Video Chat - 1st May 2022 - A Quiet Week In Isolation

It was a quiet week for the Elders as expected as they were quarantined due to Elder East's covid. Only one other Elder, from Alice Springs, tested positive for Covid as well. Fortunately, the rules for close contacts changed during the week, so the rest of the NT missionaries were able to leave isolation on Wednesday. 

Both Elders East & Ma'a had their birthdays during their isolation period, so once the other Elders were no longer required to isolate on Thursday they got the APs a combined birthday cake.

The Elders weren't able to do much during isolation, however, they were able to teach a lesson via Zoom to one of their investigators down in Adelaide. They spent the rest of their time trying to catch up by phone with people in Adelaide and trying to make sure other missionaries were OK.

Elder East made a successful recovery from Covid during his isolation period and was given the ok for release from isolation at Midnight on Friday night. They wasted no time leaving isolation, getting drive-through at McDonalds, and then driving to the airport to fly back to Adelaide at 2:30am on Saturday morning.

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• On the 23rd May, all of the missionaries with original assignments to New Zealand missions will be leaving the AAM for their original assignments in New Zealand.
• Consequent to the above, the APs will have a second set of missionaries temporarily assigned to Firle Ward until they depart for New Zealand. This companionship will share the flat with the APs.
• A new missionary, Elder Chick, will be arriving in the mission this coming week. Elder East's mum and Elder Chick's Dad served in the same mission and were good friends. We sent through some photos of them together on their missions.

Video Chat - 25th April 2022 - Elder East Gets Covid and Gets Choc-Mint Ice Cream

It was a sick Elder East that spoke to us on the ANZAC Day public holiday P-Day. He had been confirmed as having Covid and was in isolation in Darwin. He had a sore throat and was congested but hadn't been hit too harshly by it.

Being a public holiday we had both Jayde and Jewel join us in the chat as well so that everybody could chat with him. 

He gave us a rundown of events over the preceding week.

On the previous Monday (18th April) they were still in their split companionships awaiting for the trainers of the new missionaries to come out of isolation (one had Covid and the other was a household contact). On the Monday night Elder East and Jian went to a Family Home Evening being held by the City Branch for the YSA and students in the branch. It was a good opportunity for Elder Jian to start getting to know those in the Branch and for Elder East to catch up with people from when he served there.

On the Tuesday the second trainer also came down with Covid, meaning that the greenies would need to remain with the APs for the rest of the week. He said that this meant that they were doing a lot more in the way of study and administration with the new Elders, as well as follow-up calls and tracting.

On the Wednesday they had several meetings - a District Council for Firle as well as a Technology Council. Elder East says that they were able to handover the running of the Facebook group for the missionary's families to the Social Media missionaries. After their meetings, they went and provided some service to a member who is getting ready to move to Africa, as well as getting haircuts.

On the Thursday, Elders East & Ma'a flew up with President Johansson to Darwin, leaving their greenies with other missionaries back in Adelaide. There was a get-together for the NT-based missionaries after which the APs traded off with the Alice Springs missionaries and went tracting in Darwin. 

On Friday they had the Zone Conference for the NT-based missionaries. The APs were meant to provide some training at the conference, however, President Johansson went longer than planned with his training, so they ended up not doing their session. On the Friday evening there was a sports night at the chapel being run by the local Church members that the missionaries joined in with.

On the Friday evening Elder East noticed that he was getting a sniffly nose, but he put it down to having been inside in air conditioning the whole day.

On the Saturday, President Johansson arranged for a number of people to go down together to visit with members in Katherine. There is a branch of the church at Katherine, but the members there are mostly less active. President Johansson hired a Kia Carnival and drove down with the APs, the Zone Leaders, and a senior missionary couple based in Darwin. 

It was a 6-hour round trip so besides looking at giant termite mounds by the roadside they broke the driving up with some stops. They stopped at the Adelaide River War Cemetary which contains graves of those killed by Japanese bombings in World War II. Whilst in Katherine itself they also had a look at the Katherine Hot Springs - one of the tourist spots in the area. 

Whilst visiting with the members Elder East highlighted their experience with one of them. The person was desirous of having the sacrament but hadn't had the opportunity to do so for a number of years. President Johansson gave the OK for the missionaries to conduct a short sacrament service with them even though it was a Saturday. 

They drove back to Darwin in the afternoon/evening, with President Johansson shouting the APs to dinner at a seafood buffet restaurant that night. By this time Elder East was starting to feel sick. President Johansson had had a cold earlier in the week and Elder East presumed that he'd caught President's cold which was making him feel sick. 

By Sunday morning Elder Easts' throat was really sore and he undertook a RAT test.

The positive result meant that all of the NT missionaries were now required to isolate themselves as contacts. The APs were in the Palmerston flat with Elder Evans and his companion.  

We managed to have quite a long chat with Elder East. There was a lot of banter and discussion with his sisters. Jayde ubered him some ice cream for his sore throat whilst we were talking. She said she made sure it was a flavour that he liked which the other missionaries probably wouldn't like - choc-mint.

The coming week was going to be difficult in isolation. The Elders would try and do as much as they could remotely when feeling better, but it was all about recuperating and recovering.

Video Chat - 18th April 2022 - Mini-Training Companionships with Elders Wolff and Jian

The mission had three new Elders come in on Wednesday (13th Apr) including Elder Wolff, who knows Elder East from Canberra. 

• Two of the new Elders were assigned to go into the Adelaide City branch as Mandarin-speaking missionaries. The existing companionship in the City branch was going to be split with each Elder training one of the new missionaries.  Unfortunately, the City Branch Elders came down with Covid and so were unable to take on the new missionaries when they arrived.
•  Elder Wolff was going up to Darwin, and unfortunately for him, the airline kept canceling and changing his flights. 

The upshot was that Elder Wolff was companions with  Elder East from his arrival on Wednesday until his eventual flight up to Darwin on the Saturday. Meanwhile, the two Mandarin-speaking greenies were in a three-way companionship with Elder Ma’a during that time. Elder East said that he and Elder Wolff got along well. He did joke however that Elder Wolff did struggle to stay awake whilst having to just sit around during some of the long AP-related meetings that Elder East had to go to. He provided the following photo as proof.

After Elder Wolff flew up to Darwin on the Saturday, the three-way companionship with Elder Ma’a was broken up. One of the Mandarin-speaking greenies, Elder Jian, became Elder East’s temporary new companion. Elder Jian is from Sydney and his family comes from Hong Kong, however, he doesn’t know any Mandarin and is pretty much learning the language from scratch.

Elder East commented that they had a really good lesson on Saturday night (16th Apr). They’d received a referral from the Sister missionaries that Elder Wolf and East followed up on on Friday. They were asked to come back on Saturday, which Elder Jian & East did and were able to meet with the family (husband, wife, and sister). The family was Indian from a non-Christian background and the Elders had the opportunity to explain about Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. The family had questions about karma which Elder East said they answered using the Book of Mormon. (Alma 41:15 perhaps? Galatians 6:7 is also relevant.) They invited the family to pray which the wife was willing to do. Elder East said that the Spirit was very strong during the lesson, which they helped the family to identify.

The following day on Easter Sunday the Elders had three people they have been meeting with at Church. Because a number of people were away over Easter, the Elders helped prepare and bless the sacrament. Later in the day, they were able to teach a lesson to one of their investigators.

Elder East commented that they were busy but in a good way. They were busy doing missionary work, not busy doing administrative work, which was making Elder East very happy.

Some other notes from our discussion:

• His workshops at the Zone Conferences during the previous week had gone well.
• There was a baptism on Saturday morning of somebody that Elder Reeves had helped teach when he was on his mission. Elder Reeves (now just Hamish) was able to join in and watch the baptism via Zoom.
• The Easter groceries we’d ordered for Elder East arrived on the Thursday after some initial issues from the delivery driver about where to find the mission office. Elder East said it was the perfect mix of junk vs healthy food.

•  The APs will be accompanying President Johansson up to Darwin next Thursday (22nd Apr) to assist with the Zone Conference for the NT missionaries.
•  The APs had planned to have an activity going Op Shopping with the two companionships in the district the previous P-Day (11th Apr). The Mission President had advised them not to go, so they didn't, even though the other two companionships still met up. Several days later, one of the companionships tested positive for covid and both companionships had to go into isolation.
• Elder Wolff was studying engineering at university before his mission. He suggested to Elder East that he might want to start off part-time at university when he gets back and not overload himself straight away.

Video Chat - 30th March 2022 - Mini-training of Elders Tu'itavake and Rogers

P-Day had been moved to a Wednesday (30th Mar) this week, so it was a Wednesday afternoon video chat for us. It had been a busy week+ for the APs. The previous Tuesday had been Transfers, with all of the usual work involved with ensuring the missionaries ended up at their new assignments. 

On Wednesday (23rd Mar) morning they picked up a new missionary from the airport, Elder Tu'itavake. Unfortunately, his trainer had to get tested for Covid and had to go into isolation. They had to pick up another new Sister from the airport on Wednesday evening. 

Elder Tu'itavake stayed with the APs until Friday when Orientation was held for the three new missionaries arriving this transfer. Elder East said that they took Elder Tu'itavake out tracting on Thursday as well as following up on previous lessons. He said that they had a good time with him during their "Mini-training" session.

On Friday morning they picked up the third new missionary from the airport - Elder Rogers. The rest of Friday was taken up with the orientation of the three new missionaries. 

Elder Rogers would also be staying with the APs over the weekend. The significant thing about Elder Rogers is that he was flying in from the USA. He's actually an Aussie, but living in the USA. Still, he was the first missionary to come out to the AAM from America since the Covid border restrictions had been relaxed.

Elder East commented that the missionaries with international assignments were now getting ready to travel. The AAM has missionaries preparing to reassign to missions in Japan, Italy, and Chile. They're also expecting those originally called to New Zealand missions to be leaving in May, as well as start receiving missionaries from New Zealand.

They had several missionaries recently leave for their assignments in the Perth mission. Don & Tamara, friends of the family are currently serving as a missionary couple in the Australia Perth Mission were quizzing the new arrivals from the AAM to find out if they knew Elder east. The answers of course were "yea". (Technically they actually asked if the missionaries knew Elder Yates, before realizing their mistake and correcting it to Elder East.)

On Monday (28th Mar)  they had a District Council, as well as providing service. I had a note that they provided service at a hospital, and then another note that President Johansson joined them as they did 2½ hours of service working on ladders, but I hadn't noted if they were part of the same service activity. Either way, President Johansson bought them dinner afterward and they all sat in the car eating dinner at an ocean lookout.

On Tuesday (29th Mar) the Elders had three teaching appointments with members, although one ended up canceling. 

The next two days (Thurs 31st Mar and Fri 1st Apr) were going to be Zone Conferences. The APs had been asked by President Johansson to change the way they train during these Conferences. President wants the APs to focus on doing this training by the Spirit, running it more as a workshop rather than "teaching a sermon". Elder East is a bit nervous about how well he'll do.

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 - 3rd January 2022 - Covid Hits the Mission

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. 

Video Chat - 27th September 2021 - Territory Wildlife Park and Bad News About Nanny

We had received the news on the Sunday night that Elder East's paternal grandmother had been put into palliative care and was only expected to last a day or two before passing. We notified the mission office about the circumstances and advised that we'd be letting Elder East know on P Day. We didn't want to delay notifying him in case she passed away quickly, we wanted him to be prepared. 

Contacting him early on P Day, he told us he wasn't free to speak at the time. The Senior Missionary couple was taking the Elders and four of their grandkids to the Territory Wildlife Park. The park is a natural habitat zoo in Berry Springs, about 45 minutes south of Darwin and they were currently on their way driving to the Park.

Once they arrived at the Park we were able to have a quick call and let Elder East know about his grandmother. We know that it's something he would want to silently contemplate through the day.

The Park that they were visiting was essentially a big zoo that showcases the NT environments The Park featured a forest, wetlands, a coastal exhibit, a nocturnal house, a lagoon, an aviary and even an aquarium.  Elder East particularly liked the Birds of Prey show that showcased eagles but also included other large birds such as emus and storks. He said that the show included an eagle that cracked open an egg using a rock, a little-known natural behavior for the eagle in the wild which the show highlights. 

Elder East sent us through a few photos from the day.

Going back over the events of the week, the Elders flew back from Alice Springs on Tuesday (21st Sep) morning after which they then met up with Elder East's Great Uncle Ross who was visiting Darwin. They went out for lunch at a nearby burger joint.  He said it was good meeting up with Uncle Ross. The rest of Tuesday involved catching up with P Day activities like shopping that they weren't able to do due to still being in Alice Springs.

Elder East had his second covid vaccine shot on Thursday (23rd Sep). He was fortunate not to get too serious side effects but was very tired on Friday. Elder Roberts was scheduled to have his second covid vaccination on Saturday (2nd Oct).

On Thursday evening they attended the Branch Coordination Council. Afterward, when heading to their car they had an inebriated local approach them wanting them to drive him home about 20-30 minutes away. Missionaries aren't allowed to take other people in their cars so they politely declined. The local then wanted money for food.  They said that they would go get him some at which point he tried to get into their car. They politely stopped him from doing so and then left and got him some McDonalds. When they returned with food for him he seemed surprised that they'd actually returned. 

Friday was spent Zooming in to the Missionary Leadership Council that was being held down in Adelaide. 

On Saturday they provided some service to a less-active member by mowing their lawn. They ere pleasantly surprised when the member turned up to Church the following day.

On Saturday evening the two branches held a combined pot luck dinner and dance which the missionaries from both branches attended. One of their investigators attended the evening as they'd been invited by a member friend. Elder East said that he danced with a number of the elderly ladies during the evening, as well as joining in the Nutbush

Some other dot points from our discussion:

• The Elders bought a Magic The Gathering card collection from somebody they were working with which they'll split between themselves. 
• After having been good for a long time, they've eaten a lot of fast food over the last couple of weeks. Elder East says on the plus side that he now has enough winning stickers from the McDonald's Monopoly promotion that he doesn't have to pay next time they go to McDonalds. 
• His trainer Elder De Guzman managed to get home during the week, presumably on an out-of-cycle repatriation flight back home to the  Philippines. Elder East was disappointed he wasn't able to farewell him.
• We spent a bit of time talking about how Nanny (his grandmother) was doing and how her health had deteriorated over the last week.
• Transfers is next week and he thinks he'll likely be transferred. 
• The Elders did a short video which was shared on the mission social media pages during the week. They filmed the video down in Alice Springs.

Video Chat - 16th August 2021 - Lockdowns and Cane Toads

The immediate news from our chat with Elder East last P day was that Darwin was going into a snap lockdown for that Monday afternoon through to Thursday afternoon. The Elders had been out at the shops around 10:30am that morning and could see long lines at the shops. They joked that there must have been a lockdown coming. They got back to their car and sure enough, got a phone call letting them know that a lockdown was about to start. They had the job of letting the other missionaries in Darwin know the details.

There have been some changes in the other NT missionaries over the last week that have occurred out of the transfer cycle. An Elder had been transferred up to Darwin to stay with the Darwin Elders for 14 days in preparation for heading to the Perth mission. We're unsure how the lockdown will affect those plans noting that they were to try and make it easier for him to comply with WA's strict covid border regulations.

In addition, the Sister Missionaries in the Darwin branch have moved down to Adelaide.

Transfers is scheduled to occur next week (Mon 23rd Aug), but Elder East isn't sure how many changes will occur on that day. There were some new missionaries due to come into the mission, but they've been pushed back by three weeks. he speculated whether maybe some were from overseas as they had a New Zealander arrive last transfer.

A quick coverage of happenings through the previous week:

• President Johansson called them on Tuesday night and spoke to them about getting down to work with the less active families in Katherine one weekend. They are about 60-70 members in the branch but they are spread around hundreds of kilometers. The Elders started working their way through calling member's phone numbers, but of the first 20 or so they called, they didn't have anybody answer their calls.
• They had trade-offs on Thursday and Friday with the Darwin Elders, however, the other Elders weren't well. One had an injured foot whilst the other was feeling sick, so it was a fairly quiet time.
• On Sunday evening they helped with the Missionary Preparation devotional. Elder East said the evening went well. They had about 10 youth in attendance, including some Zooming in from Alice Springs.
• They also had a lesson with a young man (19YO) on Sunday. They'd tried catching up with his Dad earlier in the week - but he'd said it wasn't a good time - they were about to start a D&D session with mates. Elder East would have been in his element. They enjoyed the lesson with his son on Sunday - seeing someone learning about the Gospel for the first time.
• They have also been spending time with a part-member family (couple and son) who have been to Church, had a lesson and come along to the branch sports night as well. 

The final event of note relates to the only photo we got from Elder East this week. He explained that they helped catch a cane toad in a lady's yard during the week. The only problem was what to do with it once they caught it. They didn't want to kill it themselves even though it's a dangerous pest, so they ended up putting it securely in the lady's rubbish bin where it would be assumed to die and then be disposed of.