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."
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