In a huge surprise, Elder East let us know last P Day that he was being transferred yet again. Elder Rea was Elder East's third trainee and he has yet to finish training one of them. The transfer news was rather exciting and intimidating though. He was told on the Saturday night (13th Nov) to pack his bags because he was being transferred but he thought it was just the APs playing a joke on him. It turns out that they weren't. Elder East was called to be a new Assistant to the President to be companions with Elder Read.
Elder East is sad to be leaving Port Pirie, he'd expected to be spending Christmas there. He didn't get to say goodbye as they had arranged to be attending church in Whyalla on Sunday (14th Nov) and visiting investigators and members in Whyalla and Port Augusta during the day.
Elder Brown will finish training Elder Rea - the second time Elder Brown has finished the training of a missionary who started with Elder East. Elder East says that Elder Rea is strong - he'll be a good missionary.
The traditional rundown of Elder East's week.
Tuesday was spent doorknocking in the rain.
On Wednesday they had a big companionship study session preparing for several planned lessons later in the day. Unfortunately, both of the lessons ended up canceling, but they thought the preparation they had done was really good. Elder East said that they then went and visited a nearby small town to ascertain if they were going to undertake some missionary work there. Then it was time to drive down to Adelaide where they stayed with other Elders overnight.
Thursday was a special devotional for the AAM missionaries. Elder Lekias, the Area Authority was there in person, but they were also joined via video by Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita, the second counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, Elder Carl B Cook from the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Ulisses Soares from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder East said that the devotional was good. All four of the area and general authorities spoke to them about their missionary service. He was called up by Elder Lekias at one point to share the purpose of being a missionary. Elder East thought it might be because Elder Lekias knows our family, however, we found out later that he'd actually asked for a recommendation from President Johansson on who to ask up, and President had recommended Elder East.
On Thursday evening Elders East and Rea spent the night down in Adelaide, spending the evening phoning people around Whyalla and Port Augusta to visit on Sunday.
They drove back to Port Pirie on Friday morning and then spent the afternoon doorknocking and doing lessons.
Elder East said they had a lot of lessons on Saturday.
Sunday they headed out to Whyalla for Church. They have their own chapel and had 23 in attendance even though they were missing a couple of families, so Whyalla Branch is actually bigger than Port Pirie. Elder East commented that the main entrance into Whyalla is through the industrial part of town. He said that it looked like the setting for a Young Adult dystopian novel. Having said that, once you were in town there was a nice view out into the bay. Being a holiday area the town also has a lot of touristy things to do.
At the Whyalla Sacrament meeting they had the opportunity to bless the sacrament for the branch. Their investigator wasn't able to come to Chruch that day, but they were able to meet up with another former investigator and a less active member family in Whyalla and have lessons with both. They also caught up with a family in Port Augusta and had a lesson with them too. Elder East said that all of the lessons they had that day were really nice and that he enjoyed them. They arranged to eb able to keep in touch and continue teaching with all of the people they visited. They learned on the way back to Port Pirie that the APs weren't joking about Elder East being transferred, and Sunday night was spent starting to pack.
When we spoke to him on P Day he said that he'd only been down in Adelaide for about 2 hours, having left Port Pirie around lunchtime. He said that some of the other missionaries were acting a bit differently around him now that he was about to become an AP. He commented that the APs flat was big. They quite often have to accommodate missionaries in transit both in and out of the mission, along with transfers and conferences.
Typically APs serve for about three transfers, so he's hoping for a bit of stability in his new role. He doesn't know many of those in his new district, only having served around one of the 8 missionaries. He thinks that his role will now be more orientated towards ministering to missionaries rather than directly proselyting. The APs physically attend Firle Ward, but are remotely responsible for Mildura Ward. As an AP he is likely to travel a lot on tradeoffs and to accompany President Johansson as he travels in his official capacity.
He mentioned that one of the people he had been teaching in Onkaparinga Ward is now in Firle Ward so he might be able to catch up with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment