Video Chat - 21st July 2021 - Pavlovas, Videos and Snakes

It was only a quick chat this week, but we did at least get sent some more photos from Elder East.

The first photo is of Karen Boree. She was somebody I knew on my mission from Canberra - she was the daughter of the Ward Mission leader when I served in Woden Branch back in the early Nineties. She'd long ago married and moved away but had met Elissa and I when she was back visiting Canberra one time.  Elder East had also gotten to know one of her sons during the 2017 FSY that they'd both attended. Karen is in the Darwin Branch. They'd caught up whilst they were all helping at the Single Adult Convention that was being held in Darwin the previous weekend. Elder East commented that the SA Convention seemed to involve a lot of family history classes.

The next photo collage includes a family that they are teaching about the Gospel. Elder East says that the familyy also spontaneously feeds them. Apparently, most of their meal appointments with others tend to be spontaneous. The middle photo is a screenshot of a video they filmed to contribute to the Mission Facebook page.

I managed to download the video from Facebook ... it should hopefully be below.

The following picture is of the Ashtons,. Elder East said that the senior missionary couple that usually looks after the Darwin missionaries were down in Adelaide for the week, so the Ashtons looked after them for a bit.

The following picture is after their Branch Mission Correlation meeting with the Branch mission leader. The group includes the new Sister Missionary who is currently in Darwin for two weeks whilst Adelaide is under covid restrictions.

The following picture "... is just smoke, we get a lot of fires up here all around the place. This time we just figured we'd drive by it."

The new Sister Missionary is "Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and allergic to Apples, bananas, coconuts and cashews." Elder East decided to try and make a pavlova for her for the district P Day as they were going to have a district picnic. Elder East got some guidance from his Mum on how to cook the pavlova the night before. 

His comment at the end "It did sink a little in one spot and it cracked a bit but I'm impressed with it." Apparently, it tasted good and was popular.

He said that they had a good P Day with the picnic at the botanical gardens, followed by a trip to a museum. There was a fake snake in one of the trees in the park they were at, so they originally thought the following Black-Headed Python was fake too, until it started slithering towards them. He shared with us the following video.

President Johansson and the APs were meant to fly up on Friday (24th Jul) for District Conference, Zone Conference, and interviews but that was canceled due to Covid related border closures. Elder East commented that the missionaries have been volunteered to participate in the choir for District Conference.

Elder East said that they had their first Missionary Leadership Council with President Johansson (remotely of course.) He said that it was good, but Elder East was worried that President Johansson has gotten rid of the "white binder" - the local rules that President Marquis had put in place, but also introduced some new rules as well. (eg missionaries can't cut each other's hair.) As a Zone Leader, Elder East will have to help the missionaries transition to the new guidelines. 

Elder east commented that they're not doing much finding as a companionship at the moment as they're doing a lot of teaching instead.