The AAM has put up their blog post about transfers from the 14th of December. I've gone through and pulled out the photos that include Elder East in them, so let's all play 'Where's Elder East?" in the 14th December 2020 Transfer photos. Admittedly, I think you'll find he's pretty easy to spot in most of them.
this first photo is a photo from the evening of the 13th December when transfers are being announced.
If you missed Elder East in the last two photos, here are some close-ups:
Elder East was allowed to call us on Christmas Day, and we had Jayde join us from Melbourne on the chat as well. There was a lot of banter between the three siblings, but I didn't record a lot of that, just the updates that Elder East gave us with what was happening on his mission,
The Adelaide missionaries spent Christmas Eve together at a shortened Zone Conference. There wasn't the usual training, but there were about a dozen or so short talks given by other missionaries. Every missionary is asked to prepare a short talk on a topic prior to each Zone Conference. The Mission President will then call on a number of missionaries to give their talks during the conference. The theme for this conference was "The Birth of Christ". I think Elder East was disappointed he didn't get to give his talk.
After the talks, they had a dinner - mainly ham & potato bake, although Elder East said that there was also a "salad" featuring strawberries in jelly. We commented that it must have been made by an American Senior Missionary couple - it was :) Elder East refused to refer to it as a "salad". I've grabbed some photos of the Zone Conference from the AAM blog that featured Elder East and will put them below.
After the dinner, President Marquis gave out presents to each missionary. They all received a cushion that had a picture of the mission and the phrase "A Marvellous Work and a Wonder Down Under" on it. They also received a Christmas stocking, presumably with treats in it. Elder East didn't elaborate on the contents apart from mentioning that his also contained a "Called to Serve" tie pin.
On Christmas morning Elder East had several presents to open. Kendal had sent him a plush dinosaur with a missionary tag. The funny thing is, that he had also bought a plush dinosaur and sent it to her for Christmas.
He also had the package of assorted goodies from Elissa's parents. Lisa Koskinen had sent him chocolate, and the Grants had sent him a present as well. (I forgot to write down what their present was!)
On Christmas day itself, Elder East had just gotten back from spending 6 hours working for the Salvation Army along with the rest of the zone. They were helping with a lunch that was being put on for people in the community who were unable to spend Christmas with family or friends. Elder East said that there were about 40 people at the lunch. He and the other missionaries acted as waiters as well as doing any odd jobs that were required. He said that he loved providing the service, but that his legs were really sore after being on them for over 6 hours.
Elder East said that all of those that were at the lunch received a hamper of goods. They had some hampers left over so the missionaries were given hampers as well. He said that there's more food than what they can use, so will look to try and take some food around to share with some less-active families.
He said that an extra bonus of the service with the Salvos was that whilst getting ready to leave a cat came up to Elder East and he was able to get a pat.
After we finished up our video chat Elissa received various texts through the evening for advice on cooking the baked ham and roast dinner that Elder East was making. They also had prawns and mussels to go with the baked dinner, so their companionship had a nice Christmas feast. We even received photos of their meal.
President Marquis had arranged for a P-Day activity for the Adelaide missionaries this week, so we hadn't planned on chatting this Wednesday. Fortunately, Elder East was able to have two chats with us once in a library on the way home, and once in the evening.
Elder East said it was a good chance to socialise with the other missionaries. As expected, he said he spent a lot of time talking with Elder Reeves.
We learned a bit about his new area during our chats. Their mission flat is in a block of six units. It's a two-bedroom unit - they all have beds, which isn't always the case in a three-way companionship.
Morialta Ward is a big ward but Elder East says that there's not a strong level of trust from the members. He says that it's because it's the ward that the mission home is in and so, over time, a number of missionaries "with issues" that needed to be close to the mission office have been assigned to the ward. Subsequently, they don't get many meals with members.
He said that they did have a meal with the Howes family and that the dad had been the Mission President of the Sydney North Mission when it was recreated in 2013.
They also met up with the McCappin family at one point - Brother McCappin (David) and I served together as missionaries in Tamworth. He mentioned to Elder East about cutting my hair one time. I explained to Elder East that I'd gotten a haircut from a member and that they'd put a "Step" in my haircut. The Mission President had said that it wasn't in line with the missionary grooming guidelines and has asked me to lose it. We decided that the easiest way to do so was just to get a crewcut all over. I sent through the following picture of Elder McCappin and myself to Elder East. His comment was that I was "White white". I commented that it was more that "some of me had a tan."
They were asked to go visit some of the recent converts last week which they did. In doing so they actually came across a barbecue at one of their homes that also had the Bishop and EQP's families present.
There aren't a lot of previous investigators for the companionship to contact in their area book. There were some females who were being taught but they are being looked after by the Sister Missionaries in the neighboring City Branch. Elder East says that he's already tried calling everybody in their area book twice since transfers.
The next couple of days have several mission activities planned. On Thursday (Christmas Eve) they will be having a Zone Conference for the Adelaide Zones followed by a dinner, and then on Friday, Christmas Day, they will be doing a service project with the Salvation Army for most of the day. We'll get to chat with Elder East again in the late afternoon/evening of Christmas Day.
Some other quick dot point notes:
We didn’t get a long video chat this week. The reason is because Elder East has been transferred again. He’s been transferred to Morialta Ward. He is in a three-way companionship with Elder Nalesoni and Elder Aiho. Elder Nalesoni was Elder East’s companion during quarantine, whilst Elder Aiho is the Elder from Tahiti who is his Twelfth Cousin.
Elder East sent us a photo of Elder Nalesoni when he was telling us who his new companions were. No photo of Elder Aiho though - he was in the bathroom at the time.
Apparently, their new accommodation is close to a Hungry Jacks and an Oporto's but they're trying to limit eating takeaway to only once per fortnight. A quick check of the Adelaide map shows that having those two places together in the ward boundaries means that they must live somewhere near the suburb of Firle.
Morialta is meant to be a strong ward - averaging an attendance of 220 pre-covid, and still over 160 since returning from the pandemic break. The ward takes in part of Adelaide's eastern suburbs and hills, and then stretches about 150kms out into the countryside, past the town of Swan Reach.
Elder East is obviously disappointed to be leaving Marion Ward and no longer being the District Leader for Marion. He joked that he’s there as a “fixer” to help them with the work. Elder East is the only one in the companionship with a phone at the moment, so that will make things even harder. They do however have a car, and probably much to Elder East's joy, Elder Nalesoni is the designated driver.
They had a busy P-day ahead with Elder Aiho having to get an X-ray after having fallen off of his bike. New guidance from the Mission President is that districts are only allowed to have one "District P-day" per transfer, so that will be a change to the way a lot of P-days have been happening for them so far.
Elder East let us know that he received two packages during the week. The first was from the Reeves.
The second was from Grandma and Grandad. Elder East said that he loved it but it’s honestly way too much. I’m sure the fact he’s in a three-way means that they’ll try and help him eat any goodies.
Elder East started off the day by sending through a bunch of photos of his district to us. They were farewelling two missionaries - Sister Davie and Elder Platon - who were finishing their missions and had taken these photos at the district farewell on the Monday.
Elissa was so happy to see so many photos of Elder East sent through ...as you can tell by her response.
A summary of some of the other things discussed during the chat:
