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.
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