Video Chat - 6th September 2021 - Finally Meeting President Johansson and Talking About Remote Areas

Elder East let us know that they'd received a surprise call from the mission office the previous Tuesday morning (31st Aug) letting them know that Zone Conference had been moved to Wednesday and that President Johansson and the APs were getting ready to fly up to Darwin now. This resulted in a busy couple of hours getting everything ready for the next couple of days such as getting an extra mattress for their flat.  

They had lunch with Pres Johansson at which point Elder East realised he was the last missionary to have met him in person, now two months after he'd been in the mission. Elder East described President Johansson as "cool, laid back, and funny."

Elders East and Roberts would spend the rest of the day and Wednesday on trade-offs with the APs. They had the Zone Conference (just the NT missionaries) on the Wednesday, with Elder East conducting the Conference. Other highlights of the several days included the missionaries being allowed to get together for a Chinese dinner on the Tuesday night, interviews with President and a district activity going bowling.  

Elder East said that his interview with President was primarily all about the work in the surrounding areas, especially the outlying regions. It looks like President is going to get them to try and work more with the remote members. 

• Elders East and Roberts are likely to be flown down to Alice Springs in a week to go on trade-offs with the missionaries and members down there. 
• They were fortunate to have the active member from Katherine in attendance at Church in Palmerston last Sunday, so they finally have contact details for them. This will assist with the potential trip to Katherine that President has also been encouraging them to undertake.
• The main active member family that is in Kununurra, the Kajma family, looks like that they're moving back down to Perth, so the Elders are unlikely to get out to Kununurra
• There's also the possibility they might get flown out to Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula. It's over 1000kms from Darwin - an 11-hour drive, so flights are being investigated by the mission. There are several members out in Nhulunbuy, one of whom is scheduled to be in Darwin during the coming week, so they will be catching up with him on Tuesday night. One of them had posted on Facebook about how'd they'd discovered another member family there when they asked about their son's name at daycare. 

Several other dot point items from our chat about the past week:

• They've had a busy week teaching lessons to people in their area.
• The Elders have been volunteered into the Branch choir, with choir practice after Church each Sunday.
• Elder East is starting to get a lot of mosquito bites as the weather starts to get a bit more humid.
• Elder East thinks this will be his last transfer in Darwin, and that he'll transfer back down to SA at the next transfer.
• He has worn out another pair of casual shoes so bought himself another pair of cheap sneakers to try and last him for the rest of his mission. His sneakers get used during service projects and sports nights as well as just on P-Days.
• Several missionaries have commented that Elder East looks to have lost weight since they last saw him or saw pictures of him in the Liahona. He has been more conscious of being healthier, so he's happy that it's noticeable to others. 
• We were able to share with Elder East about how Grandad Yates was able to baptise a lady who was inspired to join the church from the example that Grandma had set when they were all friends many years ago when living up in the North West. Sister Abel from Elder East's home ward happened to be one of the missionaries who helped teach the lady.
• Elder East showed us the spreadsheet he maintains of when the various missionaries in the mission arrive and are due to leave.

Video Chat - 21st July 2021 - Pavlovas, Videos and Snakes

It was only a quick chat this week, but we did at least get sent some more photos from Elder East.

The first photo is of Karen Boree. She was somebody I knew on my mission from Canberra - she was the daughter of the Ward Mission leader when I served in Woden Branch back in the early Nineties. She'd long ago married and moved away but had met Elissa and I when she was back visiting Canberra one time.  Elder East had also gotten to know one of her sons during the 2017 FSY that they'd both attended. Karen is in the Darwin Branch. They'd caught up whilst they were all helping at the Single Adult Convention that was being held in Darwin the previous weekend. Elder East commented that the SA Convention seemed to involve a lot of family history classes.

The next photo collage includes a family that they are teaching about the Gospel. Elder East says that the familyy also spontaneously feeds them. Apparently, most of their meal appointments with others tend to be spontaneous. The middle photo is a screenshot of a video they filmed to contribute to the Mission Facebook page.

I managed to download the video from Facebook ... it should hopefully be below.

The following picture is of the Ashtons,. Elder East said that the senior missionary couple that usually looks after the Darwin missionaries were down in Adelaide for the week, so the Ashtons looked after them for a bit.

The following picture is after their Branch Mission Correlation meeting with the Branch mission leader. The group includes the new Sister Missionary who is currently in Darwin for two weeks whilst Adelaide is under covid restrictions.

The following picture "... is just smoke, we get a lot of fires up here all around the place. This time we just figured we'd drive by it."

The new Sister Missionary is "Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and allergic to Apples, bananas, coconuts and cashews." Elder East decided to try and make a pavlova for her for the district P Day as they were going to have a district picnic. Elder East got some guidance from his Mum on how to cook the pavlova the night before. 

His comment at the end "It did sink a little in one spot and it cracked a bit but I'm impressed with it." Apparently, it tasted good and was popular.

He said that they had a good P Day with the picnic at the botanical gardens, followed by a trip to a museum. There was a fake snake in one of the trees in the park they were at, so they originally thought the following Black-Headed Python was fake too, until it started slithering towards them. He shared with us the following video.

President Johansson and the APs were meant to fly up on Friday (24th Jul) for District Conference, Zone Conference, and interviews but that was canceled due to Covid related border closures. Elder East commented that the missionaries have been volunteered to participate in the choir for District Conference.

Elder East said that they had their first Missionary Leadership Council with President Johansson (remotely of course.) He said that it was good, but Elder East was worried that President Johansson has gotten rid of the "white binder" - the local rules that President Marquis had put in place, but also introduced some new rules as well. (eg missionaries can't cut each other's hair.) As a Zone Leader, Elder East will have to help the missionaries transition to the new guidelines. 

Elder east commented that they're not doing much finding as a companionship at the moment as they're doing a lot of teaching instead.

Video Chat - 14th July 2021 - Staying in Darwin, Photos and Main Speaker at Church

The big news for the past week was that it was transfers and both Elder Evans and Elder East are staying together in Darwin which Elder East is quite happy about. In fact, there were only three transfers in the whole mission which were related to new missionaries. One of those was a new Sister missionary coming into the Palmerston Branch, a Sister Sullivan from Cowra, so they're now in a three-way. Elder East thinks she may have previously met her at the original FSY he went to in Sydney back in 2017.

Elder East sent us through a bunch of photos. 

This is a photo of the missionaries with a couple from Palmerston Branch back on the 27th June. This was just after the lockdown had been announced. With Church meetings having been canceled due to the lockdown, they were fortunate to be able to meet together for sacrament before returning for the lockdown

A random chicken they happened to find wandering the streets of Palmerston.

The senior missionary couple held flat inspections recently - and they jokingly gave awards/medals to the missionaries for keeping their various accommodation in good condition.

This was a photo of the P Day activity on 7th July. This was part of their 'Amazing Race" activity where they had to take photos of various things. Most of the companionships were colour coordinated.

Photos of the Elders studying on their balcony. Looks quite nice.

Above are photos from their District Council meeting that was held recently. The lady in the blue on the right is a Single Adult representative. She was there as the missionaries will be helping to run a Single Adult convention in Darwin over the weekend of the 18th and 19th July. 

There is a public golf course near their flat that they sometimes walk through when going places. They came across this turtle the other day. Elder East took a  photo as it reminded him of Fred, the turtle that we "turtle-sat" for a number of years.

Elder East was the final speaker at Church last week (11th July). He was meant to speak for 13-15 minutes on "Emulating Christ". They'd invited a number of people they were teaching along to see him speak. They were excited to see that two of the families that they'd invited come along (pictured in the above two photos.)

Elder East said that he went overtime in his talk. The Sister missionaries must have thought it was good though. They told him that he should be a Stake president based on that talk. It's not the first time sister missionaries have made that comment to him during his mission. Obviously, they think that he speaks well. 

They've been busy teaching during the past week - mainly over Zoom. They taught 2 lessons on the Sunday afternoon, 6 on Monday and another 7 on Tuesday. There was a busy week coming up too. They had Mission Correlation scheduled on Thursday, Mission Leadership Council on Friday and then helping with the Single Adult convention on Saturday and Sunday.

Elder East was also excited about a change that had been brought in by President Johansson. President had relaxed the rules a bit about what music missionaries could listen to, giving them more responsibility in choosing "uplifting" music, so we've got some requests from Elder East for a broader selection of music.

Video Chat - 7th July 2021 - Coming Out of Lockdown

It was only a quick call with Elder East this week. The Covid lockdown finished for the Darwin and Palmerston areas on Friday, however, they still weren't able to hold Church last Sunday, and many things were still very quiet. They are expecting Church to be held this coming Sunday (11th July). In fact, Elder East has a speaking assignment.

The main piece of news was that they met with their new mission president - President Johansson.  I realised that I didn't note what day it was and whether it was in person or via Zoom. Elder East said that all of the missionaries were together at the Darwin chapel. They held a group meeting with President Johansson between 11am to Noon, then lunch between Noon and 1pm, then followed by interviews with each of the individual missionaries. Of the 8 missionaries, Elder East was last to be interviewed, so he was there until 4:30pm. [Note: Elissa advised after I published this that the meetings and interviews were via Zoom/]

With President Johansson allowing districts and zones to get together each P Day the Darwin and Palmerston missionaries were doing a bunch of activities together including a chip lunch, an Amazing race activity involving photos, and a spicy noodle eating challenge. 

A few quick dot points from the discussion:

• President Johansson mentioned that he's been instructed not to transfer missionaries too often at the moment, so Elder East may spend a while in the Northern Territory.
• We did send Elder East some English Samoan vocabulary documents however he says that he probably needs an actual dictionary as he has lots of words, but needs to be able to understand participles.
• If Elder East doesn't get transferred during the next transfers (scheduled for 12-13th July) we'll arrange to send him some money so he and his companion can go to Aquascene on the 21st July P Day. Aquascene features large fish that come in at high tide to be hand-fed. I remember going there as a kid back in 1981.

Video Chat - 16th June 2021 - One Year Mark and Door Knocking

Elder East held a District Council this week so we were lucky enough to get some photos of the Darwin District/Zone from him during our P-Day chat.

They also participated in a Missionary Leadership Council via Zoom. I've already reposted some of the photos from the MLC that had Elder East in them.

Some observations from Elder East on Darwin: He says he never needs to look at the weather forecast. he knows it will get down to about 24 degrees at night time and about 30 degrees during the day. Humidity will set in around 10am and last until about 5pm. The humidity isn't really bad at the moment, but hard when you're walking around a lot in it.

He also says they haven't encountered any cats yet, but lots of loud dogs. He mentioned that the Sister Missionaries had a small dog try and attack them recently. He also sent through the following photo. Not sure of the story behind it, but the dog doesn't exactly look very loud or ferocious.

Elder East says that seeing as they're allowed to doorknock, they're trying to do 2-3 hours of doorknocking per day. They're effectively reopening the area, so there's a lot of finding to be done. Elder East commented that they seem to be meeting a lot more different people whilst doorknocking. They were both prompted to door knock what turned out to be a government housing street and didn't get to finish it as they ended up teaching people.

Elder East also sent us the photo below - I presume it's from when they were out doorknocking.

Elder East commented that whilst the strangest experience he's had was back in Onakapringa, he's had most of his "milder" strange experiences in Darwin. He didn't really elaborate on that as we pushed him to find out about what this strangest experience was that we hadn't heard about.

He said that it occurred just before he transferred to Darwin, which is why we didn't hear about it - most of the news was about the transfer to Darwin. He said that they were trying to visit some less active members. The member had moved but the person referred them to their next-door neighbour who "might be interested". It turns out the next-door neighbour was a schizophrenic "bible basher" who would shout out 'hallelujah" whilst talking and arguing. Elder East said that he was only about 5 foot tall, had a stocky build and a beard - it was like trying to talk to an angry gnome. What's more though, was that as well as wanting to argue, the angry gnome was insisting that the Elders had to purchase one of his paintings, which they declined to do. That wasn't the end of it though. Apparently, after Elder East was transferred the angry gnome found the phone number of a Bishop in a different Ward and was insisting that the missionaries come back around to see him.  

Some dot points of other things we spoke about:

• President Marquis was coming up on Saturday (19th June) to have his Farewell Family Home Evening and Dinner with the Darwin missionaries.
• The Marquis impending return home is starting to hit in. They received their 2nd last email from President Marquis during the week. The new Mission President, President Johanssen arrives on the 28th June, while the Amrquis' leave on the 1st July. Elder East says that he'll miss President Marquis.
• He received an email from Kendal asking questions about preparing to serve her mission.
• The Darwin Sister Misisoanries are now in a three-way companionship after the greenie returned to serve in Sydney.
• The Missionary Training Centres are starting to open back up throughout the world.
• They've had one meal with a member so far. They did some service for a Sister who fed them afterwards.
• Elders East and Evans are sharing the meal preparation. They're eating a lot of salads and walking a lot. He commented that there seems to be a pattern for missionaries to start off becoming unfit during the first half of their mission, then spending the last 6 months of their mission trying to get fit again.
• Elder East is looking like he's developing a tan.
• This week represented one year since Elder East started his mission via the home MTC on 11th June 2020. He knows that we've sent him a "halfway" package that should be amongst the mail that President Marquis is taking up to Darwin with him.

Video Chat - 21st April 2021 - Post Transfer Update

We got to have a longer chat with Elder East this week, which was good. The big news of course was transfers, with Elder East staying in the area but Elder Beaumont-Tafua being transferred out and Elder Brown being transferred in. 

Elder Brown was actually born in Canberra, but was raised in Brisbane – his family was only in Canberra for a short time. He is the second oldest of six kids. Prior to his mission he was doing professional cleaning. He was called to the AAM and has been out for around 6 months now. He’s a fan of games and brought several small ones out on his mission. Elders East & Brown are joint Zone Leaders over the Zone, although Elder East lamented that with the changes, there are now only 9 missionaries in the zone at the moment.

Elder East was disappointed at some of the other changes at transfers. They lost the Sister missionaries from Christies Beach. Sister Matenga was due to go home, whilst two other Sisters also went home, one unexpectedly. (Sister Hatch injured her knee and only had several months to go on her mission, so was released to recover.) That leaves only two companions of Sister Missionaries in Adelaide. Elder East says that he likes being around Sisters so it’s not as much of a “boys club” as being around Elders all of the time. The Christies Beach Sisters were working well and being productive. Elders East & Brown will now pick up the work being done by the Sisters as well as remotely covering Mount Gambier.

Elder East commented that President Ellis (Marion Stake President)  is trying to get missionaries to Kangaroo Island. There is a couple there who are interested in being baptised, but need to be taught and married first. Elder East says that they may be taking on Kangaroo Island remotely.

There will be a “mid-transfer” mini-transfer on May 12th, as there will be 5 new missionaries coming in then, out of sync to the normal transfer cycle. This means that there could still be a lot more changes in only a couple of weeks. Elder East is actually kind of disappointed that he didn’t get to Darwin as he thinks it will close soon, so he’s unlikely to serve there. He’s ended up enjoying seeing all of the different areas in Adelaide, but would like to see more outside of Adelaide itself.

Some dot point notes from the rest of our discussion:

• Elder East has broken out his big winter jacket to wear – he reckons it’s been cold over the last couple of weeks. He commented that it doesn’t tend to rain heavily in Adelaide though.
• Missionaries in the AAM will soon be allowed to go to the Adelaide temple.
• Elder East has now been companion with 3 of the 5 other Zone Leaders and Elder Kennach, who is the new AP.
• They were having a District P-Day today and were going to be playing some games together.
• With Elder East’s birthday coming up, he was buying up ingredients to try and make the family’s chili recipe.
• We ordered and sent through tickets for he and his companion to attend the local ANZAC Day Dawn Service

Video Chat - 31st March 2021 - Dreams of Being an Urban Hipster

It was only a quick chat again this P-Day, but Elder East did send through a bunch of photos later in the day. 

They had Zone Conference on the previous Thursday which Elder East said was really good. The fact that he didn't have to run part of it was probably one of the positives. :) He said that there was training from President Marquis and the APs on lots of little things, such as motivation, baptism, driving, and so on. 

He specifically mentioned the driving instruction as several historical incidents were raised in the training, including the missionary car crash in New Caledonia back in 2019 that resulted in a death. We already knew about this accident as we knew the driver - Jacob Hable. The Hable family had lived in Canberra for several years and we keep in touch via social media. Elder Hable was serving in the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission near the end of the mission when the car crash occurred during heavy rain. I've included a couple of photos below that the Hable family shared from the accident.

Elder East also spoke to us about being "Dear Johnned" several weeks ago. Although they were only ever writing as "friends", it was fairly obvious that both Elder East and his friend had emotions for each other, so her advice that she was now dating somebody was hard emotionally for Elder East. Still, he recognises that his focus at the moment is on serving the Lord and being a missionary. 

Below are the photos that he sent us for this week, along with commentary where provided. The first photo from Wed 24th March is "with Nick, Rob, Sophie, and Cruise (the dog) We're teaching the kids. Their family is really big into 8ball and they also have a pet snake."

The second photo is from "Zone Conference [ Thurs 25th March] with Sister Hall and Sister Fakai our old Christies beach sisters".

The third photo [Fri 26th March]  is "at sports night (held every Friday) ft Elder Levi (he is leaving this transfer to his original assignment of Perth) and some members." 

The following picture [Sat 27th March] is with Sis Macdonald, a member. Elder East says that he particularly liked how he looks in this photo.

Next is a photo [Sun 28th March] with some of the Ellis family kids and Wyatt who was recently baptised.

A photo from District Council that was held on Monday 29th March. 

Elder East was happy to get a hold of a cat. [Mon 29th March]

Edler East said that they had a District P-Day activity down at Hallett Cove earlier in the day, and that he went full "Dad mode" at lunchtime - cooking bacon, sausages, eggs and more. He's decided he wants a barbecue at his missionary flat. He reckons that he can then become an urban hipster. [Wed 31st March].

Sunset photo taken on Wed 31st March.

Elder East commented that he's making a lot of friends with missionaries who are from Brisbane, so he's thinking of Brisbane as a possible place to move to for university after his mission, as he now has a number of friends from there. He currently thinks that after returning in June next year that he'll spend the second half of 2022 working before starting university at the start of 2023. 

Maybe he can find a course and becoming a Certified Professional Urban Hipster Tongmaster ...