Dear Mum and Dad,
I'm going to Leeds. Decision made.
While I'm still a little hesitant about it because I'm still not quite sure exactly what the course entails or where I'm going to go after it, I've prayed long and hard and I feel that Leeds is the right choice. I guess that in the end, I've just got to take a leap of faith into the dark and trust that the Lord has my best interests at heart.
Now, as far as the most worrying part of your email, please kindly and lovingly tell Jess that I understand how she feels, I know a little of what she must be going through. I know from experience that if you don't feel like going to church, the best method of overcoming this is going to church every week until you DO feel like going to church. What's more, it says very plainly in the True to the Faith book, and in Preach My Gospel, that if you don't want to praying, you should pray until you do want to.
Also please tell Tim that he is my hero. Tell him to read the scriptures and pray (tell Jess to do that too) and that he needs to set a good example for Jess and for his other friends at church.
Anyway, now that those two problems are dealt with, let me tell you a little about our visit from Elder Nelson. We all arrived early at the Wan Chai chapel on Hong Kong island. This particular chapel is huge - a giant 11 floor red brick building in the middle of the busiest part of Hong Kong. We were all seated early, and I had a particularly nice seat about three rows back, right in the middle. When the speakers spoke from the pulpit, they were speaking right to me.
We all took a Mission picture with Elder Nelson, and then he shook each of our hands personally. I'll never forget the moment that Elder Nelson walked into the room where we were taking the picture - we were all standing, waiting for him. Some of us (including myself) were taking the chance to chat and joke with some missionaries we hadn't seen in a while. Then Elder Nelson entered the room. The entire place was silent immediately. I could feel the power Elder Nelson had - the only possible way to describe it is: electrifying. After the picture, he shook all of our hands. We also shook hands with the Asia Area Presidency, who live in the Wan Chai building, so we've seen all seen fair amount of them. Elder and Sister Watson asked me if I was still mad about him teasing me and calling me Elder Log Cabin last year. I told them I was over it.
Then we all went back to our seats and the meeting started. All of the Area Presidency and their wives addressed us first, then Sister Nelson, the Elder Nelson. It was like General Conference. And I assume that a prerequisite to marrying an apostle is being a good speaker, because Sister Nelson gave an amazing talk. Then Elder Nelson got up to speak. He said that he felt that some of us were fasting that day to recieve spiritual inspiration and answers to certain problems (at that point, I wished that I'd thought of fasting, because it seemed like a good idea) and so he was going to give us a little time for questions before he gave his talk. After Elder Rasband, I was ready with a question in mind. Another Elder beat me to the punch of asking the first question, but I was there with the second. I stood up and asked how I could find more focus as a missionary and avoid the distractions of the world. It occurs to me right now as I type this, that this question is actually mentioned in my Patriarchal Blessing. Elder Nelson smiled, and said "Great question." Then he said something that pretty much decided my university choice for me. He said, "What do you want more than anything else in life?" He wasn't expecting me to answer, but had I needed to, I would have said that I didn't know. But without any clear reason, the topic of universities jumped to my mind, and I felt that whatever it was that I wanted, the only place that could offer it to me was Leeds. Elder Nelson had answered the question in my heart and the question in my head both at the same time. He then went on to talk about something that had very little to do with my question - I'm sure the Spirit was prompting him to answer somebody else's personal question. I've come to understand that in these question and answer sessions, the General Authorities seem to use the questions asked to speak on more general points that teach to a wider audience. It's interesting to watch.
Elder Nelson's meeting was amazing - a real spiritual booster. He taught us so much that I don't have time to mention here, and I've found myself still, a week later, thinking back on the nuggets of wisdom I learned from him. It really was like General Conference had come to the Wan Chai building (that was something Elder Nelson pointed out as well).
My new companion, Elder Jackson, is really amazing. He and I are having a lot of fun together. Yesterday, because of his inspiration, we shared a conference talk called You Know Enough by Elder Neil L Anderson with one of our investigators, C B. As a result of the lesson, he committed to be baptized two weeks earlier than planned, because he realised that he didn't know everything, but he knew enough. Perhaps that's a good talk to review during FHE for Jess.
I love you all lots. Have fun looking for the cheapest possible option for housing in Leeds!
Love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Hot of the press university info - 19th email from Macau
Another quick thought - when I started the Media Studies class at A Level (which I went to once because of a timetable clash), they said their first topic was going to be studying the difference between womens fashion magazines and pornography - which is why I chose to take English Literature instead. I was not very impressed by that course, and wonder if the Leeds course is just the same thing but at University level?
BYU's looking better and better, I'm afraid to say!
Love,
Elder Loffhagen
BYU's looking better and better, I'm afraid to say!
Love,
Elder Loffhagen
New Companion -18th email from Macau
Dear all,
Oh dear. It's not looking good for universities. I'll need to think about it. In the meantime, would you mind looking into BYU?
The decision to at least have a look came from a long period of praying and pondering about my choices. I haven't quite felt all that comfortable about Leeds more than any other option, and BYU has always been on the back of my mind - not least because everyone around me keeps telling me to go there. I can take solace in the fact that the main culprits are leaving for new areas today.
Anyway, I really don't want to have to put up with any more Americans than are absolutely necessary, so I was trying to ignore BYU for a long time. But ultimately, I felt that I didn't want to ignore a prompting from the Lord that was coming so strong. In prayer, I promised God that I would at least look into BYU, and if that really was His plan for me, I would accept it. I felt good about that, but the thought came to me that perhaps this was simply an Abrahamic test of my faith - to see if I would do something that I really didn't want to do. That said, after reading your email about the course content at Leeds, I'm not feeling too confident. It's still awfully vague and I don't like the word "Theory" in there - is the "Theory of Communications" just studying films and TV? That sounds awfully boring and ultimately useless as a degree. So as much as I may not like it, can you give me some information on the BYU journalism programme? I don't know that I want to be away from home for that long, but I can't deny the promptings of the Spirit, and to be honest, it does look like the best choice as far as schools go. But for the moment, I'll leave Leeds as my first choice and UCLan as second. We'll take a "just looking" approach to BYU for the moment.
In other news, Elder Liu has left Macau and I'm now with my new companion Elder Jackson. Like almost all of my previous companions, he is from Utah, is tall, handsome and seems like a fun guy. I don't know him that well yet, but am looking forward to the chance.
Today has been a hectic day. We left Macau at 9:00 and due to a series of unfortunate events, barely made it into the Temple for our session at 1:00. The session was in Chinese (but I understood it fine), and was actually really good - very peaceful and calm. There weren't many people in the session, but one man who was there was Brother C, the Ward Mission Leader for my old area of Tai Po. It was great to see him again, and he seemed very happy to see me too. He is retired, so he spends most days in the Temple as an ordinance worker, although this is the first time I've seen him since I left for Macau.
Today, as well as being a nice day of change, is a little sad as I've seen my Sisters "die". Of the four Sister Missionaries in my MTC group, two of them - Sister Chan and Sister Esplin - chose their late date to come home. The also just happened to be serving together as companions in Macau for their last two moves, so I've had the chance to get to know them well. Their visas ran out last week so were switched out to finish their mission on Hong Kong Island, but we all met up for the Temple and MacDonalds today. They have absolutely nothing to do until Friday, when their parents come to pick them up. It's sad to see them go, especially because it makes me have to face the reality that I myself will one day be going home. Oh dear. Still, I have six months left to enjoy the relative simplicity of missionary life before having to come home and deal with my somewhat uncertain future.
Elder Nelson's meeting tomorrow is no doubt going to be very interesting. We've been given a big list of DOs and DON'Ts for his visit - DO have clean hands, DON'T ask for a special blessing. DON'T ask him questions, but DO answer questions if he asks you. It's a very interesting list. I wonder if it came from the Mission or from Church Headquarters. I'm sure every one of the DON'Ts have at some point occured, which is why they're on the list. I'm sure Elder Nelson doesn't want to have to give every single one of us a special blessing.
I have absolutely no idea when Ryan Smith would have been caught a glimpse of me while at church recently, because I've been in Macau for so long.
Everything is going well. I'm enjoying myself and working hard. I love you lots and pray for your safety and happiness.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
Oh dear. It's not looking good for universities. I'll need to think about it. In the meantime, would you mind looking into BYU?
The decision to at least have a look came from a long period of praying and pondering about my choices. I haven't quite felt all that comfortable about Leeds more than any other option, and BYU has always been on the back of my mind - not least because everyone around me keeps telling me to go there. I can take solace in the fact that the main culprits are leaving for new areas today.
Anyway, I really don't want to have to put up with any more Americans than are absolutely necessary, so I was trying to ignore BYU for a long time. But ultimately, I felt that I didn't want to ignore a prompting from the Lord that was coming so strong. In prayer, I promised God that I would at least look into BYU, and if that really was His plan for me, I would accept it. I felt good about that, but the thought came to me that perhaps this was simply an Abrahamic test of my faith - to see if I would do something that I really didn't want to do. That said, after reading your email about the course content at Leeds, I'm not feeling too confident. It's still awfully vague and I don't like the word "Theory" in there - is the "Theory of Communications" just studying films and TV? That sounds awfully boring and ultimately useless as a degree. So as much as I may not like it, can you give me some information on the BYU journalism programme? I don't know that I want to be away from home for that long, but I can't deny the promptings of the Spirit, and to be honest, it does look like the best choice as far as schools go. But for the moment, I'll leave Leeds as my first choice and UCLan as second. We'll take a "just looking" approach to BYU for the moment.
In other news, Elder Liu has left Macau and I'm now with my new companion Elder Jackson. Like almost all of my previous companions, he is from Utah, is tall, handsome and seems like a fun guy. I don't know him that well yet, but am looking forward to the chance.
Today has been a hectic day. We left Macau at 9:00 and due to a series of unfortunate events, barely made it into the Temple for our session at 1:00. The session was in Chinese (but I understood it fine), and was actually really good - very peaceful and calm. There weren't many people in the session, but one man who was there was Brother C, the Ward Mission Leader for my old area of Tai Po. It was great to see him again, and he seemed very happy to see me too. He is retired, so he spends most days in the Temple as an ordinance worker, although this is the first time I've seen him since I left for Macau.
Today, as well as being a nice day of change, is a little sad as I've seen my Sisters "die". Of the four Sister Missionaries in my MTC group, two of them - Sister Chan and Sister Esplin - chose their late date to come home. The also just happened to be serving together as companions in Macau for their last two moves, so I've had the chance to get to know them well. Their visas ran out last week so were switched out to finish their mission on Hong Kong Island, but we all met up for the Temple and MacDonalds today. They have absolutely nothing to do until Friday, when their parents come to pick them up. It's sad to see them go, especially because it makes me have to face the reality that I myself will one day be going home. Oh dear. Still, I have six months left to enjoy the relative simplicity of missionary life before having to come home and deal with my somewhat uncertain future.
Elder Nelson's meeting tomorrow is no doubt going to be very interesting. We've been given a big list of DOs and DON'Ts for his visit - DO have clean hands, DON'T ask for a special blessing. DON'T ask him questions, but DO answer questions if he asks you. It's a very interesting list. I wonder if it came from the Mission or from Church Headquarters. I'm sure every one of the DON'Ts have at some point occured, which is why they're on the list. I'm sure Elder Nelson doesn't want to have to give every single one of us a special blessing.
I have absolutely no idea when Ryan Smith would have been caught a glimpse of me while at church recently, because I've been in Macau for so long.
Everything is going well. I'm enjoying myself and working hard. I love you lots and pray for your safety and happiness.
Lots of love,
Elder Matthew Loffhagen
Monday, 9 February 2009
Happy Birthday Dad! - 17th email from Macua
Dear Mum and Dad,
Last Monday, I looked at my watch and realised that it was Dad's Birthday. "Oh," I said to myself. That was all I really had time to say, because we were out finding. So happy birthday, Dad.
Too bad about Bournemouth and Sheffield. I guess then that Leeds will probably be where I go, which is fine. I remember what Dad said a long time ago now - I'll get into the university that God wants me to go to. This is probably for the best - especially since looking at the numbers, it doesn't quite add up - I was slightly below the Leeds grade requirements whereas I was comfortably within the Bournemouth point requirements. I remember a teacher at Herschel telling us that we needed to pay attention to whether schools are looking for grades rather than points - grades are generally less flexible than points, and they're more likely to require all relatively high grades, whereas with points, they're happy with an average. I wasn't expecting Sheffield to let me in; I figured it was a long shot worth trying out considering I have so many other options; but was fairly confident I'd get accepted to Bournemouth. So Leeds sounds good, but if Lancashire is so keen, it's at least worth exploring. I don't yet have any information from them, so yes, it'd be nice to have a look at something. In the meantime, I'm going to do a lot of praying and see where I feel is best.
BYU is still hovering on the table, but this week it doesn't seem all that appealing. Honestly, this week has been probably the first week in my mission that I've felt homesick. Don't worry - it's not really bad and I'm not desperate to come home or anything - I'm just letting you know because I want you to appreciate when I write positively, I really am genuinely positive and I'm not sugar-coating things. Right now, I miss my family - so I might as well tell you. This whole mission has been a huge adventure that has taken me very far from home, and for the most part I've been enjoying myself too much to think all that much about all of you. But there are a lot of Americans in the mission (with one exception, all of my companions have lived in Utah) and it makes me feel a little lonely at times. I can imagine that BYU would be similar, so while I'm not going to rule the option out yet, I'm thinking that there are a lot of better options.
A good piece of news as far as missing home goes, is that Elder Tau, an Elder from New Zealand, has to leave Macau on Saturday because of Visa problems. Taking his place for the foreseeable future is Elder Matthew Chan, the only other Brit in the Mission. I'm looking forward to living with someone who'll actually understand my jokes and being able to try and lose my new-found American twang - but I may now come home sounding a little more northerly than I did when I left - only slightly, because he's from Solihull.
And I don't want you to think for a second that I'm complaining or trunky or there's some terrible problem here - in fact, things are going really well. Sister W was confirmed last Sunday and her two boys will be baptized this coming Sunday. One of them asked me to baptize him and one asked Elder Liu - I'm going to see if we can convince them to both be baptized by Elder Liu because it'll be a lot more convenient with less wet clothes and less water everywhere - especially considering that the International Branch here in Macau also has two baptisms at the same time as ours. I'm not quite sure how it's going to work yet anyway, even with only six wet people running around, let alone seven.
The week after next, the 15th, will be Elder Liu's last Sunday in Macau, and we have another baptism on that day. His English name is now Bill, although I don't think anybody really calls him that. But either way, he'll be baptized in two weeks. He is originally from the Mainland, and is really golden - he's so happy to accept everything we tell him. We haven't taught him many of the commandments yet, so we need to do that, but soon he should be ready. I'm just crossing my fingers that he doesn't have any big problem we don't know about, because it'd crush Elder Liu if he doesn't get to see him baptized, because he's been working really hard with him. Elder Liu is such an excited and enthusiastic missionary - I'm sure that a lot of the success we've been having here is because of his faith and diligence. I'm slightly worried as to what will happen when he leaves and it's just me with a new companion - will we be able to keep track of everything? But I'm sure it'll all work out in the end. God is guiding all of us.
And I know that I am loved and accepted by you back home. You are all a source of strength to me. Thank you for your support.
Lots of love,
Elder Loffhagen
Last Monday, I looked at my watch and realised that it was Dad's Birthday. "Oh," I said to myself. That was all I really had time to say, because we were out finding. So happy birthday, Dad.
Too bad about Bournemouth and Sheffield. I guess then that Leeds will probably be where I go, which is fine. I remember what Dad said a long time ago now - I'll get into the university that God wants me to go to. This is probably for the best - especially since looking at the numbers, it doesn't quite add up - I was slightly below the Leeds grade requirements whereas I was comfortably within the Bournemouth point requirements. I remember a teacher at Herschel telling us that we needed to pay attention to whether schools are looking for grades rather than points - grades are generally less flexible than points, and they're more likely to require all relatively high grades, whereas with points, they're happy with an average. I wasn't expecting Sheffield to let me in; I figured it was a long shot worth trying out considering I have so many other options; but was fairly confident I'd get accepted to Bournemouth. So Leeds sounds good, but if Lancashire is so keen, it's at least worth exploring. I don't yet have any information from them, so yes, it'd be nice to have a look at something. In the meantime, I'm going to do a lot of praying and see where I feel is best.
BYU is still hovering on the table, but this week it doesn't seem all that appealing. Honestly, this week has been probably the first week in my mission that I've felt homesick. Don't worry - it's not really bad and I'm not desperate to come home or anything - I'm just letting you know because I want you to appreciate when I write positively, I really am genuinely positive and I'm not sugar-coating things. Right now, I miss my family - so I might as well tell you. This whole mission has been a huge adventure that has taken me very far from home, and for the most part I've been enjoying myself too much to think all that much about all of you. But there are a lot of Americans in the mission (with one exception, all of my companions have lived in Utah) and it makes me feel a little lonely at times. I can imagine that BYU would be similar, so while I'm not going to rule the option out yet, I'm thinking that there are a lot of better options.
A good piece of news as far as missing home goes, is that Elder Tau, an Elder from New Zealand, has to leave Macau on Saturday because of Visa problems. Taking his place for the foreseeable future is Elder Matthew Chan, the only other Brit in the Mission. I'm looking forward to living with someone who'll actually understand my jokes and being able to try and lose my new-found American twang - but I may now come home sounding a little more northerly than I did when I left - only slightly, because he's from Solihull.
And I don't want you to think for a second that I'm complaining or trunky or there's some terrible problem here - in fact, things are going really well. Sister W was confirmed last Sunday and her two boys will be baptized this coming Sunday. One of them asked me to baptize him and one asked Elder Liu - I'm going to see if we can convince them to both be baptized by Elder Liu because it'll be a lot more convenient with less wet clothes and less water everywhere - especially considering that the International Branch here in Macau also has two baptisms at the same time as ours. I'm not quite sure how it's going to work yet anyway, even with only six wet people running around, let alone seven.
The week after next, the 15th, will be Elder Liu's last Sunday in Macau, and we have another baptism on that day. His English name is now Bill, although I don't think anybody really calls him that. But either way, he'll be baptized in two weeks. He is originally from the Mainland, and is really golden - he's so happy to accept everything we tell him. We haven't taught him many of the commandments yet, so we need to do that, but soon he should be ready. I'm just crossing my fingers that he doesn't have any big problem we don't know about, because it'd crush Elder Liu if he doesn't get to see him baptized, because he's been working really hard with him. Elder Liu is such an excited and enthusiastic missionary - I'm sure that a lot of the success we've been having here is because of his faith and diligence. I'm slightly worried as to what will happen when he leaves and it's just me with a new companion - will we be able to keep track of everything? But I'm sure it'll all work out in the end. God is guiding all of us.
And I know that I am loved and accepted by you back home. You are all a source of strength to me. Thank you for your support.
Lots of love,
Elder Loffhagen
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