Dear family,

On a practical level, I have more than enough shirts for the rest of my mission now, thank you :)

Nice to hear that the week went well.

This past week has been very busy. I've been on three exchanges with other missionaries. The first, last Friday/Saturday, was Elder Kwok, an old companion of mine, who is currently a district leader in Tsing Yi, a small island next to Kwai Fong. We had a lot of fun together - it was clear to me that we'd both grown a lot since the six weeks we'd spent together. Back then, I was a relatively inexperienced new senior companion, and he was in his second Move. We taught some very good lessons together, and I got to see him working well with his district, which was good to see.

Because Elder Marshall went back to visit Macau last Sunday, I was with another Elder called Elder Fulmizi for Sunday and Monday. He is relatively newer in the field, having been out for seven or eight months, but he is very bold and active in finding. It was an interesting exchange.

Finally, on Tuesday I went with the brand new Elder Wong. Elder Wong's situation is very special - he's from Canada and as such speaks fluent Cantonese. He's training to be a doctor, but somehow it was arranged for him to come to Hong Kong for just one month in between years at school for a unique mission experience. He's really great, and I had a good time going with him on Tuesday - especially because he had to go to Wan Chai on Hong Kong island to renew his permanent Hong Kong ID card, so I got to take him there and show him around the beautiful Wan Chai church building, which is one of the most expensive (and impressive) Church buildings in the world. Hong Kong island is my favourite part of Hong Kong - it's so busy and exciting and shiny and full of unique, interesting people. We were on the MTR (the Hong Kong version of the Underground) and a man was staring at our nametags - not that uncommon. I said, "Leih Hou" and he responded "Konichiwa" (or however you spell it) which is Japanese for the same thing - "Hello". It turns out that he was from Japan on holiday here for a week. This is the kind of fun multiculturalism that makes the Island so much fun.

Incidentally, on the train ride home, a sister came up to us who is a member of the Aberdeen ward, which is the ward next to my old area of West Point.

I'm trying to be secretive about getting my language legend for the moment - and succeeded until yesterday to keep it a secret from Elder Cope, the Elder you spoke to on Sunday. I guess he thought I was joking when I talked about it up until yesterday. One of the "prizes" for getting language legend is that President and Sister Van Dam cheng me out (that's missionary Chenglish slang) to a restaurant of my choice. When I heard about this, I decided to swear an oath of sorts (but not a real one) that the next steak I eat will be the one President Van Dam buys for me. So now having achieved my Legend, I'm greatly anticipating this. It's too bad, therefore, that a wonderful member from the adjacent Tsuen Wan ward (who is pretty well off, as he's head of the Hasbro toys distribution for Asia) is chenging pretty much all of the missionaries in Kowloon West to lunch at a place called Outback Steakhouse today. Curses! While technically, I've achieved my legend, so I'm allowed to eat steak again, the condition was that I would have that first steak with President Van Dam. So as not to spoil the moment, I think I'll have to order chicken today instead.

A little incidental story about a cheng out in Macau - a very rich member family called the Tangs took all of the missionaries in Macau out to dinner in a nice restaurant, which was also fairly cheap. They told us all to pick our meals, and most of the Elders and Sisters went for meals that cost MOP20 (which is about £2 - such is the approximate price of a normal meal eaten out at a restaurant here) but I found myself incredibly tempted by the look of the rack of ribs, which cost a whopping MOP70 (£7)! When Brother Tang asked me what I wanted, I said, "I don't really want to tell you. It's too expensive." "Well what is it?" he asked, and I showed him the ribs. "That's not expensive!" He said, "You're from England! Everything in England is so expensive! I think that's a pretty cheap way to feed a missionary from your country!" And so, I felt a little awkward chomping down on a huge rack of ribs as everyone else casually enjoyed their noodles.

Let's hope your son doesn't develop a reputation as a leech.

Anyway, enough about food. This next Friday is Zone Conference, and Elder Marshall and I have been preparing hard to make sure that it's a memorable experience for everybody. Every Move has a theme, and we made this Move's theme "There's Treasure Everywhere", encouraging the missionaries to go out and find the "treasure" of prepared souls. This theme actually came from a Calvin and Hobbes comic, where Calvin's digging in the back garden for buried treasure. Hobbes asks him what he's found and he says "two rocks and this weird root." Hobbes says "Wow! All that treasure on your first try?" And Calvin says, "There's treasure everywhere!" The idea we're trying to get across is that they can find prepared people and see miracles every day, but it's not always going to be what we're expecting - we need to look hard to find the everyday miracles that God blesses us with to make our days a little smoother.

Because the Mission Focus is partly on the Book of Mormon, we've decided to show everyone a film called How Rare a Possession. I don't know if you've seen it - it's about an Italian pastor who finds a Book of Mormon in a rubbish bin that is missing its front cover and title page, so he doesn't know what the book is called. He begins preaching from it at the pulpit, and when the other church leaders threaten to expel him from the church if he doesn't burn the book, he chooses to leave the order and begin a search for the true church who teach of this book. He finds it, but the outbreak of war stops him from being able to leave his home in Sicily. He writes letters to Church leaders over several decades, pleading for someone with the authority of God to come to baptize him. Finally, it is arranged and he is thrilled. The final scene of the film is of him making his way inside the Switzerland Temple, and a General Authority speaks about how so many of us overlook the great treasure that is the Book of Mormon.

Anyway, time is almost up. I love you all.

Elder Loffhagen