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