Feeling Christmassy - 9th email from Macau

Dear all,

Beth Aslett sent me an email this week. The next time you see her, tell her that I will reply, but because we're only supposed to email family, it'll be coming by snail mail some time probably in January.

It sounds like everything is going well at home. Lots of tests and examinations - and how interesting to hear that Mum's getting offered jobs at other schools! Yet more proof that you are the best teacher ever. :)

We helped decorate the chapel for Christmas yesterday. It was a lot of fun and really put me in the Christmas spirit - Elder Liu's not really feeling it as much as I am. Being from Utah, he's used to it being a lot colder and snowier at Christmas. Last Christmas I was actually a little warm outside in my short sleeve shirt, so I'm used to it by now. It's a little chillier this year, but I'm stubbornly sticking to short sleeves again. Otherwise I'll come home and be a wimp, too used to the warm winter weather and not able to cope in classic frosty winds.

Our investigators are all doing well. Sister W is determined to have her entire family baptized all at the same time next week. I'm doubting if she herself will even be ready, let alone her eight year old son who never pays attention to us. We'll see how things go - either way, they are thrilled to accept everything. We taught them Tithing yesterday, which Sister W was thrilled by. It was interesting - she'd started the lesson by showing us a bag of rice they'd got from somewhere that she said had been a real blessing to them. They are not very well off - in fact, as Sister Wong has to stay at home and take care of Brother W all day, they are supported entirely by Sister W's family. They are very poor, but Sister W had already asked us about any kind of donations that were necessary at church, so she'd already heard a little bit about Tithing and was really happy to get to pay it - even before we promised her the blessings that come with this commandment. Before we left, the kids were bashing each other with the bag of rice (which was vaccuum sealed and as such is just like a big flat brick of rice) and Sister W scolded them, saying that God gave them their food and they should respect it. I'm glad she understands that principle so well - it's probably a lot easier to see where blessings come from if they are in shorter supply.

If I call you at 10:30pm my time, it'll be 2:30 your time, right? Would that be okay? I just asked Elder Liu when would be best, because I don't want to interrupt Christmas dinner or Doctor Who. Elder Liu said that you'd probably be more interested in talking to me, and I said that I wasn't too sure if I'd win out over David Tenant in some people's minds...

I love you, Tim.

Anyway, the Mission Christmas Social is next week, and I'll also have my interview with President Van Dam. I'm going with a special request this time - I'm sick and tired of meeting people who only speak Mandarin, using up my three or four sentences of Mandarin, and then waving goodbye to them. On a good day I can just about understand what they're saying, but they never have a clue what I'm trying to say. So I'm going to ask President Van Dam for permission to learn a little Mandarin and see what he says.

Elder Liu calls me Mandarin Trunky, in that I'm a little too focused on the idea of learning Mandarin. I just want to be able to communicate with these people we meet from other parts of the world, like the Mainland or Vietnam or Taiwan or countless other places - Macau has such a huge mix of languages floating around. Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, English - it's a very diverse place here. As Visas have been hard to come by recently, pretty much every ethnicity in the mission is represented here at the moment - we have five Americans, a Briton, a Canadian, an Elder from Hong Kong, a Sister from the Phillipines and a Maori Elder from New Zealand. This means that collectively we speak English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Maori and four or five languages from the Phillipines. Plus there's some French floating around at times, just for fun (but not on my part - I can't even pretend to speak French anymore!)

Anyway, that's all from me for this week.

Lots of love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

羅 長 老