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.