Elder East was looking all spic'n'span on the video chat last P-day. Elder Aiho had given him a new haircut and he'd gone out and bought some new P-day clothing to wear for the warmer weather.
One of the main bits of news was the Tongan missionaries were starting to be repatriated back to Tonga. There were three that were leaving now, including one of the Elders and Sisters in his district. They're expecting the remaining Tongan missionaries to be repatriated next month. Add to that that a bunch of Aussies are due to go home next transfer, and the mission numbers look to be contracting again for a while.
Elder East thinks that President Marquis may shut down Darwin again for a while. Because of its isolation, President is very picky as to which missionaries can go up there. Elder East has commented that with the pandemic limitations a number of missionaries are struggling to stay focused at the moment. Elder East thinks going to Darwin would be interesting, but that they'd probably get lonely being so far away from any of the other missionaries. Transfers are in two weeks' time and he's hoping to stay in the Ward, although he does admit it would be interesting to see more of the area.
Tradeoffs went well on Thursday/Friday in the Firle area with Elder East spending his time with Elder Ma'a. Thet ended up doing some service work for an investigator. Mainly work around their garden - Elder East said it was pretty easy stuff. They also ended up going for dinner with a part-member family - the dad isn't a member but comes long to church each Sunday. Elder East said they had nachos for dinner - good, but no-one can do nachos as well as Dad does :)
They enjoyed Stake Conference over last weekend. All of the missionaries from the zone were there, as well as many of the new members from Adelaide City Branch that Elder East knew. Apparently, the new members from the Branch don't have as much to do with the current missionaries at the moment. The missionaries are currently in the Branch are all Polynesian and there's a bit of a greater cultural difference to all of the new members.
Elder's East and Kennach are doing more contacting of the members in Prospect Ward. Not everybody is receptive to them, but they have four meals scheduled with member families this week and had two meals with members last week. They were scheduled to meet with the old Bishop's family on P-Day evening to have dinner with them and teach a lesson to his son who turned eight during the pandemic lockdown. On Friday they are scheduled to provide some service and then have a meal.
Elder East says that working with the members reminds him of when we've had the missionaries over to our house, not just for meals, but also fellowshipping during lessons. Having been on his mission for a while now, he thinks that being a Ward Missionary would be a good calling to have back at home.
Even though Elder East's mission is self-funded, each missionary's funds are paid monthly to their home Church unit. This money is then allocated to the mission office to centrally pay for a number of things such as missionary accommodation, utilities and so on. This is particularly needed for all of the non-Australian missionaries who would otherwise have issues accessing their money from foreign banks and in various currencies, but it's also done for Aussies to make things easier for everyone. Missionaries are given an allocation of the funds back for groceries, and other personal use. The mission assists all of the missionaries in opening up new bank accounts for them when they arrive in the mission field. This way they all get new debit cards from a local bank to access their missionary funds when they arrive in the mission field. This enables missionaries to pay for things locally regardless of where they're originally from. This last week they had issues with both the debit cards used by the missionaries for their groceries and their car's fuel card, so Elder East ended up paying for several items from his own personal funds, which is being reimbursed by the mission office.
Some quick notes about those whom they're teaching:
- They've taught a couple of lessons to a tradie named Cody that Elder East said is nice.
- Tarvi is still on his break to "study"
- Edwards' TV died, which apparently is a positive as he tended to do a lot of gaming. He has good friends in the Ward and is in his new job.
- They did meet with the Tamil gentlemen again, but the language issues are proving difficult.
- They're no longer meeting with the argumentative Indian gentlemen. Missionaries are out there to share truths for those who are spiritually prepared, not to debate or argue.
- Elder East is getting a little frustrated as many of those whom they are teaching or spending time with aren't really progressing spiritually at the moment.
Dot point notes about some of the other things we discussed:
- Elder East still has no love of driving in Adelaide.
- They've gone and joined up with some of the other Elders for basketball a couple of times for their daily exercise, but need to get into some exercise habits they can do as a companionship.
- The seminary classes were the highlight of Elder East's week. [I've written that up as a separate blog post].
- Most P-Days at the moment end up being volleyball at the chapel with the other missionaries whilst eating KFC brought by the Polynesian missionaries. They had planned on going out to Morialta Falls this P-Day but that fell through because of the Tongan missionaries getting ready to fly home.
- On Monday evening, they decided to pop down to the local Woolworth's after dinner to grab a mud cake. On the way, they witnessed a bad car accident at the traffic lights. They reckon that both cars in the accident would have been written off, but fortunately, no one seemed badly hurt. They didn't stay as other people were already assisting and emergency services were on their way.
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