for some reason today I can't type very accurately. I'll need more practice if I ever want to go back and do some more data entry work to get through university. In fact, the thing that is most detrimental to my English is all of the American missionaries around. Their grammar is usually terrible and I've picked up a lot of words and expressions they use, so apologies if I sound more American than ever at Christmas. Also, I've picked up a lot of Missionary Chenglish, like saying "That's laahp! Such a faahn!" or "Let's jau!" (respectively meaning "That's rubbish! Such an inconvenience" and "Let's go"). Chenglish is a lot of fun. I don't think I'll ever give it up when I go home, and everyone will be very confused as to what I'm saying all the time.
Glad to hear that Seminary is such a big hit. Tim and Jess should count themselves lucky, though, because here in Hong Kong, Seminary is 6 days a week - Monday to Friday at 6:00am and Saturday at 8:00. It's a great sacrifice for the kids who otherwise would be studying all night. After school study classes are considered essential to success here in Hong Kong, and unless you take them it's considered that you don't stand much of a chance in the competitive school system. Early morning Seminary means no late night studying, so the kids who attend sacrifice something worthwhile (if somewhat overdemanding in my opinion) for something even better; a solid testimony and a knowledge of the scriptures. What's more, they're not behind any other kids. Studying all day and all night, as is the lifestyle of many kids in Hong Kong, doesn't get them any further than the kids who take an hour in the morning to read their scriptures. I know which one I'd rather do.
Bournemouth sounds like an interesting choice for university. If I remember rightly, a fair amount of Chinese people go there to study, which might give me a chance to keep my Cantonese and learn some Mandarin just on the side. If I can find someone to speak Mandarin to when I come home, it's really going to be a piece of cake - it's all so similar, just a different pronounciation and simpler grammar. One of the things that makes Cantonese so hard is the lack of a written form (written grammar is identical to Mandarin grammar) and so there are no set rules for how to speak the language. Anything is good - or bad, if you're trying to learn how to speak it. Anyway, hopefully I can see some prospectuses soon and can narrow things down as to which university to go to and what to study. Thank you again for researching all of this for me.
I love you all very much, and pray for you regularly. I also love Hong Kong very much, and so at least for right now, I'm completely happy. The work is hard but well worth it, and I'm thrilled to be doing it. Yesterday I reflected a little and realised just how much I've changed and grown in this year. I'm not the same person I was when I left home.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
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