Dear Mum and Dad,
Happy Chinese New Year! I've had quite an eventful week - but first, it's good to know that I have an option for Universities. We'll hold off before making a final decision for the moment.
So last Sunday was Sister W's baptism. She was absolutely thrilled; she's been waiting for baptism for a long time now. I maintain that she was ready to jump into the fountain in the park where Elder Liu found her and be baptized right then and there when he first met her - that very day she told him how desperately she wanted to be baptized. As we went to their house to teach them the lessons, she was thrilled to discover that this was God's true church, with His Priesthood authority and the proper form of baptism. She loves the Book of Mormon, and reads it to her children. Two of the most exciting things for her on Sunday was that the Branch gave her a Triple combination as a present - she was so desperate for a copy of the Doctrine and Covenants - and she was also thrilled that her two boys, J Y and J G will be baptized in two weeks' time. She is so happy, and although they don't really understand everything - they're only 10 and 8 - in some ways I feel that they grasp the gospel better than their parents do. So we're all looking forward to their baptism in two weeks.
Monday was the first day of Chinese New Year, and the streets were dead. Nobody was in Macau - they've all gone to visit their ancestral villages. We took the day to have our flat's Deep Clean, which is a traditional Chinese annual clean of the house, making it clean and tidy, ready for the new year and washing away any pesky bad luck that might be hanging around in the apartment. In the evening we tried a little tracting, but it didn't go too well. Most people weren't home, and those who were home were busy having a huge family dinner.
Wednesday was the Mission's yearly trip to Big Buddha, the world's biggest outside bronze statue of a sitting Buddha. Early Tuesday morning we left for Hong Kong, hoping to beat the holiday rush by going across as soon as possible. We did so, and with nothing to do for the entire day (normally we would have had our Temple day, but the Temple was closed because of New Year) so we had some study and just spent the day at the Mission Home.
In the evening we went to Tsim Sha Tsui to watch the New Year fireworks in the Hong Kong harbour. So did most of the rest of Hong Kong. There were thousands of people there, and we foud ourselves complately surrounded by a sea of black hair on all sides. The fireworks were beautiful, even though our view wasn't the best, and it was a fun experience.
The next day we went up to Big Buddha. I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot more this year than last year. Last year I spilt soup down myself, was freezing cold and went down the mountain very soon. This year I was wearing far too much clothes and ended up taking off my coat, hoodie, jumper and extra T-shirt in favour of hiking up Lantau peak, the second highest peak in Hong Kong, wearing just a T-shirt. And I was still rather hot.
When we were almost at the top, we hit the clouds, and everything around us disappeared. It was really fun - we stayed up for a while and enjoyed the company of pretty much every other Missionary - the climb wasn't particularly strenuous so almost everybody made the climb. I was among the first to make it up, and was at the lead of my group. as I climbed up the last few steps to the top, I discovered Sister Kap, the Senior Sister here in Macau, casually resting after having made the climb incredibly fast. That's not much of a surprise, nor is it the first time it's happened - one time we were exercising in the morning by running a huge reserviour close to our flat when we spotted Sister Kap working out on some public exercise equipment by the side of the water. She then took off running and completely outstripped us.
After a little while enjoying the peak, myself, Elder Liu and a few others decided to take the long way home - walking several miles across the mountain range back to the train station. It was much better than the trip up Lantau Peak - miles of climbing up and down mountains with a beautiful view and some very steep stairs bridging across canyons and gorges - it was like a mini, wooden Great Wall of China. That I think was the best part of the day, and we got home tired, grimy and triumphant. I woke up this morning aching in several places, very fuzzy after having not shaved yesterday, and very thankful for preparation day. I took a two hour nap to try and regain some energy (one of very few naps that I've taken on my mission because I hate wasting time) and am now feeling better. Certainly it was good exercise yesterday!
And so with all that's happened in the past week, I haven't actually done any real finding since Saturday. I'm looking forward to getting back into it tonight, but for the moment we're going to relax and try to rebuild our strength a bit first.
Anyway, happy new year everyone.
Lots of love
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Tired and fat right now - 15th email from Macau
Dear family,
We all just had a huge MacDonalds party. I just ate six cheeseburgers, so I'm very uncomfortable and losing consciousness, so this email may not be the most fluent of all time.
I'm sure that you'll be receiving a letter soon from President Van Dam telling you of my date to come home. I picked it last week but it slipped my mind to tell you last Preparation Day. I'll be boarding the plane on the 7th of August, so I have a little over six months left. I'm looking forward to the next half a year of service, but honestly not really looking forward to returning home. Work and school and all the hassle of life and the distractions of TV and computer games - I'd really rather not ever come home. But Mum, I did promise you that I'd come back eventually, so I will keep that promise. I look forward to seeing you on around the 8th of August.
This past week has been good. We've enjoyed a lot of success and seeing a lot of our good investigators move closer to baptism. We've been working with the W family for some time now and are going to baptize Sister W this coming Sunday. She has asked me to perform the baptism, which caught me by surprise a little bit. But I'm happy to do so, so I'll be donning the whites for the second time this coming Sunday.
Chinese new year is upon us, and it's very interesting to see how they are preparing for it in Macau. Last year on Hong Kong Island, the busiest part of Hong Kong, there wasn't all that much of a difference. There were decorations up and on the first day of the holiday, the shops opened a few hours later than usual. Macau, however, is notorious for being absolutely useless for missionary work during the holiday, and we've seen a fair amount of that. A lot of investigators and members are going for extended holidays to their ancestral villages in the Mainland and a lot more Mandarin-speaking Mainlanders are coming down for the holiday period. It's an interesting switch, but it makes things a little slower for us. Good thing that next week we'll be in Hong Kong for most of the main celebration days, because we have Mission Conference. Instead of a Conference, though, we're going to have an activity where we go to Big Buddha, a giant metal statue on top of a mountain. We went last year, too, and the whole thing is just a tourist trap disguised as a monastery. So it should be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we won't have a Temple day this Moves because the Temple will be closed for New Year.
But we will have a Temple day right at the end of the Move, when we go back to Hong Kong for a special Missionary meeting with Russell M Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve. He's coming to rearrange a stake in the New Territories and has called a special Missionary meeting, so Macau will be attending again. This means, however, that there won't be a Mission Conference next Moves, which is unfortunate because it means I won't get the chance to receive my language recognition for a while - my goal is set that I will be a language legend before the end of the Moves. We'll see how this goes, but I'm confident that I can push for it.
The challenge involves learning 3,000 Chinese Characters, including a lot that natives don't even use, so in many ways I've been questioning the usefulness of the test, but I'm too far through now to quit. I know about 2,100. Another part of the test is being able to read the entire Book of Mormon. I was talking with Elder Liu yesterday and told him that I didn't know if I could do this very successfully. I opened up the book at a random place and started reading, to show him how much I didn't yet know. To my complete surprise, I read the entire verse fluently. I opened up the book again in a random place and read two more verses without missing a character. This is particularly surprising because a few months ago I tried reading my way through the Book of Mormon and found that I couldn't do it very well - I didn't know enough characters. Now it seems that I'm doing a lot better. I'm feeling fairly confident about my chances for language legend.
When President Van Dam interviewed me to give me my departure date, he asked me if I was starting to get an idea yet why I was sent to this mission. I'm not really sure still. Considering all of the missionaries that go from England to England, why did God send me to the other side of the world? It certainly is a wonderful experience, and one that I'm very thankful for, but I still wonder sometimes why I was chosen to come here. I expect that in the Spirit World, we'll get to ask about these things and I can find out - but for the moment I'll just be content to enjoy my time here.
Happy Birthday to Jessie - I hope it goes well. Also, please send Chris my love via his mum.
Lots of love to everyone,
Elder Matt Loffhagen
We all just had a huge MacDonalds party. I just ate six cheeseburgers, so I'm very uncomfortable and losing consciousness, so this email may not be the most fluent of all time.
I'm sure that you'll be receiving a letter soon from President Van Dam telling you of my date to come home. I picked it last week but it slipped my mind to tell you last Preparation Day. I'll be boarding the plane on the 7th of August, so I have a little over six months left. I'm looking forward to the next half a year of service, but honestly not really looking forward to returning home. Work and school and all the hassle of life and the distractions of TV and computer games - I'd really rather not ever come home. But Mum, I did promise you that I'd come back eventually, so I will keep that promise. I look forward to seeing you on around the 8th of August.
This past week has been good. We've enjoyed a lot of success and seeing a lot of our good investigators move closer to baptism. We've been working with the W family for some time now and are going to baptize Sister W this coming Sunday. She has asked me to perform the baptism, which caught me by surprise a little bit. But I'm happy to do so, so I'll be donning the whites for the second time this coming Sunday.
Chinese new year is upon us, and it's very interesting to see how they are preparing for it in Macau. Last year on Hong Kong Island, the busiest part of Hong Kong, there wasn't all that much of a difference. There were decorations up and on the first day of the holiday, the shops opened a few hours later than usual. Macau, however, is notorious for being absolutely useless for missionary work during the holiday, and we've seen a fair amount of that. A lot of investigators and members are going for extended holidays to their ancestral villages in the Mainland and a lot more Mandarin-speaking Mainlanders are coming down for the holiday period. It's an interesting switch, but it makes things a little slower for us. Good thing that next week we'll be in Hong Kong for most of the main celebration days, because we have Mission Conference. Instead of a Conference, though, we're going to have an activity where we go to Big Buddha, a giant metal statue on top of a mountain. We went last year, too, and the whole thing is just a tourist trap disguised as a monastery. So it should be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we won't have a Temple day this Moves because the Temple will be closed for New Year.
But we will have a Temple day right at the end of the Move, when we go back to Hong Kong for a special Missionary meeting with Russell M Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve. He's coming to rearrange a stake in the New Territories and has called a special Missionary meeting, so Macau will be attending again. This means, however, that there won't be a Mission Conference next Moves, which is unfortunate because it means I won't get the chance to receive my language recognition for a while - my goal is set that I will be a language legend before the end of the Moves. We'll see how this goes, but I'm confident that I can push for it.
The challenge involves learning 3,000 Chinese Characters, including a lot that natives don't even use, so in many ways I've been questioning the usefulness of the test, but I'm too far through now to quit. I know about 2,100. Another part of the test is being able to read the entire Book of Mormon. I was talking with Elder Liu yesterday and told him that I didn't know if I could do this very successfully. I opened up the book at a random place and started reading, to show him how much I didn't yet know. To my complete surprise, I read the entire verse fluently. I opened up the book again in a random place and read two more verses without missing a character. This is particularly surprising because a few months ago I tried reading my way through the Book of Mormon and found that I couldn't do it very well - I didn't know enough characters. Now it seems that I'm doing a lot better. I'm feeling fairly confident about my chances for language legend.
When President Van Dam interviewed me to give me my departure date, he asked me if I was starting to get an idea yet why I was sent to this mission. I'm not really sure still. Considering all of the missionaries that go from England to England, why did God send me to the other side of the world? It certainly is a wonderful experience, and one that I'm very thankful for, but I still wonder sometimes why I was chosen to come here. I expect that in the Spirit World, we'll get to ask about these things and I can find out - but for the moment I'll just be content to enjoy my time here.
Happy Birthday to Jessie - I hope it goes well. Also, please send Chris my love via his mum.
Lots of love to everyone,
Elder Matt Loffhagen
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Good luck with Ofsted! - 14th email from Macau
Dear Mum and Dad,
Thank you so very much for applying for me and getting all of the university stuff sorted. Now the fear of missing the deadline has passed, but I'm now just going to have to wait patiently and hope for the best as far as responses come. Hoping and praying for acceptance!
By the way, please thank Mr Bourne profusely from the bottom of my heart. I'm amazed at how much he managed to think of to say in my support. I'm also amazed at how detailed the records at Herschel must be, as I could see him mentioning specific pieces of work in there. There are a few comments that won't help all that much (such as mentioning that my work wasn't always on time) but I can't really argue with the truth. I just hope that whomever is reading the applications doesn't feel like he's just trying to think up good things to say about a lazy student - in all the talking about "challenging opinions" and "creative views", it could be taken that I just argued with the teachers a lot. Again, not necessarily something I can deny.
Good luck with Ofsted - I'm sure it will go well. Mum, you are a superb teacher - I maintain that you are, in fact, the best teacher in the world.
The language is progressing steadily, but I've not really gotten anywhere with Mandarin. Unfortunate, because we're still without any Mandarin speakers here. I just have too much to do. The final language award, the Language Legend, has only been awarded to a handful of missionaries so far, because it is very difficult, and I'm wondering if it's even worth it, because a knowledge of three thousand characters won't help me much and I could do with working on my spoken Chinese instead. But for the moment I'm still pushing forward.
Good luck to Jess at the YSA dance this Friday - they are completely different to youth dances, Jess, so do your best to meet new friends and have fun :)
Last Sunday we baptised J, our investigator of a few months now. His friend Y performed the baptism, but it was a struggle for him because the font wasn't very full, and J's foot kept coming up. It took four tries but he finally did it and now J is baptised. J bore a solid testimony afterwards, which helped to calm my concerns, because I've always wondered where his testimony actually lies - is it really in God, or is it just in his friends at church and in the future prospect of BYU? But his testimony showed that he did indeed know the Book of Mormon to be true and he was thrilled to be a member of the church. Now the responsibility for him will fall on his friends here, but many of them are also recent converts, so we missionaries will keep a close eye on all of them just in case.
Tuesday and yesterday were adventures - we (the Zone Leaders, the other District leader here and I) went back to Hong Kong for a leadership meeting. It was a lot of fun - Patron Housing, across from the Temple where we usually stay, was packed full of a group from Mongolians. I am very impressed by them - despite being very, very poor, Mongolian Saints come all the way down to Hong Kong very regularly. The group who came featured a lot of missionaries, all of whom are natives to Mongolia and have never been to the Temple before. Part of their MTC experience is a solid week in the Temple as the get endowed and, in one young man's case, sealed to his dead parents. They were all thrilled to see us, and enjoyed speaking English with us as best they could (they spoke pretty good English actually). It was fun to see how great their desire was and how blessed they are by the Hong Kong Temple - it's not close, but it's closer than Taiwan! It's a great blessing to the Asia area, and I'm so thankful that it also happens to be my Mission Home.
Time's running out now. Again, good luck with Ofsted, and good luck to Dad with his counselling course. Very special good luck to Jess at the YSA dance and good luck to Tim in whatever he's up to.
Lots of love,
Elder Loffhagen
Thank you so very much for applying for me and getting all of the university stuff sorted. Now the fear of missing the deadline has passed, but I'm now just going to have to wait patiently and hope for the best as far as responses come. Hoping and praying for acceptance!
By the way, please thank Mr Bourne profusely from the bottom of my heart. I'm amazed at how much he managed to think of to say in my support. I'm also amazed at how detailed the records at Herschel must be, as I could see him mentioning specific pieces of work in there. There are a few comments that won't help all that much (such as mentioning that my work wasn't always on time) but I can't really argue with the truth. I just hope that whomever is reading the applications doesn't feel like he's just trying to think up good things to say about a lazy student - in all the talking about "challenging opinions" and "creative views", it could be taken that I just argued with the teachers a lot. Again, not necessarily something I can deny.
Good luck with Ofsted - I'm sure it will go well. Mum, you are a superb teacher - I maintain that you are, in fact, the best teacher in the world.
The language is progressing steadily, but I've not really gotten anywhere with Mandarin. Unfortunate, because we're still without any Mandarin speakers here. I just have too much to do. The final language award, the Language Legend, has only been awarded to a handful of missionaries so far, because it is very difficult, and I'm wondering if it's even worth it, because a knowledge of three thousand characters won't help me much and I could do with working on my spoken Chinese instead. But for the moment I'm still pushing forward.
Good luck to Jess at the YSA dance this Friday - they are completely different to youth dances, Jess, so do your best to meet new friends and have fun :)
Last Sunday we baptised J, our investigator of a few months now. His friend Y performed the baptism, but it was a struggle for him because the font wasn't very full, and J's foot kept coming up. It took four tries but he finally did it and now J is baptised. J bore a solid testimony afterwards, which helped to calm my concerns, because I've always wondered where his testimony actually lies - is it really in God, or is it just in his friends at church and in the future prospect of BYU? But his testimony showed that he did indeed know the Book of Mormon to be true and he was thrilled to be a member of the church. Now the responsibility for him will fall on his friends here, but many of them are also recent converts, so we missionaries will keep a close eye on all of them just in case.
Tuesday and yesterday were adventures - we (the Zone Leaders, the other District leader here and I) went back to Hong Kong for a leadership meeting. It was a lot of fun - Patron Housing, across from the Temple where we usually stay, was packed full of a group from Mongolians. I am very impressed by them - despite being very, very poor, Mongolian Saints come all the way down to Hong Kong very regularly. The group who came featured a lot of missionaries, all of whom are natives to Mongolia and have never been to the Temple before. Part of their MTC experience is a solid week in the Temple as the get endowed and, in one young man's case, sealed to his dead parents. They were all thrilled to see us, and enjoyed speaking English with us as best they could (they spoke pretty good English actually). It was fun to see how great their desire was and how blessed they are by the Hong Kong Temple - it's not close, but it's closer than Taiwan! It's a great blessing to the Asia area, and I'm so thankful that it also happens to be my Mission Home.
Time's running out now. Again, good luck with Ofsted, and good luck to Dad with his counselling course. Very special good luck to Jess at the YSA dance and good luck to Tim in whatever he's up to.
Lots of love,
Elder Loffhagen
Another email from me - 13th email from Macau
My beloved family,
Apologies if I misspell a lot of words - the keyboard I'm using is really frustrating. Plus perhaps I'm just a little out of practice using a computer.
A very final word on universities from me: Apply for Sheffield, Communications at Leeds, leave Bath Spa in and my first choice is Bournemouth. I have reasons for each of those decisions, but the major one is just guesswork and inspiration. We'll see how things go. Good luck and thank you again!
In other news, this week was fun. Today is Moves, but it doesn't effect us very much because Elder Liu and I are staying together for a third Moves. This is the longest I've ever stayed with a companion; I'm very happy because Elder Liu is one of my favourite companions. He works hard and his Chinese is great, so it's an equal companionship - if anything, I worry that I'm not working hard enough to keep up with him! He assures me that this is not the case.
Very few of the missionaries here in Macau are changing at the moment - just two are moving. But because of problems with visas, half of the missionaries here will have to return to Hong Kong in a few weeks. It's becoming increasingly difficult for anyone to get visas in Macau at the moment - the only Missionaries who are completely safe are Elder Liu and Elder Burk because they have visas, plus now any Hong Kong natives who come, and any Europeans that come here. As far as Europeans in the mission goes, the count stands at two: myself, and Elder Matthew Chan from Solihull.
Not to worry, though, because the Gospel is still going out to the nations of the world. We have an investigator, J, who might be baptised this coming Sunday. Personally, I'm not sure if he's completely prepared, so we're going to let Elder Hardy, the brand new Zone Leader here, decide in J's baptismal interview tonight. I am absolutely thrilled that Elder Hardy has come to Macau, by the way. He is one of my very favourite missionaries - he was in my older group in the MTC.
I'm very much hoping that Jess enjoys her birthday and can go meet some nice RMs at YSA dances. Some advice to you, Jess - go to the YSA conventions and make some new friends there. I didn't go on any before my mission and now think that they might be fun. When I come home we can go together.
I'm reached a perplexing situation. A few weeks ago Tom Morrison emailed me with a news update about my web comic. He told me that all is going well, but that he will run out of comics on the 5th of January. He was asking me what to do - whether I had any others he could put up, or if I had any other ideas. Honestly, I'd pretty much completely forgotten that the comics are even going up every week still, and as I hadn't heard anything in a long time, I'd assumed that perhaps they'd already run out.
After thinking about it a little, I keep remembering the charge in the Missionary Handbook - "You are expected to devote all of your time and attention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs." So perhaps you can let Tom know that I'm very thankful for his help over the past year and a half, but I can't bring myself to go out of my way to get more comics to him, whether by drawing, emailing or anything else. He can sort it out as best he can, but honestly if the website stops completely, I'm not all too bothered about it at the moment.
Please also let him know that I love him, that I'm expecting to hear his Mission call some time soon and that he's in my prayers.
Everyone is getting very excited at the moment because of the promised visit from Russell M Nelson on the 20th of February to Hong Kong to speak to members here. We're all semi-expecting (and certainly hoping) that he'll be calling together a special conference for the Missionaries. I'm going to start thinking of a good question to ask him now, just in case it's a Q&A session like when President Rasband came.
Last week I conducted the most peculiar baptismal interviews of my mission so far. Sister J and M are a mother and son from Mainland China that the Sisters have been teaching. They only speak Mandarin, so church isn't the easiest experience ever for them, but they have a testimony and they're happy to be baptised. The problem is that my Mandarin isn't exactly "jeng" enough to be able to chat with them in the interview particularly fluently. So we had a very special arrangement. Instead of just being completely alone with the baptismal candidate with the door closed, we propped it open a little bit, and Sister Chan (a "CBC" - Canadian Born Chinese) sat in and provided translation for me from Mandarin into Cantonese. It was very bizzarre - and first, we sat as far away form each other as possible with Max as I asked him the questions. Sister C wasn't all that needed with him, because he's only 11, his testimony is simple, he understands Cantonese and he speaks pretty simple Mandarin, so I got the gist of it. He didn't take very long. With Sister J, it was a little trickier. Sister C warned me, "she likes to speak very fast". So I would ask a question in Cantonese, Sister J could understand (more or less) and she would reply in Mandarin. Then Sister C would translate it into Cantonese - which I can understand.
Anyway, they both passed and are now baptised.
Anyway, time is running out. Thank you again for all the university stuff.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
Apologies if I misspell a lot of words - the keyboard I'm using is really frustrating. Plus perhaps I'm just a little out of practice using a computer.
A very final word on universities from me: Apply for Sheffield, Communications at Leeds, leave Bath Spa in and my first choice is Bournemouth. I have reasons for each of those decisions, but the major one is just guesswork and inspiration. We'll see how things go. Good luck and thank you again!
In other news, this week was fun. Today is Moves, but it doesn't effect us very much because Elder Liu and I are staying together for a third Moves. This is the longest I've ever stayed with a companion; I'm very happy because Elder Liu is one of my favourite companions. He works hard and his Chinese is great, so it's an equal companionship - if anything, I worry that I'm not working hard enough to keep up with him! He assures me that this is not the case.
Very few of the missionaries here in Macau are changing at the moment - just two are moving. But because of problems with visas, half of the missionaries here will have to return to Hong Kong in a few weeks. It's becoming increasingly difficult for anyone to get visas in Macau at the moment - the only Missionaries who are completely safe are Elder Liu and Elder Burk because they have visas, plus now any Hong Kong natives who come, and any Europeans that come here. As far as Europeans in the mission goes, the count stands at two: myself, and Elder Matthew Chan from Solihull.
Not to worry, though, because the Gospel is still going out to the nations of the world. We have an investigator, J, who might be baptised this coming Sunday. Personally, I'm not sure if he's completely prepared, so we're going to let Elder Hardy, the brand new Zone Leader here, decide in J's baptismal interview tonight. I am absolutely thrilled that Elder Hardy has come to Macau, by the way. He is one of my very favourite missionaries - he was in my older group in the MTC.
I'm very much hoping that Jess enjoys her birthday and can go meet some nice RMs at YSA dances. Some advice to you, Jess - go to the YSA conventions and make some new friends there. I didn't go on any before my mission and now think that they might be fun. When I come home we can go together.
I'm reached a perplexing situation. A few weeks ago Tom Morrison emailed me with a news update about my web comic. He told me that all is going well, but that he will run out of comics on the 5th of January. He was asking me what to do - whether I had any others he could put up, or if I had any other ideas. Honestly, I'd pretty much completely forgotten that the comics are even going up every week still, and as I hadn't heard anything in a long time, I'd assumed that perhaps they'd already run out.
After thinking about it a little, I keep remembering the charge in the Missionary Handbook - "You are expected to devote all of your time and attention to serving the Lord, leaving behind all other personal affairs." So perhaps you can let Tom know that I'm very thankful for his help over the past year and a half, but I can't bring myself to go out of my way to get more comics to him, whether by drawing, emailing or anything else. He can sort it out as best he can, but honestly if the website stops completely, I'm not all too bothered about it at the moment.
Please also let him know that I love him, that I'm expecting to hear his Mission call some time soon and that he's in my prayers.
Everyone is getting very excited at the moment because of the promised visit from Russell M Nelson on the 20th of February to Hong Kong to speak to members here. We're all semi-expecting (and certainly hoping) that he'll be calling together a special conference for the Missionaries. I'm going to start thinking of a good question to ask him now, just in case it's a Q&A session like when President Rasband came.
Last week I conducted the most peculiar baptismal interviews of my mission so far. Sister J and M are a mother and son from Mainland China that the Sisters have been teaching. They only speak Mandarin, so church isn't the easiest experience ever for them, but they have a testimony and they're happy to be baptised. The problem is that my Mandarin isn't exactly "jeng" enough to be able to chat with them in the interview particularly fluently. So we had a very special arrangement. Instead of just being completely alone with the baptismal candidate with the door closed, we propped it open a little bit, and Sister Chan (a "CBC" - Canadian Born Chinese) sat in and provided translation for me from Mandarin into Cantonese. It was very bizzarre - and first, we sat as far away form each other as possible with Max as I asked him the questions. Sister C wasn't all that needed with him, because he's only 11, his testimony is simple, he understands Cantonese and he speaks pretty simple Mandarin, so I got the gist of it. He didn't take very long. With Sister J, it was a little trickier. Sister C warned me, "she likes to speak very fast". So I would ask a question in Cantonese, Sister J could understand (more or less) and she would reply in Mandarin. Then Sister C would translate it into Cantonese - which I can understand.
Anyway, they both passed and are now baptised.
Anyway, time is running out. Thank you again for all the university stuff.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
Happy 2009! - 12th email from Macau
Dear all,
I read and replied to the personal statement email before reading this one. I just read aloud your question about BYU, and the room (which currently has eight missionaries in it, most of which went to BYU) exploded with comments such as "Go to BYU!" and "It's the best place ever!" and "You'll find your eternal companion!" This is pretty standard pressure I'm feeling on all sides here from the Missionaries throughout the mission. Don't worry, though, I'd rather not go study in another country. If nothing else, I'd miss the Olympics. BYU can be a last resort if all else falls through, because I definitely want to start this year, and we wouldn't need to apply until after we hear back from all the British schools.
As far as a quote goes for my personal statement, I have no idea. How about "ACCEPT ME OR I'LL BURN THE UNIVERSITY DOWN!"? It'd certainly be eye-catching. Or how about my favourite Chinese proverb, "True gold does not fear the fire." Then we could explain, "This is a classic Chinese proverb, meaning that truth will always overcome opposition, and genuine integrity will shine through in the midst of challenges. Much like myself, because I am AMAZING!" Maybe leave off the bit about being amazing. But then Elder Liu points out that they won't know that I'm amazing...
The new year was fun for us - we ended up just talking in bed until midnight, and then very promptly fell asleep.
Time's up. This is officially my worst weekly email ever.
Lots of love,
Elder Loffhagen
I read and replied to the personal statement email before reading this one. I just read aloud your question about BYU, and the room (which currently has eight missionaries in it, most of which went to BYU) exploded with comments such as "Go to BYU!" and "It's the best place ever!" and "You'll find your eternal companion!" This is pretty standard pressure I'm feeling on all sides here from the Missionaries throughout the mission. Don't worry, though, I'd rather not go study in another country. If nothing else, I'd miss the Olympics. BYU can be a last resort if all else falls through, because I definitely want to start this year, and we wouldn't need to apply until after we hear back from all the British schools.
As far as a quote goes for my personal statement, I have no idea. How about "ACCEPT ME OR I'LL BURN THE UNIVERSITY DOWN!"? It'd certainly be eye-catching. Or how about my favourite Chinese proverb, "True gold does not fear the fire." Then we could explain, "This is a classic Chinese proverb, meaning that truth will always overcome opposition, and genuine integrity will shine through in the midst of challenges. Much like myself, because I am AMAZING!" Maybe leave off the bit about being amazing. But then Elder Liu points out that they won't know that I'm amazing...
The new year was fun for us - we ended up just talking in bed until midnight, and then very promptly fell asleep.
Time's up. This is officially my worst weekly email ever.
Lots of love,
Elder Loffhagen
Merry Christmas - 11th email from Macau
Dear all,
Hurray! It's Christmas! I hope you are all having a good day.
Thank you very much for the Christmas presents; lots of fun little silly things that made us all laugh. This morning we all went over to the house of the senior couple here in Macau, the Kaps, for a Christmas breakfast and a gift exchange. We all had a secret Santa - I'd drawn Elder Woo, a native from Hong Kong who hasn't exactly had the best Christmas experiences in the past (mostly because China doesn't really celebrate Christmas) and who doesn't haven't presents from his family to open (again, because China doesn't celebrate Christmas). I was determined to make this the best Christmas ever, and bought him a bunch of presents that slightly exceeded the money limit of $30 (about 3 pounds) we'd imposed upon ourselves - I'm sure everyone else will forgive me. I even threw in some of the sweets the Young Women sent me (thank you Jessica). He was absolutely thrilled by all of the gifts I'd bought for him, and said the exact words, "this is the best Christmas ever!" so I felt very pleased with myself.
For the rest of the day, we've planned to basically just wander around Macau. We're going to go ride a cable car which costs a thrifty $2 (20p) and maybe play some cards later. I'm looking forward to phoning you all later today, but I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to manage it yet. It's harder to get a cheap calling card here in Macau, but it'll work out.
Now for something very important - I was reading through the university stuff you got me and discovered that the deadline for applications on UCAS is the 15th of January. This means that we are currently completely OUT OF TIME. You need to apply right now - or as soon as possible. My first choice is Bournemouth University studying Multimedia Journalism, my second choice is Leeds University studying Communications. As I don't have any other information about other universities, so I can't really pick anything else. You can either submit my application with just those two options (I'm safe as far as the entry requirements for Bournemouth go, so I'm feeling confident about that) or you can pick a few other courses at random just to flesh out the list, it's your choice. Please get this done ASAP - I don't want to have to wait another year for university. If I don't get in to a university now, I'll just have to do the BYU thing (their entry deadline is a lot later) and I'd rather not do that, but I definitely want to start school in 2009 and if that's my last resort I'll take it over waiting a year.
I'm not exactly sure of what I need to say in my Personal Statement, but I'll email a rough draft in a separate email. You can fine tune it and feel free to add or delete anything you like to make it look shiny and impressive.
Anyway, with that out of the way, I just want to wish you all Merry Christmas. I know I'll be talking to you all later anyway, but I want you all to know that I love you. I prayed last night that you would all have a very merry Christmas, and I look forward to next year's Christmas that I'll be able to share with you all.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
Hurray! It's Christmas! I hope you are all having a good day.
Thank you very much for the Christmas presents; lots of fun little silly things that made us all laugh. This morning we all went over to the house of the senior couple here in Macau, the Kaps, for a Christmas breakfast and a gift exchange. We all had a secret Santa - I'd drawn Elder Woo, a native from Hong Kong who hasn't exactly had the best Christmas experiences in the past (mostly because China doesn't really celebrate Christmas) and who doesn't haven't presents from his family to open (again, because China doesn't celebrate Christmas). I was determined to make this the best Christmas ever, and bought him a bunch of presents that slightly exceeded the money limit of $30 (about 3 pounds) we'd imposed upon ourselves - I'm sure everyone else will forgive me. I even threw in some of the sweets the Young Women sent me (thank you Jessica). He was absolutely thrilled by all of the gifts I'd bought for him, and said the exact words, "this is the best Christmas ever!" so I felt very pleased with myself.
For the rest of the day, we've planned to basically just wander around Macau. We're going to go ride a cable car which costs a thrifty $2 (20p) and maybe play some cards later. I'm looking forward to phoning you all later today, but I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to manage it yet. It's harder to get a cheap calling card here in Macau, but it'll work out.
Now for something very important - I was reading through the university stuff you got me and discovered that the deadline for applications on UCAS is the 15th of January. This means that we are currently completely OUT OF TIME. You need to apply right now - or as soon as possible. My first choice is Bournemouth University studying Multimedia Journalism, my second choice is Leeds University studying Communications. As I don't have any other information about other universities, so I can't really pick anything else. You can either submit my application with just those two options (I'm safe as far as the entry requirements for Bournemouth go, so I'm feeling confident about that) or you can pick a few other courses at random just to flesh out the list, it's your choice. Please get this done ASAP - I don't want to have to wait another year for university. If I don't get in to a university now, I'll just have to do the BYU thing (their entry deadline is a lot later) and I'd rather not do that, but I definitely want to start school in 2009 and if that's my last resort I'll take it over waiting a year.
I'm not exactly sure of what I need to say in my Personal Statement, but I'll email a rough draft in a separate email. You can fine tune it and feel free to add or delete anything you like to make it look shiny and impressive.
Anyway, with that out of the way, I just want to wish you all Merry Christmas. I know I'll be talking to you all later anyway, but I want you all to know that I love you. I prayed last night that you would all have a very merry Christmas, and I look forward to next year's Christmas that I'll be able to share with you all.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
羅 長 老
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