Elder East Returns Home With Honour

 Elder East completed his two years of missionary service in the Australia Adelaide Mission on the 14th June 2022. He flew out of Adelaide at 4:20pm and arrived in Canberra at 6:20pm. 

There was much happiness at the airport from Mum to see her boy again after two years.

It was then a case of heading to the Stake Center where he had his final interview with President Moir ( First Counselor in the Stake Presidency) before being formally released. Unfortunately, a family friend and Stake President, President Stuart had come down sick and tested Covid positive the previous evening and was unable to do the interview himself. 

Elder East had the opportunity to share a beautiful "final testimony" to his family before being formally released.

Back at home, Mum had printed up a poster and stuck it on his bedroom door. The poster summarised Elder East's mission thus.

We are so proud of him and the work that hes done, and his desire to help and assist others. 

Video Call - 6th June 2022 - Farewell P-Day Celebration

 It was Elder East's last P Day with the other missionaries. The following P Day he would be heading into the mission home and getting ready to go home. His Zone had an activity day as a farewell for him and a birthday celebration for Elder Burgess. 

Elder East did try calling us from the activity but there was so much noise we couldn't hear what he was saying. We ended up cutting the call short, with Elder East letting us know that he'd try calling us later in the day. Unfortunately, that didn't eventuate. 

The little we did hear him say was that it had been a hectic week, and that President Johansson had been in the Northern Territory for most of it. 

Later in the day we did see a video from one of the other missionaries from Canberra who was serving in the AAM. The video had footage from their P Day activity. I've tried to grab some screenshots of the video below with some added commentary. 

The first shot is of Elder East getting an egg splattered on his head. They appeared to be playing some sort of game where the losers got wet or got hit with eggs. This egg hit was a sneak attack though ;)

Photo of the missionaries having lunch. You'll notice that Elder East has changed out of his wet/egg-splattered clothes. 

Trying to eat a donut suspended from a string without using your hands.

Elder Ma'a and Sister Malu have been making banners as a farewell gift for some of the missionaries as they complete their missions. This si Elder East's banner.

The banner can also be used as a cape apparently ...

Singing 'God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again."

Video Call - 30th May 2022 - Time to Start Packing & The Hero's Journey

With only two weeks to go until Elder East comes home, the P Day call this week was a very jovial one, with lots of family banter and joking. It was a long and happy chat.

On Tuesday of the previous week was the mid-cycle transfer and Elder Nelson joined Elders East and Ma'a in a three-way companionship to learn the ropes as an AP in the AAM. Unfortunately, Elder Nelson came down sick during the week. Elder Ma'a ended up in a  trade-off with another missionary for most of the week whilst Elder East stayed with Elder Nelson. Elder East describes Elder Nelson as cool, and a bit of a crackup. That's good to hear as Elder East had always sounded a bit cautious about what the American missionaries would be like when they eventually came into the AAM.

On Wednesday President Johansson flew up to Sydney for Mission President's Training with Elder Brent H Nielson from the Presidency of the Seventy. All of the Australian missionaries joined in a broadcast with Elder Nielson on the Thursday morning. The meeting was an 8am start for the Adelaide missionaries. Elder East said that he pitied the Perth missionaries who would have had the meeting start at 6am their time. 

Elders East & Ma'a flew up to Alice Springs on Friday for a baptismal service on Saturday (28th May) before flying back on Sunday morning. The service contained both the baptism of a new member as well as a rebaptism of a previous member of the Church. 

Elder East has an affinity for his time in Darwin and the Northern Territory - he considers it a part of his "Hero's Journey". He sees himself as being immature prior to his time in Darwin, having his awakening in Darwin, and then continuing on as a changed/transformed missionary. 

Source: Hero’s Journey Editable Diagram for PowerPoint by SlideModel.com

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• Two new Zones were created during the week. One currently doesn't have any Zone leaders, so the APs are assisting there. Elder East has started his sorting and packing for his return home.
• There was a late change as a part of transfers about using one of the flats which caused a bunch of unintended consequences - eg a district with just Sisters - that caused some logistical issues that needed to be fixed up during the week.
• We joked that we needed to make him up a list of important or interesting things to check out that occurred during his mission, much like people did for Captain America in the Avengers movies.

• Jewel isn't looking forward to Elder East coming home ... it means she has to keep their bathroom clean. :)
• Elder East is interested in getting us to order a computer for him for his return back home.
• Elder East reckons that he's reached the point of being ready to come home. He loves the missionary work itself but not all of the issues and headaches associated with helping to look after the missionaries that takes him away from doing missionary work.