Elder Seth East: Video Chat - 25th November 2020

Elder East had a good P-Day last Wednesday with a District BBQ near Hallett Cove. That's already been written up as a separate blog entry.

We chatted a bit about the partial pandemic lockdown that they undertook the previous week. Elder East commented that when he was in his previous area that they had done a number of activities in other areas (trade-offs etc) near where the outbreak was, but fortunately it was several weeks before the outbreak occurred.

Elder says that he’s getting the hang of being a District Leader. They had a District Council last Tuesday. The themes were “Enduring to the End & Diligence” – hoping to help keep several missionaries focused who are due to go home next transfer. He thinks he’s adjusted to missionary life – he’s starting to have dreams about being a missionary.

They are getting fed a lot by the Ward and have a lot of food. They had lunch and dinner appointments for the coming Thursday and dinner for Friday.

They are finding it more difficult to teach people in Marion. He says that they are getting contacts, but not teaching many lessons and few people are progressing and keeping commitments. They did get to give a chapel tour to an investigator after Church on Sunday. He commented that they've encountered a lot more individuals involved with drug use and those who he simply describes as "weird" in the area. They are spending their time working through their Area Book. They had been referred to 2 families that the Sister Missionaries had been teaching. When contacted, however, one was only interested in receiving service, and not in being taught, whilst the other one got angry with them.

Elder East commented that some of the missionary technology is a bit frustrating. The Area Book is now an application, compared to the old paper books that used to be kept. Apparently, it doesn't have the same functionality that some other missions have and is a bit frustrating to use. He commented that the missionary email system is a bit unreliable as well.

Elder East was a bit disappointed he got told off by the Mission President on Tuesday. Missionaries aren’t meant to go into the CBD itself (Rundle Mall & surrounding areas.) They had asked the APs for permission to go there as an investigator had arranged to meet there for a lesson. The lesson ended up falling through at the last minute, and they ended up going to an ATM before leaving the city. Obviously, somebody had seen the Elders in the city and told the Mission President. Elder East was also told that he shouldn’t be using the chapel computer for some artwork he was doing.

They have a trade off with Elder Reeves and Elder Brown coming up during the week. Elder Brown will come down and join Elder East in his area whilst Elder Tukukino will join Elder Reeves.

A few more random notes of things that were discussed:

He joked he needs a new shirt. Every P-Day he wears his same favourite casual button-up shirt.
He received the package we’d sent with a Lego advent calendar for him and a chocolate advent calendar for Elder Tukukino. Elder East was a bit concerned about how to transport the Lego after Christmas.
He still hasn’t encountered any friendly cats.
Elder East and Elissa worked out that one of the missionaries in Darwin is the brother of a missionary currently serving in Red HillW ard
He got to briefly meet Elder Reeves' parents via Elder Reeves' video chat on P-day.
Several missionaries have been transferred from the AAM to the Perth Mission now that the borders have opened. With other coming transfers, he believes the mission may be down to 33 missionaries by transfers.
He spent the last P-Day trying to get together a package to send to Kendall but didn’t get it finished.

We complained to Elder East that he never takes any photos, so he ended up sending a bunch of photos through to us whilst chatting. We don't know the context of all of them, but here are those he sent through.