4/21/11 Rence, Erwin, Julian and James

Dear Family,

So many people wrote to me this week that I have hardly anytime to write at all. I don't type fast and I read even slower than I type somehow, and I also have to spend time deciding what to write.

There aren't any cute babies running around doing disgusting things so I think painting a picture of my surroundings would be boring to you guys.

Rence got baptized last Sunday by her husband Erwin. I got to conduct the baptismal service which made me way nervous for some reason. Everybody laughed at me when I was telling them not to take photos and to silence their cell phones. It was so spiritual though. I cried when she bore her testimony, it was so powerful and her two little boys were running around like little hooligans. It turns out she had been investigating for four years! I had no idea. Anyways I don't feel like it counts too much as a "family baptised". It made me feel so good that I got to give the final last bit of support when she decided to get baptised. She was way ready, Im not judging but in someways I feel she is a little more prepared than her husband who is already a member. I mean he had to wait four years to get the Aaronic Priesthood for goodness sakes! It meant a whole lot to her for her husband to baptise her. A highlight of my mission!

Anyways, we have a Mandarin dude name Julian who is so powerful and handsome. All of our branch missionaries seem to be Mandarin college girls so he'll be running the show pretty soon. I hope he can be a branch missionary after he's baptised. He reads the Book of Mormon every day like twice, the part we assign him and the part that he's in by reading straight through. I like him.

Last p-day we went to a really good Italian restruant for its all you can eat lunch special and contacted our waiter James who is from Xi An, the place were the Terracotta Warriors are from. He met with us last Sunday and brought his girlfriend I guess. She's way interested - he's not so much. But they both with probably continue to meet with us. I think the restruant was so delicious. I want to go again. I will eat like a million calzones and have James grate the entire block of parmesan on top of them. It was totally legit italian too except for the Mandarin waiter.

I am loving my mission although I kinda wish I went to
Lithuania mandarin/russian speaking [like his sister did]. The gospel ought to be taught in communist languages because the law of consecration is just communism with God involved. But I am technically not allowed to write political things in my letters home to you guys.

I hope that I can avoid being trunky, I am pretty sure you guys will only get like seven more emails from me....
But I'm not counting down till I go home, Im counting down until I am kicked out by the Macau Government, I have 29 days to do all the damage I can. I am planning for three more baptisms by May 19th.

I am so jealous that all my older siblings have babies though. I don't even have one. Filipino and Chinese babies are way cute too. I can't wait to come home and be "Uncle Stevo". I hope I can learn Spanish one of these days so I can chit chat with Levi and Ezra [Laura and Job are teaching their children Spanish first].

Stop going on any more vacations before I get home okay? or at least stop telling me about them.

I love you all,

Hua Zhanglao

4/13/11 Happiest Time in My Life

Hello my family how are you?

I am feeling like this is the happiest time in my life again.

We are having a baptism of Rence this Sunday, her husband will finally get ordained and immediately after Sacrament meeting will baptize her, if all goes well. While, my missionary skills aren't so amaizing, Elder Edwards and I are still gonna get like four baptisms together in the approximately sixty days that the Macau government will allow us to stay.

We just gave out a baptismal invitation to a Mandarin guy named Julian. he is so rad. I gave him the invitation using the scripture in Mosiah 18 at the Waters of Mormon speech that Alma gives. I asked him how he would answer Alma's question "what have you against having his Spirit poured more abundantly upon you?" or something like that I only sort of remember the Chinese. His answer was "lai ba!" something like "bring it on". Probably the best answer to a baptismal invitaion I have ever heard. He will get baptised on the eighth of May.

I enjoyed conference. I think it was aimed at making me ultra tunky. A million talks about marriage and how awesome women are. President Monson telling me not to have so much fun being single. My goodness. I am suprised that I can still get stuff done for the Lord out here.

Julian was a turn over by the Zone Leader companionship. They say they have a Japanese dude that they have ready for us too. I think that would be sweet to baptise a Japanese man. I only wish that I could speak to him in his native tongue. I get so uspet when people teach Mandarins in English. especially when there are actually Mandarin speaking missionaries available. Even though there aren't any Japanese missionaries in the mission I would feel kind of bad because my father could teach the investigator way better and that would be ideal.

Anyways, I love my mission. I wanna have you call me for Mothers Day, because the phone situation here in Macau is ridiculously expensive. I droped 200 patacas on the 40 minute phone call last time. thats like 30 US.


1. Are you taller? No, James is taller than me probably
2. How are your suits, shirts, ties shoes and socks?Nasty, but my mission is almost over, so don't worry about it.
3. How are your teeth. I made you an appointment in June for your teeth. Yellow, but I assume relativly cavity free
4. Do you hear anything about Noah anymore? He's a powerful zone leader and gets a good birthday present of me leaving.
5. Do you take pictures anymore? Maybe no, I am lazy and my camera never seems to have batteries.


Anyway, I love you guys

Hua Zhanglao

04/06/11 Keep Praying for Me

Dear Family,

Today we are going to see the giant pandas. I am pretty excited even though I have heard that the pretty much just sleep a lot and lie around. I hope Elder Dodge gets my letter I sent him before he finishes his mission. I am so worried because I forgot his birthday; I can only remember it in Japanese because its like san kiu or something and he would always say like "san kiu berry much".

Anyways, I haven't seen conference yet. I hope that it was pretty amaizing. I really hope to find a whole family and bring them unto the gospel. If I can't do that maybe helping partial member families become all member families willl have to do.

I enjoy it out here although my investigators are few and lessons taught in a week are few as well. When it comes down to it, I don't quite have the finding investigators skill that I need. It gets tricky to move from "Hello how are you?" to "Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ". Goodness, I feel like a greenie again, I think I could be losing Elder Edwards

trust as a senior companion. Probably not, I just need you guys to keep praying for me and the rest just depends on my own faith. I just feel like I am getting rejected a whole lot more than a year ago when I was in Macau. Shoot, it seems like I never even got rejected a year ago.

I am starting to miss my family and hope that I can go on some kind of trip or have some kind of family reunion sometime after I come back. I am thinking about doing the study abroad in Nanjing eventually to help my Putonghua so I don't want to go to China with my family.

I am not so sure what to say, I bet I will have alot more after conference. I hope that the Lord's prophets can inspire and help me to get the fire back. I need to finish strong, I hope I can make taking my late departure date worthwhile.

I love the Book of Mormon, I don't know if I can finish in Chinese before my mission is over. I am on page 245 in the missionary study version with pinyin. I think I can still make it if I read eight to ten pages a day. I only have like seventy or so days left. Anyway, the Book of Mormon is true, I wish others wouldn't keep quoting revelations and interpreting it to mean that the Book of Mormon is false. I feel so good when I read that book and I know that it is a true history.

I love everybody,

Elder Hua

03/30/11 Rence, Alcris, Elder Edwards's Blood Sugar

Hello my family,

I don't know if they count as the family you were praying for but I am so happy that we will be baptizing Rence, a mother of three and wife to a member named Irwin. She was investigating a whole year ago when I was here last time. They are a Filipino family with two really cute boys. Their daughter, which she had a month or so ago, I have never seen. Its so crazy that I have been away from Macau for so long that a woman could get pregnant and have a baby in the time that I was gone. Anyways, because it is so hard to arrange a time for her to be baptised because she can only come basically every other week, we are taking advantage of her maternity leave to get the appropriate amount of four Sundays in a row. Also a member named Josephine referred her son Alcris, who has a baptismal date already, we meet with him quite often. I wish I could speak Tagalog so that I could explain things in a more clear way to Alcris, but we have really awesome fellow shippers who help us with translation stuff.

In the Mandarin neck of the woods,we are kind of struggling, I know there are families that are Mandarin. The other day I contacted a mother and daughter who were speaking Mandarin together, the daughter was wearing a school uniform indicating that she lived there. The little daughter was quite bratty to me and the mother just told me that she wasn't interested.

The Mandarin family that has a new baby that I contacted a week or so ago won't answer their phone. I guess there are Mandarin families here but finding a prepared one will be hard. I think working with Filipino families is way better than working with student girls. We do have several Mandarin speaking student girls but they don't come to church when they say they will and always have the excuse of having tests and homework to take care of. But we have a ton of excellent fellow shippers for them, if we can just find some good ones.

I hope that I can continue on boldly talking with everyone I can. I find it hard to open my mouth at times, even in a place as relaxed and friendly as Macau. I hope Elder Edwards won't lose trust in me as a senior companion because my finding/contacting skills aren't where they should be. My teaching lessons skills and baptising skills are about average I think. We really get along, I hope I don't kill him from neglect, he has diabetes you know. I delayed his lunch yesterday for about three hours because I couldn't find a restaurant that didn't cost a lot at the casino areas.

The first councilor of the "Cantonese" branch who is from Taiwan and has Cantonese about as good as mine, ran into us while we were in the Venetian. It kind of looked bad to run into missionaries in a casino area. I gave him the alibi that I was hungry and then left the scene as fast and awkwardly as I could. I should have just told him that my companion has diabetes and that he needed to eat or he could die. Then bother Lin probably would have bought us lunch or something. Instead we walked around looking at expensive restaurants and wasted a lot of time all the while Elder Edwards' blood sugar was dropping. We eventually ate lunch about two hours later at a cheap rice box stand.

I hope you can appreciate how much of a fiasco that was.

Anyways, I think we will be fine, this is the land of promise.

I love you all,

Hua Zhanglao
PS now we have a phone and can do alot more work.

P.P.S. from Stephen's mom:
I wrote a whole letter to Stephen on carrying food with them and making eating a priority. My brother had childhood diabetes, so I am worried.