Zone Conference Photos - 25th March 2021

 Zone Conference was held in Adelaide on Thursday the 25th March 2021. The AAM Blog has updated with photos from the conference, and we of course have gone through and picked out all of those with Elder East in them. So, sit back, relax and play "Where's Elder East?" in the following photos.

Video Chat - 24th March 2021 - Gonna Have To Remove That Toe

On the Wednesday P-Day video chat, we got a bit of a rundown of the week. The highlight for Elder East was the Sunday night when they had dinner with the Stake President and his family as well as a couple of YSAs, and the boyfriend of one of the YSAs.After having a meal together the Elders taught a lesson to everyone which they enjoyed doing.

Elder East sent us through the following photo collage. There are several photos of them with those at the Stake Presidents that evening, as well as one of their investigators and a new member who was baptised the previous week.

We asked Elder East to give us some additional information about his companion, Elder Beaumont-Tafua. He says that he is half-Samoan, half Kiwi/French Canadian. His Dad left the family when he was very young and he was living with his Grandparents before his mission. Elder East has taught him how to play Magic the Gathering. Elder Beaumont-Tafua was in the online MTC at the same time as Elder East, so they knew each other from there, however, he was meant to be heading to Samoa.

Other dot points from the discussion:

• On Monday they were out visiting previous investigators and came back to their car at one point to discover that it had been damaged. It looks like somebody with a towball had backed into their car. They then had to go to the chapel on Tuesday to go and deal online with all of the administrative work in reporting the damage.
• They're still not allowed to street contact, but Elder East doesn't mind as it's generally not very effective. Elder East isn't overly enthused about visiting members to try and enthuse them to do missionary work either. Might explain why they don't get a lot fo member feeds.
• Elder East related a story from when he was serving in Morialta about a lady threatening to call the police on them when they were out visiting investigators because she wanted them to leave her street.
• They'd gone out shopping earlier on P-Day. Elder East had gotten himself some new pants and a book cover. 
• Zone Conference was coming up the next day (Thursday 25th March) but he says that he doesn't have any assignments to do anything ... yet.
• Elder East has an ingrown toenail problem - in a different place than the one he had before his mission.

Video Chat - 22nd March 2021 - Mum's Birthday

We managed to get two short video chats with Elder East this last week. The first was on Monday evening as it was his Mum's birthday. Elder East joined in with the singing of "Happy Birthday" and the cutting of the birthday cake pavlova.

Elder East had told Elissa last week that he had dreamt that one of his friends from youth, Tiahna, had received a mission call and was coming out to serve in the AAM, so he'd asked Elissa to find out if Tiahna was preparing to serve a mission. Elissa chatted with Tiahna's mum and found out that, no, Tiahna wasn't even attending Church much, let alone getting ready for a mission. However, the Bishop of the ward where Elder East is currently serving is Tiahna's uncle! He commented that they hadn't actually had much interaction with the Bishop yet.

We did also get a quick tour of his flat, even if it was a bit blurry. It looked like quite a nice flat.

Chat - 17th March 2021 - Area Photo Collages

Elder East advised that they were having a district P Day activity this week so we wouldn't get a call, but he did share a bunch of photos and chat with us instead. He said that "We send a collage most nights to our zone chat with our daily highlights", so these were his most recent images.

Other dot points from our text chat:

• He is in need of a case for his phone for both protection and to try and keep it clean. Following a few suggestions he decided he liked this one, so I've ordered one for him.

• He wasn't aware of the photos of himself on the Church's news article about the service they provided. His comment was that "I look fat ... Gotta work out more"
• He was needing to go and pay the speeding fine that he received a little while ago. We said that we would put some money into his account towards it, which he was very thankful for. I said not to expect it in the future but that "It's good to be able to have somebody who can pay the price for our sins 🙂 [It's an] object lesson you can use 🙂". He understood the analogy I was making to how the Saviour's atonement works.
• Elder East confirmed that Sister Malu - a sister missionary who just arrived into the mission from Canberra - was sent to Darwin for her first area. 
• They have Stake Missionary Correlation scheduled for Thursday (18th Mar), which will be the first one that Elder East has been to. He thinks that there might be a Zone Conference scheduled for this week as well.
• Elder East has heard once from Elder Taua since he went home, and Elder Taua also participates in a  messenger chat that the missionaries have.
• When we asked as to how his investigators were going he expressed some frustration/sadness saying "We can get them like 50% of the way [towards baptism] then something comes up...". I empathised, advising " Getting them through all of the discussions and to the baptism itself is always a major accomplishment.  Satan is working on them just as hard as you are, and he gets more help."
• I mentioned that I will be flying to see his grandparents in WA in May and have a 4½ hour stopover in Adelaide. I advised that if he's still in Adelaide after the next transfer, I'll discuss with the mission office as to whether I can take him and his companion out to lunch.
• He says that he and his new companion are getting along really well. I asked him that, noting his hyphenated English/Polynesian name, is Elder Beaumont-Tafua more Polynesian or more palagi or half-and-half? Elder East said that "He's white as heck" but that he tries to be more Samoan because his original mission calling was to Samoa. :)

Elder East got in trouble from his Mum during the evening. She saw the following photo on the "Missionary Mommas" Facebook group that she's a member of. 

Elder East had asked his Mum to make an apron for him, but it appears he then left it behind in one of his old flats and it is now being used by other Elders.

Elder East in the Pacific Area Church News

Family friend Dannielle Grant pointed out to us that Elder East featured in a news article on the Church's Asia Pacific website. It was an article about members of the Church in Adelaide providing service for a Christian Centre.

The main photo was of Elder East carrying items at the service project. He was also in another photo from the article as well. I've grabbed a copy of the two photos below.

The news article was from the 26th Feb, but we're not sure when the service project actually occurred. Elder East often seems to gloss over talking about things they did during the week as just part of missionary life for him, but which we would actually find interesting to hear about.

Multi-Stake Devotional - 7th March 2021

The AAM blog updated with several recent entries that had photos with Elder East in them.

The first was of the Multi-Stake Devotional held on Sunday 7th March. There are a number of photos with Elder East in them, but they're mainly shots of the back of his head.

From later that Sunday evening there's an image of the Zoom meeting advising of what is happening with transfers the following day.

There are also a lot of photos of the missionaries at transfers on the Monday, however, there was only one shot with Elder East in it.

Video Chat - 10th March 2021 - New Companion is Elder Beaumont-Tafua

Elissa had a short chat with Elder East on Wednesday morning in regards to the death of a member of his Year 12 graduating class several days earlier. She was concerned as to how much of an impact the news may have had on Elder East. Elder East advised that he didn't really know the young man though. Still, it was sad news with the young man being in a car accident on the Monaro Highway. He was the third member of Elder East's graduating class to have passed away since graduation.

Later in the day, we got to have a short video chat whilst Elissa and I were both still at work. The big news of course was Transfers that had just happened on the Monday. Elder Taua had now returned home and Elder East has stayed in Onkaparinga Ward. His new companion is Elder Tafua (or to be correct according to the mission blog, Elder Beaumont-Tafua.) 

Elder Tafua is from Brisbane. Elder East describes him as a tall, skinny basketballer who is a jack-of-all-trades. Elder East and Elder Tafua were in the online MTC at the same time, although Elder Tafua was heading out a week later than Elder East. They were in different districts, so Elder Tafua isn't in any of the MTC screenshots that Elder East took. Elder Tafua was originally called to serve in Samoa. 

Some dot point notes from our discussion:

• Elder Taua was a bit emotional as he got ready to leave.
• Elders East & Taua were in a three-way companionship on Sunday and Monday as Elder Brown's companion was flying to Darwin for transfers and had to leave on the Sunday.
• Elder East is still a Zone Leader but is sharing the ZL duties with Elder Brown.
• Elder East discovered that Elder Stiles, the newly arrived from Canberra knows Alex Garland.
• Their teaching pool is quite large at the moment. 
• Elder East says that the Friday night sports nights have been "awesome". He didn't explain in what way they were awesome though.
• Joseph Stubbs, one of the YSAs from Canberra was in Onkaparinga Ward on Sunday. Apparently, he was there for a date. :) He gave Elder East $10 to get himself a feed at some point in the week.
• They have a trade-off scheduled on Friday (12th Mar)

Elissa showed Elder East pictures of the cowhide seat covers and other accessories that Jewel received for her birthday. These now adorn the family car that Elder East was driving before his mission.

Elder East was "horrified" at what has been done to Dannielle Devito (his name for the car.).

Video Chat - 3rd March 2021 - Elder Taua's Last P-Day

It was a quick chat with Elder East last P-Day. It was Elder Taua's last P-Day and so they were doing things that he wanted to do. That had involved going for a nature walk and then ten-pin bowling. Judging by the photo we got from Elder East, I'm presuming the nature walk was down on the coast.

 I'd asked if there were any other photos he could send us and he sent through this montage as well.

The rest of the chat can be summed up in a number of dot points. It wasn't a long chat, and a lot of it was more Elder East getting updates on what's been happening at home. News from him was:

• Elder East said that it had been hard for Elder Taua to remain focused being so close to going home. 
• Elder East is hoping to stay in the area during transfers next week.
• They finally got to talk with their investigator Daniel. He's doing OK but has been dealing with some family issues.
• Their other investigator Siritia is doing well.
• They went on an exchange last Friday/Saturday with the Elders in Marion - his old area. He had to ride a bike whilst in that area. Fortunately, it's a fairly flat area he says.
• They also had a short "Hour to Power" trade-off with the APs.

We pointed out that the day was exactly a year since he received his mission call.

The AAM blog updated with another photo of Elder East. There was a post from the 23rd Feb advising that "We ran a bit short on time in our recent MLC so we called a special MLC plus district leaders Zoom training meeting.  Along with the assistants to the president, we trained on better using our Area Book Planners and keeping Progress Records updated daily on our smartphones. " The post included the following photo:

Addendum: We got a quick message on Sunday morning from Elder East saying that he was staying in Onkaparinga Ward. He's obviously getting a new companion, but this will be the first transfer that he hasn't changed area.

Video Chat - 24th February 2021 - Worn Out His First Lot of Shoes

As usual, we chatted with Elder East last P-Day about the past week. 

Last Thursday was Elder Taua's "Leaver's " dinner and session at the Temple. Elder east was expecting to spend time with the APs that evening but ended up in the Morialta area with his old companions, Elders Kennach and Nalesoni.

The major event was the Missionary Leadership Council that was held the previous Saturday. I mentioned in a separate blog that the Area Authority in attendance was Elder Paul Lekias, and his wife Rebecca whom we both know. Elder East said that the MLC was good, but that it was less of a council and more of being taught, possibly because it was the first one in over a year with an Area or General Authority in attendance. 

The main things covered in the MLC included Referrals, Finding and a doctrinal discussion about the Atonement. There were concerns raised that some of the referrals aren't being contacted. Elder East did note that some referrals are obviously fake. I shared that we got one when I was a missionary in Tamworth for "Slim Dusty". We knew it would be fake but went and checked out the address anyway - it was a car yard :) Elder East said that the Lekias' provided a referral that ended up being in their area. Elder East checked but said that the woman who answered said that she wasn't interested.

On Sunday Elder East spoke in Sacrament Meeting. He said that he used the examples of Nephi vs Laman & Lemuel after the death of Lehi. Nephi was able to keep himself on track whereas Laman & Lemuel didn't have Lehi continually calling them to repentance. He encouraged people not to rely on others to call us to repentance.

Again, there's also another blog entry about how May Sandeline-McCann, Elissa's trainer on her mission, just happened to be visiting Elder East's ward on Sunday when he was speaking and got to tell him "I was your Mum's trainer". That's the second of his parents' missionary companions that Elder East has now met.

On Monday they held District Council  - and Elder East said that he cooked chocolate chip cookies for everyone. 

Speaking of their investigators he spoke of the lady they're teaching. They had another lesson with her. Elder East says she has a medical condition that makes it hard for her to read but she read a whole chapter in the scriptures with them. The two other main investigators they have - Daniel and his cousin - hadn't replied back to their contacts over the last week, so they're concerned as to how they're doing. It had been a week and a half since they've seen them.

They had a referral from the Sister missionaries that they visited. The person was interested, but Elder East described them as crazy. Happy crazy, not depressed crazy though :) Elder East mentioned that the highlight of the week was some finding they did in Seaford, but he didn't explain why it was a highlight. They had three lessons scheduled for Wednesday evening - two with members and one with an investigator.

 A couple of other dot points from our discussion:

• They have started doing some exercise at night time - going for a walk down to the beach and back Obviously they're living within walking distance of the coast.
• They have gone over their kilometre allowance for their car, so they plan on riding bikes for the rest of the month. Elder East has only ridden a bike fro 2 days during the first 8 months of his mission.
• Edler East bought himself some new Church shoes and runners earlier on P-day. He said that he'd worn through his existing shoes.
• A number of missionaries in the mission are counting down their remaining time in the mission field as a lot of them now have elss than 100 days left.