Happy happy - 7th email from Macau

Dear all,

Everything is going well here. Not that much of any importance happened this week - sometimes the week goes by so fast that I barely notice it.

Last Sunday was the baptism. I was a little nervous but there weren't any problems. It was odd baptizing someone else's investigator - I was sitting on the front row of the chapel with her, but I didn't really feel like I belonged there. I was just there to do the actual baptizing.

Elder Liu and I are getting along well together. We had Moves Calls this week, and were told that we'll be together for another six weeks at least (not much of a surprise to be honest, as once you're in Macau you're normally here for at least four Moves) so we're happy to carry on serving together.

We've set some more baptismal dates with a few investigators. One of them is named J - he's friends with H and V who were baptized two weeks ago, and also friends with Y, who is one of the branch's Young Men, and who is very thrilled to see one of his schoolfriends making steps into the church. We're seeing the definate benefit of a solid fellowshipper to befriend the investigators. Jason has also, of his own initiative, shown quite a lot of interest in BYU. Apparently one of the members mentioned it to H and V, and J was listening. He keeps asking us about the price for various things and how easy it is to get in. He asked Y if he was going to go.

We also extended a baptismal commitment to Sister W. We've been teaching the W family for a few weeks now, very slowly, because they are a very interesting family. I'm not sure I've mentioned them or not yet - Brother W is seventy years old and after a stroke is almost completely paralyzed - he can barely stand up, and can't speak. Sister W is in her forties and is used to having somewhat one-sided conversations with her husband, and is thrilled to talk with us about all of her experiences over the past week that she can't really share with her Buddhist friends - she is defiantly Christian even though none of her neighbours or friends are.

Then there are the children - J Y, J G and J W. J W is a twelve year old girl, and rather quiet - happy to listen to our messages. The other two; boys aged 10 and 8; are very hard to calm down or even to get them to sit still - teaching them, I often think to myself "How on earth does Mum do it? Keeping kids under control seems pretty much impossible!"

So lessons with the family are short and simple. But from the moment Sister W met us, she has been desperate to be baptized, so that's not much of a problem. They are a very humble, happy family. They don't have very much of anything as far as possessions go, but they have each other and that's enough. So we'll keep teaching them slowly and helping them to understand the Gospel, bit by bit.

Both J and Sister W will be baptized in December. We're going to focus on baptizing the Wong family is parts because it'll take a long time to get the kids to understand what we're talking about.

Anyway, all is going well. I love you all.

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

羅 長 老