Video Chat - 23rd December 2020 - Unexpected Chat & Murray River Cruise

President Marquis had arranged for a P-Day activity for the Adelaide missionaries this week, so we hadn't planned on chatting this Wednesday. Fortunately, Elder East was able to have two chats with us once in a library on the way home, and once in the evening. 

The P-Day activity itself involved meeting at one of the chapels and then driving out in convoy to Murray Bridge where they then took a cruise along the Murray River on a paddleboat. I'm presuming that we'll see some photos up on the mission blog at some point.

 

Elder East said it was a good chance to socialise with the other missionaries. As expected, he said he spent a lot of time talking with Elder Reeves. 

We learned a bit about his new area during our chats. Their mission flat is in a block of six units. It's a two-bedroom unit - they all have beds, which isn't always the case in a three-way companionship.

Morialta Ward is a big ward but Elder East says that there's not a strong level of trust from the members. He says that it's because it's the ward that the mission home is in and so, over time, a number of missionaries "with issues" that needed to be close to the mission office have been assigned to the ward. Subsequently, they don't get many meals with members. 

He said that they did have a meal with the Howes family and that the dad had been the Mission President of the Sydney North Mission when it was recreated in 2013.  

They also met up with the McCappin family at one point - Brother McCappin (David) and I served together as missionaries in Tamworth. He mentioned to Elder East about cutting my hair one time. I explained to Elder East that I'd gotten a haircut from a member and that they'd put a "Step" in my haircut. The Mission President had said that it wasn't in line with the missionary grooming guidelines and has asked me to lose it. We decided that the easiest way to do so was just to get a crewcut all over. I sent through the following picture of Elder McCappin and myself to Elder East. His comment was that I was "White white". I commented that it was more that "some of me had a tan."

They were asked to go visit some of the recent converts last week which they did. In doing so they actually came across a barbecue at one of their homes that also had the Bishop and EQP's families present. 

There aren't a lot of previous investigators for the companionship to contact in their area book. There were some females who were being taught but they are being looked after by the Sister Missionaries in the neighboring City Branch. Elder East says that he's already tried calling everybody in their area book twice since transfers.

The next couple of days have several mission activities planned. On Thursday (Christmas Eve) they will be having a Zone Conference for the Adelaide Zones followed by a dinner, and then on Friday, Christmas Day, they will be doing a service project with the Salvation Army for most of the day. We'll get to chat with Elder East again in the late afternoon/evening of Christmas Day.

Some other quick dot point notes:

• Elder East is a bit frustrated at being transferred again.  He's been in the mission for 4 transfers and has been in 4 different wards so far. We encouraged him to gain a testimony that this is where the Lord would have him be at this time. 
• He's also a bit frustrated that there have been changes in mission rules that are limiting the number of times that missionaries can gettogether outside of their companionships. (No trade-offs this transfer, and only one district P-Day activity allowed.) Again, we encouraged him to understand that there would be reasons as to why the Mission President has these rules currently in place, and he doesn't know what issues other missionaries might be struggling with that prompted these decisions. Sicne when did Elder East become social?
• He did say that despite being frustrated, the fact it's Christmas time and being able to chat with Elder Reeves a bit has helped him out.
• Elder East has splurged on buying Christmas food and is intending to do a baked ham and roast veges on Christmas Day. He said that he "didn't want wraps for Christmas dinner."
• As planned, he had purchased a new suit as a Christmas present from us to him which we'll reimburse him for. 
• He quickly skimmed through some of his photos to show us photos with some of the ward members.

• Another series of photos featured a koala that they happened to pass by somewhere.

• He showed us around the lounge room of his flat where they have a makeshift Christmas tree with lights setup. Underneath it were presents that he'd received from the Reeves and Lisa Koskinen.