Video Chat - 23rd September 2020 - He's Staying ... Nope, He's Going

We messaged Elder East on Monday evening with just a quick "Any news on transfers?" message, knowing that they were meant to be announced that day. Later in the evening, he responded, advising that he was staying in the city, but that Elder De Guzman was being transferred out. Elder Roberts, one of the other Elders in the district would be joining Elders East and Kennach to form another three-way companionship. The Branch would also be getting sisters - Sister Thom who would be training a  Mandarin-speaking greenie.

On Wednesday morning we messaged each other to arrange a time to talk, which would end up being after lunch. He also sent through the following photo that he'd taken the previous evening.

We then spoke on Wednesday afternoon. Elder East was happy with the companionship changes. He was happy to be staying in the city and said that the companionship responsibilities for the other two were a bit more balanced/equal. Elder Kennach would be mainly training Elder East, whilst Elder Roberts focused on District Leader responsibilities.

Elder East gave us a bit of a rundown about his busy last week. Last Thursday first up involved a flat inspection which they passed, followed by a District Council, and then a Zoom meeting for training in the EdApp - a new training tool for missionaries.

On Friday morning they had the second part of their "Arrivers training" for new missionaries. Normally it would be just a specific intake that would receive the training, but because of the schedule havoc that quarantine and border changes had caused, the training featured three intake groups - two from July and one from August. That means he got to catch up with Elder Reeves again  After the arrivers training, both Elder East and Elder De Guzman then went on a day and a half long trade-off with the APs (ie Assistants to the President).

Elder East enjoyed the trade-offs with the APs. He got to his first dinner appointment in a member's home - the Tehini family - on the Friday night. The family had previously lived in Canberra and attended Woden Ward. Brother Tehini figured out who Elder East was, remembering me from my time as a Ward Advisor as well as the rest of the family. What was even funnier was that they had a friend come over for some help during the evening, a Sister Coxon, who just happened to be related to somebody we know in Canberra as well.

Elder East got to take part in teaching two lessons whilst on trade-offs - one over the phone, and one in person. He said the in-person one was interesting. It was the non-member husband of a sister from Church. Elder East reckoned that he was like an atheist version of me - knowledgeable but stubborn. They did some planning beforehand for the lessons which is something his companionship hadn't done yet and which he quite enjoyed, He's wanting to do that more in his own companionship.

On Sunday, their Hungarian investigator bought his mum to church. She is actually a less-active member but it is many years since she had been to church. She doesn't speak much English so there was a lot of translation going on. Elder East was very happy with how their investigator is progressing.

They found out that Elder De Guzman would be leaving on Monday afternoon and the actual full details of transfers on the Monday evening.

On the Tuesday morning, they had a small meeting with some of the recent converts to allow Elder De Guzman to say goodbye, before the actual transfers on Tuesday afternoon.

Elder East said that transfers were hectic. Only several hours before transfers, the mission received news that eight of the Samoan Elders were about to get flights home and needed to go into quarantine, which disrupted the planned transfers.

In regards to the Sisters coming into the branch, Elder East was a bit apprehensive. Apparently, Sister Thom is known as being overly strict. Keeping the rules isn't a problem for Elder East, but there are a lot of special rules (8 pages worth!) that apply just to the city area. Elder east says that these rules have been relaxed a bit because of the impact of the pandemic, but he's concerned that the sisters will try going by the "old" rules and that there will be some friction.  Elder & Sister companionships aren't meant to be alone together so having sisters in the branch causes a lot more logistical issues when there is more than one companionship about.

Elder East spoke about the fact that he's been studying President nelson's talks since he was called as an apostle, and has been really enjoying them. Two that have stood out to him so far were 'Cutting the Spiritual Powerline" and Joy Cometh In The Morning". It was great to see him enjoying his study of the words of the Prophet.

Jayde (Elder Easts's sister) then joined us for the video chat and we talked about a number of things, such as how her work and health are going, her studies (in particular music and its effect on mental health), and games. Elder East talked about playing Ultimate Werwolf with missionaries and members on P-Days, whilst Jayde talked about Among Us, a similar hidden role game with an alien theme that she plays with her friends. That's probably the first chat Edler East has had with Jayde since she moved down to Melbourne several years ago.

A quick list of dot points that were spoken about:

• There's a food court nearby the chapel that offers $5 Asian lunches that aren't very good, but which are cheap.
• After Jayde spoke of her pot plants, Elder East said he misses plants - I presume he means being involved in gardening and the plants around our home.
• Jayde showed a video of a cat she came across that reminded her of our old cat Nephi. Elder East lamented he still hasn't gotten to see any cats, but then again, they're usually bussing to places and not walking very often. The only place they tend to walk is to the local shops.
• We realised that we all had the same culinary problem. Neither Elder East, Jayde, or I have been able to find the nacho topping that we all like to use to make our family nachos recipe. 
• Elder Easts needs to ensure he votes in the upcoming ACT territory election.
• There is going to be a virtual Mission Tour during the 1st full week of October, so P-Day that week will be on Monday (5th October). That will be whilst Kendall Reeves is staying with us to visit Jewel.
• The October General Conference is being broadcast on TV in Adelaide so Elder East has invited some of their investigators to watch it when it is on.
• Jayde gave us a mini-tour of her apartment (it's only a studio apartment, so the tour took about 45 seconds to complete.) She showed us the Melbourne CBD skyline from her window, following which Elder East showed the Adelaide CBD skyline from the chapel window he was at.

Addendum: The Late Call

Whilst Jewel and I were at the chapel for the Young Women's activity on Wednesday evening, Elder East sent through a text message saying he was being transferred. We quickly set up a video chat with Mum, Jewel, Elder East and I.

It turns out the eight Samoan missionaries going into quarantine for repatriation weren't the only last-minute change to transfers. Changes to the state borders meant that the six missionaries who flew in at transfers no longer had to go into quarantine, and there were now further changes required. Elder East and Elder Kennach were going to be transferred as a companionship out of the Adelaide City Branch and out to Prospect Ward, Elder Kennach's previous area.

Elder East was sad about the transfer. He had wanted to stay in the Adelaide City Branch and to continue working with the investigators he had. He was happy with the three-way companionship with Elder Kennach and Elder Roberts. Prospect Ward is a bit more of an affluent area as well, which tends to make it a harder area for missionary work. We encouraged him to gain a testimony that that's where Heavenly Father wants him to serve at this time, and to understand and recognise that there will be somebody who will gain from this. Whether it is for him, his companion, investigators, members or somebody else. He will be there for a reason. He just needs to learn to align his will to The Lord's and look for the opportunities.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they will have a car in their new area, and Elder East is the designated driver. He's very nervous about that and is a bit scared of driving in a city that he doesn't know and is bigger than what he's used to.

EdApp and Arriver #2 Training - 17th-18th September 2020

 The AAM Blog has been updated this week with several posts with photos of Elder East. They don't have specific dates mentioned of when they occurred, so we'll need to ask Elder East during our next P-Day chat.

The first event was training in an application called EdApp. This is for missionaries to install on their smartphones to do "microlearning" courses. It appeared that the training in how to use EdApp was done via Zoom.

The second post was about the Second part of Training for newly arrived missionaries. Because of the unpredictable way missionaries have been brought in due to the pandemic, the training featured 26 new missionaries who had come in over three separate recent "intakes". 

We noticed that Elder East and Elder Reeves often seem to be within talking distance

We thought we'd upload a copy of this photo as it has both of Elder East's current companions, Elder De Guzman and Elder Kennach.

Banter with Dad - Kneecaps in the Bible

 Just thought I'd share some banter from last P-day when we were trying to arrange via Messenger a time for the video chat later in the day. The three people in the conversation are EE (Elder East), D (Dad) and M (Mum). The picture of Minori the Cat is from the conversation, whilst I've added the other pictures to this blog entry to help explain the quotes being used.

D: [After accidentally putting an angry reaction emoji on a previous comment by EE] The reaction was an accident

EE: All good I presumed

D: I was being oppressed ... there was violence inherent in the system

EE: It's repressed dad we've been over this

EE: Is she attacking or kneading?

D; Attacking

EE: Hand monster?

D: Yep

EE: Haha, beautiful kitty

D: She was dabbing me, which is her way of asking for the hand monster

...

EE: No district P-day, but we're having a meet with the recent converts to play sports around 3 And Kennach is getting a haircut from another elder at 1

M: sounds good - do you want to see if an elder can cut your hair? Must be getting long again

EE: I just figured I'd let it grow for a bit and see how it looks

D: Crazy wild haired old man, claiming to be a scientist

EE: Claiming to be a preacher actually

M: you two make me laugh

M: this banter

M: miss this banter and the quoting

EE: Thank you, no one gets my quotes or references here.

D: Zoe: Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killin’? Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.

EE: That's my favourite thank you

Video Chat - 16th September 2020 - Statue Found

 It was only a short video chat this week. On Tuesday night Elder East sent us a quick couple of images:

This is one of the statues we told him to keep an eye out for, as we have a photo of it from when he was young. (see below) Elder East said that their bus stop at the chapel is being renovated and was moved down the road about 100 metres. He found the statue right next to the new bus stop.

Elder East commented that he realised that you can see the building with the Adelaide City Branch chapel in the old photo (he circled it in red.)

The chat on the Wednesday P-Day had to fit in amongst a lot of other things. There was a get together from some of the missionaries and investigators in the morning to celebrate Elder Roberts' 20th birthday. There was both cake and ice cream. We managed to get a quick video chat at this point even though it was in the middle of the day.

Then they traveled out to a different chapel so another missionary could cut Elder De Guzman's and Elder Kennach's hair. Elder East wasn't going to get his hair cut - he wants to grow it out for a bit.and see how it goes. He did manage to catch up with Elder Reeves whilst the others were getting their hair cut. Oh, and we already know what Elder East's hair will look like if he grows it out ...

Then it was back to another location for a game of soccer. After an hour the score was still nil-all (typical soccer score), so they ended up playing til "first goal wins."

We had another quick chat with Elder East before dinner time, so that Jewel could chat with him. She got to tell him about her win at the Inspire Art competition and get some advice re working at McDonalds.

Elder East made a request to Jewel to send him some song lyrics - "I can't listen to music, but I can sing." For posterity, the lyrics he requested were Kokomo by The Beach Boys, Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's, Your Man by Josh Turner, Loch Lomond by Peter Hollens, Caledonia by Dougie Maclean and September by Earth, Wind and Fire.

We also had a brief cameo appearance during the chat by one of the Branch members - Stephen. He said that he often translates for the missionaries into Chinese.

We did have a bit of a chat about transfers. It's scheduled for next Monday, and they'll find out the changes on Saturday evening. He is expecting changes because of the three-way situation, but unsure if either Elder De Guzman or himself will transfer at all. He said "It's very likely a lot will happen because Kennach will leave us, Elder Peate our district leader is also in a three-way training two guys and he goes home next Wednesday ... A lot of stuff needs to happen and there are only so many companions that it always affects a lot of people." Elder East is hoping to stay in the Adelaide City Branch.

A few more quick dot points:

• Things are a bit haphazard at the moment in the area. Elder East likes things to be organised, so he's finding that frustrating.
• He emailed the Mission President on P-Day with a more detailed explanation of the issues he's having in adjusting to missionary training. 
• They went to teach Elder Kennach's investigator from Prospect Ward on Tuesday evening. Elder East said that the investigator had a lot of questions, but Elder East was happy that he felt he knew the answers to all of them.
• He knows that a number of the recent converts are coming up to having been members for 12 months, and was wondering about preparing them for the temple. I suggested speaking to a member of the Branch Presidency as the Branch should really take the lead in temple preparation, and the Branch President needs to interview them about their readiness.
• Last Sunday they had another investigator come to Church after asking a member friend about Church. The investigator had a grandmother who was a member of the Church. The investigator dreamt about their Grandmother and consequently became interested in investigating the Church. He came to Sacrament meeting last Sunday and stayed for Sunday School, and then had a discussion with the Elders afterwards. The Elders were prompted to invite him to baptised and he has agreed - setting a date in October. It's exciting for the Elders and for the investigator.

Video Chat - 9th September 2020 - Three-way Companionship with Elder Kennach

Because we'd spoken on Father's Day only three days beforehand, this week's video chat was shorter than normal.

The major topic of course was that their companionship was now a three-way companionship, with Elder Kennach coming in from the Prospect Ward. Elder Kennach is from Samoa and arrived in the AAM in Feb 2020 - just before the pandemic hit. His previous companion was from Mongolia (the AAM had several Mongolian elders) and managed to make it onto one of the repatriation flights to Mongolia at short notice. (Monday 7th Sep I believe) Elder East says Elder Kennach is pretty "chill".

Having a third missionary in the companionship has changed the dynamics. Elder East is now doing more cooking. Elder Kennach is sleeping on a mattress on the floor between the Elder's two beds. And they still only have two chairs in their flat ...

Elder Kennach still has responsibility for investigators being taught in the Prospect area, and they went out to teach one gentleman in his home. That's the first time Elder East has been into either a member's or investigator's home on his mission. They helped the investigator around his home - feeding birds, bringing in wood, as well as teaching him a Gospel lesson. As much as Seth enjoyed it, he said it was very time consuming using public transport to get to and from the investigator's home. They also won't be able to get to Prospect Ward on Sundays.

Elder East doesn't think that they will stay in the three-way companionship for long. He says that Islanders also tend not to serve in the Adelaide City Branch, so he doubts that Elder Kennach will stay in the area when the three-way goes back to being a normal two-way companionship.

A few other dot points from the chat:

• Most P-Days are spent playing sports at the chapel
• Edler De Guzman showers in the morning, Elder East showers in the evening, Elder Kennach showers in both :)
• They taught 2 lessons on Tuesday, but none on Monday. 
• They are teaching a Cambodian lady, but there are long gaps between lessons.
• There is another investigator that Elder East described as an "eternal investigator" that has been passed over to their companionship to teach.
• He had plans to write to President Stuart, Alex G and Kendall R.

Multi-Stake Devotional - 6th September 2020

The AAM put on a Multi-Stake Devotional/Fireside last Sunday night. Only those who were involved in the program were physically in attendance, with the devotional being broadcast. Elder East had sent us through a link to the broadcast during our Father's Day chat.

There were talks by the Mission President and his wife, a new convert and one of the missionaries, as well as musical items.

Elder East was there because he and several other missionaries were accompanying four new converts from the Adelaide City Branch to do a musical item. They were singing "I Am a Child of God". Even though it's a very well known children's song in the Church, the new members didn't really know the song very well. Add to that they were all singing in English as a second language and they were really struggling to carry the tune, so the four Elders were helping them with the item. I made the comment to Elder East that it takes a lot more faith to get up and perform a musical item, knowing you're going to struggle with it, compared to somebody going up to do a musical item who knows they have a talent for singing.

Elder Reeves played the piano as well as doing a prelude musical item played on a flute, so there was a lot of footage of him.

The closing musical item was a pre-recorded video of the Adelaide missionaries singing a piece combining As Sisters in Zion and Army of Helaman. Elder East was visible right in the middle of all of the missionaries. The missionaries sounded quite good with the arrangement of the songs.

Father's Day Chat - 6th September 2020

Elder East was able to have a quick video call home last Sunday as it was Father's Day. Following are a few notes from our chat:

• Their investigator who had set a date for baptism has "paused" his missionary contact for a bit whilst he deals with some personal issues.
• They have started teaching a Cambodian lady. She doesn't come from a Christian background, so they're starting their lessons with real basics such as the concept and nature of God.
• Elder East liked the dinosaur cookies he received in the mail this week but requested no more lollies for a while. Apparently they have more lollies than food in the house at the moment.

• Elder De Guzman and Elder East are now purchasing and cooking their own food, as Elder De Guzman isn't a fan of Elder East's cooking. We know that Elder East has a lot of cooking experience, so presumably, it's more the style of food than the quality that his companion has an issue with.
• Elder East reinforced he is eating vegetables, and in fact discovered that he likes broccoli, or in his following comment, that "He's become sad."
• Edler East is getting to know his bus trip to and from the city very well. It features three churches  and six wedding shops (four dress stores, one wedding cake store and one wedding panner.) We told him he doesn't need to worry about weddings for quite a while. :)
• We talked a bit about the adjustment challenges that his companionship is having about how to train effectively. There are still some challenges for them to work through. At the moment, Elder East is doing most of the finding activities whilst Elder De Guzman has most of the contact with those they are teaching. 
• We got a message on Monday letting us know that their companionship is about to become a three-way due to another missionary's companion getting a flight back home to Mongolia, so the companionship dynamics will definitely be changing. We'll presumably find out more on our P-Day chat.

Temple Endowment - 2nd September 2020

Elder East ended up going through the Adelaide Temple last Wednesday night (2nd Sep) to receive his Endowment along with four other missionaries from the AAM.

Sister Grant from the Mission office was kind enough to take this photo of him whilst he was waiting at the mission office beforehand.

The AAM blog has been updated with photos from the evening, so we've grabbed some of them, especially those that included Elder East.

Video Chat - 2nd September 2020 - Mission Conference with General Authorities

The AAM did things a little bit differently to the other missions for the Mission Conference. The other missions had the individual companionships connect via Zoom to the broadcast coming from Salt Lake City. The AAM held Zone Conferences on the same day and so were watching it all together (well, In Adelaide and in Darwin). Elder East said the broadcast included panel displays of companionships watching those providing talks. I'm presuming that it was something like the image below.

He said that there was a funny moment as every so often they would focus on an individual companionship. At one point they focused on a companionship where one of the missionaries was playing on his phone. His companion realised they were on screen and tried to get his companion off of his phone.

Elder East enjoyed the messages. He said that some of the things that stood out to him were:

• Sister Nielson spoke about the Jaredite barges in Ether 8 and that the wind was always blowing the barges forward. So it is with us, the Lord is always trying to move us forward.
• Elder Nielson quoted one of the other brethren that "We didn't come this far, to come this far."
• Elder Stevenson spoke about accompanying President Nelson in scouting future Temple sites.

He also enjoyed the Zone Conference beforehand. Several missionaries are called up to present talks that each missionary has preprepared. One of the missionaries that was called up to talk was told that it was because it was his last Zone Conference, which he hadn't realized. He's an Australian who will be able to make it home. Apparently, there's also a Samoan sister who is getting close to finishing her mission. Because Samoa and many of the other islands aren't allowing people back into their borders, there is a discussion about whether she can be released into the custody of family members of hers that live in Australia.

Their investigator who they committed to baptism still seems to be doing well. He was sick on Sunday and wasn't able to come to church or have his second discussion, but, not wanting to miss out on Church, did Zoom in to Sunday School. Their third discussion with him was due for Wednesday evening, but Elder East would be at the temple, so Elder De Guzman would be teaching him with another Elder.

They don't have any other investigators that are progressing very strongly. They had six lessons scheduled for the previous day, but they all fell through, although a couple were rescheduled.

There are now 11 missionaries in their district. There is a new companionship that was transferred in. One of the Elders that were in Elder East's MTC group is now in the district. He wasn't meant to be going to Adelaide but was going to Samoa, but has now ended up in the AAM. Elder East found out a bit more about Elder Lwin, the missionary from Myanmar who transferred in recently. Apparently, there are only two branches of the Church in all of Myanmar. He's a bit worried about home as Myanmar is only just experiencing its first wave of the Covid pandemic.

Whilst he was out in public, somebody complimented him on his Star Wars tie. Somebody else made the comment that the missionaries looked like they were The Blues Brothers. Elder East was disappointed to learn that none of the other missionaries knew who the Blues Brothers were.

He went on trade-offs on Friday & Saturday last week and got to go teaching with Elder Roberts. They visited somebody who had been investigating the Church for a while. Elder Roberts felt prompted to invite the person to be baptised, but they declined, saying that they were unwilling to change. The investigator decided that he wasn't going to continue on with the discussions, but ended up supplying a bunch of referrals and giving the Elders $50. They did try to explain that they can't accept money but he insisted. They're trying to work out what to do with the money - likely donate it to the Branch Welfare fund to assist those in need. Elder East said that he also got to speak with Elder Reeves during trade-offs which he enjoyed.

He's still enjoying Church at the branch even though it's small. The Gospel Doctrine teacher was actually a former Mission President over the AAM. Edler east mentioned that they were visited by a counselor in the Stake Presidency. He knew Seth's Uncle and Auntie (Jon & Glenda East) when he lived in Sydney and figured that Seth was probably related to them.

We had a lot of talk about Elder East's preparation for the Temple. He was being picked up to get to the temple by 5:30pm for a 6pm start. We went through some of the things we'd discussed in our temple preparation classes 

Some dot points on other things we discussed:

• One Elder spent all two years of his mission in the Adelaide City branch.
• They haven't been good in keeping up their running for exercise.
• They're ending up with more spare time on their hands due to limited finding opportunities, few members to be able to work with, and having gone through their area book. The only finding they're allowed to do at the moment is follow up on previous investigators from the area book that they haven't been able to contact yet, and via referrals. The lack of members in the branch is pretty much limiting the second option.
• We talked a little about recent world news. The actor who played the Black Panther in the MCU died. Brisbane has been chosen to host the AFL Grand Final.
• Jewel explained her Creative Captain proposal that she'd made at school, as well as some news on "social influencers."
• Elder East isn't writing in his journal much but is keeping a  copy of the emails that he's sending out.

We mentioned how we saw the movie Tenet, and it's still a long time away, but we could see him quite enjoying it after his mission. He admitted that with the spare time he'd been having that he'd started a list of date ideas for post-mission, and brought out a paper towel that had a list of ideas written down on it. He read through a couple and Jewel thought they sounded really good. Maybe so, but it's a long time 'til you have to worry about dating, Elder East.

Zone and Multi-Mission Conference - 27th August 2020

Elder East mentioned that the Australian missions would be joining in a multi-mission conference via Zoom last Thursday (27th August). We haven't heard from him yet about it, but the AAM blog did post up an article with pictures about it. In addition, Sister Olde whom we know, who is serving in Perth, had her P-Day on Monday and shared some information about it, writing:

... we had the biggest zoom call I have EVER been in with ALL the missionaries from ALL the missions in ALL of Australia zooming into Salt Lake to hear Elder Gary E. Stevenson's message and blessing to us all. Some of these apostolic blessings that stood out to me:
• One day the missionaries sent home from their original missions will look back the same way that Alma and Amulek looked back at Ammonihah and same way Joseph looked back at Liberty jail, and that cramped attic in Nauvoo.
• The Lord will consecrate our afflictions for our gain
• We will be sustained in perilous times

The AAM blog advised that "We received instruction and messages from Elder Gary E. Stevenson and his wife, Sister Leesa Stevenson; Elder Brent H. Nielson, Presidency of the Seventy, and his wife Sister Marcia Nielson; and Bishop Dean M. Davies, Presiding Bishopric and his wife, Sister Donna Davies."

They took Zone photos at some point during the day, which seems to be the norm. Here is the photo of the Firle Zone that Elder East is in.

They also had a lunch put on, so we have a number of photos of that. We mainly just grabbed the photos that had Elder East in them somewhere.