Dear all,
I'll explain the teasing bit a little later. In the meantime, let me say don't worry, Dad, I understand why you'd want to know a little more about Buddhism. But I hate to tell you that anything you're reading in books about passive, simple lives, the eightfold path to enlightenment, etc; is not how Buddhism works over here. Here in China, Buddhism has been combined with ancestor worship, so that while we meet a lot of people who tell us that they "seun faht" ("seun" means believe. "Faht" means "Buddha", which made it easy to remember in the MTC - I just have to remember that Buddha statues are fat), what they really mean is that they burn incense and cardboard objects to their ancestors. It's an interesting religion, and I do find it fascinating how at the same time, the religion is revered and slightly made fun of. For example, the 10,000 Buddhas that I sent you pictures of - built in 2003 or thereabouts, they are clearly not to be taken seriously, but still people go to the temple daily to burn incense. Except, in order to keep the temple clean, you can't burn the incense. So they leave it there, unburnt, instead. At the end of the day, the temple owners gather up the unburnt incense sticks and sell them again the next day. There's also a gift shop inside the temple. Very interestingly different from our Temples. So for the most part, nobody here is really on the path to enlightenment and Nirvana, it's just background information in their mind as they go about life. Not all that different from many Westerners' background concept of God, really.
Anyway, a lot of big things happened this week. On Saturday, we got the chance to do something I've been wanting to do my entire mission - teach and baptize a visitor from Mainland China. These are occasional and wonderful opportunities for Missionaries in this mission - while most of our visitors speak Mandarin and are therefore taught by our Mandarin Missionaries, here in Macau we are very close to the border, so it's very convenient for Mainlanders to come here if they live a little more west than Hong Kong. These wonderfully prepared people have normally heard very little about the church - our friend, brother G, had never heard of the Book of Mormon, or of the Restoration, but they are willing to keep the commandments even before coming here and accept everything on massive amounts of faith. We teach them every lesson in a day, then baptize them and they go home, afterwards being allowed to attend church and learn the more details of the Gospel in the Mainland.
Brother G was a wonderful example of these real miracles. His fiancee is a member who came down a few years ago, and they planned to get married the week after his baptism. She'd shared a little about the church with him, and they'd prayed both together and separately, and he had a very strong testimony of prayer. He'd felt the promptings of the Spirit in very real ways that had blessed his life and led to his decision that, even though he didn't understand much about his future wife's church, she said he had to get baptized and that was good enough for him.
We taught them all day, every lesson, and then Elder Liu baptized him and we stood in the circle as one of the members of the ward confirmed him. It was an amazing day, the Spirit was strong and all were touched.
The next day was Sunday, and we ended up with twelve or thirteen investigators at church. Many of them already have baptismal dates, or are preparing for one. A new family called the W was there (the mother and two children, as the father has suffered from a stroke and can barely move), as were the L brothers and the Y brothers (two sets of twins), each set of twins also brought a friend. We had B, who was baptized that day, then we had a few others as well.
B's baptism was also very good. He's been investigating for a few months now, and was ready before I even got here. A lot of the investigators stayed to see it, and his mother came too. She was very happy for her son (she brought him flowers!) and was given a chance to speak after his baptism. The Relief Society made instant friends with her after the service, and the Sister Missionaries schedualed to teach her with Ben. It was an amazing day. Macau truly is a place of miracles, and the work is blossoming here.
So after two baptisms in two days, what else could I have of importance to talk about this week? Mission Conference, with a visit from a General Authority. Elder Watson of the Seventy was called in April, and is currently serving in the Asia Area Presidency. He and his wife see the Hong Kong Island and International Missionaries finding outside of the Wan Chai building (the Area Office, as well as a huge chapel that's over ten stories high), and Sister Watson made clear that she felt a strong love for them, as they go out and find people in such a busy area, right in the middle of the richest part of Hong Kong. The tour was split into two days; we were on the second day with the International and HK Island zones, having gone to the Temple the day before (which was also magnificent) and stayed in Patron Housing overnight. The "Macau Boys" as our Zone Leader, Elder Burk, calls us, had been asked to give a musical number, and I had been asked to give the opening prayer, so I was very much involved in the program to begin with.
But I made what could be called the mistake of standing near to President Watson before the meeting started with my daily planner out. He asked to see it - what I didn't know at the time was that he was checking several missionaries' planners to see how well kept they were. He was impressed that I'd written a few simple Chinese characters in place of English for names. I didn't think much of it at the time, and the meeting started peacefully. I gave the opening prayer, and after a few bits of business, Elder Watson called on some missionaries to give talks. We'd all prepared 3 minute talks on a Christlike attribute, and he chose on people at random. After the first batch of five or six, he asked if there was anybody who specifically wanted to give their talk. I could not lie and keep my hand down - I really did want to give my talk. I'd received a bolt of revelation in the Celestial Room the day before - while praying and apologizing that I wasn't qualified to do the work of a missionary, the Spirit suddenly reminded me of D&C 4 - "And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work." And so I was chosen, along with three other Elders who had chosen to give their talks. A little later, President Watson drew my name from the hat at random. I was now sitting on the front row, in the queue to speak, and when he found out that it was me again, he said "It's a good thing I didn't say, 'Elder Log Cabin'!"
That was the start of my nickname from President Watson. After the talks were done, he spoke to us on a few subjects - one was our daily planners and our goal planning. He used me as an example, having seen "Elder Log Cabin"'s planner before the meeting started. He complimented me, which I wasn't sure I deserved, as that day's plan was more or less empty because most of the day was to be spent at Conference and on the ferry, and because our goals were rather low as we have lost two days this week again due to Conference.
Then he used good old Elder Log Cabin as an example of keeping learning the language and not "plateuing" as he called it, because I was learning Chinese characters. At lunch, President Van Dam put his arm around me and said, "well, he definitely knows you!" In response I thanked President Van Dam that his sense of humour is such that he never makes fun of my name. Later at lunch Sister Watson came up to me and said, "For years, I've been going behind my husband's back and apologizing for him!" I said it was quite alright and not too big of a deal - we Loffhagens are used to people getting our name wrong.
So, that is that. I've written a lot this week, because I have a lot to say. I didn't even scratch the surface of how Missionary Work is here in Macau. Let me just tell you that things are going well, I'm happy, healthy and enjoying myself.
Also, yes, I am still District Leader, and as far as Disney films go, President Van Dam's fine just letting us watch them on a Preparation Day for fun, so long as we get permission first. Personally, I'd rather not, as it's been a week now and I still can't get the catchy Prince of Egypt music out of my head. At least it's all about God blessing people, so it'd be better than, say, 'A Whole New World'...
I love you all. I'll look into getting a little Buddha statue.
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
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