An Interruption in Transmission

Elder East was due to go into the mission field this Wednesday, the 1st July. By last weekend we still hadn't heard anything about his travel details. Our Stake President, President Stuart, rang us on Sunday to let us know that many of those who are going into the mission field at the moment were only getting their travel details about two days before they travel. He was expecting that we would know by Monday as to whether Elder East would be going to Adelaide this week or not. If we hadn't heard on Monday he would chase up for us, but he hadn't been told anything either way.

Elissa emailed the AAM mission president on Sunday evening with some admin questions, but also mentioned that we still hadn't heard re Elder East's travel plans. President Marquis replied back on Monday, advising that the Mission had liaised with the Area Presidency and determined that the 1st July intake would be deferred until the 20th July when SA's borders were scheduled to open. He apologised that obviously we'd been missed on the communications about that. He did say that with the various changes that are going on, if the borders came down earlier then we'd likely see the missionaries heading earlier as well.

So, by Monday afternoon we were resigned to Elder East being delayed in getting out to the mission field. We spoke with President Stuart who arranged to come by on Tuesday evening to release Elder East as a missionary. He will then be set apart again when he's due to leave for the mission field.

Earlier this afternoon (Tues 30th Jun) there was more news that might complicate things even further. Victoria has been having a large increase in Covid-19 cases over the last week, and subsequently, South Australia has decided to cancel the scheduled opening of its borders on the 20th of July.  We don't know yet what that means for Elder East. As I speak, he's currently being interviewed by President Stuart for his temporary release. We just don't know how long it's going to be for.