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