Catching up with my notes of chats with Elder East so there will be several weeks' worth of chats being posted up in a short period of time. We were away for a holiday in Tasmania as well as having a week in isolation, so it's been a month since I've posted. This particular entry was from when we chatted on Monday 3rd January and covers the previous week.
The big event this week was Transfers ... and of covid hitting the mission. The previous Tuesday (28th Dec) was Transfers, which included three Elders going home of whom two had been Elder East's companions. (Elders Roberts and Read.) On the Monday evening, there was the traditional Family Home Evening for those leaving at the Mission President's home. Normally the APs would be invited too, but Covid restrictions meant it was limited and they weren't able to attend.
On Tuesday when they took the leaving missionaries to the airport they discovered that Sister Hall's flight had been canceled and this hadn't been passed on to the mission. So, it was now a case of urgently trying to rebook a flight for her to be able to get home.
On Wednesday they had their new missionaries arrive to be picked up at the airport ... well at least some of them did. Travelers are meant to have a negative Covid test within 48 hours of going into South Australia. The Covid test for one of the missionaries due to fly in had come back positive. They had another two who were due to come in but their Covid test results hadn't come back in time.
In the latter part of the week, one of the missionaries was feeling unwell and subsequently returned a positive Covid result. That particular missionary companionship had had lunch with four other missionary companionships after transfers on Tuesday. Those companionships all went into isolation. The APs were required to go and help provide some food drop-offs for those companionships.
Eventually, all of the mission were asked to isolate as a precaution. Elder East commented that as a part of his responsibilities he'd effectively had contact with every single missionary in the mission during the previous week.
On Saturday (New Years Day) he and Elder Evans went to get Covid tested, waiting two hours before being told that the centre was now full and that they'd missed the cut off. They eventually managed to get tested on Sunday. As of our chat, they were both still in isolation and waiting for their test results to come back.
Some other notes from our chat:
- Elder East was in a video released by the mission on Social media during the week (Fri 31st Jan.) It featured several people in the Temple grounds talking about New Year's resolutions to be baptised and to attend the temple. Elder East commented to us that he didn't know they were going to film a video and he was in his "everything else needs to be washed" clothes at the time.
- Missionaries went out to Mildura during this transfer. Subsequently, the APs missionary responsibility has changed from Mildura to the northern half of Firle Ward.
- The AAM started up a private Facebook group during the week for family and friends of AAM missionaries to hear news of what's going on in the mission. "Australia Adelaide Mission - President Johansson"
- Cyclone Seth was causing damage on Australia's eastern coast. Elder's East's mum told him to stop it and get back to SA.
- They are having problems with their computer system that acts as the area books for missionaries. With the reorganization of several areas, the details of their teaching contacts have disappeared from the system. They are contacting support in Utah for help to try and find out what's wrong.
- Elder East sent us through some photos of one of their meetings earlier in the week.
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