Video Chat - 16th June 2021 - One Year Mark and Door Knocking

Elder East held a District Council this week so we were lucky enough to get some photos of the Darwin District/Zone from him during our P-Day chat.

They also participated in a Missionary Leadership Council via Zoom. I've already reposted some of the photos from the MLC that had Elder East in them.

Some observations from Elder East on Darwin: He says he never needs to look at the weather forecast. he knows it will get down to about 24 degrees at night time and about 30 degrees during the day. Humidity will set in around 10am and last until about 5pm. The humidity isn't really bad at the moment, but hard when you're walking around a lot in it.

He also says they haven't encountered any cats yet, but lots of loud dogs. He mentioned that the Sister Missionaries had a small dog try and attack them recently. He also sent through the following photo. Not sure of the story behind it, but the dog doesn't exactly look very loud or ferocious.

Elder East says that seeing as they're allowed to doorknock, they're trying to do 2-3 hours of doorknocking per day. They're effectively reopening the area, so there's a lot of finding to be done. Elder East commented that they seem to be meeting a lot more different people whilst doorknocking. They were both prompted to door knock what turned out to be a government housing street and didn't get to finish it as they ended up teaching people.

Elder East also sent us the photo below - I presume it's from when they were out doorknocking.

Elder East commented that whilst the strangest experience he's had was back in Onakapringa, he's had most of his "milder" strange experiences in Darwin. He didn't really elaborate on that as we pushed him to find out about what this strangest experience was that we hadn't heard about.

He said that it occurred just before he transferred to Darwin, which is why we didn't hear about it - most of the news was about the transfer to Darwin. He said that they were trying to visit some less active members. The member had moved but the person referred them to their next-door neighbour who "might be interested". It turns out the next-door neighbour was a schizophrenic "bible basher" who would shout out 'hallelujah" whilst talking and arguing. Elder East said that he was only about 5 foot tall, had a stocky build and a beard - it was like trying to talk to an angry gnome. What's more though, was that as well as wanting to argue, the angry gnome was insisting that the Elders had to purchase one of his paintings, which they declined to do. That wasn't the end of it though. Apparently, after Elder East was transferred the angry gnome found the phone number of a Bishop in a different Ward and was insisting that the missionaries come back around to see him.  

Some dot points of other things we spoke about:

• President Marquis was coming up on Saturday (19th June) to have his Farewell Family Home Evening and Dinner with the Darwin missionaries.
• The Marquis impending return home is starting to hit in. They received their 2nd last email from President Marquis during the week. The new Mission President, President Johanssen arrives on the 28th June, while the Amrquis' leave on the 1st July. Elder East says that he'll miss President Marquis.
• He received an email from Kendal asking questions about preparing to serve her mission.
• The Darwin Sister Misisoanries are now in a three-way companionship after the greenie returned to serve in Sydney.
• The Missionary Training Centres are starting to open back up throughout the world.
• They've had one meal with a member so far. They did some service for a Sister who fed them afterwards.
• Elders East and Evans are sharing the meal preparation. They're eating a lot of salads and walking a lot. He commented that there seems to be a pattern for missionaries to start off becoming unfit during the first half of their mission, then spending the last 6 months of their mission trying to get fit again.
• Elder East is looking like he's developing a tan.
• This week represented one year since Elder East started his mission via the home MTC on 11th June 2020. He knows that we've sent him a "halfway" package that should be amongst the mail that President Marquis is taking up to Darwin with him.