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.

3/24/11 Micau!

Hey guys,

I am really happy to be here in Macau. All of our recent converts from a year ago are still active and won't be recent converts by the time I get kicked out of Macau again. I am so happy to be back and this time we will teach and baptize a whole lot more Mandarins. I am so excited to get to be here again in this Asain-wanna-be-Vegas.

I hope that I can work hard and manage all of the phone numbers. Speaking of which, Elder Wyatt, my companion for about a week had lost our companionship's cell phone about a week ago. This makes things inconvenient, but in a country that is 26 square kilometers, it is still very manageable. I just have to carry a billion phone numbers around with me.

My new companion Elder Edwards is really cool so far. I liked him even before we both ended up in Macau together. I hope we can get a ton of work done. This field is so white and ready to harvest. I can virtually get anyone on the street's phone number. The only tricky thing is scheduling. I can see some baptisms happening soon. We just got a baptismal date set for April 24. Its a Mandarin college girl. Suprise! I don't super like that, but there are certainly a lot around that are willing to accept the gospel. I need a family though. I just contacted one yesterday oddly enough. The couple had a baby, when I asked how old it was they told me she was ten days old. I know that they live in Macau now. They are Mandarins too. They gave me their phone number and live really close to the church. I hope something can come out of it.

We attend the Cantonese branch, but the majority of last Sunday was done in Mandarin due to the large ammount of Mandarin student girls and the Taiwanese first councelor. The elders quorum president is from Fujian. Actually I think the poor Cantonese work over here is quite a shame. I am glad that I get English and Mandarin to work with. We had better get like four baptisms this transfer. I hope that one day I can be the branch president of a Mandarin Branch here. If I get a family, then that will be a great start.

I don't really know how to explain all of my happiness and joy. I need to do amazing things here for sure. Did I mention that everybody here loves me? or at least I imagine that they do. I like both branches very much.

Well that's all I have to tell you
I love you all,

Hua Zhanglao

3/16/11 The "Larry" Epidemic

What a dandy of a conversion story. (Mom sent me her conversion story) I am so upset that all these awesome family gatherings happen when I'm away. I think our family is so rad. How can we be so united? I hope I can be in on many future gatherings and reunions.

So anyways, the APs called me and told me that on Saturday I'm going back to Macau. I know that God hears prayers. I will probably end my mission there or get pretty close to ending it there.

I don't know what I should say. Acutally recently we had a brother from Brazil who lived in New Zealand come to have his Chinese citizen wife get baptised. Stressful situation. We had to go through a lot of authority checking and even had to call the seventy who covers Mainland up to get permission. All in all, I am so worried about how those two communicate. His wife was really prepared and somehow understood all the commandments ahead of time but she can't even really speak English at four year old level yet. I guess the spirit can help them. The Brazilian man was a high priest and obviously a powerful force in the Lord's kingdom and the language in his prayers sounded like patriarchal blessings, but I am so baffled why he married someone he can't really talk with.

Anyways, we call this sort of phenomenon being a "Larry" (marrying a Chinese lady when it would probably have been more ideal not to). I don't really want to be like that.

So I am so excited to be back with the Indonesian sisters and Mandarin speaking students over there in my home in Macau.

I know the restored gospel is true. It just makes so much sense, it gives me such a calm reassurance that any question I have about my existance on earth can be answered simply and beautifully. I just get such a peace in my heart to know that life is not an accidental occurance in the universe. I also am so comforted that our church has a clear organization and has no contradicting doctrines or systems of belief that were created by men. It helps to be made from a restoration and not a reformation, its the only way that logically makes sense to establish God's church that was once lost on the earth. I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon that it is a true history and the word of God. Joseph Smith couldn't have written it and could only have been translated it through the power of God. I read it and feel the love of my Heavenly Father.

I also have a testimony of the atonement. While I am still very far from being perfect, I know that I can be, I know that I must be if I want eternal happiness. I am so happy for the changes that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have helped me make so far in my life and I strive to continually better myself through repentance. I hope to be worthy to have an eternal family one day.

I love you guys and still want feedback on my hairbrained idea to be an elemenary school teacher at Wasatch. I appreciated Laura's encouragement for me to be a Larry.

Hua Zhanglao

p.s. Next time I write you, Im in Macau

2/10/11 - Future Questions

Hello Everybody,

I am not upset at all for you guys not coming to pick me up. I pretty much have a lifetime to experience China. I will probably study abroad there if I ever have hopes of pursuing Mandarin. I totally don't need missionary regulations and parents preventing me from eating scorpions and purchasing chu ko nu's (an anchient chinese semi-automatic crossbow) from the market. I know that I really want to go to Macau now next transfer though.

About Elder So, I of course want to pretty much be his roommate. I want to see what Salt Lake has to offer and save money by bumming off my parents. LDSBC or the BYU center in Salt Lake are good, I would rather not waste all the religion generals and stuff that I took by going to the U. It still isn't certain if Elder So can get in yet but I really think its so cool that my parents would be willing to take on a Chinese child. I think he's 24 or 25 actually.

Although I am pretty sure I never said I was interested in business. I remember how football discount cards went for me, I pretty much sold none. I couldn't really get people to purchase aerating either. Now I am over here selling a product that is actually true and that everyone really needs and it doesn't even cost anything and I'm not having much success. So no, I don't want to do business at all.

About living in Provo though. I had the craziest I idea ever. I really like children and children's books and stuff and I want to use Chinese, but not in a business sense. I totally think that I should be a teacher at Wasatch if it still does dual immersion a while down the road. It sounds way difficult, but Elder Coswer said that if I marry a Chinese lady, than I can do it pretty easy, she could probaby teach also.

Then I could have my children grow up in several different bubbles all at once. I wonder how weird they would be once they went to a normal junior high.

Anyways, is that a good idea? It sounds probably like a dream or something. I do think lobster farming or nuclear power or an FBI agent would be pretty cool too. I do want to use Mandarin in the future, but I don't want to have to take advantage of a bunch of poor mainland factory people or have to do sales to people and sell them junk they don't need.

I wonder how Laos is. There are a lot of people form Cambodia and Thailand that come over here to do temple work I imagine Laotian people like them. The only other Laotian idea I have is from King of the Hill. maybe they're like Vietnamese or Hmong people too.

The work is doin' good and Elder Cowser should be able to scrape up some baptisms by the time I'm outta here. We have three baptismal dates for April, which is next transfer.

I love you all and hope that this letter was informative and doesn't make you think I'm trunky for the future or want to marry a Chinese lady or anything.

Hua Zhanglao

2/2/11 Elders So, Kershisnik, Yu and Gates

My Dearest Loved Ones,

How yall doin'? I just finished eating a Korean BBQ buffet, it was in honor of Elder Yu. Elder Yu got sent back to Taiwan. Actually an apostle changed his mission call to Taibei, so it isn't that serious. He had problems with the Taiwan government suspecting him of evading mandatory military service. So anyways I am most of his mission experience in Hong Kong. I will miss him, I hope I learned him a thing or two. I hope he doesn't have any crazy stories to tell people in Taiwan about the Hong Kong mission. Im pretty sure he doesn't have anything negative that he learned from me. Poor guy, Elder Kershisnik said that Elder Yu's situation is like if I were to have my call changed to Denver Colorado and that made me ponder; I really feel bad for Elder Yu. I don't doubt that it was all in the Lord's planning, but I wonder why the Lord gave him to me for so long. He was probably supposed to give me some sort of edge with my mandarin or something. I have totally had the most Chinese people or people of Chinese decent for a companion than any other Mandarin elder.

I just remembered one thing, about my Chinese companions that I have had in the past. I wonder how you guys would feel if Elder So, one of my companions in Macau, living in our house while he went to LDSBC. He is really cool and smiley. He even smiles when he is angry. Super nice and musically talented. He wants to transfer to BYU after, he just doesn't have much financial support or good grades at this point. His parents are non members so weren't really sure what the heck he was doing spending alot of money just to stay in Hong Kong on a mission and not come home for mid autumn festival or Chinese new year. So, I wonder if So could could stay at our place if he gets accepted to LDSBC. It was me who suggested it to him, because our home has a extra room or two and I remember everybody in the whole world has lived in our basement before.

Anyways, it is quite likely that I could go back to the city of dreams next transfer. I was just looking at my grades at BYU and let out sigh of deep dispair. My young zone leader is so powerful, he just comforted me and told me to apply the Atonement in my life. Thats true, Jesus can help me change my academic life. I hope I can apply what I learned in the mission to improve my chances and carreer possibilities in the future. President Lin of our mandarin branch told me that I can start worrying about the future now. He also was trying to hint at me coming back and marrying some lady in our branch. I don't think that single mothers are my type yet. Pretty crazy branch president, he is kind of obsessed with baptismal statistics, I will miss him when I die in international work.

I read Nathaniel Gate's letter and saw that his letters and my letters are different. If there is anyway that my letters need to be more spiritual or less negative, let me know.

Thats about all I have for now, good luck in all your numberless endeavors, don't worry about the past Rafiki might whack you again if you do.

I love you all,
Hua Zhanglao