Video Chat - 14th July 2021 - Staying in Darwin, Photos and Main Speaker at Church

The big news for the past week was that it was transfers and both Elder Evans and Elder East are staying together in Darwin which Elder East is quite happy about. In fact, there were only three transfers in the whole mission which were related to new missionaries. One of those was a new Sister missionary coming into the Palmerston Branch, a Sister Sullivan from Cowra, so they're now in a three-way. Elder East thinks she may have previously met her at the original FSY he went to in Sydney back in 2017.

Elder East sent us through a bunch of photos. 

This is a photo of the missionaries with a couple from Palmerston Branch back on the 27th June. This was just after the lockdown had been announced. With Church meetings having been canceled due to the lockdown, they were fortunate to be able to meet together for sacrament before returning for the lockdown

A random chicken they happened to find wandering the streets of Palmerston.

The senior missionary couple held flat inspections recently - and they jokingly gave awards/medals to the missionaries for keeping their various accommodation in good condition.

This was a photo of the P Day activity on 7th July. This was part of their 'Amazing Race" activity where they had to take photos of various things. Most of the companionships were colour coordinated.

Photos of the Elders studying on their balcony. Looks quite nice.

Above are photos from their District Council meeting that was held recently. The lady in the blue on the right is a Single Adult representative. She was there as the missionaries will be helping to run a Single Adult convention in Darwin over the weekend of the 18th and 19th July. 

There is a public golf course near their flat that they sometimes walk through when going places. They came across this turtle the other day. Elder East took a  photo as it reminded him of Fred, the turtle that we "turtle-sat" for a number of years.

Elder East was the final speaker at Church last week (11th July). He was meant to speak for 13-15 minutes on "Emulating Christ". They'd invited a number of people they were teaching along to see him speak. They were excited to see that two of the families that they'd invited come along (pictured in the above two photos.)

Elder East said that he went overtime in his talk. The Sister missionaries must have thought it was good though. They told him that he should be a Stake president based on that talk. It's not the first time sister missionaries have made that comment to him during his mission. Obviously, they think that he speaks well. 

They've been busy teaching during the past week - mainly over Zoom. They taught 2 lessons on the Sunday afternoon, 6 on Monday and another 7 on Tuesday. There was a busy week coming up too. They had Mission Correlation scheduled on Thursday, Mission Leadership Council on Friday and then helping with the Single Adult convention on Saturday and Sunday.

Elder East was also excited about a change that had been brought in by President Johansson. President had relaxed the rules a bit about what music missionaries could listen to, giving them more responsibility in choosing "uplifting" music, so we've got some requests from Elder East for a broader selection of music.