2nd email from Macau

Dear family,

We just watched Prince of Egypt as a Zone. It was a lot of fun. Prince of Egypt is the only cartoon I'll allow myself to watch - while President Van Dam is happy to allow us to watch other films such as Mulan, Aladdin, The Lion King etc, I myself feel I'd rather avoid such films - even though there's nothing wrong to them, I can't help but feel that such films would distract me. Prince of Egypt is okay by my standards because it's still church-related. It actually gave me a lot of insight into prophets and how God leads and teaches His people, as I thought about the imagery and symbolism He used in calling Moses, his preparation and the miracles that were performed. It's been a long time since I watched the film, and one thing I really noticed about watching it this time is just how much the filmmakers didn't understand about the full story; truths we only have through the Restored Gospel.

The Zone here in Macau is rather small. There are 12 of us, split into two Districts; the Zone Leaders and a Sister companionship are in my District, with my companion Elder Liu, which is a Chinese-speaking District. The other District is International, which contains the District Leader and his companion, a Sister companionship and a Senior couple, the Kaps, who are really amazing. Elder Kap is the International Branch President, and they proseltye as well!

Elder Liu, my current companion, is ABC (American Born Chinese) from Sandy, Utah. He's been out on his mission for almost a year and his Chinese is really good (as is the case with most ABCs in the Mission, as they normally heard it growing up to some extent). He is a really hard working missionary, and I'm glad to be serving with him. He's taught me a lot about hard work, and I can see the success he's been having as he serves here. This is only his second area - his first area, which he was in for 6 months, was West Point, which was also my first area. We have a lot of fun together, and have been seeing a lot of miracles as we help prepare investigators for baptism - we currently have five with dates, and one will be baptized this Sunday (in fact, we'll be having his baptismal interview in a few hours).

You can tell the Elders that actually, dinner appointments (or "cheng outs" as we call them in Chenglish) here are rather rare. Members are normally no less busy than non-Members, and certainly here in Macau the branch is not strong enough to support a meal for every day. Tell the Elders that they should count themselves lucky and enjoy the experience.

You can also tell people who ask that I've varied my eating a lot now. I now eat instant noodles very rarely if ever (it's been a long time since I last ate any). Back in Tai Po, I would cook a range of things - making my own curries was fun and rather easy; or perhaps frying up some Chicken breasts with a Chinese stir-fry mix. A while ago Sister Van Dam told us all to eat more healthily and to get more vegetables into our diet. I wasn't all that sure how, so I requested a Mission cookbook, and so now we all have a variety of recipes to choose from when cooking. All of the missionaries submitted their favourite easy recipes that can be cooked in Missionary apartments (as we don't have things like ovens). I submitted the old classic; Beans on Toast.

Elder Ng didn't serve in Macau. President Van Dam only found out recently that Europeans get such priviliges. The Zone has four nationalities at the moment; most are from America, but there is also Sister Au and Elder Woo from Hong Kong and Sister Mansader, from the Philippines. Plus myself, we add up to probably one of the most varied Zones in the Mission, as well as the smallest.

On Tuesday we got on the boat to go back to Hong Kong for a leadership meeting with all of the District Leaders and Zone Leaders. It was fun; staying in Patron Housing opposite the Temple and seeing all of my friends who are in leadership positions in the Mission. We'll be going back across again next week for Mission Tour, when Elder Watson of the Seventy will come and speak to us. Then I won't be back in Hong Kong for over a month, until next Mission Conference.

I'm pretty certain that you can get a cheaper Millennium Falcon than £345. Knowing how Lego's done things before, that would be the super-duper amazing model that will take weeks to build. If you search around the internet, you might be able to find the old, cheaper model from back a while ago. You can find anything on the internet. Just don't buy second hand - that doesn't sound very safe to me when it comes to hundreds of little tiny bricks when even just one missing ruins the whole thing.

It turns out that I can actually be in Macau for an entire year without any problems, but President Van Dam didn't seem to be expecting to keep me here for the rest of my mission. We had a nice interview after the leadership meeting - because of travel costs and for convenience, President Van Dam has our interviews on the few days every Moves that we are in Hong Kong. We talked a little about Christlike Attributes, which is our Mission focus this move. He asked me which attribute I'm working on this Move and I told him Charity and Love, because I don't feel that I give enough of myself. He told me just how amazing it was that here I am, only 20 years old, and we were having such an adult, grown up conversation about how to serve.

I will find out what the Macau English Class is like later today, as we will teach it. Back in West Point, we had several rowdy kids who wouldn't sit still at all. I gained a lot of respect for you, Mum, and how you manage to keep thirty of them under control at once, when we could barely manage a handful.

Cornwall sounds like fun - please take a lot of pictures and send them to me! I'll do the same in return, although I've been kid of stingy with my camera recently so I haven't taken very many since the CD I sent you via Elder Ng.

I love you all and I hope you're all happy, despite workloads. You're all in my prayers.

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

羅 長 老