Video Chat - 24th January 2022 - Traveling Up To Broken Hill

Elder East called us later on P-Day (Mon 24th Jan) because he and Elder Evans had just driven up to Broken Hill with President Johanssen. They were investigating the area to see if it could support missionaries in the future. It was a 6-hour drive from Adelaide.

As usual, a quick recap of the past week. Tuesday of last week was spent in an all-day planning meeting with President Johanssen.

On Wednesday there were five new missionaries arriving - three Elders and two Sisters. Two of them had been serving in the Sydney Mission whilst waiting to get to Adelaide. The day was taken up with getting the new arrivals from the airport followed by the introduction of their trainers and the usual orientation activities. They had the Mount Barker and Alice Springs missionaries staying with them on Wednesday night.

On Thursday they had a meeting with President Johanssen and the Marion Stake leaders. They had the Mount Barker and Mount Gambier missionaries staying with them on Thursday.

On Friday was the Zone Conference for Moroni Zone, as well as interviews for the missionaries with President Johanssen, so again it was a busy day providing some training at the conference and assisting in managing the interviews. They had the Mount Gambier missionaries staying with them on the Friday night. 

Elder East joked that Saturday was their day of "rest". They ended up having to go and buy bulk lots of RATs for the mission

On Sunday they went to Church in Firle and now that they're looking after part of the ward, had Ward Mission Correlation with the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader. The latter part of the day was spent with President Johanssen in meetings about the mission's Facebook page.

In other quick notes from our chat:

• Lots of traveling coming up. After they get back from Broken Hill they'll be going to trade-off with the Victor Harbour missionaries, and then flying up to Alice Springs next weekend. Just after the next transfers they're due to drive out to Port lincoln and visit the members out there.
• Elder East has started a little hobby with his travels. He is getting a  small vial of sand from each of the locations he's visiting. He currently has some from Mildura and Broken Hill. We asked what Elder Evans thought of this idea ... he relayed the question to Elder Evans who replied "... interesting."
• The mission is slowly growing. They're now up to 50 missionaries in the AAM, and should be close to 70 by mid-year.