Elder East was allowed to call us on Christmas Day, and we had Jayde join us from Melbourne on the chat as well. There was a lot of banter between the three siblings, but I didn't record a lot of that, just the updates that Elder East gave us with what was happening on his mission,
The Adelaide missionaries spent Christmas Eve together at a shortened Zone Conference. There wasn't the usual training, but there were about a dozen or so short talks given by other missionaries. Every missionary is asked to prepare a short talk on a topic prior to each Zone Conference. The Mission President will then call on a number of missionaries to give their talks during the conference. The theme for this conference was "The Birth of Christ". I think Elder East was disappointed he didn't get to give his talk.
After the talks, they had a dinner - mainly ham & potato bake, although Elder East said that there was also a "salad" featuring strawberries in jelly. We commented that it must have been made by an American Senior Missionary couple - it was :) Elder East refused to refer to it as a "salad". I've grabbed some photos of the Zone Conference from the AAM blog that featured Elder East and will put them below.
After the dinner, President Marquis gave out presents to each missionary. They all received a cushion that had a picture of the mission and the phrase "A Marvellous Work and a Wonder Down Under" on it. They also received a Christmas stocking, presumably with treats in it. Elder East didn't elaborate on the contents apart from mentioning that his also contained a "Called to Serve" tie pin.
On Christmas morning Elder East had several presents to open. Kendal had sent him a plush dinosaur with a missionary tag. The funny thing is, that he had also bought a plush dinosaur and sent it to her for Christmas.
He also had the package of assorted goodies from Elissa's parents. Lisa Koskinen had sent him chocolate, and the Grants had sent him a present as well. (I forgot to write down what their present was!)
On Christmas day itself, Elder East had just gotten back from spending 6 hours working for the Salvation Army along with the rest of the zone. They were helping with a lunch that was being put on for people in the community who were unable to spend Christmas with family or friends. Elder East said that there were about 40 people at the lunch. He and the other missionaries acted as waiters as well as doing any odd jobs that were required. He said that he loved providing the service, but that his legs were really sore after being on them for over 6 hours.
Elder East said that all of those that were at the lunch received a hamper of goods. They had some hampers left over so the missionaries were given hampers as well. He said that there's more food than what they can use, so will look to try and take some food around to share with some less-active families.
He said that an extra bonus of the service with the Salvos was that whilst getting ready to leave a cat came up to Elder East and he was able to get a pat.
After we finished up our video chat Elissa received various texts through the evening for advice on cooking the baked ham and roast dinner that Elder East was making. They also had prawns and mussels to go with the baked dinner, so their companionship had a nice Christmas feast. We even received photos of their meal.
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