Video Chat - 10th January 2022 - Out of Isolation & More Christmas Conference Photos

Our chat with Elder East this week was whilst we were on holiday in Hobart, Tasmania. It was actually hard to get a time togetehr to talk as we were out of range on Bruny Island a lot of the day, and Elder East was busy. I don't have any notes from our chat in the evening, but there are a few things I remember. 

• We chatted about his older sister Jayde, who had caught Covid during the week.
• Elder East tested negative for covid and was now out of isolation.
• We'd asked him to say hello to Sister Jury in the AAM as she's friends with a family we know in Tasmania. Unfortunately, Sister Jury was currently isolating as covid positive.

The family Facebook group did put up a lot of photos earlier in the week from the Christmas Conference that included Elder East in them.

Video Chat - 20th/25th/27th December 2021 - A Very Mission Christmas

 We've had a number of chats with Elder East since our last recorded P-day chat (Thurs 16th Dec). They have generally been brief, and I haven't always been in a situation to be able to take notes of what was discussed. I'll combine them all into this single post. It will include our video chats from P day (Mon 20th Dec), two calls on Christmas day (a short one in the morning and a longer one in the evening) and a brief call on P-day Mon 27th Dec.

One of the big events that happened recently was the Mission Christmas Conference on Fri 17th Dec. Elder East conducted the meeting, whilst President Johansson of course provided training. There were meant to be talks from other members of the Mission Presidency, however they ended up not being able to attend so the APs and Sister Johanssen were all invited to share their testimonies.

The Christmas conference made a lot of work for the APs as the Darwin and Alice Springs missionaries were flown down and had to be picked up from the airport, as well as being housed, transported and looked after.  After the Christmas conference they had to take the NT missionaries to be Covid tested due to restrictions around crossing the NT/SA border. Both Elder East and Elder Evans had to be Covid tested too as a part of returning from their trip across the border to Mildura the previous weekend.

The second major event that had occurred recently was the announcement at the Christmas Conference that the mission structure would be reducing from 4 Zones to 2 Zones. Elder East said that they were holding a meeting on the evening of the 20th Dec to finalise all of the details. Between those changes and transfers which were coming up on the 27th Dec, there was a lot of time being spent with President Johansson doing organisational administration.

On Christmas Day itself, the APs joined in with the 14 missionaries from Marion Zone at a meal put on by a member out in Murray Bridge. Elder East said that the member traditionally put on a large meal for missionaries at Christmas time. Elder East was able to catch up with some old companions as well as Elder Reeves at the Christmas Day function.

Elder Reeves had gotten Elder East some Lego as a Christmas present. Elder East had bought Elder Reeves an electric guitar as a Christmas present (more I think from a humorous POV.) Elder east said that he'd been in a second-hand store and picked up a new suit, shoes and wallet in the store and then found the electric guitar for $20. He didn't know how good the guitar was but wanted to get it for Elder Reeves anyway.

Elder East commented that he's putting on too much weight as an AP due to all of the bad eating habits of an AP lifestyle. He reckoned that the inability to plan long term and the constantly changing demands for their time are the biggest challenge of being an AP. He reckons that he'd love to have a "proper" P-day for once as an AP

Video Chat - 6th December 2021 - Meeting Elder Gard from WA

It was only a quick video chat last P day as they were involved in picking up a new trainee who had just flown in a couple of hours earlier. It turned out that the trainee was Elder Guard, from Bunbury Wa. We know the Guard family well. Elder Guard's auntie Kylie was his Mum's best friend at Church as a teenager. I on the other hand once went on a date with his other auntie, Donna. We also both knew his dad, Jared. Elder Guard is going to be trained by Elder Rea in Port Pirie. We were all surprised about how Elder Rea is so new yet is already training. Elder East says that Elder Rea will be good though.

A quick rundown of the last week:

Tuesday was the last of the recent Zone Conferences. Elder East said that the conference went well.

Wednesday involved participating remotely in a District Council, as well as being able to teach a lesson to a lady named Naomi.

Thurs involved President Johansson, the APs, and the Sister Training Leaders spending the day (11am-8pm) planning out the calendar for 2022. This included events such as conferences and other mission events and activities. Elder East says that President Johansson shouted them lunch and dinner throughout the day. Elder East noted that they've been eating a lot of fast food lately, mainly either for convenience whilst rushing around, or because they're in a large group of people being fed (eg conferences.)

Friday - they got to teach a lesson to an investigator in Broken Hill. We're presuming it was done remotely :)

 Saturday - they helped out with the Marion Stake activity "A Night in Bethlehem".

Sunday - they attended church in the City Branch. Elder East said it was good to see some old friends from when he was serving there.

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• The AAM has 9 missionaries waiting to go to New Zealand missions when the borders open. There are apparently 9 missionaries in New Zealand also waiting to go to the AMM.
• Elder East says that it's uncommon for them as APs not to see President Johansson each day. They have met his family, but haven't seen them very much.
• The AAM has a tradition of a member who wons a property out in Murray Bridge having all of the missionaries over for Christmas each year. It's likely that it may be limited to just a single Zone this year. 
• The mission is having a Christmas Zone Conference next week, and so P-Day is being moved from Mon (13th Dec) to Thurs (16th Dec).
• He commented that he had to get some Minties for Christmas - he associates Minties with Christmas. This is probably because we normally don't buy them, but several times Jewel won Christmas trees made out of Minties at school fetes when they were younger.
• Elder East received the Christmas decorations and Nativity set that we'd sent to him. He'd hung up the Missionary Christmas stocking that had been made for him by Kathy Reeves. He was also enjoying the Dice Advent calendar that we'd sent through to him as well.

Elder East's Christmas Card Home

Catching up with a post I meant to put up a couple of weeks ago. Elder East sent a Christmas card home, but due to the mail backlog it didn't arrive until the week after Christmas. We loved his words to each of us and are proud of him as he serves as a missionary at this difficult time.

Dear Family

You guys are awesome! Thanks so much for existing.

To Mum, you the best. I miss your cooking and your hugs.

To Dad, you also the best. I miss your humour, and your advice, and your incredible good looks.

To Jewel, you OK. I don't miss you. SIKE, you also the best. I miss having fun with you.

To Jayde, whenever you read this, you the best. We should talk more, I miss you too.

But I don't miss home. I love being out here on a mission and I'll see y'all in 2022.

Love from, Elder East

Video Chat - 30th December 2020 - Post-Christmas Refocus

Elder East let us know that he'd had an interview with President Marquis on Monday which seemed to help explain some recent decisions. President Marquis said that he was trying to help improve the Mission's culture, especially trying to strengthen the work ethic. Elder Easts said that he was happy with how Elder East was doing but wanted him to learn to "step up". He wasn't quite sure what President meant by that, so we encouraged him to ask more questions to see how President Marquis feels Elder East can develop.

Elder East said that they had a good day on Tuesday. They were following up on people from their area book. He says that it's only a small area book and they can complete a call around in about 2 hours, but they kept on going. The last person they contacted for the day asked to be given a Priesthood blessing which they obliged with.

Elder East commented that they had been talking to one of the volunteers at the Salvation Army Christmas lunch and discovered that they had been given a Book of Mormon and had previously met with the Sister missionaries. One of the people at the lunch was also a less active member of the Church.

This coming week they have scheduled to go out into the country parts of their area. They have two appointments out Mount Pleasant way, which is a small town about 55kms east of Adelaide. They have a 600km/month limit for their car, so they have to be judicious as to how to use their driving allowance.

They are also working with a member from up in Coober Pedy. It's not in the ward boundaries, however, the member comes down to Adelaide periodically and attends Morialta Ward when in Adelaide. Elder East is trying to work out how to help the family with temple preparation lessons.

Their Christmas dinner was good, but the food only lasted a day. They also gave some of their spare food to the Elders in Firle Ward, so didn't end up going to give out food to some less active members like they'd originally planned. We commented that their Christmas dinner was a combination of the two traditions - baked ham and veges from him, whilst the prawns, mussels, and potato salad was a typical Christmas dinner for his companions. Elder East says that he has also cooked up a stroganoff for his companionship as well which his companions seemed to like.

Elder East is working out how to try and increase the trust of the members in the missionaries in the ward. Elder Naelsoni had a cousin visiting Adelaide from Melbourne over Christmas who happened to visit Church with them on the Sunday. The Bishop excitedly came down to meet him, thinking it was an investigator. Elder East is thinking that getting somebody along to attend Church will be a good way. They're still not really getting any meals with members. We did have a chat about different ways to try and work with and gain trust from members.

Elissa had a bunch of questions she asked Elder East. Here are the questions and answers:

• Best quality of your current companions? Both are very loving. Elder Nalesoni can act a bit weird/funny sometimes but Elder East says he gets away with it as a part of his big Polynesian persona. Elder Aiho has a lot of good missionary knowledge and experience.
• What is he currently studying? He did a lot fo study about Christ's birth in preparation for his possible Mission Conference talk, but has also been studying the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in Alma. He's also been doing some study around Joseph Smith's transition of the Bible.
• What was his favourite Zone Conference talk? He liked Elder Rogers' talk. He is one of 9 siblings, talking about that and making an analogy of the Light of Christ and comparing it to the Star being put on a Christmas Tree. 
• Was there anything that particularly made you laugh or sad this week? It was generally a fun week which was good.  He is feeling a little homesick - not so much missing us, but some of the things we'd do together. (eg play games such as Unfair, watch Star Wars) especially around Christmas time.
• Do they have any particular restrictions around New year's Eve? No - just usual mission rules - be back in the flat by 9pm and in bed by 10:30pm.

Zone Activity - Pre-Christmas River Cruise

 Again, we managed to grab some of the photos from the AAM website of the River Cruise activity that the Adelaide missionaries went on on the 23rd December. The missionaries met up at one of the Adelaide chapels and then drove in convoy up to Murray Bridge. There, President Marquis had arranged a cruise along the Murray River aboard the Captain Proud paddleboat.

Unfortunately, it looks like whoever was the photographer for the cruise had a mishap part way through and got something on their camera lens. The rest of the photos of the cruise have a bad smear in the middle of the photos. I tried to clean up the shots as much as I could, but there's not a lot could do. Still, we get to see more of Elder East's experiences on the cruise, even if they are blurry.

Unsure if the following photo has a smear on the lens or if Elder East is speaking to a hologram of Elder Reeves.

Video Chat - 25th December 2020 - Christmas Family Chat

Elder East was allowed to call us on Christmas Day, and we had Jayde join us from Melbourne on the chat as well. There was a lot of banter between the three siblings, but I didn't record a lot of that, just the updates that Elder East gave us with what was happening on his mission,

The Adelaide missionaries spent Christmas Eve together at a shortened Zone Conference. There wasn't the usual training, but there were about a dozen or so short talks given by other missionaries. Every missionary is asked to prepare a short talk on a topic prior to each Zone Conference. The Mission President will then call on a number of missionaries to give their talks during the conference. The theme for this conference was "The Birth of Christ". I think Elder East was disappointed he didn't get to give his talk.

After the talks, they had a dinner - mainly ham & potato bake, although Elder East said that there was also a "salad" featuring strawberries in jelly. We commented that it must have been made by an American Senior Missionary couple - it was :) Elder East refused to refer to it as a "salad".  I've grabbed some photos of the Zone Conference from the AAM blog that featured Elder East and will put them below.

After the dinner, President Marquis gave out presents to each missionary. They all received a cushion that had a picture of the mission and the phrase "A Marvellous Work and a Wonder Down Under"  on it. They also received a Christmas stocking, presumably with treats in it. Elder East didn't elaborate on the contents apart from mentioning that his also contained a "Called to Serve" tie pin.

On Christmas morning Elder East had several presents to open. Kendal had sent him a plush dinosaur with a missionary tag. The funny thing is, that he had also bought a plush dinosaur and sent it to her for Christmas. 

He also had the package of assorted goodies from Elissa's parents. Lisa Koskinen had sent him chocolate, and the Grants had sent him a present as well. (I forgot to write down what their present was!)

On Christmas day itself, Elder East had just gotten back from spending 6 hours working for the Salvation Army along with the rest of the zone. They were helping with a lunch that was being put on for people in the community who were unable to spend Christmas with family or friends. Elder East said that there were about 40 people at the lunch. He and the other missionaries acted as waiters as well as doing any odd jobs that were required. He said that he loved providing the service, but that his legs were really sore after being on them for over 6 hours.

Elder East said that all of those that were at the lunch received a hamper of goods. They had some hampers left over so the missionaries were given hampers as well. He said that there's more food than what they can use, so will look to try and take some food around to share with some less-active families.

He said that an extra bonus of the service with the Salvos was that whilst getting ready to leave a cat came up to Elder East and he was able to get a pat.

After we finished up our video chat Elissa received various texts through the evening for advice on cooking the baked ham and roast dinner that Elder East was making. They also had prawns and mussels to go with the baked dinner, so their companionship had a nice Christmas feast. We even received photos of their meal.