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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