P-Day Barbecue at Hallett Cove - 25th November 2020

In a shocking development, Elder East actually sent us through a bunch of photos on P-day last week. In fact, he sent through more photos today than I think he's sent the rest of his mission put together. :)

Some of the photos were from earlier in the day where the missionaries in the Marion District had a barbecue at a point overlooking Hallet Cove.  Hallett Cove is a southern coastal suburb of Adelaide and features a conservation park with a boardwalk along the coast. Today was a day for them to socialize out in the open together amongst some scenery. They had a good selection of barbecued food to choose from, sausages, bacon, eggs and chicken. No vegetables I note.

It looks like the barbecue itself was held at the Heron Way Reserve, a newly renovated area at the southern end of Hallett Cove. Elder East didn't send any photos of it, but here are some from the web.

Further up from the Reserve was the boardwalk which heads past a feature called The Sugarloaf. Again, unsure if they actually walked the boardwalk or not, but here are photos from the web of what it looks like.

Here are the related photos we got from Elder East. Ones of both him and Elder Tukukino staring off into the ocean across Hallett Cove. I'm presuming these must have been taken before the P-Day - probably when they realised it would be a good location for a District P-Day activity and then sought permission from the APs. Then there are a couple of photos of the Marion District on the P-Day itself. Elder East said they enjoyed themselves, but he was a bit suburnt.

Zone Conference Photos - 14th November 2020

Posting up some of the recent photos from the mission blog that include Elder East. These are from the Zone Conference held on the 14th November 2020. Enjoy playing 'Spot the Elder East".

Video Chat 18th November 2020 - Preparing For Lockdown

 Again it was only a short chat with Elder East last P-Day, but this time it was due to the pandemic. We exchanged messages in the morning to arrange a time for our video chat - Elder East was going to be doing some service (shifting bricks for an investigator), so he wasn't going to be available to chat at the usual time.

By the time we did speak to Elder East in the afternoon, things had all changed. In the preceding couple of days, there had been a Coronavirus outbreak in Adelaide and the government was proposing restrictions. The district had originally planned a barbecue for P-Day, however because of the Coronavirus concerns the missionaries were told not to have any get-togethers with other missionaries, so they had to cancel their barbecue. 

By the time we spoke in the afternoon, it had been announced that all of Adelaide was being put into a week-long lockdown and all of the Elder's plans had been thrown into disarray. They needed to change a number of appointments, and ensure they had everything they needed for a week inside their flat.

Elder East had two major concerns - his investigators, and the missionaries who were due to finish their mission and go home. They did also have three member meals/appointments scheduled for the week.

He mentioned two investigators that he was particularly cognisant of - one was a member referral, whilst the other was a self-referral from Facebook, a "Christian" who was wanting to come to a Church. They would miss out on teaching them face-to-face. 

Re the missionaries getting ready to leave, one is meant to be heading home to Queensland on 15th Dec, whilst the other is due to head home to the Philippines on 8th Dec. They were unsure how this lockdown would affect them, but the concern was they may not be allowed to leave as they were in a "hotspot" and would therefore miss getting home for Christmas.  Zone Conference had been held the previous Friday, and those missionaries had given their "farewell" testimonies at the meeting. Now they were unsure if they'd be leaving.

Elder East did also mention that he wasn't sure how lockdown would affect their phone usage. Missionaries normally have a 30GB data allowance on their phone each month, however, Elder East currently only has 2GB/month at the moment. He'll have to be judicious with his phone usage.

The rest of the time was catching Elder East up with happenings at home, as well as encouraging him to see if he could get the packages waiting for him at the Mission Office. We'd sent through 2 packages last week to the mission office for him, and the tracking said that they'd been delivered. We figured they'd be handy for him to have during lockdown.

I'll also note that Elder Tukukino did happen to poke his head in for a quick hello and chat to us as well.

Video Chat - 11th November 2020 - Excited About Marion Ward

Elder East took a break from the Elders learning a dance on P-day to video chat with us last Wednesday. (I didn't catch why they were learning a dance - not the type of thing missionaries usually do. Maybe it was something more like a haka or similar given the high proportion of Polynesians in the mission,) The district had originally planned to be playing ultimate frisbee, but the weather had turned bad.

Elder East is quite excited in his new ward - Marion Ward. The ward seems strong - they had around 150 at church the preceding week and Elder East says that their Ward Mission Leader is "amazing". The Ward Mission Leader is a returned missionary from Germany and apparently has a number of plans for missionary work in the ward.

Elder East said that Sacrament meeting itself was really good. He got to bear his testimony as a part of the meeting. They even had one of their investigators turn up to the chapel; ... unfortunately 30 minutes after Sacrament had ended, but they still managed to end up teaching them. Elder East says they have a lot of lessons lined up in the coming week.

They had two meal appointments during the week. :) Neither of them had cats. :( The first dinner appointment was with the second counselor in the Stake Presidency and his family. The counselor remembers a Sister Travers serving in the ward, but there were two Sister Travers serving in the AAM when Dannielle was there, so unsure if it was Sister Dannielle Travers or not.

The other meal was with the Davisons - the Elder's Quorum President and his family. It turns out there was a connection there too - they're related to the Davisons that we know in Sydney. 

Elder East held his first District Council meeting last week, which he had been stressing about. He said that it went short, and he didn't actually do very much, but hopefully it has helped break any concerns he had about having to run meetings in a leadership position.

I asked about how he was handling the nightly calls with companionships in the district, but apparently, he doesn't need to call them, it's just a text message of what's happened throughout the day. Again, not quite as stressful as he thought it would be. He says that Elder Brown, the brand new greenie being trained by Elder Reeves is stressed but doing well. Elder Easts says that Elder Brown comes from a game playing family, so they've got some common interests that they share.

On a personal note, we let him know that there were two packages coming his way. The first containing some Magic The Gathering cards that he was after for P-days, and the second containing advent calendars (and treats) for him and his companion. We asked if there was anything he wants for Christmas. He replied that he'd be interested in some nice P-Day clothes - he didn't take much in the way of non-proselyting clothing. We may end up getting him some vouchers to clothing stores given the difficulty in getting the correct size remotely. We'll see.

And on a side note, it was no real surprise to see that Elder East and Elder Reeves appeared to be hanging out together on P-Day. They seem to have formed a good friendship.

Transfer Photos - 2nd August 2020

The AAM blog put up a number of posts with photos about the transfers that just occurred. I went through and pulled out a couple of photos that included Elder East, which are shown below.

The first image is of the announcement of transfers via Zoom. Play spot the Elder East.

The next two are from the transfers day itself.

President Marquis commented that as of this transfer there are now only 47 missionaries left in the mission (13 Sisters, 34 Elders). Of those, 7 are non-proselyting "member" missionaries, waiting on the next repatriation flight to Tonga. A side effect of the pandemic.

Video Chat - 4th November 2020 - Transfer to Marion As DL With Elder Tukukino

Elder East contacted us on P-Day morning to arrange a time for our weekly video chat, We got a glimpse of the fact that he had a new companion - Elder Tukukino. He joked that he was Japanese ... Elder Tukukino is in fact from the Gold Coast with a New Zealand background.

We received an email from President Marquis later on Wednesday afternoon telling us that Elder East had been called as the District Leader over the Marion District, so we looked forward to hearing more about everything that had gone on. 

So, the big news was, yes, Elder East had been transferred from Prospect Ward to Marion Ward, which is in the south-western part of Adelaide. His new companion is Elder Tukukino. Elder Tukukino has been out on his mission for fourteen months. He was originally called to serve in the Zimbabwe Bullawayo Mission and did so for eight months before being repatriated to Australia because of the pandemic. He arrived in the Australia Adelaide Mission only about two weeks before Elder East arrived. Elder Tukukino has served as a Zone Leader before over Elder East and is quite "stoked" to now have Elder East as his companion/District Leader and not being the one with "responsibility". 

Elder East says that their new flat is quite nice and big, but was left in a mess by the previous missionaries. The previous Elders in the Ward were "Member Missionaries", that is, Islanders who had been repatriated from other missions, mainly in Africa, because of the pandemic. The repatriated missionaries were unable to return back to their home countries because the various Pacific islands had completely closed their borders, so the missionaries were kind of in limbo in Australia. They were unable to proselyte in Australia because of their visa types and so they were assigned to Australian missions to work with the Church members rather than proselyte. 

Unfortunately, not all of the "Member Missionaries" adjusted well to their new roles and new missions and struggled to abide by the mission rules. Elder East says that part of their role coming into the ward is to "clean up" after the previous missionaries and regain the trust of the members. He said that they've already met the Ward Mission leader who Elder East said seems "amazing."

Elder East says that there a number of investigators already in the Ward, which is positive. They also have food in their flat, another positive. They have a car - the only silver-coloured car in the mission - another positive. They don't have a garage for their car, just a small parking spot - a small negative.

Elder Kennach was transferred to the Adelaide City Branch where he will be the District Leader. They were sad to be leaving Prospect - they had had a good week, adding seven new people to their teaching pool and teaching four lessons, but they say they've been replaced by good Elders.

As the District leader for Marion District, Elder East is responsible for five companionships (ten missionaries). He is meant to call each companionship every evening to find out how they're doing as well as getting some "key indicator" stats for the mission. He also has to run regular District Council meetings,. which are 60-90 minutes long. The first one was scheduled for the following day (Thursday), so he was a bit nervous about that.

Elder East mentioned that the Marion District includes the following:

• Elder Reeves, who will be training the only new missionary coming in this transfer. 
• Two Filipinos, with the rest coming from New South Wales and Queensland.
• There is a companionship with two sister missionaries.
• One of the sister missionaries is Sister Hall, the MTC companion of Sister Abel, another missionary serving from Elder east's home Ward.
• Two missionaries from the district will be going home next transfer.
• Elder East's companion during quarantine, Elder Nalesoni is in the district.

Some dot points of other items discussed:

• Elder East was wearing his Mandarin name tag as he couldn't find the magnet that holds his normal badge on.
• The roads out in Marion are better to drive on than they were in Prospect, so he's not quite as concerned with driving.
• They had a meal appointment with the second counselor in the Stake Presidency.
• Elder East was disappointed to learn that Sean Connery had passed away.
• When introducing himself, he says he's from Canberra, but his family is from Perth, so he has some redeeming qualities.
• He's looking forward to getting more chances to talk with Elder Reeves. 
• Elder Tukukino doesn't have a phone, so they'll be relying on Elder East's phone.
• As per standard missionary procedure, they were at a chapel (Onkaparinga Ward) for P-Day, playing sport. 

Elder East Becomes a District Leader

We received the following email earlier today:

Dear family and friends of Elder East:

It is with great pleasure that I inform you that your missionary, Elder Seth East, has just been called to serve as the Marion District Leader in the Marion Zone of the Australia Adelaide Mission.

This represents a significant accomplishment on his part and I am sure you are as proud of him as I am.  He will fulfill a very important stewardship as he accepts responsibility to lead his district in this mission.  Future leadership opportunities in family, church and career will be enhanced by this great experience he will have.  

We are most grateful to you for helping to prepare your son to take on this very important responsibility in the Lord’s army.  Please join me in congratulating Elder East and in providing continuing encouragement in the future.  We love him and are blessed by his service in this mission.

With love and appreciation,

 President Derek A. Marquis

Australia Adelaide Mission

We have a video chat with Elder East scheduled for later today, so obviously we'll find out more about this then.

Video Chat - 28th October 2020 - Working With the Prospect Members

It was only a short video call from Elder East on P-Day last week.

The District had stopped off at the library on the way to the chapel on P-day so that Elder East could use a computer to send emails. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get long at the library so he's behind with his email responses.

Transfers is next Tuesday, and they’ll find out on Saturday evening if it affects their companionship.  They know that they’re losing 5 missionaries who are going home, and apparently, only one new missionary is coming in in this transfer.

Elder East gave a five-minute talk in Church last Sunday on the Gathering of Israel. He studied up beforehand and had dot points, but not a full written talk, so we can’t get a copy :( He says that sacrament attendance is starting to improve, with about 70 at Church on Sunday as people resume coming back after the pandemic restrictions. The Elders had a chance to meet with the Bishop who encouraged them to work with the members. Elder East said that they are getting a lot more meals and appointments with the Ward members  - he puts it down to his great talk. :)

They did get to teach the previous Bishop’s son during the last week. Elder East said it went OK but he was struggling to adjust to teaching at an eight-year-old’s level. (In his words “ I’d forgotten how young 8 years old is.”) He said that they did use an object lesson using red food colouring when talking about sin and baptism. I'm presuming it's the object lesson using bleach to then make the food colouring disappear.

They also had a positive experience after their interviews with President last Thursday. They went and met with their investigator Fonzie. Elder East said that they had quite a strong spiritual experience whilst meeting with Fonzie and that he committed to being baptized, so they will work with him to prepare for baptism.

He mentioned that they also went and visited with the Indian man who previously wanted to argue, but with this visit, he actually accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon to read, so maybe his heart is softening a little bit as well.

It was good to hear from Elder East, but it was definitely a much quicker chat than normal. Hopefully, we'll be able to have longer video chats again sooner rather than later.