My Blaze of Glory

Dear Family,

So much has happened this week. It's been one of the best weeks of my life.

This will be my last email while on a mission - my "ultimate" email. So last week was the penultimate one - right? Or am I not remembering the rules of English clearly? I couldn't remember how to say "guidance" the other day in a prayer, and I'm seriously concerned about what two years of American companions has done to my language. Please give me some time to adjust.

I won't really get much of a chance to send one next week, so you'll have to wait an extra day to hear from me. I hope you can take consolation in the fact that you'll be hearing from me in person instead of at a distance.

Several Family Home Evening lessons have been planned for a long time already; just leave it to me. I'm looking forward to sharing all about my mission adventures with you, but hopefully not boring you to death by making you look at every single picture I took over two years.

I've had a few particularly interesting adventures this week. Last Sunday was the Macau fireside, which was the best night of my life. But before getting there, we found out that I had a few little visa problems. It turns out that for whatever reason, there was a mishap with renewing the visas of my entire group. While most of my group have left now, so it doesn't matter, everyone who stayed past our two year mark and took our late date to come home have apparently overstayed our welcome - when the Church renewed our visas, they accidentally only renewed them until our date entering the MTC.

So I was given my passport to travel back to Macau, and went to the ferry. Before you get on the ferry, you have to go through immigrations, because you're leaving the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. There's a really cool machine that checks you out - you put your Hong Kong ID in a kind of ticket reader, and then put your thumb on a thumb print reader. Then you walk through without a problem - unless you've overstayed your visa, like me. So a man came over and took me to an interrogation room. Ultimately, I had to pay $160HK to extend my visa until that day, when I was allowed to leave, and when I came back to Hong Kong I had to apply for a visitor's visa instead of using my convenient work visa. Right now, Sister Kau who works in the Mission Office is at the Immigration Office applying for a new work visa for everyone in my group who is still left. It's actually kind of lucky that this happened, otherwise we would never have known our visas were expired, and leaving Hong Kong to return home would have been difficult.

So when I'd finally arrived in Macau, I was thrilled. I was so happy to be walking the streets again, and was even more thrilled when I arrived at the church and saw so many old friends. Since I've left, many of our investigators have been baptised and many members of the International Branch, who I was also really good friends with, have been to the Temple, been endowed and one family was even sealed in the Temple!

I was so happy to be back with my family. That's what Macau really is for me - my family. As I saw several of my recent converts again, like the W Family and A-B, I was so thrilled for them. As I saw the missionaries, many of whom had just started serving in Macau around the time I'd left, I was thrilled to renew my friendships with them as well. It was the happiest moment of my life.

In the fireside, one of the Sister Missionaries currently serving in Macau sang a Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief better than I think I've ever heard it sung before. As she sang the last verse, "He spoke and my poor name He named; Of me thou hast not been ashamed. These deeds shall thy memorial be; fear not! Thou didst them unto me", I felt such a wave of the Spirit, probably stronger than I've ever felt it on my mission, comparative only to the time I sat in the Nauvoo Temple dedication. Only this time was all the more special, because I felt the love that my Saviour has, not only for me, but for the people I've worked with throughout my mission. And I felt that He was well pleased with the work I had done and the service I had given.

I was to speak directly after the musical number, and as I arose and walked to the pulpit, I felt the Spirit follow me there. I poured out my heart as I spoke of my love for the people of Macau and my thanks that God had given me the chance to get to know them. I shared Alma 17:2, which talks about Alma's joy when he met with the sons of Mosiah, because they were still his brethren in the Lord. I bore testimony of the Saviour's love and how I saw it reflected in the faces of the members in Macau.

I've been thinking a lot about my plan to go out in a blaze of glory - I was never quite sure what that meant until last Sunday night. That fireside, and that testimony WAS my blaze of glory. I don't know that anyone felt the blaze quite as strongly as I did, and it was only witnessed by a few dozen people in a little chapel in the grimy, sin infested tail end of China, but I felt that blaze and I knew the Lord has accepted my mission.

So as that Sister sang "These deeds shall thy memorial be," I finally felt ready to go home. No more fear or doubt of the unknown. I'm okay with ending my mission now. I left Macau with the joy that, no matter what heartache at leaving I may go through in the next week of my mission, it's worth it, because I had one last day in Macau. And no matter what hard times may follow after I return to England, it's worth it, because I got to serve in Hong Kong and give everything I had in the service of God for two years.

That said, I still have one week to do the best I can, and I'm going to work until I drop.

I got back to Hong Kong on Monday, and Tuesday and Wednesday was the infamous career workshop - a senior couple on a mission here taught us how exactly to go about getting a job and competing in the workplace. A lot of missionaries have been and had given me the impression that it's a really painful two days that leaves you completely trunky once it's gone, but I'm still feeling fine.

Coming up on Friday is our last Zone Conference, then my companion leaves for the Temple (he's been called as the new Assistant to the President, which means I'll be spending my last week in a threesome with Elder Bagley, my trainee; and his companion Elder Bloomfield) and Sunday is my Hong Kong Why I Believe Fireside, which should also be fun - but probably not as fun as the Macau fireside was. Tuesday is my exit interview with President Chan, and on Thursday I'll go through the Temple, visit the Peak where Hong Kong was dedicated and have dinner with the Chans. Then I'll stay overnight in the Temple with four of my old companions, as next Move the entire office staff will be my former companions - Elder Liu, Elder Fisher, Elder Kwok and Elder Clark. Then early Friday morning we'll go to the airport and I'll say goodbye to Hong Kong for a while.

Then I'll ask the person sitting next to me if he's ever heard of the Latter-day Saint church.

Then maybe a little later I'll ask the stewardess what my chances of getting a free upgrade to first class is, if there happen to be any spaces free. After all, if you don't ask, you don't get!

I don't think there's much else to say. I'm looking forward to seeing you next week. Don't worry about me too much if I seem distant or sad, or even a little weird. Missions do strange things to people. And don't make fun of my accent, just gently correct me when I say a word wrong. Tell Tim I'm looking forward to losing to him at Halo (because I've played Halo all of four times before in my life, and it'll be nice to build up his confidence by letting him win at something after I finish smashing him at Mariokart).

I love you all. I'm so thankful for your many sacrifices on my behalf. It's strange to end this chapter of my life, but I'm okay with it now. I know that God is guiding my path, whether or not I can see where I'm going.

I know with all my heart that this Church is true. If it weren't, I wouldn't have wasted two years in China trying to convince people to change their lives when they'd really, for the most part, rather not. I know God lives and loves each of us.

See you on Friday,

Elder Matthew Loffhagen