Photos - 26th August 2020 - Aqua-Echidna

Here are photos uploaded by Elder East last P-day of their hike in the Morialta Conservation Park to Morailta Falls.

As mentioned, he was quite excited that they saw an echidna, and that it wasn't your ordinary, shy, trying to run away echidna. This echidna crossed a stream and climbed up the nearby embankment, so they got a pretty good look at it.

Here's a photo from the previous week's P-Day activity at the Adelaide Adventure Rooms.

And Elder East decided that his photo of Morailta Falls needed to have a derposaur added.

Video: How I Hear Him - Elder East

Elder East sent us through the following video that he was asked to do by Brother Josh Arona - a High Councilman in the Canberra Australia Stake who also serves on the Stake Young Men's Presidency.

Video Chat - 26th August 2020 - Morialta Falls Hike

For P-Day the district (and the Grants) went on a hike to Morialta Falls in the Morialta Conservation Park. This is the same Conservation area that President Marquis took the Elders to when they finished quarantine. Elder East said that they took a different, longer hiking route this time. Part of the highlight of the hike was having an echidna crossing a river towards them.

Elder East is scheduled to go through the Adelaide Temple on the evening of Wednesday 2nd September. He had his Temple Recommend interview with President Marquis last Sunday which he quite enjoyed. He was encouraged and reassured by President Marquis of Elder East's worthiness and preparation to go through the temple. Elder East thinks that there will be 2 other Elders and possibly 1 or 2 Sisters going through the Temple at the same time. One of them was an Elder in his online MTC, but he was in a different district and Elder East didn't know him very well.

Their escape room activity at Adelaide Adventure Rooms on P-Day last week was fun. The scenario was that it was a jailbreak, with them handcuffed to a bench in different cells. They managed to finish with about 15 minutes to go. Elder East said that Elder De Guzman was really good at picking locks which helped them in the first part of the challenge.  Elder East was able to show off his geographical knowledge in the puzzle in the last part of the challenge. It involved trying to match postcards and plane tickets to locations throughout the world. Elder East would have been a natural at that, and the other missionaries were apparently impressed.

Elder East is getting a bit tired of the same old wraps he was making for meals and has bought some different sauces and jalapenos to "spice things up" a bit. They have been having some variety with pasta too, but he also says that he's eating too much junk food. We were surprised by this, but he explained that the constant backwards and forwards to the flat for meals was becoming too time-consuming and so they were starting to eat out more. He did point out proudly that they had bought vegetables last week. Hadn't used them yet, but they had bought them.

Tomorrow (Thursday) there will be a combined Five Mission (ie five Australian missions) Conference with a member of the Seventy and the Presiding Bishopric speaking to them. (He had thought it was going to be last Monday, but he got the date wrong.) Mum explained that the Presiding Bishopric focuses a lot on the service given by the Church around the world. She spoke of how her Mission President (Glen L Pace) had been in the Presiding Bishopric and had gone to Ethiopia in the 80's to see how the Church could assist during the famine. Elder East mentioned that they were teaching somebody from Ethiopia at the moment.

Their finding and teaching are still a bit haphazard. Having finished going through old investigators in their area book, they are focusing on those who didn't answer or those who were too busy when previously contacted. Unfortunately, they're not currently allowed to street contact, tract or use any other finding method in public, and there are very few members to try and work with. Most of their discussions last week, including six scheduled for last Friday fell through. They have managed to teach three discussions so far this week. They have one lady they've taught twice that they're trying to get a French BoM for. Another person they've always managed to teach in person at the chapel. They also taught a lesson to a member. Elder East says that he's working on learning to ask questions that help the individuals apply the gospel to themselves.

They're still going running in the mornings, but not on P-days, Sundays or in the rain. Elder East is also trying to do some additional exercise in the afternoons - "muscle stuff". He has bought himself some more t-shirts and shorts for running/exercising.

For his current personal study, he has taken up a challenge by the Stake President to read the Book of Mormon before the next Stake Conference. He's currently in Mosiah. He's been supplementing some of his studies by listening to the related BYU Round Table scripture discussions that I loaded onto his phone before departure. He's enjoying re-discovering concepts and doctrines that he's learnt, but which are now popping out at him in the scriptures. One example this week was studying more about the concept of the First Resurrection.

Because of the irregular movements of missionaries in and out of the mission due to Covid-19 restrictions, transfers aren't as scheduled or regular as they used to be. There will likely be a mini-transfer tomorrow for the Sisters coming out of quarantine. Elder East believes there may be a companionship of sister missionaries assigned to the Adelaide City Branch. In other transfer news, Elder Bataar was replaced by Elder Lwin from Myanmar who has trained seven times! Their current District Leader is being transferred out today, which Elder East is sad about. He believes that Elder Reeves' three-way companionship is about to be split down to a regular companionship.

He is enjoying the Sacrament meetings, even though none of the people they invited to Church came along this week.  He's really enjoying the Sunday School lessons in the Branch. The Sunday School teacher is a former mission president and is a good teacher. There was an investigator that brought himself along to Church this week after having seen the Book of Mormon play.

I sent Elder East some photos of himself when he was 4 years old. he was with several statues from along North Terrace in Adelaide when we drove across the Nullarbor in 2006. I checked out the location of the statues and they are literally less than 200 metres across the road from the Adelaide City Branch chapel. I told him he needed to take some modern photos of himself with the statues.

Dot point notes:

• We spoke about Sister missionaries in Houston that were recently broken into and stabbed by a neighbor.
• Some discussion about major happenings in world news.
• He had less emails to respond to this week - Alex, Jewel and Kendall
• He's not feeling homesick (for us at least)
• Although both Elders in a companionship have phones, there is just a single SIM card that belongs to the area. The SIM card is primarily kept by the senior companion but swapped as needed.
• He's gotten himself some "rule-compliant" socks.
• He seems to be adjusting better to the missionary lifestyle of living with somebody else.
• Mum asked him when he felt the Spirit throughout the week. He responded whilst teaching lessons and during the Temple Recommend interview with President Marquis. 

[Late update: We received a happy message from Elder East later in the evening, letting us know that they had taught the investigator who brought himself to Church on Sunday. Not only had they taught him, but they had committed him to baptism. Elder East wrote "He's been prepared. He's done his research and he's willing to [keep the commandments]. [His baptism is scheduled for] October 31st." The Elders understand that's a long way off and that there will be challenges ahead, but it's exciting for them.]

Sister Grant Is Impressed By Elder East

The Grants are a senior missionary couple in the AAM mission office. Most of our email communications with the mission office have been through Sister Grant and she has helped us out a number of times. Here's the email exchange between Elissa and Sister Grant over the last 24 hours.

From: East Family
Sent: Sunday, 23 August 2020 8:17 PM
To: Australia Adelaide Mission
Subject: RE: Elder East - Temple

Hello Sister Grant,
Did Elder East's parcel for the temple arrive? When is he going through?
Elissa East

From: Australia Adelaide Mission
Sent: Sunday, 23 August 2020 8:54 PM
To: East Family
Subject: Re: Elder East - Temple

The package got here a couple of days ago! We consider it a mission miracle! I don’t think the day is set yet. We will for sure let you know.
Thank you so much for making that happen so quickly. I don’t know how you did it but we are grateful. It means President can be free to schedule very soon.
Our thanks and love to you. 

I was in a District Council with Elder East on Thursday and we were role playing. I was the investigator who didn’t want to commit. You should have seen your son in action. With kindness and a personal touch that you don’t often see in young Elders, he guided me to truth. I was so impressed.
Sister Grant

From: East Family
Sent: Monday, 24 August 2020 6:42 AM
To: Australia Adelaide Mission
Subject: RE: Elder East - Temple

Thank you Sister Grant,
I really appreciated knowing it has arrived and look forward to the date.
Thank you also for kind words on how he is going. He isn’t big on words, emails or explaining what is happening. I know he is very concerned he isn’t learning quick enough, so it is reassuring to know he is doing better than he thinks he is.
Have a great week.

From: Australia Adelaide Mission
Sent: Monday, 24 August 2020 8:46 AM
To: East Family
Subject: RE: Elder East - Temple

I can assure you after the two hours we got to spend with him that he is doing great.  His soft spoken and humble manner is a definite asset, as it makes people around him feel secure and accepted.

Photos - 19th August 2020 - North Terrace Views

Edler East was trying to upload photos for us last P-Day, but he was having problems getting them to upload. He did at least get the following pictures uploaded. The first three are of locations that they pass in the CBD across from the chapel on North Terrace each day.

State Library of South Australia caption

The King Edward VII Memorial

Art Gallery of South Australia

The fourth photo is a photo of his new missionary name tag in Mandarin. For those who can't read Mandarin, it says "yē sū jī dū hòu qī shèng tú jiào huì"

Video Chat - 19th August 2020 - 29 Months and Done

We held our weekly video chat a bit earlier today as Elder East’s district had scheduled to go to an Escape Room during the afternoon.  Mum dialed in from work whilst Dad dialed in from home. Elder East was feeling a bit better in regards to adjusting to having to live around somebody who does things differently to how he does.

The news that Elder East was excited to tell us about was that Elder Bataar was going home to Mongolia. Mongolia had completely closed their borders as a result of the pandemic, and Elder Bataar had been unable to go home and was now heading towards 29 months on his mission. Apparently, the Grants, the senior missionary couple in the AAM office, had developed a good relationship with those in the Mongolian embassy, and Elder Bataar was one of only 30 Mongolian ex-pats who were chosen to be repatriated.  The district held a mini-farewell party at the chapel on Tuesday afternoon along with a couple of investigators. Elder East said that one of the investigators reminded him of Jayde in personality.

Elders East & De Guzman finally finished making phonecalls to previous investigators from their area book this week. Elder East doesn’t think they’re having much success using this method, but there aren't a lot of other finding options at the moment. Only about a third of people answer their phone calls, and they have had a couple of rude/abusive responses. We’d commented that he still seemed to be teaching a lot, so he went through how many lessons they’d taught in the last week. Unfortunately, the three appointments they had for last Wednesday evening all fell through. They taught a lesson to a member on Thursday but didn’t teach any lessons on Friday. There were another two lessons on Saturday, but none on Sunday or Monday, and another two on Tuesday. They had a lesson scheduled for just after our video chat at 1:30pm.

He commented that most of their investigators are students, and of those that are in the country, it's currently a busy time for them at university. The word from other missionaries though is that investigators in the Adelaide City branch are more "chill" than those in the rest of Adelaide. When we asked what that meant, he said that missionaries sometimes encounter "weirder and angrier" people in suburbia.

Sunday attendances at the branch are still small - leaders, missionaries, several couples, and several new converts. One of those in attendance was a backpacker from Belgium. The branch has started up Sunday School classes again as a part of the Sunday meetings. Last Sunday they talked about the Stripling Warriors and Elder East drew upon a lot of the seminary lessons that Mum had sent to him during the week. He said that one of the speakers during Sacrament was one of Elder De Guzman's converts who shared his conversion experience.

Elder East and Elder De Guzman have started going on runs in the morning as part of an exercise routine. They go for a 15-20 minute run past a nursing home and down to the Firle Chapel and Mission Home before doing the 15-20 min run back. Apparently Elder East was a bit self-conscious of trying to exercise in front of his companion in the flat, so he's happy that they're exercising together. We asked if they go anywhere near the Temple but it's apparently in a different direction.

He commented that his clothes were getting a bit tight in a few places. He wasn't sure if he was gaining muscle or putting on weight. Mum queried "where?" - he commented his shirts were tight around the chest. Mum then asked if he was doing any weight training - he said no. Mum commented it's probably not muscle then ... He has been doing a lot of push-ups so it could actually be muscle.

In regards to going to the Temple, Elder & Sister Grant have dropped off a Church booklet for him called Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple. His Mission President has said he'll arrange for a Temple Recommend interview, but they're still waiting on details of when they will be going.

Some other dot points from our conversation:

• President Marquis is trying to reply to each email/letter he sends to him (Missionaries are meant to write to their Mission President each week.)
• The bank that has his mission funds is The Bank of America. He finds that their debit card doesn't work a lot.
• He has only encountered one cat so far, and it ran away
• He received his package with his new set of scriptures, as well as treats from Mum and a Subway voucher.
• They tend to shop weekly, but do a large shop one week, then a smaller shop for perishables the following week. 
• He was unsuccessful in making himself a decent ham & cheese toasted sandwich using a frying pan. We did point out that sandwich toasters aren't that expensive.
• No meals from the members during the week
• Next Monday there is meant to be an Australia-wider Zone Conference with a member of the Seventy in attendance.
• Elder East enjoyed watching Minori during the videochat - she had decided that she was going to head-bump and rub herself all over Dad's phone at one point during the video chat.
• He gave us a virtual tour of the Adelaide City Branch chapel.
• He has received a new name tag - in Mandarin!

Video Chat - 12th August 2020 - Learning to Adjust

Elder East said that we probably won't get an email from him this week, so I took notes during our weekly family video chat.

He started out by saying that he might only show his mouth in the video. He had just gotten himself a haircut that he wasn’t happy with and didn't want to show his whole head. It was shorter on top than Mum usually does it, but it didn’t look too bad.

The first bit of conversation was about Mum’s car accident as we’d just gotten the news that Jelly Bean (her car) was being written off and that Mum was now driving around Danielle Devito (his car). Elder East did give Mum some little tips about his old car … like not locking the driver’s door when in the car as it doesn’t unlock from the inside and you have to then climb out the passenger’s side. (Note: Not sure why he didn’t just wind down the driver’s door window and open it that way.]

The major theme of the chat was that Elder East is having trouble adjusting to his new companion.  There's nothing of a serious nature, just getting used to people who do things differently. Elder De Guzman likes to have three cooked meals a day, most with rice, whilst Elder East would typically just have an apple for breakfast and maybe a sandwich for lunch. It’s frustrating for Elder East in that in his view all of the cooked meals result in a lot of extra cleaning that needs to be done, and a lot of extra time traveling to and from their flat.

Their typical day consists of leaving the flat at 10am, traveling to the chapel by bus to work, bussing back to the flat for lunch, bussing back to the chapel for more work, and then bussing back in the evening.

At the chapel, they spend a lot of time calling through old investigators in the area books. They actually seem to be doing not too bad in that regard. He said that they had 3 appointments scheduled for that evening, had taught 2 lessons on Monday and 4 lessons on Tuesday. He'd taught a couple of the lessons with Elder Roberts as Elder De Guzman had been playing the piano whilst Elder East was making calls to investigators. We commented that he was teaching far more than we typically did on our missions.

They've only had a single meal with a member so far. He took them out to a claypot dinner in Chinatown. The one he had wanted to take them too wasn't available so they tried a different one, which ended up being a lot more expensive than he'd planned. The bill came to $140. The member had intended to pay for the missionaries, but he only had $100. Elder De Guzman didn't have any money, so Elder East ended up paying the other $40.

Elder East mentioned that he and Elder De Guzman need to work on how the training is going to operate. Elder De Guzman is very much of the opinion that Elder East will learn by doing things as he goes, whereas Elder East prefers to learn about how to do things beforehand before putting them into practice. They obviously need to work about how make Elder East's training more effective.

We talked about how the Adelaide Temple would be opening up so that he would be able to go the Temple for the first time (as opposed to just the baptistery.) We had asked the Mission President several months ago about whether we might be able to come over when that occurred to help assist. President Marquis was fine with that, but the shut borders mean that that's no longer an option. Instead, we've ordered the clothes he needs for the temple from the Sydney Distribution Centre. We did need some assistance from Sister Grant in the Mission Office who went and helped get some measurements from Elder East.

A few other minor points:

• Sister Abel from Stromlo Ward had an MTC companion who is about to transfer into the AAM, so she's been told to keep an eye out for Elder Seth.
• Elder East has bought some new, mission-rule-compliant plain socks to replace the picture socks that Mum had gotten for him.
• We talked about the kayaker who died earlier in the week down at Point Hut Crossing, just down the road from home.
• Elder East was planning to email Alex G, Grandma and Kendall R. We noted that we weren't a part of the list that was going to get an email.

Zone Conference - 03rd August 2020

The AAM Blog updated with details of the Zone Conferences that were held last week - one in Darwin, and one in Adelaide. The Adelaide conference featured three Zones and was held on Sat 3rd August. Elder East is in the Firle Zone.

Here are the photos from the AAM blog that included Elder East.

There were some group photos - one of all 3 zones in attendance, then one of each individual zone.

Video Chat - 05th August 2020 - Adelaide City Branch

Some additional notes from the video char we had with Elder East on P-Day, Wednesday 5th August.

Elder East clarified that his companion is Elder De Guzman. In the AAM blog, the photos of the new missionaries and their trainers had Elder East listed as being with Elder Narag. He doesn't know Elder Narag at all. Elder De Guzman is from the Philippines and has been out for about eight months (he came into the field in Dec 2019.) English isn't his first language so there are sometimes some communication issues but they're getting along fine. Elder De Guzman has been Zone Leader for the past 4 months. Elder East says that Elder De Guzman is a good cook.

Their flat is a single-story apartment in the suburb of Evandale and is quite old and rundown. Apparently, they enter their flat via the backdoor because they're worried that if they use the front door it will break.

They don't have a car or bike at all and rely on public transport to get around. He said that isn't bad, although kind of awkward when trying to bring back groceries.

The City Branch area used to have eight missionary companionships, however because of the reduction in missionaries associated with the pandemic, it's now just them and one other companionship. The other companionship is Elder Baraat and Elder Roberts. Elder Baraat is Elder De Guzman's previous companion who is from Mongolia and who's been out for 28 months now because he can't go home. Elder Roberts is the Maori elder who was in quarantine with Elder East.

They're doing most of their work by going through the old area books - which is handy as they have 4 area books to be able to use. Because of the pandemic, missionaries are unable to do much in the way of public contacting, and can't just visit members uninvited. They only had just over 20 members at Church on Sunday - by the sounds of it, a lot of the ward list are international students that haven't been able to return because of the pandemic, or which they've lost contact with, so working with members may be rather limited.

They had however already managed to teach two discussions - one over the phone, and one in person. Another consequence of the pandemic is that they do most of their teaching appointments at the chapel, so they are regularly there.

Elder East commented that he preferred the discussion they taught over the phone rather than the one in person. He's still lacking a lot of confidence in his teaching skills and ability to work with other Elders whilst teaching. They apparently had another two teaching appointments after dinner on P-Day, so it sounds like they're at last getting good opportunities to teach.

There were two photos from Elder East that I didn't include in the email post, and they were of the derposaurs at Morialta Falls on their first day out of quarantine with President Marquis. I've merged the two photos together to produce the following image.

Email Home - 05th August 2020 - Trainer and First Area

Here's the email we received from Elder East on Wednesday 5th August 2020:
Clarifications or notes that have been inserted by Adam are in [square brackets].

This week I have been transferred to the [Adelaide] City Branch area with Elder De Guzman as my trainer.

Apparently Elders assigned to the City area often stay there a while and may [frequently] spend some time up in Darwin. The City Branch is also a Chinese speaking area however [attendance is low] because of the Covid restrictions. Many members are stuck back in their home countries like China or Hong Kong. The City Branch takes up an entire floor in an office building in the city. The entire seventh floor to be precise. Although the missionaries normally assigned to the City Branch are Chinese speaking I don't have to learn it thankfully, though if I spend long here I may end up learning some anyway.

On the bus ride from our flat to [the chapel] (where we do all our work), we pass by four churches, the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, the SA Museum, the SA Art Gallery, the SA State Library, and [the Freemason's] Grand Lodge. And just across the street from the [chapel] is the Adelaide War Memorial (or at least one part of it). You can see it from the [chapel] window which is awesome.

One of the missionaries in quarantine with me was assigned to the City Branch as well but with a different companion so I'll still see him every day.

We had an in-person Zone Conference this Monday which had all the missionaries come together for. It was great to hear from Pres Marquis and to hear and see all of the presentations made for us. We did a musical item that I'm sure Pres will release in a while. I was able to see all of the quarantine missionaries there as well which was great to catch up with them.

In the field, I've gotten a couple of clarifications of rules from my companion. I'm not supposed to use Messenger at all unless it's on P-day with family or it's with investigators. So it's best if you email me during the week instead. Another clarification I've had is that I'm only supposed to have plain socks so all of my socks are unfit to wear :(

[In response to finding out that the heater under Jewel's desk had caught fire] That's what Jewel gets for putting the heater under her desk, that place was a safety hazard since day one.

[In response to both Dad and Jewel being sick] Sending my love home to Dad and Jewel hoping that they get better from their sicknesses.

[In response to news about increasing Covid restrictions in Victoria] I heard Melbourne had introduced curfew but I didn't know it was that bad. Rumor has it (rumor because we don't have news) that SA is bringing back a lot of restrictions because we're getting a handful of cases, only 15 or so but it's enough.

[About keeping in touch with his friend, Alex, back in Canberra] I'll be sending Alex an email today, don't worry.

[About the fact that Elissa and Elder Reeves' Mum have struck up a friendship] It's great that you and Sister Reeves have been talking a lot. It was funny in quarantine because Elder Reeves and I would talk a lot then we'd both talk back home to Kendall and then we'd talk back home to our respective parents who would talk to each other. We were/are getting pretty involved with each other's family.

I'll talk more about my companion in a sec. But Elder Reeves trio seems a lot more chill and less strict than my companionship for sure. The hike though was pretty amazing, we saw a bunch of koalas closer than I've ever seen and so close to humans as well. Photos in drive.

I talked to a guy [at Church] who said he was told to look out for me and he blessed the sacrament while I passed. Thanks for sending the word out.

My companion is alright, he is a zone leader as well as being a trainer so he's got a lot on his plate. And while he's doing both as best as he can I don't think he wants to be either. Especially as he's been a zone leader for 4 transfers. But he's an excellent missionary and we've had some great moments during study together and he's a great cook.

I had an interview with my Pres Marquis last Friday right before the transfer on Saturday, he is an awesome guy and so far I keep loving everything he does for us more and more.

Also thanks for the insights from your seminary class, I won't respond to them but I love reading them.

A response to last week's email: (half-written quite a while later).

South Australia has a mandatory 12th day Covid test, so all 5 of us got tested on the second Tuesday of quarantine. It was a 40-minute drive to the testing centre and an hour and a half wait. Thankfully the test was short but by the time we got back to our flat, we'd spent half of the day out already. None of us have Covid but three of us got tested in the same room so we had fun laughing at each other's pain, I actually took the test the best and barely had a reaction. As being written we don't know exactly when quarantine ends but it's either Friday or Saturday. (The quarantine ended on Friday but we got our new companionships and areas on Saturday)

I did get my shoes - thank you - and thank you especially for the hot chocolate, I've waited 'til out of quarantine to enjoy them the most.

We got Elder Reeves package last Thursday, and it's amazing. The cookies look and taste amazing! (Photos in drive)

Pancakes did turn out pretty good in the end. We had them a couple times and they were always good. The quality of meals in quarantine slowly decayed until the end when we got KFC.
Bread Nachos is bread with oil, taco mix seasoning, and cheese on top of bread put in the oven for 5 minutes, and it's really good. Elder Reeves and I created that last Monday in quarantine when we mistakenly thought we were getting our groceries that day.

The mission/zone conference was just an announcement that we're limited to 10 hours of service each week and only 2 hours of service for members.

Love from, Elder East.

Transfers and Trainers - Elder De Guzman

The AAM blog has updated with details of the transfers. Check it out for more photos and details.

The morning after quarantine finished, President Marquis took the five quarantining Elders out for a hike in Morialta Conservation Park.

Then they had lunch at the Mission home before being assigned to their trainers/companions.

 Then it was time to meet their trainers/companions and head off to their first areas.

Elder East's trainer is Elder De Guzman. He is from the Philippines and arrived in the AAM back in December 2019. [Note 06/08/20: The AAM website photo was captioned as Elder Narag and Elder East together, so we thought Elder Narag was his trainer, but it's actually Elder  De Guzman. I've changed the blog title and references in here to reflect this.]