Patience, Caveman Talk, Better Letters

4/23/10
So when I went back to Hong Kong and attended the temple the man in the changing room stall across from me asked me if I knew where Elder Wall was. Turns out He was brother Leurng or Uncle Parkenson as Elder Dodge addresses him I guess. He is the missionary leader of his Chinese branch in Vancouver, I did an endowment session for his great great grandfather. Brother Leurng was a awesome dude who didnt stop smiling or punching; he playingly socked all of the really old temple workers he could find. He told me that he is a bao li person and abuses his missionaries. A wise leader I assume.

When I got back, the Macau government only gave me seven days stay. I would love to have prayers to be able to remain in macau. I also think my investigators all need that same prayer.

I'm gonna do it. I will actually take advantage of having a Chinese companion and learn amaizing Chinese. Brother Leurng told me that Elder Dodge's Cantonese was marvelous. I am so jealous.

I bet the other missionaries' mothers get way better letters from their sons. Its true nothing happened really this week. I was pretty sick. Our investigators are ticking bombshells of drama. No casualties yet, but I've heard the horror stories of international work in hong kong. Never serenade a sister over the phone!!

We have a sister named Augustine who quit smoking after 22 years she had be smoking since ten. The only problem is her slave driver boss.


Maybe more later

I love you all.

hua zhanglao Elder Wall


4/15/10
Family. Isn't it about time? That's the message of General Conference in my opinion. It made me severely trunky. I loved the patience talk during preisthood by President Uchtdorf (if thats how you spell it). I really need that. The patience section in my preach my gospel got ripped out - complete accident.

So the next transfer happened and my new companion is Elder So, a really cool Hong Kong guy who is actually also a Mandarin missionary. He is about twenty-five.

So there were really awesome ladies that came from Philipines last pday after I wrote you all. What is so awesome about them is that they are Chinese teachers in philipines. One is a member already. What is even cooler is that they really teach Fuijianhua which looks alot like Fijian to me after I wrote that down (its a Chinese dialect). They speak Mandarin too though. Now they are learning Cantonese. The day after my companion and I met them we had to go back to Hong Kong for supplies and to make our exit date that the Macau government gave us. I was so excited to meet them because we had an automatic fellowshipper because one is already a member. I would also be their bestest friend because we all speak Mandarin. Wouldn't you know it, just as I suspected, once we got back from Hong Kong on Saturday, the sisters had already taken them as their own. The first thing I told Elder Lindsay after we met them on p-day was "don't let the sisters know about them" and that's exactly what happend. I miss Mandarin work where we didn't have to deal with theaving sisters. We're definately all on the same team, but they have no idea how bad they thrashed all my dreams and crushed all my hopes. I totally had a skip in my step all last pday and thought it an absolute miracle that I had met Philipinas that spoke Mandarin and that taking time out of my preparation day gave me blessings. Its okay though, every single companionship here in macau has Mandarin investigators and wouln't turn them over to me. Elder So will tell them, he's gonna be the Zone leader.

Elder So and I will definately have a stronger emphasis on Mandarin people this transfer. I am so excited. And we will only speak Mandarin to each other.

Elder Dexter Gomez was one of the many missionaries sent out from the Oakhills second ward. That ward is a powerhouse.

I was so happy to receive my father's letter in his area of expertise. I wonder if now I should print out that email and gloat it around in front of everybody. I think maybe I should have patience to weather out people's comments instead. Uchtdorf's talk was the absolutely tailor made for Elder Wall talk of this general conference. I definately need patience with the sisters.

Thanks for having patience with my constant complaining about others. I hope you all will tell me your hardships and frustrations just as much. I hope my mother will recover soon. I hope my little brother's beard will come in soon (seriously shaving is the ultimate acne cure). I hope that my little brothers and sisters particularly Alyssa will learn to listen to mom and dad. I have almost learned that they have been right all along.

I will keep a journal starting tonight.

I love you all and will have better letter.

Hua Zhanglao( Elder dingding)

PS Ding ding means wall in both indonesian and tagalog. Indonesian took alot from arabic huh dad? They have kitab mormon and are always talking about Allah.

4/7/10

I want to start off by asking my father one thing. So I never hear the end of Cantonese being the hardest language on Earth, with the exception of Finnish and that's it. The logic I have heard is that the writing system doesn't match the spoken and that the pronounciation (if that's how you spell it) is probably some of the hardest in existance. I have the feeling that Vietnamese is more difficult. I always get hasseled about how easy Mandarin is in comparison to Cantonese. I realise that this must be true to some extent since most Cantonese missionaries only know about two hundred characters and I can easily thrash them. But the grammar! Same! Caveman talk. Today he/she/it eat rice. Simple.

So my question is: How many hundreds of languages out there are harder than Cantonese?

The answer to that question should satisfy my pride for being incapable at this moment to learn that particular language. To be honest the only thing I can't do is the pronounciation; a couple more tones and a few weird sounds is all. If I get that, its a sinch and I know it.

I also get bugged when they say that Mandarin sounds like drunk cantonese. It is so obviously the other way around.

I have to be cautious with this letter because my companion glances at my screen periodically to insure that I am not saying any thing bad about him or his mission language.

We all know that mandarin is so much more useful. And all the Cantonese missionaries are destined to study it one day.

That felt really nice to vent to you dad. I really hope your expertise in this field of study will agree with me.

I feel so handicapped sometimes because I can't speak. I can understand alot.

I love Macau. I love the gospel. I love my companion. He is such a softy. so sensitive. He makes our lessons really long and likes to sing with our investigators and kneel down when we pray with them. Its not a bad thing. It gets the job done in international work. He can make the sisters cry easily.

We have two investigators with a baptismal date. Both are Indonesians.

I want to get this Vietnamese thing goin. We dont have any pamphlets in Vietnamese so its hard. I'm gonna order some. I feel like we can probably baptise twenty if we work hard. Thats my honest feeling.

General Conference hasn't happend yet over here. Was it any good?

I hope there is something on journal writing that doesn't just tell me to keep one, but will tell me how to go about doing it.

I hope this letter wan't be too bogus. I couldn't remember anyhting that went on this week.

I love you all,

Elder Wall (Hua Zhanglao)