Feeling Christmassy - 10th email from Macau

Dear all,

Today has been a very busy day. In fact, this week has been a very busy week.

On Tuesday we headed back to Hong Kong for Mission Conference. That was pretty much an entire day gone - we managed to get some planning for lessons done, but not much else. On Wednesday we had Mission Conference and came back to Macau. Then today I went with Elder Liu and his family here in Macau (his aunt, uncle and grandma) to some family graves, then all of the Missionaries were treated to a trip up to Macau Tower by the second counsellor in the Branch Presidency here. So now I'm very tired, but there's no time to rest because immediately after we finish emailing here, we're going back out for a meal with Elder Liu's family again. Busy!

On Tuesday, we had interviews with President Van Dam. I asked him a very special question - because here in Macau there are a lot of Mandarin speakers from the Mainland, but I have no way of communicating with them when we meet them on the street, I asked for permission to study some Mandarin while I'm here. He pointed out that they often try to have a Mandarin-speaking missionary in Macau, but it's been different recently. He then said that I could have permission, because of the unique circumstances here right now. I got very excited and went and bought two books - one is the Mandarin language learning book and the other is a special Book of Mormon with three columns on the page - one in English, one in Mandarin romanization and one in Chinese characters. Because I can pretty much read the entire book of mormon in characters anyway, it's really not going to do me very much good, but it's a fun new book. So I'm going to work on my Mandarin slowly - this week my goal is just to learn to bear my testimony in simple sentences. Next week I'll work on prayer. This is mimicking the pattern we used for learning Cantonese in the MTC.

Wednesday was a lot of fun. All of the Zone skits and all of the talents were, in my opinion, a lot more impressive than last year. Our Macau zone skit went well, but the best skit in my mind was the "Paw Paw Polka", where everyone in the Zone danced in unison, acting like old Chinese ladies ("Paw Paw" in Chinese means "grandma").

The Mission Slideshow was also really good. I'm in it a little more often than last year, but you might blink and miss me in a few places. Better than seeing myself was seeing places and people that I recognized, like members, investigators and old area. When I get home we can all watch it together and I can point out all of the inside jokes and interesting things that I had some connection to.

It was really good getting to see all of my missionary friends again for the first time in 2 months. Because Mission Conference was split up last time, I hadn't seen most of the missionaries since before I came to Macau! We also had a fun Secret Santa gift exchange, and Elder Rose got me a toy Hong Kong minibus.

It was sad to see three of the Sisters who were in the MTC with me give their "dying testimonies" as all Missionaries who go home get to bear their testimony in their last mission conference. That means that I'll be picking my date to go home next interview with President Van Dam. We all took a District picture, where all of the missionaries who were in our MTC District - all 15 of us who are here - took a picture together. Next Move the last two Sisters, who both picked their late date to go home, will be "dying". Conveniently, they are both serving as companions, here with me in Macau. All of my Sisters have served here, but I'm the only Elder from our group.

I'm really enjoying this time on my mission - more so than any other time so far - and I'm very glad that Elders get half a year more than Sisters, because a year and a half is just not long enough. I'm rather hesitant to come home, but I also know that I need to think about it. That said, I have looked through all of the University things you sent me. I got the package last Sunday and was very surprised. President Van Dam had come to Macau on church business, as he is the equivalent of the Stake President for Macau, and when he saw me, he put his arm around me and said, "You owe me a big favour." When I saw the size of the package, I agreed - it was huge! President Van Dam pointed out that he'd had to use a full size suitcase just to get it to Macau, and it had barely fitted. Thank you so much for all of the food - it's like a typical Loffhagen family Christmas away from home. Whatwith that and the Young Women's package (which you must thank them for from me) I think I'll be comfortably eating sweets for a long time to come! Also, I'm pretty certain that I now have more Marmite than I will need for the rest of my mission, because in addition to the little pot you sent me and the half-pot I already have (everyone in the apartment thinks I'm crazy for eating it, and were even more disgusted by Twiglets), my dear friend Elder Volk gave me an almost full pot that he had bought - I got everyone to try it in the MTC, and Elder Volk liked it, but decided that he liked Vegemite more. I've never tried it so I can't compare.

Anyway, after having read through all of the university courses, I feel that I like the Multimedia Journalism course at Bournemouth best. But if I'm right, I can apply to up to four universities? Not sure what more there is we could do to find other courses, though - although backup options would be good. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with Leeds. The prospectus seemed to be trying to sell the community and surroundings a lot more than the actual courses, and honestly I don't know how much four years of studying Chinese could keep my interest, especially considering that Mandarin is just Cantonese with a different accent and different grammar.

Just a fun little side note - when I told other missionaries I was looking at a Journalism course, one of the Sisters said, "I hate to say it, but BYU has a really great journalism programme". Plus pretty much every other missionary is desperately trying to convince me to go to BYU - but don't worry, that ship has sailed. I'd rather stay where I belong, in a culture I understand.

That's why I'm contemplating Hong Kong University... :P

Anyway, talk to you next week.