Video Chat - 21st February 2022 - The NT With President Johansson & Elder Nattress

 Much of our chat this week was about the APs trip up to the Northern Territory the previous week.

The APs flew up to Alice Springs on Wednesday and had trade-offs with the missionaries in the afternoon. President Johansson and Elder Nattress (First Counselor in the Area Presidency) flew up to Alice Springs on Thursday and took some personal time to head out to Uluru and Segway around the rock before returning to Alice Springs. This gave them a long amount of time to do some one-on-one counseling/training together as well as getting to see a famous tourist sight. 

On Friday they had a meeting with the Alice Springs missionaries as well as a Fireside in the evening for members and investigators. They had four investigators come along to the Fireside in the evening. 

On Saturday they flew up to Darwin. Elder East sent us the following message:

But truthfully I had this really great experience on Saturday.

We had just flown into Darwin and we had gotten the Elders to the chapel to meet Elder Nattress. We went to get lunch for everyone to bring back and then had a meeting with him.

During the meeting I was about to fall asleep. I just felt so dead and I remember thinking that straight after this meeting when I go with the Elders I'm gonna go nap.

But I was also like I gotta help these Elders and be an example and so I said a prayer and was like "hey if you need me to do something up here can you please give me the strength to do it, but if not can I please get some rest."

At the end of the meeting President turns to us APs and says he's gonna need us for a bunch of things and almost Immediately I felt wide awake and full of energy and felt like that the rest of the day.

So it was pretty simple but for me, it was a really clear cause and effect of God helping me in that moment that I loved.

After helping out President, they went out tracting in the heavy rain with the Darwin missionaries and got a return appointment. On the Saturday evening, there was meant to be a Leadership Dinner with President Johansson and Elder Nattress, and the local priesthood leaders. Unfortunately, of the local leaders, three had covid, two were away and of the others, only one was able to make it. 

On Sunday there was a combined Church meeting for both the Darwin and Palmerston Branches. The APs were acting as greeters. They were getting worried when with several minutes before Church was due to start both President Johnasson and Elder Nattress hadn't arrived yet, and as noted most of the other local leaders were away, in isolation or otherwise indisposed. Fortunately, they arrived right at the 9am start time. 

There was a lunch put on after Church finished and Elder East was able to catch up with a number of members from Palmerston Branch who he knew. The Stubbs, who have recently moved from Canberra to Darwin also happened to recognise him. They sent the following photo to the Canberra Stake Facebook group. 

On Sunday afternoon they went out to visit some of the former investigators from when Elder East was in the area. The only person who they managed to catch up with though was Sister King - again, another former Canberra member who had recently moved up to Darwin. The Kings hadn't been to Church in a  while so Elder East was happy to get a return appointment with them for the Palmerston missionaries.

They then tracted a complex of six houses. From those six houses, there was no answer from two, they taught a lesson at one and got three return appointments from the others. They were happy to be successful with the tracting as the NT missionaries had been saying that they don't see any success tracting, however, Elders East & Evans taught or got return appointments every time they went out tracting in the NT during the week.

They ended up flying back down to Adelaide on the P Day Monday, so our video chat was in the evening. 

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• Elder East managed to get some sand for his "collection" from one of the Darwin beaches.
• He bought himself a souvenir tie in Darwin.
• We sent him some PDFed university course guides to read on the plane on the flight back to help him make a decision about whether he needs to apply for university before he finishes his mission in June. We confirmed that his return date was the 15th June - about 5 days earlier than we'd previously thought.
• Elder East said that It has been really good being with Elder Nattress - he's a very nice, and spiritual, man. The whole trip has been really tiring though - even President Johansson is super tired.
• He commented about how being an Assistant to the President has been hard, but he's never felt unfulfilled. He feels that he's doing really well, both spiritually and emotionally.
• Here's a photo of a baby thorny devil that they found during their time in Alice Springs.

Video Chat - 14th February 2022 - The Mission is Growing

 As usual, another busy week for the APs in the AAM, or in the words of Elder East "really hectic". Tuesday was transfers. Elder East commented that they did transfers differently this month with the Sister missionaries coming in first to have their transfers, and the Elders coming later to do theirs. He reckons that the Sisters took a long time socialising at transfers with the other Sisters, whilst the Elders were more in and out. 

On Wednesday eight new missionaries arrived. Of the eight new missionaries that arrived, three will be staying in the AAM, whilst the other five are on temporary assignment whilst waiting to get to Perth (x2), Japan, New Zealand and Fiji.  Elder East commented that the new missionaries all look so young, and in the case of the 4' 9' tall sister, very short. 

On Thursday, Elder East said that he cost the mission $800. One of the new missionaries was meant to be flying out to his new area in the Northern Territory on Thursday morning. Elder East forgot about the time difference between NT and SA, and got the missionary to the airport at the right time ... if he was in the NT. But funnily enough, the plane was operating on SA time when departing from the Adelaide airport and had left within the previous hour. They had to rebook the Elder's flight for the following day ... and they made sure to be there on time.

Elder East said that there was a lot of travel coming up. Elder Brett Nattress (First Counselor in the Area Presidency was doing several tours of the mission, He would be coming to visit the NT with President Johansson next week, and then Adeliade in early March. President Johansson decided that he needed to take the APs with him during the trip to assist with a lot of the organisation of what was going on. Consequently, they'll be flying up to Alice Springs on Wed (16th Feb) and then up to Darwin on Sat (19th Feb) before flying back to Adelaide next Monday (21st Feb.) This means that on Sunday at Church, Elder East will possibly get to catch up with some of the people he knew whilst serving in Darwin. 

In the week following that they would be having Zone Conferences, and the following week Elder Nattress will be back for the Adelaide part of the mission tour. 

Some other dot points from our discussion:

• There are another 9 new missionaries coming at mid-transfers in 3 weeks' time. The mission is definitely growing. They'll also be getting several Mandarin-speaking missionaries in April.
• With the relaxation of Covid restrictions, they're now allowed to try following up in person with people again rather than vai electronically.
• He was asked how his clothes were holding out or if he needed new ones before his mission would finish. He said that he needs new suit pants - they've gotten too small - but was going out to buy some today.
• They've been using a lot of the food from the freezer in their flat which has been there since before they arrived back in November.
• The last three nights he's dreamt that he was back home ... but that he was still a missionary.
• He is beginning to think he may head straight to University when he gets home. We chatted about how he needs to focus on the missionary work, but also may need to prayerfully make some decisions soon with respect to his University application. We sent through some university admission information for him to look at on future P Days. He said that he'll probably end up doing some reading about uni admission during his upcoming flights.
• Elder East has grown to like the steak houses that have been used for some of the "Arrivers" dinners. He wants to know if there are any steak houses in Canberra.
• Elissa had joked about what meal he wanted most when he gets back. He's decided he wants a whole week of meals: In no particular order: "Chicken Stroganoff, Chicken and cheese enchiladas, Bang bang chicken noodles, Dad's chilli, Nachos, Maybe go out to a nice Indian place."

Video Chat - 8th February 2022 - Elder Reeves Goes Home

 We missed out on a call from Elder East on the Monday (7th Feb) but he received permission from President Johansson to give us a quick call the following evening.  The reason why he'd been unable to call us was that it was Transfers week. That meant that some missionaries were finishing up their missions and going home. This included Elder Reeves, who Elder East developed a friendship with before Elder East's mission. 

Elder Reeves had already started his mission in the Provo MTC before Covid hit but was brought back to Australia and reassigned to Adelaide.  They both ended up going into the AAM at the same time and quarantining together.

They had a final P Day activity on the Monday (7th Feb) before the "Leaver's Dinner" and testimony meeting in the evening. The APs were able to join in for the evening so Elder East got to spend some time farewelling Elder Reeves before he was taken to the Airport on Tuesday morning (8th Feb.) Elder East reckons that as much as Elder Reeves had enjoyed his service as a missionary, he was ready to go home.

Elder East mentioned that he'd spoken with President Johansson about whether he was going to extend his mission or not. He'd originally been leaning towards extending but advised that he's now thinking that he'll finish at his allotted time in June.

Looking back at what had happened over the previous week, Elder East said that planning for transfers had taken up a lot of their time. 

The previous P-Day Monday (31st Jan) they had flown back down from being in Alice Springs. One of the missionaries in Mildura ended up dislocating his shoulder. He ended up in hospital until midnight. Due to Covid regulations, his companion wasn't allowed into the hospital. 

Elders East and Evans drove out to Mildura on Tuesday. The Elder with the dislocated shoulder ended up getting a throat infection overnight, was unable to talk, and ended up back in hospital on Tuesday. His companion was put into isolation back in their flat, whilst the APs stayed in a hotel overnight.  

Having confirmed that the welfare of the Mildura Elders was going to be OK the APs drove back to Adelaide on Wednesday before having a Tech Council meeting later in the day.

All of Thursday was spent in meetings with President Johansson. 

On Friday there was a Missionary Leadership Council as well as a Missionary Coordination Council for the Stake which they went along to. The AAM Facebook page put up some photos from the MLC.

On Saturday he met up with the Stephensons who took Elders East and Evans out to lunch. The Stephensons are an American family we know who comes to Australia most summers to play cricket. Most of that time had been in Canberra but were in Adelaide this year. Nic is the youngest of the family and is getting ready to prepare for his mission in the next year or two, so Elder East was happy to oblige with mission preparation tips for him.

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• They have 8 new missionaries coming into the AAM tomorrow (Wed 9th Feb.)
• A Returned Missionary from the AAM just got engaged. He is the fifth returned missionary from the AAM that Elder East knows who has gotten engaged. Three RMs are already married and one even has a child on the way.

Video Chat - 31st January 2022 - The Jetsetting APs Hit Alice Springs

It was a busy week of travel for the APs over this last week. We'd mentioned how they had driven up to Broken Hill last Monday, spent some time checking out the area and talking to the Branch President before driving back down on Tuesday. There aren't a lot of active members of the Church in Broken Hill, but a total of around 100 including all of the less active members.

On Wednesday they drove down to Victor Harbour which is about an hour south of Adelaide. They had trade-offs on the Wednesday and Thursday with the missionaries in the area. The companionship is a three-way companionship that included one of his old companions, Elder Davey. It was a hot Australia Day whilst they were there Elder East says that they were accosted in the street by an ex-member who wanted to Bible bash with them. Elder East says that they showed a lot of patience and Christ-like love in dealing with the person. :)  

Elder East commented that the Victor Harbour Elder's taught him how to do Facebook video editing that night. Elder East thought it was potentially a handy skill to have

On Friday (28th Jan) they had a 6am flight up to Alice Springs, spending the weekend in the Alice before flying back 11am on the P Day we chatted (31st Jan). There'd been a bit of a commotion for the Alice Springs missionaries before the APs arrived. When going to bed on Thursday night they'd forgotten to lock the door to their house. Even though they live in a gated community, a group of young Aboriginal kids had come into their house, stolen their deodorants (for huffing) and the keys to the missionaries' car. The missionaries woke up to the kids trying to get the car started. The missionaries were able to close the front gate and stop the kids from stealing their car, but the kids still managed to hit several things with the car before fleeing. This was apparently the third time the Alice Springs missionaries have had their car broken into.

Once Elders East and Evans arrived they spent the time trading off with the other Elders. Elder East said that the Alice Springs missionaries do a lot of sports activities and the APs helped refine them from just sports into more effective finding tools. Despite it being quite wet whilst they were Elder East said that it was a really nice time. 

We discussed how the heavy rains and flooding in the NT and SA over the last couple of weeks were affecting the transport network. Elder East said the Alice Springs shops were pretty empty and sent us the following photos. He said that they ended up at a Red Rooster for dinner one evening and they only had half of their menu available. 

Some additional notes from our chat:

• Elder East got himself some (wet) sand from Alice Springs to add to his collection.
• Elder Reeves is about to go home next week. 
• They've hardly seen President Johansson over the last week. That's unusual as they usually spend most of their time working together. 
• Elder East is thinking about whether he might extend his mission by a transfer.