The Journey is Over but the Flight isn't until tomorrow!

Dear Family,

Thank you for sending me so many happy final emails. I figured I'd take a second and say that I love you and I'm looking forward to see you tomorrow.

It's bitter-sweet, leaving the mission. It mostly feels bitter right now. But I'm sure I'll be a lot happer tomorrow once the flight is over.

I've come up with a new slogan - The journey is over but the adventure has just begun. I'm ready for a lot of new, amazing adventures in England. It should be fun.

Sister Dawson is next to me right now and is also checking her email. She just got one from Louise Roberts! I'm going to go read it.

Lots of love,

Elder Loffhagen

My Blaze of Glory

Dear Family,

So much has happened this week. It's been one of the best weeks of my life.

This will be my last email while on a mission - my "ultimate" email. So last week was the penultimate one - right? Or am I not remembering the rules of English clearly? I couldn't remember how to say "guidance" the other day in a prayer, and I'm seriously concerned about what two years of American companions has done to my language. Please give me some time to adjust.

I won't really get much of a chance to send one next week, so you'll have to wait an extra day to hear from me. I hope you can take consolation in the fact that you'll be hearing from me in person instead of at a distance.

Several Family Home Evening lessons have been planned for a long time already; just leave it to me. I'm looking forward to sharing all about my mission adventures with you, but hopefully not boring you to death by making you look at every single picture I took over two years.

I've had a few particularly interesting adventures this week. Last Sunday was the Macau fireside, which was the best night of my life. But before getting there, we found out that I had a few little visa problems. It turns out that for whatever reason, there was a mishap with renewing the visas of my entire group. While most of my group have left now, so it doesn't matter, everyone who stayed past our two year mark and took our late date to come home have apparently overstayed our welcome - when the Church renewed our visas, they accidentally only renewed them until our date entering the MTC.

So I was given my passport to travel back to Macau, and went to the ferry. Before you get on the ferry, you have to go through immigrations, because you're leaving the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. There's a really cool machine that checks you out - you put your Hong Kong ID in a kind of ticket reader, and then put your thumb on a thumb print reader. Then you walk through without a problem - unless you've overstayed your visa, like me. So a man came over and took me to an interrogation room. Ultimately, I had to pay $160HK to extend my visa until that day, when I was allowed to leave, and when I came back to Hong Kong I had to apply for a visitor's visa instead of using my convenient work visa. Right now, Sister Kau who works in the Mission Office is at the Immigration Office applying for a new work visa for everyone in my group who is still left. It's actually kind of lucky that this happened, otherwise we would never have known our visas were expired, and leaving Hong Kong to return home would have been difficult.

So when I'd finally arrived in Macau, I was thrilled. I was so happy to be walking the streets again, and was even more thrilled when I arrived at the church and saw so many old friends. Since I've left, many of our investigators have been baptised and many members of the International Branch, who I was also really good friends with, have been to the Temple, been endowed and one family was even sealed in the Temple!

I was so happy to be back with my family. That's what Macau really is for me - my family. As I saw several of my recent converts again, like the W Family and A-B, I was so thrilled for them. As I saw the missionaries, many of whom had just started serving in Macau around the time I'd left, I was thrilled to renew my friendships with them as well. It was the happiest moment of my life.

In the fireside, one of the Sister Missionaries currently serving in Macau sang a Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief better than I think I've ever heard it sung before. As she sang the last verse, "He spoke and my poor name He named; Of me thou hast not been ashamed. These deeds shall thy memorial be; fear not! Thou didst them unto me", I felt such a wave of the Spirit, probably stronger than I've ever felt it on my mission, comparative only to the time I sat in the Nauvoo Temple dedication. Only this time was all the more special, because I felt the love that my Saviour has, not only for me, but for the people I've worked with throughout my mission. And I felt that He was well pleased with the work I had done and the service I had given.

I was to speak directly after the musical number, and as I arose and walked to the pulpit, I felt the Spirit follow me there. I poured out my heart as I spoke of my love for the people of Macau and my thanks that God had given me the chance to get to know them. I shared Alma 17:2, which talks about Alma's joy when he met with the sons of Mosiah, because they were still his brethren in the Lord. I bore testimony of the Saviour's love and how I saw it reflected in the faces of the members in Macau.

I've been thinking a lot about my plan to go out in a blaze of glory - I was never quite sure what that meant until last Sunday night. That fireside, and that testimony WAS my blaze of glory. I don't know that anyone felt the blaze quite as strongly as I did, and it was only witnessed by a few dozen people in a little chapel in the grimy, sin infested tail end of China, but I felt that blaze and I knew the Lord has accepted my mission.

So as that Sister sang "These deeds shall thy memorial be," I finally felt ready to go home. No more fear or doubt of the unknown. I'm okay with ending my mission now. I left Macau with the joy that, no matter what heartache at leaving I may go through in the next week of my mission, it's worth it, because I had one last day in Macau. And no matter what hard times may follow after I return to England, it's worth it, because I got to serve in Hong Kong and give everything I had in the service of God for two years.

That said, I still have one week to do the best I can, and I'm going to work until I drop.

I got back to Hong Kong on Monday, and Tuesday and Wednesday was the infamous career workshop - a senior couple on a mission here taught us how exactly to go about getting a job and competing in the workplace. A lot of missionaries have been and had given me the impression that it's a really painful two days that leaves you completely trunky once it's gone, but I'm still feeling fine.

Coming up on Friday is our last Zone Conference, then my companion leaves for the Temple (he's been called as the new Assistant to the President, which means I'll be spending my last week in a threesome with Elder Bagley, my trainee; and his companion Elder Bloomfield) and Sunday is my Hong Kong Why I Believe Fireside, which should also be fun - but probably not as fun as the Macau fireside was. Tuesday is my exit interview with President Chan, and on Thursday I'll go through the Temple, visit the Peak where Hong Kong was dedicated and have dinner with the Chans. Then I'll stay overnight in the Temple with four of my old companions, as next Move the entire office staff will be my former companions - Elder Liu, Elder Fisher, Elder Kwok and Elder Clark. Then early Friday morning we'll go to the airport and I'll say goodbye to Hong Kong for a while.

Then I'll ask the person sitting next to me if he's ever heard of the Latter-day Saint church.

Then maybe a little later I'll ask the stewardess what my chances of getting a free upgrade to first class is, if there happen to be any spaces free. After all, if you don't ask, you don't get!

I don't think there's much else to say. I'm looking forward to seeing you next week. Don't worry about me too much if I seem distant or sad, or even a little weird. Missions do strange things to people. And don't make fun of my accent, just gently correct me when I say a word wrong. Tell Tim I'm looking forward to losing to him at Halo (because I've played Halo all of four times before in my life, and it'll be nice to build up his confidence by letting him win at something after I finish smashing him at Mariokart).

I love you all. I'm so thankful for your many sacrifices on my behalf. It's strange to end this chapter of my life, but I'm okay with it now. I know that God is guiding my path, whether or not I can see where I'm going.

I know with all my heart that this Church is true. If it weren't, I wouldn't have wasted two years in China trying to convince people to change their lives when they'd really, for the most part, rather not. I know God lives and loves each of us.

See you on Friday,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

My Penultimate Email

Dear Mum and Dad,

I did hear about the Solar eclipse. But I didn't see it. It was similar to the last time there was an eclipse in Britain - the sky got darker a little, but there was nothing too special unless you were looking directly at the sun, which I didn't do.

I ultimately decided not to ask President Chan for permission to read Harry Potter - as you said, when does my mission end? Not until President Aitchinson releases me. But he did give me permission to use headphones to listen to General Conference on the way home, which is certainly a better use of the time. He also pointed out that as I travel home, it will be good to have the companionship of such uplifting messages, but I should make sure to let people around me know what I'm listening to.

This past Friday and Saturday I had the wonderful pleasure of exchanging with the Assistants to the President - I got to be companions for the day with Elder Liu, my old companion from Macau. It was a lot of fun, because he's an amazing missionary and really in tune with the spirit. We stopped people on the street and taught them the Gospel, and tried to contact a referral, but we couldn't quite find his address. On Saturday, there was a lot of AP things to do which I assisted in slightly, like giving people tours of the Mission Office and assigning Summer Missionaries to companionships.

I now have my flight plans, which were a little disappointing. Because my flight leaves at 9:40 in the morning, they want me to be at the airport by 7:00, which means I won't be able to attend the breakfast with all the other "dying" missionaries and their parents - so I won't get to see the Dawsons after all. That's sad. I also don't get to stay with all the other missionaries in a hotel overnight the night before, but will be with the Office Elders in the Temple instead, so that it's more convenient to leave early in the morning for the flight.

Also, it turns out that my entire baggage allowance is a mere 44lb which I believe is under 20kg. The mission says they'll pay for a second bag but want me to post all heavy books home on the slow boat. So I'll have to organize that - probably next Preparation Day. I'm going to do my best not to spend that £200.

Proms in the park sounds like fun, even if it's just the three of us. I believe the last time I went was 2001, because I remember them making us sing the American National Anthem and there not being any fireworks in memory of the Trade Center bombings.

I don't really have anything else to say this week. I love you and pray for you often. Enjoy the Summer Holiday.

Lots of Love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

My final Mission Conference

Dear Mum and Dad,

First off, no, the blog doesn't bother me - I'm fine with it. :)

This has been yet another busy week, as every week seems to be now. Today was a trip with the Zone to the Hong Kong History Museum, which was very interesting. It started at the formation of the planet and went all the way through to the turnover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. I get the feeling it was built after the turnover, because it seemed to point out every natural disaster and war in Hong Kong up until 1997, at which point, life became much better. The British were shown as being horrible Opium barons who failed many times at communicating with the locals, so we started taking things by force. Apparently our only contribution to Hong Kong was opium and gas powered streetlamps.

I found out something interesting - Hong Kong is the world's largest shipping container port, with most of the containers being stationed in Kwai Chung, my area. That's nice.

Another highlight of this past week has been Mission Conference. It was held this past Tuesday 14th July, which happens to be the 60th anniversary of Elder Matthew Cowley dedicating the land of Hong Kong to the preaching of the Gospel, atop Victoria Peak. As such, mission conference was very special - it was also held atop the peak. It was President Chan's first conference, and was a little different to President Van Dam's style, but it was also really enjoyable. As a missionary soon to return home, I was asked to give a departing testimony. I spoke of how God loves us, and said, "God loves the Chinese people. He loves the Philipinas...He even loves the Americans sometimes." I hadn't meant to say it quite like that, but it was said. Thankfully, the Americans of the mission (a good 95% of the missionaries) have already gotten used to my sarcastic comments about their homeland.

As far as Harry Potter goes, everybody in China loves it too. As per usual, I'm trying desperately to avoid posters and adverts on busses and trains, and trying desperately to steer all conversations away from the topic, for fear that a younger missionary will blurt out the ending and ruin my two years of successfully avoiding finding out what happens in the final book. Right now I am blessed to not know anything. I'm considering asking President Chan for permission to begin reading the final book on the flight home, but I don't know if I will. After all, just because I'll be done with the mission by that point doesn't mean I'm released yet.

Ivan's case has become more complicated - or, more rightly, we now understand his situation better. We went over to his house last Saturday to ask his mother's permission. It turns out that she's not 100% sane. Elder Fisher tried for a good 20-30 minutes to get her to calm down enough just to stop screaming and listen to us for a second, but no such luck. Eventually we left defeated. So now we're working on a new attack strategy. But it might be a while.

So what exactly is a Merlin season pass? Is that just a regular season pass with a picture of Merlin on it, or is that the name for the lifetime pass you can buy? :P Legoland sounds like a lot of fun - I'm sure we can arrange a trip when I get home. Proms in the park sounds like fun too. As does the next Harry Potter. But you know what's interesting? Thinking about all the things I used to do when I was at home, like watching films, listening to music, playing computer games, reading books and comics - none of that stuff really seems very important right now. Perhaps that'll change once I'm surrounded by it again, but right now it doesn't have a great appeal for me. The time in every Move after Mission Conference is always the fastest, and we already have some kind of Zone Leader meeting schedualed for every day for the rest of the Move. We'll see how things go.

At Mission Conference, we were privileged to hear from President and Sister Goo, who are the current China Hong Kong Temple President and Matron. 20 years ago President Goo was the Hong Kong Mission President, and another 30 years before that he was one of the first missionaries in the Southern Far East Mission. This mission has gone through a lot of changes in a relatively short period of time. It was interesting to learn that when President Goo first started his mission, they didn't even have the Book of Mormon in Chinese yet! It's interesting to think just how new the Gospel is here. Sister Goo spoke to us and told us of her trials growing up as a pioneer in Hong Kong - one of the first members back when she was in her early teens. She said that her mother refused to let her go to all of her church meetings on a Sunday, so she would wake up extra early and do every possible chore around the house before everyone woke up, to kind of "guilt" her mother into letting her go - but she was only to go to the first meeting, and then should come home. She wouldn't come back. She'd stay for Sacrament meeting, and when she got home, the house would be locked. She'd wait there on the doorstep until dusk, when her older brother would open the door for her. All because her mother's minister told her every week how evil the Mormons are.

Then one day she and her best friend (who had introduced her to the church) were called into her headteacher's office at the Lutheran school she was attending. They were both expelled on the spot with no explanation. It was only later that they found out that this was because they'd been inviting schoolfriends to church activities and the Lutheran church's activities had been losing attendance.

This was a great disgrace to her and her family, and many family members would tell her again and again how worthless she was for being expelled and joining some horrid cult. But Sister Goo wasn't going to take that lying down, and stuck to her dream of graduating from University and becoming a teacher, even when everybody around her told her that she could never do it. She said that on the day she graduated from BYU Provo, her family members thought that she was crying because she was graduating, but she was really crying because she was so happy to have finally achieved her dream, despite such hard opposition throughout her life. Both she as President Goo (who was raised in Hawaii) are amazing examples of Chinese pioneers.

And do you know who else are great examples of pioneers? Neil and Debbie Loffhagen. Thank you so much for your sacrifices on my behalf. I'm so thankful that God has blessed me with such wonderful parents. Two weeks ago, you gave me a quote from Marcos A. Aidukaitis' Conference talk, "Because My Father Read the Book of Mormon". I agree with what he said. Because the two of you read the Book of Mormon and walked against the wind, I've been abundantly blessed throughout my life.

I love you lots and pray for all of you often,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Fighting to the bitter end

Dear family,

Wow! It sounds like a busy week!

I got a letter from someone yesterday. Somebody needs to talk to them about the exact content of the letters they send to Missionaries. The main bulk of the letter was describing the beautiful English countryside, which is a sensitive subject with me. While Hong Kong nature is somewhat more exotic than back home, it's not quite as peaceful as that of the British Isles. While it's nice to look at, if you stare too closely it might bite your face off - poisonous spiders and insects, more moquitos than you can shake a can of bug spray at, angry wild monkeys and dogs, and even the occasional cobra (Elder Marshall found one, but not in the jungle - in the High Street!).

At the end of the letter was a handwritten note that said "You must be counting down the days now! See you at camp." Yes, I will see you at camp. But I'm trying my best NOT to count down the days. It just gets more depressing every time I look at the calendar.

It has occurred to me recently that I am really scared to go home. I'm not just nervous - it actually does scare me. It's harder to come home than it was to leave. So for the moment I'll put it out of my mind and just work as hard as I can.

A brief note on the blog - a Sister missionary called Sister Wilson moved into our neighbouring district a few weeks ago. She told me that before my mission, she read the entire blog. She specifically remembers me wanting money to buy a new watch, and the fact that Immigrations into America was kinder to me than to the other Elders on the flight from Heathrow. It's put me in an awkward situation in that she has already heard all of my best mission stories. I have to wonder exactly what effect my blog is having on people with connections to the China Hong Kong Mission...

Anyway, this week has been interesting. Ivan has his baptismal date set for this coming Sunday. Both he and Elder Fisher have received a strong personal witness that it will definitely come to pass (I guess I'm just not in tune with the Spirit enough and I wasn't paying attention), but his mother has yet to be convinced. Elder Fisher is pushing forward with complete faith - I had his baptismal interview yesterday and passed. I feel that while prayers of faith are good, God also wants us to do everything in our power to make this goal come to pass. So we're going to try and arrange a time to go over to their house and make the case ourselves - explain all of the good things that come from membership of the Church and counter some Anti-Mormon lies she's heard.

In addition to meeting with investigators, we've been preparing for Zone Conference, which was held last Friday, and went rather well. Our theme for the Moves period is "Find Your Fire" so we gave everyone a candle and a piece of "sacred paper", promising them that provided they review it every day, any goal they write on the paper will be achieved. I've recently been thinking a lot about my goals for after the mission. I've felt that I really should devote the time spent at University should be totally devoted to studies, not to play. So I'm going to try my best to find a job, but as you've said, the world isn't doing too well right now. If the case is that I can't find part time work, I'll just live as poor as possible and devote everything I have to developing my time and talents. Outside of the subject of Communications, things I want to develop is my Chinese, including Mandarin, and my drawing. I can't remember if I've said this yet or not, but there was an Elder with me in the MTC, Elder Hamon, who will one day work for Pixar - that's his dream and I can see it happen. If I could draw like him, I'd draw for Marvel comics. The other week I was thinking about how I'm nowhere near as talented as him, and I said to myself, 'I'd give my left hand if my right hand could draw as well as Elder Hamon'. Then I answered myself - 'Elder Hamon's ability came from lots and lots of practice and learning. If you're willing to mutilate yourself for his gift, why can't you just put in the practice and effort to learn? If your desire is strong enough, you should be willing to do anything in your power to make it happen.' So after I finished talking to myself, I decided to take my own advice on board. I've come to the conclusion that the trick to being extraordinary at something is not to put in effort when you've set aside time to practice - everybody does that - the trick is to work on it in the idle moments when you're waiting for the bus, outside the toilet waiting for your companion, or just have a second with nothing to do. That's the time I've learned to pull out the flashcards and study - if I had relied only on the hour of language study a day, I would never have made it to language legend.

I've decided that the same principle applies in my drawing - the trick will be to do it in the few spare seconds I have, and to just practice and practice and practice. Yesterday while I was waiting outside I's baptismal interview, I pulled out a pen and my planner and just drew pictures of hands for a good half and hour. There is now a page of hands in my planner, in a bunch of different poses, and I'm a little better at drawing hands now.

By the way - no I never did find my lost money. Oh well, money doesn't bring you happiness anyway. I assume I must have thrown it away when I moved from West Point to Tai Po by accident. In this case, it has gone to a better cause - in Hong Kong, little old ladies who are retired try to grab some extra cash by rifling through rubbish bins and pulling out the recyclables to sell. I enjoy thinking of the look on one little old lady's face as she pulls an envelope out of a black plastic sack and discovers $400! That ought to make her day.

Yesterday was our District Leader/Zone Leader meeting, where we got to see the new President Chan in action. While Sister Chan chose to address us in Chinese (which was fine because everyone in the meeting has been in Hong Kong for quite a while, although she was throwing around some rather complex car vocabulary that perhaps not everyone got), President Chan spoke in English. His English is pretty good, but I'm fairly certain he hasn't needed to speak it much in recent years. I don't know if I mentioned that they're Hong Kong natives, and that up until his call he's been a Sealer in the Temple. They're both very excited and a little nervous. I'm making it my goal to do everything I can to support them.


Well, time is running out fast. I love you all. If there's anything I can do for you, let me know.

Lots of love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Happy Hong Kong Return to China Day!

Dear family,

It's been a busy week. We've had a lot of miracles and a lot of memorable experiences.

Yesterday was a very interesting day here in Hong Kong - it was the twelfth anniversary of Hong Kong returning to Chinese rule. There are mixed opinions on whether or not that was a good thing here. For us missionaries, it just ended up being really annoying.

Every Wednesday we send a District to a regular service project at a charity called Crossroads - I think I've mentioned it before? We normally go and dig trenches or prepare shipments of cargo to third world countries. This week, our district went. It took us about an hour on the bus to get there, but when we arrived, the entire place was empty. Confused, we explored around a bit, and Elder Bagley mentioned that this had happened once before, on Christmas Eve, because the charity was closed. I suddenly remembered that it was a national holiday, and at that moment we spotted a passing staff member who lives on site, who was heading home with a bag of shopping. When he saw us he said, "I'm so sorry! We tried to contact you and tell you not to come today!" Well, all we could do was laugh, then hop on the bus and go home.

Later in the evening, everyone was anticipating a huge firework display that was going to go off in the middle of the Hong Kong harbour. A lot of missionaries had gotten special permission to go, but we'd had a better plan - after hiking up the infamous "Monkey Mountain" (so named because it has a lot of wild monkeys) with our ward last month, we'd found a large rock on the top of the mountain with a wonderful view of all of Hong Kong. Having been to the fireworks before, I knew that finding a good view is incredibly difficult, and we determined to hike up Monkey Mountain last night with the ward again to watch the fireworks. It was a missionary organized activity, but unlike the last time when we only had Young Men, this time we had a wide range of ages and genders - including an elderly lady, affectionately called "Paw Paw" (Grandma) but the locals.

We hiked most of the way up the hill and Paw Paw was getting tired, so half the group stayed to watch the fireworks at a bridge over a dam we found, which gave an excellent view, while the rest of us continued up the hill for an even more excellent view. We got there in time for the fireworks and watched the flashing lights of Hong Kong below us. We waited. And waited. And waited. I called one of the Mandarin Elders who was down among the crowds to see if the fireworks had started yet, and he said no. About half an hour after the fireworks were schedualed to start, he phoned me back and said that because of a protest on Hong Kong island, the police had cancelled the fireworks. Well, it seemed that everything we were trying to do that day had been cancelled, and again, I couldn't help but laugh. We all made our way back down the mountain and back home.

This week we sat down with an investigator, I, and set a baptismal date. Ivan's situation is interesting - he told us of his great desire to keep all the commandments and be baptised, but unfortunately his mother is very much against him doing so. She's threatened to burn down the church is he comes back. Every now and then, he would sneak out on Sunday morning to come to church, but for the most point he'd been cut off from us - until about two weeks ago. I'm not sure why, but two weeks ago he started attending church regularly again, plus many of the activities we have during the week. I asked if his mother knows where he is when he comes to church, and he said that she probably suspects.

So on Tuesday we sat down with him. Elder Fisher laid down a few options for baptismal dates with him, and promised him that if we set a date and pray and fast, God will provide the way for him to be baptised. The only question in the matter is when. I prayed to know when he should be baptized, and immediately after the prayer, he got up off his knees and sat back in his chair. "Wow," he said, "wow. I just heard a really clear voice say 'three weeks' time'." As we looked at the calendar, he again felt very strongly about the 12th of July, which at the time was three weeks away (now it's more like two). The three of us committed to make it happen. We will fast, pray, and Ivan will ask his mother for permission. We're about to see a great miracle take place.

I think I would indeed like to go to the Manchester Conference, and if Julian and Chris are going, that makes things even better. Tell Jess I'd really like her to go too.

I do not know a Jessica Gray, but I do know this - One time when Julian went down from his school to visit Sally Ann, he was in the process of writing a letter to me, and she and her flatmates saw it. So I imagine that might be the connection there.

Everyone here has heard about Michael Jackson's death - what a surprise! Oh well.

Thank you for the extra money. I don't think it'll be necessary, but thank you anyway. I don't have much of anything I need to buy, apart from Dad's Buddha statue. A while ago I decided to buy some Hong Kong films to watch when I get home, but didn't want to have to go into those film shops while I'm still serving here. So I got a member by the name of Joe to help me out. For $150 he got me six DVDs which have all, at one point or another, been on the bus stop ads while I've been here. That should be fun. So now I'm done in that respect and probably won't be buying very much else before I come home - it's when I get back home that I'll be needing money. School, driving lessons, a car, a computer, new clothes...oh dear. So much to buy and no money to do it with.

In the meantime, if there's anything else anyone wants me to get, let me know. My time is up for today.

Love you lots,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Blaze of Glory

Dear Mum and Dad,

I just dropped Elder Marshall off at the Temple and picked up my new companion, Elder Fisher. He is a really good, hard working Elder who has been finding some excellent alternatives to street contacting which he's been telling me have seriously blessed his previous area. He said that in the last three Moves, he's never scheduled a block of finding time and instead finds while they travel from one appointment to another. It sounds like fun, and a lot more effective than street contacting, so I'm looking forward to trying another style of missionary work.

My old companion from Macau, Elder Liu, has been called to be the new Assistant to the President. I'm thrilled for him, but he seems a little nervous in the role for now. Last Sunday was the Why I Believe Fireside, where "dying" missionaries bear their testimonies before going home. I was asked to translate for the meeting, alongside Elder Liu. It felt like being back in Macau again, because we always had to translate Church for the International branch members who couldn't attend in the evening.

Last week I dropped my iPod off with Elder Matt Chan, the other British Elder in the mission, who was up until today serving as the distribution manager. I had asked him to put the mission's Cantonese Sounds and Tones tape on it, which he has recorded to MP3. When I got it back, I discovered that he's taken the liberty of filling it with tons of EFY music and speeches, which I'm looking forward to listening to. Earlier today he mentioned a YSA convention in Manchester that apparently is going on in August, and asked if I was going to be there. I told him I didn't know anything about it - maybe you could look into it for me?

It's good to hear that Chris is getting back into the swing of things. I love him and can imagine how hard it must be for him now. Today at the Temple a native RM who served with me in Macau dropped by just to say hi to all the missionaries, and told me how much he misses being on a mission. I pointed out that when I go home, I won't be seeing anyone for a while because I live so far away, and that he is lucky he can just drop by the Temple every once in a while.

As I am now in my final Move as a missionary, I have given myself a theme for the Move: Blaze of Glory. I want to go out in style, working as hard as I possibly can - not that I've not been doing so thus far, but I just don't want to slow down now that my time is running out, and I certainly don't want to get trunky. This being the case, I was wondering if you could go on the internet and find a quote for me. One time Winston Churchill said that if the British Empire were to last for a thousand years, people would still look back and say that winning World War II was our finest hour. I'd like the exact quote because it might be nice to share in Zone Conference next week. I want to look back on my mission and say that this Move was my finest hour, because it was the time I Endured to the End and fought to the very last minute.

I hope your hand feels better soon. I wonder if anyone has thought about giving Grandad a Priesthood blessing for his memory loss? Perhaps it might help.

Please congratulate Tim for me. I really am very proud of him and all that he's doing. Tell him to work hard and stay worthy.

This past few days have been very interesting. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Elder Marshall took care of his packing. I was bored out of my skull. But Tuesday evening, we had English Class and a lesson with an investigator from Indonesia who speaks fluent Chinese and whose husband in a Hong Kong local. Just as we were about to leave for it, a man walked in and asked for the times of the meetings. He said that before he'd been really busy, but now that he has more time, he wants to learn about God. So things got shuffled around a little bit. The Threesome of Elders that we had (up until today) in Kwai Fong split up, one going with Elder Marshall to his appointment and the other two going to an appointment that they had. I grabbed a recent convert called S and we exchanged to teach this man, J, about the Restoration. I asked J why he had come to this church, and he told me that it's the most convenient, because it's close to his home. Well, I don't care why people come in so long as they stay for the right reason. So S and I taught a very good Restoration lesson. It was particularly good because I could say things like, "S, how do prophets help us," and "what happened when Joseph Smith prayed in the grove of trees?" and he would answer as if reading from Preach My Gospel. Half way through, S's friend J (who refered S to the church) came in and shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon. J will come to church on Sunday, unless he can't wake up, which he's afraid of, in which case he'll come to our ward FHE.

Yesterday because of a falling through of an arrangement for Elder Bloomfield, one of the Elders in the threesome which split up this morning, I got the chance to accompany him to the Temple. He has a Recent Convert from over a year ago, who recieved his Endowment yesterday. Elder Bloomfield was given permission to go and support him, and I tagged along as his companion. It was a wonderful experience as I saw this man enjoy the simple beauty of the Temple for the first time.

So in summary, this has been a very busy week. What with packing, translating for the Why I Believe, teaching walk-ins, going to the Temple and doing everything else we've done, we've been very busy and VERY blessed. I'm really excited for this next move and am looking forward to seeing what Elder Fisher and I can do together. In our flat this Move is the two of us, plus Elder Bloomfield and Elder Bagley, who was my trainee about a year ago.

I love you all very, very much. You can trust me to do my best as I serve in my finest hour and go out in a blaze of glory.

Love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

A 3:00am Hike

Dear Mum and Dad,

It's been a very, very busy week, and I'm now very tired - not least because I woke up at 3:00am this morning.

This week has been pretty full of exchanges. Last Friday/Saturday I went to Sam Seui Po, which is the ward that meets in the Temple, with Elder Rose who is a District Leader there. It was a lot of fun, but pretty tough as we had a meal with a older couple in the ward there whose two children - both RMs - are in America at BYU right now. They had more than enough food for six Elders to eat, and with just the two of us we were completely out of our league. First there was Portuguese chicken with rice, then fruit, then mango pudding, then cheesecake - all made fresh. I was full half-way through the chicken, so by the time we left, both Elder Rose (who is over 6ft tall and about 3ft wide at the shoulders, muscular and gigantic like Superman) and I barely made it home on the bus okay.

Earlier this week Elder Marshall had a career workshop that all "dying" missionaries have to go through before going home, and it made him more than a little trunky. During this time, I was on exchanges with Elder Auduong, a new missionary whose companion is also going home this next week. We worked very hard - and had a lot of success. We scheduled a few new people and visited a less-active, who was very glad to see us and will probably be coming to church on Sunday - he's more less-active because of health problems than because of laziness - his leg is very swollen with some kind of long-term joint problem, and his two elderly parents aren't far from death and need constant attention. He asked us an interesting question; he'd heard of friends who'd joined Christian churches and had started earning more money at work or being blessed financially soon after - why when he'd joined a church did life get so much worse. I turned to Elder Auduong and asked him what he thought. He said that sometimes God gives us trials and sometimes he blesses us - but all things work together for our good. I shared from Joseph Smith's experience in Liberty Jail and we encouraged him to keep at it.

Last Sunday I got a very special chance to do something very few Cantonese missionaries get to do in Hong Kong - I attended the Mandarin branch in the huge Wan Chai chapel on Hong Kong Island. Elder Lee, who is the Senior Companion in the Mandarin companionship here in our zone, needed to go to Kwai Fong to church so that he could see an investigator, so he asked if we could go on exchanges for church time. I was thrilled to do so. It was a lot of fun - I love the Wan Chai building, which is 13 floors, houses church meetings in three languages and also has the Asia Area office on the top floors. I was a little nervous about how well I'd be able to communicate with the members in the branch, but most spoke pretty good Cantonese. I was also very thankful to walk in through the doors to the 6th floor chapel where Sacrament was being held and see Dick, one of the coolest members in Hong Kong. He was on the cover of the Ensign a while ago, and even though we'd only met once before, over a year ago, he welcomed me like an old friend and chatted with me like we'd known each other for years. He and two other native Hong Kong members were visiting the Mandarin branch for the day. Most of the official membership of the Mandarin branch is from Mainland China, and the Elders who serve here have always been struggling to build up their little branch so that they can learn the Gospel in their native tongue. Apparently it's a challenge because people always end up moving back to the Mainland very soon. Another large portion of the branch are white RMs who served in Taiwan and then married Chinese girls, becoming "Larry"s as we nickname them. Not sure why we call them that. There was one man there, a little older, whose Mandarin sounded absolutely fluent - he sounded like a native - I guess that's what happens when you live in China for as long as he has.

We all decided to do something really fun for Elder Marshall's last Preparation day, so we woke up at 3:00 this morning and took a taxi to a famous mountain called Lion Rock - so named because there's a big rock on the top that supposedly resembles a lion's head. I couldn't see it, though - I think it looked more like a monkey or a man with a big nose. We went up there in the dark and then watched the sunrise - the view was amazing, and you could see all the way across to Hong Kong Island, plus all of Kowloon in the middle. We took a moment to pick out the Temple among all of the buildings scattered below us - it was almost lost in a sea of lights, but the spire with the Angel Moroni was distinctly visible and instantly recognisable.

As far as my cooking goes, I wouldn't get any hopes up. I know how to cook Chinese food - in theory. In practice it's normally a lot easier and quicker to throw a can of chicken soup mixed with tuna fish over a bowl of rice, or to just go buy a meal somewhere else. Certainly I'd feel a lot more comfortable cooking Chinese food rather than western food, but that's just because Chinese food is just cooked in a big pot - you throw in all the ingredients, add whatever sauce you want on it and let it cook for a while. Not too challenging. Fried rice or real deal chau mien is pretty good though too.

Thank you for your prayers on my behalf. It's been taking my every effort to build up something in this area, but I am not discouraged. Last week, Elder Marshall found another family for us to teach, but as the wife is from Indonesia and the father, although Chinese, speaks fluent English, we'll probably turn them over to the International Elders who serve here. We also found a very prepared lady the other day who the Sisters are now teaching.

Anyway, Elder Marshall needs to go to the toilet and has asked me to cut this short. I love you lots and hope you will all be well and not catch Swine Flu (people here are so scared of it being the next SARS that they've closed the Primary schools for two weeks, but I personally think we're safer here than anywhere else because so many people are wearing face-masks and washing their hands so regularly).

Lots of love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

The Legend Dinner

Dear Mum and Dad,

First things first, about accomodation - go for it. It it's good enough for a Jest, it's good enough for me. Of course, I know that normally a tent is good enough for a Jest, but that's fine too. One thing I've learned here in Hong Kong is how to live in awkward places - I've had some certainly very "cosy" homes. Jamie and Harry sound like some fun people to room with (not least because I can glean some Mandarin off of Jamie) and as far as the kitchen goes, I've been living without an oven for the past two years, so if it has one it'll be a trade-up, if not - I've learnt to make some good meals in a pot and in the microwave - no doubt the same cooking style as most other missionaries, but probably with a lot more rice.

Which reminds me of something - for university, I want a rice cooker. A little pot that cooks rice to the perfect temperature automatically. I've figured I'll just live off home-made Chinese food for my stay at Uni, but to make it convenient, I need a rice cooker. Maybe you could look around at prices on your end? I can get one for around $300HK (£30) here.

Getting hold of a little Buddha statue will be no problem whatsoever. They are everywhere - in fact, I've visited one of the Buddhas whose picture you sent - it is the Big Buddha (well named - you can walk around inside it). I'll probably be able to find a statue without a problem. The only thing is it might be an authentic golden idol, ready to be worshipped - so be careful. I've heard some interesting first-hand stories from the kinds of spiritual company that follow these things.

So last Monday was my dinner with President and Sister Van Dam. It wasn't the steak I was hoping for, but it was a lot of fun. They took myself and the other four Legends to the R66 restaurant in Wan Chai - so named because it Rotates as you eat, taking 66 minutes to make one revolution. As you spin around, you get a birdseye 360 degree view of Hong Kong island, much like the Macau Tower which I went to when I first arrived there. It was a nice buffet dinner, and President Van Dam summed it up nicely by saying that "The kind of choices you have are, 'do I want the lobster or the prime rib first?'"

I sat next to President Van Dam, and when I found out that they'd just been in Macau the day before (As the Macau branches aren't within a stake, they're under the Mission and President Van Dam often goes out there for temple recommend interviews and callings) I was eager to know how everything was going over there. President and Sister Van Dam told me that as a result of a Temple Preparation class they've been running recently, there are several members of the International branch who are preparing for their endowments and to be sealed as families (President Van Dam interviewed six people for their own endowment). Also, in the Chinese branch, where I served, there were two Seminary graduates this year (a big feat for such a small branch) and three of the Young Men are planning on serving as Summer Missionaries this year. This thrilled me because most of the Macau Young Men were baptized while I was there! I asked President Van Dam if I could put in a request for a certain Summer Missionary to come work with me, and he asked which one I wanted before Sister Van Dam reminded us that it wasn't President Van Dam's choice to make - so I need to be especially nice to President Chan when he comes in next month.

Which reminds me - I don't think I'd mentioned that one of our investigators from Macau, A-F, was baptized a few weeks ago. He is really amazing - he's seventeen, and was fellowshipped wonderfully by the branch. He was the Seminary class President for a long time while he was an investigator before getting baptized!

Things are going well for Elder Marshall and I. Last week, I felt like we really got somewhere as we found a new family to teach, the N family, and began teaching a part-member family. The N family is wonderful - so far we've met the Dad, the Grandad and the four year old daughter. We saw them on Saturday for our little kids English class we teach and afterwards shared the Family Proclamation with them and taught them to pray. The father, without being asked, got his little girl to fold her arms and bow her head, and he said a prayer that God would bless their family. Afterwards, they bought us ice-cream from MacDonalds and we talked about their family. The Grandad had a big interest in why our church is different and what the Book of Mormon is about.

We also began teaching a member's father. Brother T has a big problem with his leg and so can't come to church, so we've started seeing him to give him some encouragement. Every time we went over, he said how his father, who is elderly and bed-ridden but joins in our conversations, really wants to learn about the gospel and the Plan of Salvation. Last week we decided that even though he's a little more aged than most investigators, and can't come to church, we should teach him anyway. So we started slowly with the First Vision and encouraged him to pray.

I'm happy here in Kwai Fong. The work is not always easy, but my back has been strengthened that my burdens feel light (Mosiah 24:15 - I shared this scripture with Brother T as it's one that's helped me through times of trial) and I am submitting cheerfully to the will of the Lord.

I love you all lots and pray for your happiness.

Love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

The Van Dams' Last Mission Conference

Dear Mum and Dad,

MyLDSMail seems to be having some problems. It keeps coming in and out, so this will need to be short. It probably doesn't help that the computer I'm using is absolutely terrible. It keeps disconnecting from the internet, it's very slow, and at some point somebody broke the space bar on the keyboard and replaced it with a Start key. But then at least my space bar half-works. Elder Marshall's doesn't work at all and he's having to use full stops (.) instead of spaces.

I picked up the suit today. It is very nice. When the lady was fitting me, the suit jacket that was "my size" was far too tight, but I was convinced to get it anyway on the condition that the lady tailor it to leave me a little more room. Unexpectedly and possibly a first for Hong Kong, when I picked it up it was perfect - maybe even a little more space than is needed now, which is nice.

As far as Buddha statues go, if not a fat one, what kind? I assume you mean an old-fashioned Buddha - but what I'm thinking of might be completely different to what you're thinking of. Could you email me a picture of what you're looking for? To be honest, the most common Buddhas here are fat and jolly.

I wonder if it could be a huge problem if I didn't have a tuberculosis test when I get home. I've discovered that what the nurse said was true - Americans don't get immunized, they just get regular checkups. Because of this little concern (which doesn't even seem to be that prominent in Hong Kong), I've already had to be immunized and was X-Rayed when I entered the MTC. Perhaps we can just explain to Church Headquatres that there's no way I could possibly have TB.

Please congratulate Tim on passing Seminary this year. I'm really proud of him. Tell Jess I love her, and tell Beth the same when you next see her. Also please thank Grandma, Granny and both Grandads for the money for my birthday, and also for the cards, which meant more to me than the money anyway.

So yesterday was President and Sister Van Dam's final mission conference. They finish their mission on of the first of July, so I'll have a good month with President Chan. Everyone was a little tearful as they said goodbye. As one of the five Elders who achieved Language Legend this Moves, I was asked to hold up a banner during the closing hymn, Called to Serve, which stated the theme of President and Sister Van Dam's mission: A Sacred Time, A Sacred Place, A Sacred Message, A Sacred Messenger. As I was at the front of the room, my back was turned and I didn't see Sister Van Dam apparently crying a lot throughout the hymn. I think everyone was about to start crying. After the closing hymn, we all sat there for a minute, not wanting to leave, until President Van Dam encouraged us to stand up. I was one of the first to stand, which is a nice metaphor for what I've decided to do now as the Van Dams leave. President Chan has come big shoes to fill, and a lot of missionaries are probably going to make things worse by complaining about how much they'll miss President Van Dam. I've decided that whenever anyone complains, I'm going to say something about just how good President Chan will be. I want to support him in the first few weeks of his mission when a lot of people will be missing the Van Dam flair, by helping others to look forward to all the fun they'll have with him around. Considering that part of the reason I chose to stay to my late date was to support the new mission President, I think this is a simple way I can help him.

Elder Marshall bore his "dying" testimony yesterday too. It's a little weird for him. But Sister Van Dam gave every missionary who goes home this Move a little bell, which symbolizes a bell that is rung when a runner reaches his last lap so that he knows when to start sprinting. I'm hoping to ring it any time Elder Marshall might want to slow down as he reaches the end. You can be sure that I'll be going like a maniac this time next Move.

Anyway, sorry but time is up. The computer and myldsmail really isn't working too well, so I'm just going to send this now and hope it doesn't crash.

Love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Happy Dragonboat Festival!

Dear Mum and Dad,

Yes, a duen mh jit faai lohk to all. Today is one of the bigger annual celebrations for the Chinese people, where they race dragonboats all day, up and down the rivers, in respect for an ancient Chinese poet and political leader who drowned himself in defiance of the evil emperor of the time. Every year, on the anniversary of his death, people ride boats up and down the rivers, banging a big drum to scare the fish so that they don't eat his body, and throw rice balls wrapped in leaves into the water, so that the fish will eat the rice instead of the poet. At some point some bright spark combined this with traditional races, and the dragonboat races were born.

This past week has been pretty busy for us here - things keep coming up to distract us or suck up all of our good finding time. Yesterday, working with the charity Crossroads, we packed a huge container of hospital beds which is currently on its way to Afganistan. The beds were pretty heavy, and this little service project took most of the day in the hot sun, so we all got very tired out and more than a little sunburnt. This is the most burned I've ever been on my mission and for many years before it. Ironically, when we got back home, we discovered that it had been raining the entire day in Kwai Fong. We had been on the large island of Dung Chung all day, which I guess is sheltered from the stormclouds because of the huge mountains all around. The particular place we were working was called Sunny Bay, and considering that we got sunburnt when the rest of Hong Kong was getting rained on, it certainly lived up to its name!

I went and got measured for my tailored suit last Thursday. It came to $650HK which is a little less than £65. I ordered two pairs of trousers (otherwise it would have only been $500HK) which I thought would be a good idea to extend the life of the suit. I'll be going to pick it up next week.

Now while we're on the subject of buying things, are there any specific souveniers people want from Hong Kong? I have about $600hk left in my account, and don't really have anything else I specifically NEED to buy, but if there are presents anyone wants, let me know.

This week my work has continued on learning to write the articles of faith in Chinese. I'm getting pretty close now - I wrote them all out yesterday and there were only five or six that I couldn't remember or wrote wrong. My pass-off is tomorrow, and I'm hoping to succeed - especially after hearing that apparently, nobody else as of yet has got the Extra Credit assignment for the Legend. This next Wednesday being President Van Dam's last mission conference, everyone is trying desperately to get the award in time so that they can have a meal with him. There's one other Elder I know of who has succeeded, and two more who are going to try this week, including my old companion Elder Sharp, who is six months younger than me in the field and who was my companion when I passed off the first thousand characters.

Rain has been hitting pretty heavily recently - apart from in Sunny Bay. It's been raining non-stop for several days, everything from light drizzle to a full on monsoon downpour, which is a lot stronger than the rain back home. I'm happy with the rain, though, because it's cooled things down a lot. Right before it rained, it was getting very hot, with temperatures as high as 30 Celcius. The rain makes it much nicer, and I'd far prefer to be a little wet from the rain than a lot wetter from my own sweat, thanks to all the humidity here. So far it seems a lot cooler this year than it was this time last year, which is good - but it's also been drier, which probably means that it'll get a lot hotter once we get into June and July. Because I took my late date coming home, I'll get three Julys on the mission, which just so happens to be the hottest part of the summer here. But I'd rather be on a mission for an extra month in the sun than be moping around at home for that time.

Anyway, all is well here in Kwai Fong. I'm enjoying myself and working hard. Things are a little slow here right now, but I don't mind - I know we just need to find that one prepared soul that God has waiting for us, and I know I can't complain about a slow few weeks or months when European missionaries tend to get a slow few years.

Lots of love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

21

Dear Mum and Dad,

Thank you for all of the birthday love. I picked up the package at the Temple yesterday. Please also thank all of the grandparents, because although I'm intending on writing to say thank you to them, I've not had the best track record at getting letters into the post box as of late. I wrote Julian a letter one of my first weeks in Macau which still has as of yet to be posted.

Ultimately, my birthday was fun. I didn't want to make a fuss about it, and I certainly didn't want anyone to buy me a cake, as missionaries usually do for each other, so I didn't tell anyone. A few people knew that something was up and knew that it was around this time, but nobody knew when. Some Sister Missionaries asked me when it was the day before my birthday, and I just said "soon". Then someone asked me a few days after and I simply said, "recently". So a few people are aware that my birthday has passed, but I'm fairly pleased with myself that I could keep it a secret.

As it happened, my birthday also happened to coincide with the mission half-way mark of one of the Elders in my District, Elder Wong. Elder Wong, who is from Canada, has been given special permission to serve a one month mission, and last Saturday was his two week mark. So we had a special pizza party for him. I enjoyed the irony of wishing him "happy birthday".

Scotland sounds like fun - I hope you all enjoy yourselves. I'm kind of excited to go visit Scotland too - there's an Elder serving in Edinburgh from the ward I'm in here. The noticeboard at church is filled with pictures of him and Chinese people he's baptizing, which is very interesting. Apparently there's a large Chinese community in Scotland, and while he's been there they've started a Chinese branch up there (or at least a group, if not a branch).

Give my love to Chris whenever you see him. I can imagine that the adjustment back to real civilian life will be tough for him, as I'm sure it will be for me.

We had an interesting meeting at the Temple yesterday - the Zone Leader Conference. Both President and Sister Van Dam came up and congratulated me on getting my language legend award, which was nice, although I felt slightly embarrassed by it - I'd rather people didn't make a fuss. Speaking of the Legend award, I've decided to aim for the "Extra Credit" assignment of learning how to write all of the Articles of Faith in Chinese. I've been working my way through and have learnt how to write up to number nine already, but ten to thirteen are the hardest, as they talk about the gathering of Israel, kings, rulers, magistrates, being honest, chaste, benevolent, etc. But I have about a week and a half before Mission Conference, so I think I can get it done by before I officially recieve my Legend award. It feels good to have a tough goal to work towards again - the big reason that I got the Legend in the first place was because I set myself goals for getting it all done a little sooner than I would otherwise have been ready, and then just pushed with every spare second I had at lunch and dinner to get it done. Then when I finished I enjoyed not having something to learn every second of the day - but it left me feeling a little bored, so it's good to have something else to learn. Beyond the Articles of Faith, I intend on learning to write the first 1000 characters before I finish my mission, and will learn the next 2000 when I get home. I also have to find some way of learning Mandarin, but I'll worry about that later. And I have to learn how to read simplified characters, which they use in the Mainland. But I'll worry about all that later.

I heard some interesting news the yesterday. There was a very talkative but not completely sane man who was nice enough that walked with us back to the church as we were going to an appointment, who said that supposedly, the new American ambassador to China is a member; a return missionary from Taiwan who still speaks Mandarin. If this is true, it certainly will be some good publicity for the Church up there. As it happens, I don't think we're doing too badly for publicity either way - I hear from another Elder who is from Hawaii that BYU Hawaii has good ties with the Chinese government, who actually invited their choir to sing in the opening ceremony for the Olympics, but they declined. Also, when Elder Russell M Nelson came a few months ago, he talked about how as a doctor who spoke a little Mandarin, he was able to set up exchanges between BYU and some Chinese universities a while ago.

He told an interesting story - he was taking notes at a General Authority meeting when the prophet at the time - I think it was Ezra Taft Benson - said that all in attendance should learn Mandarin. Well, Elder Nelson wanted to be completely obedient, so he and his wife started taking Mandarin lessons. A while later he found himself sitting next to a doctor from China at a doctor's conference and was able to impress him with some of the Mandarin he'd learned. It led to a lot of doors being opened for relations between the Church and the Chinese government. So he reminded us that we should all be strictly obedient, and should take our language learning seriously.

Well, time is short today as we have the Temple in a few hours and we all need to get ready. I love you lots and pray for you often.

Lots of love,

Elder Loffhagen

Dear Mum and Dad,

This has been a fun week. Very busy, but fun nonetheless.

I have as of yet not had my steak with President Van Dam. I'm not exactly sure when he will arrange that with me, but I expect it'll be closer to Mission Conference, which is in about three weeks.

Sounds like Bournemouth was a lot of fun. It's nice to know the weather was good where you are. Summer is certainly on the way here - it's getting very, very hot. Remembering last summer when I walked around in the heat for up to eight hours a day, I'm not really anticipating the full heat of the season, but there's not much that can be done to avoid it - I'm hoping that it will rain, soon, and cool things down a little for a few days.

Today is Moves day, but Elder Marshall and I are staying together. This will be his very last move, so he's going to "die" and I'll "kill" him. It ought to be fun - over a year ago, I "killed" his trainer too. I like the poetic justice there. More poetic justice is soon arriving as Elder Bagley, my old companion (who I trained) moves into our District. So he'll probably be around to see me "die" next Move. I saw him born and he will see me die.

A lot of unexpected things are happening around the mission this Moves. The new Mission President, President Chan, will start his service in July, so President Van Dam's getting ready to leave. He's called a missionary in his last move to be a new Assistant, and has called my dear former companion, Elder Liu, to be a Zone Leader. Elder Liu was my junior companion in Macau only three months ago and hadn't been a District Leader yet - we're all speculating that he will be the next Assistant, which doesn't surprise me in the least, as he's one of (if not the) most amazing missionaries I've served around.

This week I had an interesting Pass-Off experience that I think is worth telling. As Zone Leader, I need to do pass-offs with missionaries working towards passing off the Missionary lessons to check their progress. A long time ago, when I was District Leader in Tai Po, I had a pass-off with a new missionary called Elder Nelson. It was his first move, and on his second attempt I passed him off.

When I came to Kwai Fong this Move, over half a year later, I found that he hadn't progressed any further in his pass-offs, because the district leader after I'd left had been very strict with him and he'd decided he didn't really want to try any more. I encouraged him to push forward with his pass offs, because I know he's a good teacher and that his Chinese is very good. So now at the end of this Move, he had passed off the second and third lesson and was ready for his Zone Leader checkup pass-off.

As we sat talking about it before we started, I asked him which lesson he felt was the hardest to teach. He said that the second lesson, the Plan of Salvation, was hardest when teaching missionaries in pass-offs, but the first lesson, the Restoration, was hardest when teaching real people. I thought that the difference was interesting and was reminded that pass-off lessons are never the same as real lessons. All at once, a prompting came to my mind.

"How about this," I asked, "why don't we go out on the street, stop a person, you can teach the Restoration, and that can count as your pass-off?"

Elder Nelson agreed, so off we went. We hadn't walked very far before I started to doubt myself - could we actually stop someone in such a short period of time? I've wandered around for hours without any success before - such a short period of time to find in, only fifteen minutes, might not yield results, and I would have wasted Elder Nelson's pass-off time. I told him that if we hadn't stopped anyone before we reached the top of a set of stairs we were walking up, we'd sit down in the shade of a tree and he could teach me a lesson on a bench.

Right then we met with a girl in her twenties heading off to university in Tsing Yi, Elder Nelson's current area. Unlike most Hong Kong people, it wasn't that difficult to convince her that she had time to stop, and I felt a special spirit in her. Elder Nelson taught her a Restoration which was a little more in depth than we usually have time to go over on the street, and she responded positively. We exchanged contact details and I passed her number over to the Sister Missionaries.

Elder Nelson did a good job, so I passed him, but I think I was even happier about the way the pass-off went than he was - I had felt a prompting of the Spirit and acted on it, and as a result, instead of teaching a practice lesson, we'd both had the chance to bear testimony of the First Vision to a prepared soul, and we had been able to invite someone to come unto Christ.

Yesterday I received a copy of a biographical DVD about President Monson I ordered entitled On the Lord's Errand. On the back of the DVD case is a quote which from President Monson which says, to paraphrase, "The sweetest experience I know is to follow a prompting of the Spirit and later find out that I was acting as an answer to someone's prayer or someone's need. I want the Lord to know that if there is an errand He needs run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him." I want the same to be said of Matt Loffhagen.

On an unrelated topic, the other day I met an older Chinese man on the street who said he was from Leeds. I was thrilled to hear that and told him that I'd be starting at Leeds University this coming October. He said that his son is attending that university right now. I was happy to hear that there will definitely be a lot of Chinese people around for me to chat with after the mission - I definitely don't want to forget Cantonese.

Anyway, I love you all and pray hard about each one of you. When you see them, please say thank you to Grandma and Grandad, who have sent me a birthday card.

Love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Dear family,

On a practical level, I have more than enough shirts for the rest of my mission now, thank you :)

Nice to hear that the week went well.

This past week has been very busy. I've been on three exchanges with other missionaries. The first, last Friday/Saturday, was Elder Kwok, an old companion of mine, who is currently a district leader in Tsing Yi, a small island next to Kwai Fong. We had a lot of fun together - it was clear to me that we'd both grown a lot since the six weeks we'd spent together. Back then, I was a relatively inexperienced new senior companion, and he was in his second Move. We taught some very good lessons together, and I got to see him working well with his district, which was good to see.

Because Elder Marshall went back to visit Macau last Sunday, I was with another Elder called Elder Fulmizi for Sunday and Monday. He is relatively newer in the field, having been out for seven or eight months, but he is very bold and active in finding. It was an interesting exchange.

Finally, on Tuesday I went with the brand new Elder Wong. Elder Wong's situation is very special - he's from Canada and as such speaks fluent Cantonese. He's training to be a doctor, but somehow it was arranged for him to come to Hong Kong for just one month in between years at school for a unique mission experience. He's really great, and I had a good time going with him on Tuesday - especially because he had to go to Wan Chai on Hong Kong island to renew his permanent Hong Kong ID card, so I got to take him there and show him around the beautiful Wan Chai church building, which is one of the most expensive (and impressive) Church buildings in the world. Hong Kong island is my favourite part of Hong Kong - it's so busy and exciting and shiny and full of unique, interesting people. We were on the MTR (the Hong Kong version of the Underground) and a man was staring at our nametags - not that uncommon. I said, "Leih Hou" and he responded "Konichiwa" (or however you spell it) which is Japanese for the same thing - "Hello". It turns out that he was from Japan on holiday here for a week. This is the kind of fun multiculturalism that makes the Island so much fun.

Incidentally, on the train ride home, a sister came up to us who is a member of the Aberdeen ward, which is the ward next to my old area of West Point.

I'm trying to be secretive about getting my language legend for the moment - and succeeded until yesterday to keep it a secret from Elder Cope, the Elder you spoke to on Sunday. I guess he thought I was joking when I talked about it up until yesterday. One of the "prizes" for getting language legend is that President and Sister Van Dam cheng me out (that's missionary Chenglish slang) to a restaurant of my choice. When I heard about this, I decided to swear an oath of sorts (but not a real one) that the next steak I eat will be the one President Van Dam buys for me. So now having achieved my Legend, I'm greatly anticipating this. It's too bad, therefore, that a wonderful member from the adjacent Tsuen Wan ward (who is pretty well off, as he's head of the Hasbro toys distribution for Asia) is chenging pretty much all of the missionaries in Kowloon West to lunch at a place called Outback Steakhouse today. Curses! While technically, I've achieved my legend, so I'm allowed to eat steak again, the condition was that I would have that first steak with President Van Dam. So as not to spoil the moment, I think I'll have to order chicken today instead.

A little incidental story about a cheng out in Macau - a very rich member family called the Tangs took all of the missionaries in Macau out to dinner in a nice restaurant, which was also fairly cheap. They told us all to pick our meals, and most of the Elders and Sisters went for meals that cost MOP20 (which is about £2 - such is the approximate price of a normal meal eaten out at a restaurant here) but I found myself incredibly tempted by the look of the rack of ribs, which cost a whopping MOP70 (£7)! When Brother Tang asked me what I wanted, I said, "I don't really want to tell you. It's too expensive." "Well what is it?" he asked, and I showed him the ribs. "That's not expensive!" He said, "You're from England! Everything in England is so expensive! I think that's a pretty cheap way to feed a missionary from your country!" And so, I felt a little awkward chomping down on a huge rack of ribs as everyone else casually enjoyed their noodles.

Let's hope your son doesn't develop a reputation as a leech.

Anyway, enough about food. This next Friday is Zone Conference, and Elder Marshall and I have been preparing hard to make sure that it's a memorable experience for everybody. Every Move has a theme, and we made this Move's theme "There's Treasure Everywhere", encouraging the missionaries to go out and find the "treasure" of prepared souls. This theme actually came from a Calvin and Hobbes comic, where Calvin's digging in the back garden for buried treasure. Hobbes asks him what he's found and he says "two rocks and this weird root." Hobbes says "Wow! All that treasure on your first try?" And Calvin says, "There's treasure everywhere!" The idea we're trying to get across is that they can find prepared people and see miracles every day, but it's not always going to be what we're expecting - we need to look hard to find the everyday miracles that God blesses us with to make our days a little smoother.

Because the Mission Focus is partly on the Book of Mormon, we've decided to show everyone a film called How Rare a Possession. I don't know if you've seen it - it's about an Italian pastor who finds a Book of Mormon in a rubbish bin that is missing its front cover and title page, so he doesn't know what the book is called. He begins preaching from it at the pulpit, and when the other church leaders threaten to expel him from the church if he doesn't burn the book, he chooses to leave the order and begin a search for the true church who teach of this book. He finds it, but the outbreak of war stops him from being able to leave his home in Sicily. He writes letters to Church leaders over several decades, pleading for someone with the authority of God to come to baptize him. Finally, it is arranged and he is thrilled. The final scene of the film is of him making his way inside the Switzerland Temple, and a General Authority speaks about how so many of us overlook the great treasure that is the Book of Mormon.

Anyway, time is almost up. I love you all.

Elder Loffhagen

Dear Mum and Dad,

Time is limited because we could only get the email time for one hour, so Elder Marshall and I are sharing it - half an hour each.

Time is moving by really fast - I can't believe another week has passed already. A lot of exciting things happened this week.

Last Sunday was Stake Conference, held at the large Ho Man Tin Chapel which is our stake centre here. It felt to me more like General Conference than anything else - with the choir up on the stand and the camera recording the meeting so that it could be broadcast to other rooms (because of the lack of space here, chapels have a tendency to go up instead of out).

Strange to hear that Chris is going to be done so soon. It sounds like he loves his mission field just as much as I love mine - although it does worry me that he's in such a rush to get back there. I hope he hasn't found himself a girl whilst up there; that's the only reason I could see to dash back up as soon as quickly...

...just in case you're wondering, such temptations are not clouding my own judgement about coming back to China.

Personally, I'm not in the least bit worried about swine flu. And the more time I spend away from all media influences, the more I realise that the British press does love to blow things out of proportion just to sell a newspaper. Nine times out of ten, these things blow over, and on the rare occaison that all the plagues, wars and rumours of wars actually amount to something, it's just a friendly reminder to be humble, repent and get ready for the storm.

I am crawling ever closer to my Language Legend award, and rumours seem to have spread far. While talking with one of the Assistants last Sunday night, I asked if there was anything I could do for him, and he said, "Just get your language legend for me, that'll do." Again, another of the office staff encouraged me when he (Elder Lee, the Housing Coordinator) came to inspect our flat this past week.

I've passed off the three thousand characters and the Book of Mormon (which I still read a chapter of in Chinese every day, but it's getting tougher now because I'm in the "Isaiah barrier") and have translated a General Conference talk by President Monson from English to Chinese and back again. All that's left is the annoying little MVP, which I'll be tested on tomorrow. I feel that I know it pretty well, so I'm not too worried - and if I don't pass, there's another chance the week after that. As frustrating as it's been to get so close and have the qualification changed right in front of me, I'm glad that I get the chance to learn more vocabulary - even if some words are a little pointless, ie Pansy (Saam Sik Ji Loh Laahn) or William Tyndale (Wai Lam Ding Douh Yih), neither of which tend to come up in the casual conversation with Chinese people - nor in English for that matter. And I refuse to learn the full word for Oregano (Mah Yuk Laahn Heung Chou) on the grounds that I don't know what it is in English, let alone in Chinese - but just in case, I learned the way to say it in characters (Ngauh Ji) which is much easier and probably more helpful.

Time is almost up - I'm sorry this email has been so short. I love you all and pray for your safety and happiness. Pray that I will pass my legend test tomorrow.

Elder 羅

Dear Mum and Dad,

Apologies for speaking too much about coming home. I can assure you that I'm very much enjoying my time here. My problem is more like Mum's nightmares about going back to school before you've broken up for summer rather than anything. I'll put it in the back of my mind and just enjoy the next little while. It doesn't help that in Mission Conference on Tuesday, I saw some of my friends from my older group give their "dying testimonies" as they prepare to go home in three weeks. But not to worry - consider the issue dropped.

As far as the XBox goes, I believe that you got the super Dixons insurance for it. You're going to want to get it to them soon, though, because you bought it April of 2006, so the three year warranty ends any day now. The papers for it were in the middle drawer in what was my bedside table. Good luck getting it fixed - it would be a big mah faahn to have to buy a new one.

The Temple sounds wonderful. I'm looking forward to our Temple session, which will be later today. We're really blessed here to have such a blessing so close - especially after seeing Mongolian and Cambodian Saints crossing the continent on trains to get here for the blessings of the Temple, I'm thankful that we Hong Kong Missionaries can go every six weeks.

A lot happened over the past week - it was one of the busiest of my mission so far. Since last Thursday, I had my interview with President Van Dam, exchanges with the Assistants, Mission Conference and a few planned service acts. Lots of fun.

President Van Dam said in the interview that it's fine if I call you a week early, which would be the 3rd of May, right? If I call at 10:00pm my time, it should be 3:00 in the afternoon for you - will that be okay?

We also talked in the interview about goals and plans for after the mission - that was President Van Dam's topic with all of the missionaries for interviews this time around. I guess that kind of goes against what I just said about not talking about going home, so I'll just give you the highlight. I mentioned my goal of being married and raising a family, and President Van Dam jumped on it (as apparently he has done with most missionaries) and asked "Do you think you've met your wife yet?" I responded with a definite "No." So in case you were wondering, I wasn't dating anyone seriously before the mission - if I had been, you can be assured that you'd be the first to know. In fact, hearing all the tragedies I've heard from other Elders about Dear Johns and other such problems, I'm very glad I chose not to. But all the Elders here enjoy hearing the story of the time Bishop Terry challenged me to date 20 girls before I left, and how I didn't actually make it past 5.

The exchange with the Assistants to the President was a lot of fun. I'd previously casually mentioned to Elder Weagel, who was a good friend in the MTC and current Assistant, that one thing I'd always wanted to do on my mission was sleep overnight in the Temple - as the Mission Office is for the moment located inside the Temple. I suspect that the overnight exchange was arranged to help me with this goal. But either way, it was fun and a good learning experience. I saw the Mission Office in a very different light when those lights were turned off and it became a normal study room instead. I also found myself very thankful to not have served in the Office myself - the jobs to be done; especially the job of Distribution Centre Manager, currently being filled by Elder Chan from Sollihul; look really boring - lots of sitting around and waiting for things to do. Elder Weagel and I were out finding in the rain for most of the day, though, which was fine. We had some good success.

Mission Conference was fun, but everyone was a little sad because only half of the Mission was in attendance. Our unique method of having Mission Conference - ie having it once every Moves period - is not the Church standard method and as such has raised some concerns with Elder Watson of the Asia Area Presidency, who has requested that we do things a more traditional way to fit in with how things work in missions that take up a larger geographical area. As such, President Van Dam has shown us all a great example of obedience by splitting Mission Conference over two days, with only half the mission in attendance each day. While it seems a little pointless, I've ultimately decided that it's better to be obedient to something that seems a little unnecessary than to be disobedient. I'm willing to follow President Van Dam's example and enjoy the fact that we're allowed to at least have some kind of Mission Conference still.

It was a good conference - the theme was "It Shall Be Done". We watched a film which we'd watched a year ago, about a one-armed man and a blue vase. He's given a hard, somewhat pointless assignment but he does everything in his power to get it done anyway. The parallels between the film and our half-Mission Conference seem very clear now. I'm thankful for President Van Dam and the wonderful way that he leads us by example.

The new white shirts fitted fine - thank you very much for them. There is actually a Marks and Spencers here in our Zone which we walked past the other day on the way to the Tsing Yi chapel for a baptismal interview. A white shirt there is $98HK, which I don't think is very worth it. So thank you for sending me shirts so that I didn't need to go buy any new ones.

Camera shopping was fun but tiring. In the end, after toying with it for a while, I bought the cheapest option available; which was not a Sony. I got home and explored it and quickly learned a valuable lesson - while not spending too much is important, when there are purchases that need to be made, quality should not be compromised just for a cheaper price. The camera's fine, but it's no where near as clear as my Sony was. I can't help thinking that if I'd just spent $100HK more for the Casio camera, I would have been a lot more satisfied. But there's nothing really wrong with the one I have now, so it'll do. But next time I'll be sure to spend the money for a quality product when it's nessesary.

By the way, the word "Pocketbook" came from Star Wars Episode II. You may be interested to know that the other day, I was testing out an umbrella before going outside. I member walked it - this particular member is one of those many Chinese people who take pride in their English - and told me that it was bad luck in China to open an umbrella indoors. I responded in Chinese that it's bad luck in England too, but I don't care much for "luck". She then said, in English, "I don't believe you are from England." Well that's interesting, I thought to myself, as she hadn't heard me speak English yet. I therefore told her, in English, that yes, I definately was from England, but she still didn't believe me. Out came my Driver's Licence, and we both read the words "United Kingdom" very clearly on it. That seemed to satisfy her, but apparently her argument came from the fact that I sound different to relatives she has who live in Newcastle. Whether or not I've picked up an American twang, we can at least be thankful that I don't sound like Chris probably does by now.

Anyway, time is up. I love you.

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Happy Easter!

Dear Mum and Dad,

Yes, a big happy Easter to everyone, and a big thank you for the Easter package that I received the day before yesterday. It was wonderful, although I almost didn't open it because I was afraid it was a birthday package. Then Elder Cope pointed out that it said to open it on the outside, so I did. I shared the Cream Eggs with the other Elders in the flat, who noted the difference between the American version and the proper British one - the home grown eggs are a lot more rich and don't taste like wax.

As far as my birthday comes, and in light of the talk by Elder Hales (I think) at the beginning of the Saturday Morning session of Conference, I think a very good idea would be not to go too nuts. I'm about to hit a large period of debt, so I don't think I want to worry too much about buying lots of things. I propose that you don't put any more money in my account while I'm on my mission, because I'm sure I can get by on what I have. I have a far smaller desire to go crazy buying expensive toys before I leave Hong Kong - better to save the money. Now I have to ask myself as I buy everything, do I need it, or do I only want it? That said, after plans suddenly changed last week we didn't go camera shopping, so we're going today. If I see a cheap enough iPod Touch, I may not be able to control myself.

Elder Cope bought a second hand 32gig iPod Touch for $2000hk, which I hear is a good deal. I don't want to throw $2000 into any purchase right now though, not even a camera. Luckily because Hong Kong apparently doesn't have sales tax on electronics, it's cheaper to get good tech here than in Macau, so with luck I won't need all the money you've put into my account. We can just call that my Birthday present.

I have interviews with President Van Dam tomorrow so I'll ask him about phoning home a week early. This will be my penultimate interview with him, as he goes home in July. It'll be sad to see him go, and I've heard that he and Sister Van Dam are dreading it as much as I am. They've been booked for some babysitting in September already!

After Conference, I made a big long list of goals as a result of what I had learned. I decided, after Elder Bednar's talk, that I have a to increase my Temple attendance when I go home, and go more often than every six weeks. That's not easy, considering the distance of travel involved, so I've decided that I need to get my full driver's license and a car of my own in order to do so - I don't want to have to rely on anyone else for rides to and from the Temple. While it'll be a big sacrifice in time and money, I think it's essential if I want the Lord's guidance as I go through university. While I did just mention that debt is bad for me and I should avoid unnessesary expenses, I think that driving is fairly essential (more so than an iPod touch or a new DS).

As I continued making my list - including Home Teaching, member missionary work and other things, it occurred to me that there really isn't enough time to do everything that's required of me. This mindset really did worry me for a while as I added up all of the things I need to do and weighed into balance my ability to do them. I'm definitely lacking. So I spent a lot of time studying President Eyring's talk from last General Conference, which talks about this very problem and has all new meaning to me as I think about how getting off the mission means an increase of work to do, not a decrease. It's really, very easy as a missionary. It just increases my growing fear of coming home. But I guess it's one of those Adam and Eve kind of things. In the mission field, life is good and simple and happy, but there's only so much I can progress here. I need to choose my new trials and challenges for myself rather than run from difficulty - only as I do this can I progress. I've said to others many times that if I had the choice of staying on my mission forever, I think I'd probably say yes. But looking at it from the Adam and Eve perspective, I remember that being a missionary is not enough to gain exaltation. There's more trials ahead of me and I can't hide from them, nor can I hide from the world. I just need to be sure that I don't let the world drag me down - I need to maintain a missionary mindset outside of the mission field. I'm not sure how easy that will be, but I'm going to need to give it a spin.

Sometimes these email sessions are a way for me to think things through as I type out my thoughts. Sorry if that got a little too ponderous.

Yesterday I had my Language Legend pass off. It was structured very differently - after all, I was doing it with a different person, Sister Au, who is a native. She was a little tougher than Elder Carter and my last attempt - she tested me on 300 character and would only allow me to miss 12, whereas Elder Carter tested me on 450 and let me miss 10%. Thankfully, if I didn't quite remember the sound or tone, she would give me a second chance. Ultimately, I missed 12 and then remembered one of them at the end. So I scraped through the character test. I also read the Book of Mormon with her and passed that too. But I didn't know the MVP well enough (which is fair enough, because I didn't think I did but figured I'd give it a try) and so I still have one little challenge to pass. Mission Conference is next Wednesday, so my day of glory will need to wait for until next time - now I only have one more Mission Conference with President Van Dam in which I can get the Legend award. So I'm going to work hard to get it done. Having gone through the section of the book that I'm tested on, I've found that I'm missing about 500 words from the book that I need to learn, which isn't that much when you consider that I already know a few thousand of them. But vocabulary has always been my weakest point to my Chinese, because I find it very hard to learn vocab (as it's all sounds) whilst character cards were relatively easy (because it's all pictures, which is how my mind works). So we'll see how long it'll take, but I want it done by the end of the Move.

Anyway, time is running out. I love you all. You are in my prayers. I'll do my absolute best not to go nuts buying a camera today. It'll probably be cheaper to buy a non-Sony and new memory sticks than to buy another Sony camera, so today might be the end of the long hold that Sony has had on my pocketbook. We shall see.

Lots of love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen

Adjusting to Hong Kong

Dear Mum and Dad,

As we all sit around emailing together in the smokey, noisy, dimly lit gaming arcade that is our only real option for internet access here, the five of us missionaries are sharing the news we're getting from our families about General Conference, which we are very much anticipating. Elder Cope's parents told him that the messages are very bold, encouraging us to be a covenant people. Elder Marshall's family say that Elder Holland's talk is powerful. I told them all that a new X-Men film is coming out soon.

Not that I'm criticizing - I just thought it was funny. You also talked about General Conference, so don't think I'm poking fun or anything.

This past week I've felt a little like a new missionary again - I'm having to readjust to the busy, fast paced life of Hong Kong. Ironically, while life is faster paced, missionary work is slower. Finding and teaching in Macau was very easy - I've been describing it as the "South America" of our mission, because when I was finding there I really did feel like I was shooting fish in a barrel. But back in Hong Kong, it's not quite so simple. But to quote Dad's favourite story, "This is good." Here I can learn and grow at a much faster rate, and the lessons I've learned in Macau have prepared me to come home to Hong Kong and go about things with added and increased zeal and desire to serve. So I'm looking forward to my time here and my opportunity to do my part in Kwai Fong.

The names you listed from Google Maps sound familiar, but I'm not completely suk sik (I can't remember how to say that in English, so I figured I'd use Chinese and hope you get the idea) with my new area yet. It seems nice, though - quiet but busy. There's a little bit of every flavour of China that I've found in my previous areas.

Speaking of Google maps, actually I discovered this street view thingy yesterday. We were at the Temple for a leadership meeting and afterwards Elder Matthew Chan, the only other British Elder in the mission who is currently serving in the office as the Distribution Centre Manager, showed me. He showed me his house and took me on a little tour of some English countryside. We tried home, and then the Reading Chapel, but neither seemed to work - now I know why; they haven't done it yet. Hearing from you about how the media has convinced people that this technology is bad makes me cringe - it would be absolutely impossible for Google to have 24 hour real time cameras pinned on every single house in the nation - in the world, even. But such is life. Personally I think it's amazing and will make finding directions to things even easier.

I've been recently brought to the realisation that the world has continued on without me. Being on a mission is like being in a time capsule for two years - I realized the other day that things I'd been doing a few weeks before the mission, and my entire life back home, happened two years ago. The newest Elder in my District, Elder Cope, has a 32gig iPod Touch, which he bought here in Kwai Fong for $2000HK second hand (which was a pretty good price before the pound crashed, but is now around £180) and I have to say that this "new" piece of technology is absolutely incredible. While it's not exactly being used to its full potential right now, as he's only using it as an MP3 player, it's undeniably very cool. But the last thing I need is to waste money on tech - especially as I anticipate what will no doubt be a very rocky period of student debt coming in the near future. The nice thing about a mission is that I've learned to comfortably live out of a suitcase without modern gizmos - although I am going to go buy a new camera later today. That's a somewhat essential piece of missionary technology. But I'll try and get the cheapest I can. Considering that all of my memory sticks are Sony, though, I may be out of luck if I don't want to buy all new memory for the camera. But if it's cheaper, I'll just do that. I really don't want to waste too much money, and I know that £100 is a lot for you to part with all at one time for such a trivial expense.

Good to know that Tim's doing well, and that Jess is being loved. Please thank Julian the next time you see him, and apologize that I haven't replied to his last letter - it's written but not yet in the post box. Also when you see Chris after he gets back, again, apologize that I haven't replied to his last letter. I think he'll understand.

Pretty much all letters and correspondence between myself and anyone back home has ceased, almost entirely because a little while before I went to Macau, I decided that I really didn't care anymore. I can talk to people in a few more months. This probably isn't the best lahm faat (what's that in English? Way of thinking?) but Elder Ng told me that he got to be the same way when he was about the same time through his mission. One of the Sisters who were in my MTC group, and who served in my District when I was District Leader for the first time, Sister Corbridge, sent me a wedding invitation a few months back. She gets married to some nice man in three days, but I've also not gotten round to writing and congratulating them.

Monday the 4th will be fine for the call. But would that not put things right in the middle of school/work time? Or I could call in the morning (your morning)? I found out recently that Elder Ng had asked President Van Dam for permission to call on the British Mothers' Day instead of the American one, which is what Elder Chan has done, so actually we had permission all along, which I didn't know or even consider. I wish I'd known that sooner, but it's a little late now.

Well, time is running out. I love you all. Tell Tim to keep up the good work, keep doing the right thing, and keep repenting when necessary. I'm very, very proud of him. Tell Jess a similar thing, with an added emphasis on how much I love her and want her to choose the right. Also mention that I know a lot of single, attractive Return Missionaries who speak Chinese, should she be interested in their email addresses. If you see Beth, tell her I love her and that she's in my prayers.

Love,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen