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 ...

Video Chat - 24th February 2021 - Worn Out His First Lot of Shoes

As usual, we chatted with Elder East last P-Day about the past week. 

Last Thursday was Elder Taua's "Leaver's " dinner and session at the Temple. Elder east was expecting to spend time with the APs that evening but ended up in the Morialta area with his old companions, Elders Kennach and Nalesoni.

The major event was the Missionary Leadership Council that was held the previous Saturday. I mentioned in a separate blog that the Area Authority in attendance was Elder Paul Lekias, and his wife Rebecca whom we both know. Elder East said that the MLC was good, but that it was less of a council and more of being taught, possibly because it was the first one in over a year with an Area or General Authority in attendance. 

The main things covered in the MLC included Referrals, Finding and a doctrinal discussion about the Atonement. There were concerns raised that some of the referrals aren't being contacted. Elder East did note that some referrals are obviously fake. I shared that we got one when I was a missionary in Tamworth for "Slim Dusty". We knew it would be fake but went and checked out the address anyway - it was a car yard :) Elder East said that the Lekias' provided a referral that ended up being in their area. Elder East checked but said that the woman who answered said that she wasn't interested.

On Sunday Elder East spoke in Sacrament Meeting. He said that he used the examples of Nephi vs Laman & Lemuel after the death of Lehi. Nephi was able to keep himself on track whereas Laman & Lemuel didn't have Lehi continually calling them to repentance. He encouraged people not to rely on others to call us to repentance.

Again, there's also another blog entry about how May Sandeline-McCann, Elissa's trainer on her mission, just happened to be visiting Elder East's ward on Sunday when he was speaking and got to tell him "I was your Mum's trainer". That's the second of his parents' missionary companions that Elder East has now met.

On Monday they held District Council  - and Elder East said that he cooked chocolate chip cookies for everyone. 

Speaking of their investigators he spoke of the lady they're teaching. They had another lesson with her. Elder East says she has a medical condition that makes it hard for her to read but she read a whole chapter in the scriptures with them. The two other main investigators they have - Daniel and his cousin - hadn't replied back to their contacts over the last week, so they're concerned as to how they're doing. It had been a week and a half since they've seen them.

They had a referral from the Sister missionaries that they visited. The person was interested, but Elder East described them as crazy. Happy crazy, not depressed crazy though :) Elder East mentioned that the highlight of the week was some finding they did in Seaford, but he didn't explain why it was a highlight. They had three lessons scheduled for Wednesday evening - two with members and one with an investigator.

 A couple of other dot points from our discussion:

• They have started doing some exercise at night time - going for a walk down to the beach and back Obviously they're living within walking distance of the coast.
• They have gone over their kilometre allowance for their car, so they plan on riding bikes for the rest of the month. Elder East has only ridden a bike fro 2 days during the first 8 months of his mission.
• Edler East bought himself some new Church shoes and runners earlier on P-day. He said that he'd worn through his existing shoes.
• A number of missionaries in the mission are counting down their remaining time in the mission field as a lot of them now have elss than 100 days left.

Video Chat - 17th February 2021 - Elder East 479 Days, Elder Taua 479 Hours, Speeding Fine $490

Elder East had an accomplishment in the last week. There was a mini-transfer due to one of the APs finishing his mission and going home. Elder East didn't get transferred as a consequence ... is this the first transfer of any type where he hasn't ended up being transferred?

The previous District Leader and his companion in Elder East's zone were transferred out, with Elder Brown becoming the new District Leader. Consequently Elder East went to have trade-offs with Elder Brown to help train him in his new role. This had the added benefit of Elder East going to a meal appointment with the Wilsons - a family that both Elissa and I knew on our missions. [This has been written up as a separate post.] Elder East commented that Brother Wilson was called as the 1st Counsellor in the Bishopric only two days later. Elder East also commented that Elder Brown has only ever been on trade-offs twice - both times with Elder East. During the trade-offs, they also went and shared a lot of other messages with members in Mount Barker. Elder East said that the only meeting  they had with an investigator didn't go too well although he didn't say why, 

Elder East says that he'll have more trade-offs in the coming weeks with the other companionships in the zone. He'll have a short trade-off with the APs in Firle tomorrow (Thurs 18th Feb) as Elder Taua will be having his "farewell" temple session.

Elder Taua only has 20 days left on his mission - in fact, Elder East had worked out at one point during the day that Elder Taua had 479 hours left whilst Elder East had 479 days left. Elder East is hoping to stay in the area at next transfers when Elder Taua goes home. They currently have three investigators with dates for baptism. One of their investigators had two cousins come down from Port Augusta.  The investigator has been enthusiastic about sharing the gospel with them, and one of the cousins has started being taught and accepted the invitation to be baptised. Elder East wants to stay to help all of them towards baptism.

Elder East will be attending his first Mission Leadership Council on Saturday (20th Feb) Whilst the MLC should be good, it's held in Firle which is an hour trip away, so will be their second drive to Firle this week. They have a kilometre limit they're meant to keep under with their car, but are finding it difficult and have already exceeded their monthly allowance.

On the topic of cars, Elder East says that it looks like he was picked up speeding by a speed camera. It was a 60 km/h limit where it had just decreased from 100km/h. He says that he was decelerating but hadn't done so quickly enough and was still at 70km/h. Apparently, it's about a $490 fine. Ouch. 

Some more dot points from the chat:

• Most of the Adeliade chapels seem to have full-sized cultural halls which fit a full basketball court in, as opposed to the half-court size that he's used to.
• He commented that he learned that there's a lot more he needs to do as a Zone Leader to help and serve others. I commented that it's like that it any Church calling - it's just that the circle of people your serving and helping changes according to your calling.
• Onkaparinga Ward has a sports night on Friday nights - mainly basketball. There are a lot of youth in attendance, as well as a recent convert. The missionaries usually go and join in.
• Elder East got a package from his friend Kendal. I've written that up as a separate post. He says that he should've paid attention to the "Fragile" sticker on the box!

Video Chat - 10th February 2021 - Unfortunate Car / Gate Interface

Elder East seemed to be happy and to have had another positive week. They attended a multi-stake fireside on Sunday evening and had two of their investigators come along for the evening. The first one was the young lady who was recently scheduled for baptism. Elder East said that they found out that her mother turns out to be a less-active member of the Church. The other investigator who came along was somebody who they weren't actually teaching at the time. Not sure if that will change now.

The AAM blog had a write-up about the fireside which included a few photos with Elder East in them, so let's play "Where's Elder East?"

Edler East says that he's enjoying being a Zone Leader. He is enjoying helping people and wants to get better in his service. Their companionship had training with the APs on "Model Exchanges" during the week. This was to help Elder East as a new Zone Leader to learn how to be more effective when doing exchanges with other companionships. There are plans for him to exchange with all of the other companionships in the Zone in the coming week. 

He mentioned that the APs said that missionaries shouldn't have pictures of girlfriends/boyfriends up in their flats. Elder East thinks this was in response to him having a picture of Kendal up on his study desk.

One of the APs, Elder Rogers was due to go home on Friday - it was out of cycle so that he would be able to start at university. We briefly chatted with Elder East about his post-mission plans. We know that it's still a long way away, and don't want to distract him from his mission focus, but just wondered if he's had any inspiration whilst out. Elder East says that he's feeling less certain about heading down the sciences path as careers in science tend to be more limited than other areas.

Elder East says that it's setting in that Elder Taua is heading home in less than 4 weeks. Elder Taua's had to deal with arranging his travel home as well as details for his final Temple visit on top of giving a "farewell" testimony at Zone Conference. Elder Taua joked that they're trying to make him trunky.

After almost leaving last month Elder Lwin is not on the list of missionaries going home next transfer. Given the issues around getting a flight back to Myanmar and the military coup in the country his ability to get home is becoming even further uncertain. Elder East says that missionaries are joking that if the Myanmar problems continue, Elder Lwin will beat Elder Batar's record of being out for nearly 29 months.

Elder East commented that Elder Kennach's companion has gone home for medical reasons, so he's been put in a three-way companionship with Elder Nalesoni and Elder Aiho. That means three of Elder East's old companions are now all serving together.  We joked that they're all probably comparing notes about what it was like being his companion.

Some additional dot points about things we discussed:

• Even though the Adelaide temple has reopened, it's unlikely missionaries will get the opportunity to go except for this arriving or going home. They are working on trying to get recent converts to attend the temple though.
• They're not getting many member meals in the ward.; They did get a roast meal with an investigator family whose children they are currently teaching.
• The ward has a lot of missionary things in place - a ward mission leader, missionary correlation, and so on, but he'd like to see things a little less administrative and a bit more spiritually focussed.
• He's currently studying 3rd Nephi in his personal studies.
• Elder East has started putting on a lot of weight. He and Elder Taua are eating a lot of takeaway/junk food.
• Elder East managed to scratch the side of their car down a gate as they were leaving their ward missionary correlation meeting.
• Elder East has always had to put up with us complaining before his mission that his smiles never looked natural. We talked about some of the "photo faces" that certain missionaries always seem to have in mission photos.  Sister Matenga always seems to have a smirk/lopsided smile. Sister Anderson always has her eyes shut. Elder Nalesoni always looks serious and like he's frowning. Elder East did point out that he does actually have one photo of Elder Naelsoni smiling :)

Video Chat - 4th November 2020 - Transfer to Marion As DL With Elder Tukukino

Elder East contacted us on P-Day morning to arrange a time for our weekly video chat, We got a glimpse of the fact that he had a new companion - Elder Tukukino. He joked that he was Japanese ... Elder Tukukino is in fact from the Gold Coast with a New Zealand background.

We received an email from President Marquis later on Wednesday afternoon telling us that Elder East had been called as the District Leader over the Marion District, so we looked forward to hearing more about everything that had gone on. 

So, the big news was, yes, Elder East had been transferred from Prospect Ward to Marion Ward, which is in the south-western part of Adelaide. His new companion is Elder Tukukino. Elder Tukukino has been out on his mission for fourteen months. He was originally called to serve in the Zimbabwe Bullawayo Mission and did so for eight months before being repatriated to Australia because of the pandemic. He arrived in the Australia Adelaide Mission only about two weeks before Elder East arrived. Elder Tukukino has served as a Zone Leader before over Elder East and is quite "stoked" to now have Elder East as his companion/District Leader and not being the one with "responsibility". 

Elder East says that their new flat is quite nice and big, but was left in a mess by the previous missionaries. The previous Elders in the Ward were "Member Missionaries", that is, Islanders who had been repatriated from other missions, mainly in Africa, because of the pandemic. The repatriated missionaries were unable to return back to their home countries because the various Pacific islands had completely closed their borders, so the missionaries were kind of in limbo in Australia. They were unable to proselyte in Australia because of their visa types and so they were assigned to Australian missions to work with the Church members rather than proselyte. 

Unfortunately, not all of the "Member Missionaries" adjusted well to their new roles and new missions and struggled to abide by the mission rules. Elder East says that part of their role coming into the ward is to "clean up" after the previous missionaries and regain the trust of the members. He said that they've already met the Ward Mission leader who Elder East said seems "amazing."

Elder East says that there a number of investigators already in the Ward, which is positive. They also have food in their flat, another positive. They have a car - the only silver-coloured car in the mission - another positive. They don't have a garage for their car, just a small parking spot - a small negative.

Elder Kennach was transferred to the Adelaide City Branch where he will be the District Leader. They were sad to be leaving Prospect - they had had a good week, adding seven new people to their teaching pool and teaching four lessons, but they say they've been replaced by good Elders.

As the District leader for Marion District, Elder East is responsible for five companionships (ten missionaries). He is meant to call each companionship every evening to find out how they're doing as well as getting some "key indicator" stats for the mission. He also has to run regular District Council meetings,. which are 60-90 minutes long. The first one was scheduled for the following day (Thursday), so he was a bit nervous about that.

Elder East mentioned that the Marion District includes the following:

• Elder Reeves, who will be training the only new missionary coming in this transfer. 
• Two Filipinos, with the rest coming from New South Wales and Queensland.
• There is a companionship with two sister missionaries.
• One of the sister missionaries is Sister Hall, the MTC companion of Sister Abel, another missionary serving from Elder east's home Ward.
• Two missionaries from the district will be going home next transfer.
• Elder East's companion during quarantine, Elder Nalesoni is in the district.

Some dot points of other items discussed:

• Elder East was wearing his Mandarin name tag as he couldn't find the magnet that holds his normal badge on.
• The roads out in Marion are better to drive on than they were in Prospect, so he's not quite as concerned with driving.
• They had a meal appointment with the second counselor in the Stake Presidency.
• Elder East was disappointed to learn that Sean Connery had passed away.
• When introducing himself, he says he's from Canberra, but his family is from Perth, so he has some redeeming qualities.
• He's looking forward to getting more chances to talk with Elder Reeves. 
• Elder Tukukino doesn't have a phone, so they'll be relying on Elder East's phone.
• As per standard missionary procedure, they were at a chapel (Onkaparinga Ward) for P-Day, playing sport. 

Video Chat - 21st October 2020 - Starting To Get to Know the Members

Elder East was looking all spic'n'span on the video chat last P-day. Elder Aiho had given him a new haircut and he'd gone out and bought some new P-day clothing to wear for the warmer weather.

One of the main bits of news was the Tongan missionaries were starting to be repatriated back to Tonga. There were three that were leaving now, including one of the Elders and Sisters in his district. They're expecting the remaining Tongan missionaries to be repatriated next month. Add to that that a bunch of Aussies are due to go home next transfer, and the mission numbers look to be contracting again for a while. 

Elder East thinks that President Marquis may shut down Darwin again for a while. Because of its isolation, President is very picky as to which missionaries can go up there.  Elder East has commented that with the pandemic limitations a number of missionaries are struggling to stay focused at the moment. Elder East thinks going to Darwin would be interesting, but that they'd probably get lonely being so far away from any of the other missionaries. Transfers are in two weeks' time and he's hoping to stay in the Ward, although he does admit it would be interesting to see more of the area.

Tradeoffs went well on Thursday/Friday in the Firle area with Elder East spending his time with Elder Ma'a. Thet ended up doing some service work for an investigator. Mainly work around their garden - Elder East said it was pretty easy stuff. They also ended up going for dinner with a part-member family - the dad isn't a  member but comes long to church each Sunday. Elder East said they had nachos for dinner - good, but no-one can do nachos as well as Dad does :)

They enjoyed Stake Conference over last weekend. All of the missionaries from the zone were there, as well as many of the new members from Adelaide City Branch that Elder East knew. Apparently, the new members from the Branch don't have as much to do with the current missionaries at the moment. The missionaries are currently in the Branch are all Polynesian and there's a bit of a greater cultural difference to all of the new members.

Elder's East and Kennach are doing more contacting of the members in Prospect Ward. Not everybody is receptive to them, but they have four meals scheduled with member families this week and had two meals with members last week. They were scheduled to meet with the old Bishop's family on P-Day evening to have dinner with them and teach a lesson to his son who turned eight during the pandemic lockdown. On Friday they are scheduled to provide some service and then have a meal. 

Elder East says that working with the members reminds him of when we've had the missionaries over to our house, not just for meals, but also fellowshipping during lessons. Having been on his mission for a while now, he thinks that being a Ward Missionary would be a good calling to have back at home.

Even though Elder East's mission is self-funded, each missionary's funds are paid monthly to their home Church unit. This money is then allocated to the mission office to centrally pay for a number of things such as missionary accommodation, utilities and so on. This is particularly needed for all of the non-Australian missionaries who would otherwise have issues accessing their money from foreign banks and in various currencies, but it's also done for Aussies to make things easier for everyone. Missionaries are given an allocation of the funds back for groceries, and other personal use.  The mission assists all of the missionaries in opening up new bank accounts for them when they arrive in the mission field. This way they all get new debit cards from a local bank to access their missionary funds when they arrive in the mission field. This enables missionaries to pay for things locally regardless of where they're originally from. This last week they had issues with both the debit cards used by the missionaries for their groceries and their car's fuel card, so Elder East ended up paying for several items from his own personal funds, which is being reimbursed by the mission office.

Some quick notes about those whom they're teaching:

• They've taught a couple of lessons to a tradie named Cody that Elder East said is nice. 
• Tarvi is still on his break to "study"
• Edwards' TV died, which apparently is a positive as he tended to do a lot of gaming. He has good friends in the Ward and is in his new job.
• They did meet with the Tamil gentlemen again, but the language issues are proving difficult.
• They're no longer meeting with the argumentative Indian gentlemen. Missionaries are out there to share truths for those who are spiritually prepared, not to debate or argue.
• Elder East is getting a little frustrated as many of those whom they are teaching or spending time with aren't really progressing spiritually at the moment. 

Dot point notes about some of the other things we discussed:

• Elder East still has no love of driving in Adelaide.
• They've gone and joined up with some of the other Elders for basketball a couple of times for their daily exercise, but need to get into some exercise habits they can do as a companionship.
• The seminary classes were the highlight of Elder East's week. [I've written that up as a separate blog post].
• Most P-Days at the moment end up being volleyball at the chapel with the other missionaries whilst eating KFC brought by the Polynesian missionaries. They had planned on going out to Morialta Falls this P-Day but that fell through because of the Tongan missionaries getting ready to fly home.
• On Monday evening, they decided to pop down to the local Woolworth's after dinner to grab a mud cake. On the way, they witnessed a bad car accident at the traffic lights. They reckon that both cars in the accident would have been written off, but fortunately, no one seemed badly hurt. They didn't stay as other people were already assisting and emergency services were on their way.

Oh, and lastly, a photo I forgot to put up that was sent to us last P-day. It's of Elder East wearing the dinosaur apron that his Mum made for him and sent about 4 weeks ago.. (You can't see the dinosaurs because they're in the lining.)

Video Chat - 5th October 2020 - Twelfth Cousins and Inspirational Packages

 P-Day was held on Monday this week as the rest of the week was booked out for mission conference activities. Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita, the second counselor in the Area Presidency would be joining the mission throughout the week (albeit remotely by Zoom from Auckland due to Covid) for sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.  He would also be joining a missionary companionship for their companionship study, a district for their district meeting as well as joining in to help teach an investigator. I think Elder East is a bit nervous that he'll be chosen for one of these.

One advantage of the P-Day moving to Monday was that it was a public holiday in Canberra, so we were all home, as well as having Kendal Reeves staying with us as well. Kendal and Jewel had spent the long weekend together, roller-skating,  doing touristy stuff, and having fun. Elder East was able to thank Kendal in person for the package she'd sent to him. A box full of inspirational quotes with chocolates and other small treats. He brought one along with him for the video chat and was trying to guess what treat it had inside. (It was Skittles :)) He sent us this photo of the package in the evening.

One of the first bits of news that Elder East was happy to announce was that he and Elder Aiho, one of the other missionaries in the district, are related. FamilySearch has a feature where you can find other Familysearch users nearby who are related to you. It turns out that Elder Aiho, who is from French Polynesia, and Elder East are twelfth cousins. They share common ancestors from back in the 17th Century. Elder East pointed out that all of the Samoans in the mission had done this and discovered that they were all related - no big surprise there.

We got a rundown of the shortened week since our last P-Day chat. On Thursday they had District Council, although the APs and Sisters had to Zoom in to the meeting. On Saturday they helped the missionaries in Fulham Gardens to move out of and clean their flat. Elder East suspects that Sisters are about to move into that flat. 

At Church on Sunday the Prospect Ward Bishopric were released and a new Bishopric called. Considering that the current Stake Presidency is also being released at Stake Conference in 2 weeks, there's certainly a lot of change in leadership going on for the members of Prospect Ward at the moment. There were only 47 in attendance on Sunday. The Elders had the opportunity to accompany a member to provide the sacrament to an elderly sister after Church.

Both the old and new Bishop have said they plan to have the missionaries over to their homes. The old Bishop has a son who turned 8 during the lockdown and is planning on getting the missionaries to teach him to help prepare for his baptism. Given the very sparse opportunities to go to member's homes so far on his mission, hopefully, they will get to work with the members soon.

Elder Kennach poked his head into the chat at one point. We asked Elder East to tell us a bit more about his companion. He'd mentioned before about how Elder Kennach is an artist. Elder Kennach likes drawing and is interested in doing design after his mission. He came to his mission straight from high school, and last Sunday was his 8 month mark on his mission. Although he's from Samoa, he has family in both Samoa and New Zealand, although many of them aren't active at Church. Elder Kennach's father passed away several years ago. He's now the "last Samoan" in the AAM after the rest were repatriated the previous week. Elder East that prior to that, Samoan was the second language of the mission, and he'd picked up a few words of it.

Some quick notes re investigators:

• They're trying to work with Edward, a long term investigator in the area to come along to Church.
• They had an Indian man pretend to be a Hindu, but in reality was a Christian just pretending so that he could then try and argue with the missionaries.
• The 17-year-old girl who's been coming to Church is having family problems. Her parents are separated and her Dad doesn't want her to get baptised, but she's continuing to come along and is going to Young Women's as well.
• They taught an investigator (Tarui?) last P-day afternoon. They've had another appointment with him since then. He's enthusiastic and the Elders are hoping to see him at least twice per week.

Some other dot point notes from the chat:

• Both Elder Beaumont-Tahu and Sister Hatch are from Queensland and were taught their missionary preparation lessons by John Larkin - the former Canberran Stake President who taught Elder East some of his missionary preparation lessons in 2019.
• We spoke about how there had recently been some obedience issues with some missionaries in other areas of the mission. Some missionaries are obviously struggling with the limitations caused by the pandemic.
• Elder East reckons Adelaide has a drinking problem - he reckons that there are lots of drive-thru liquor stores everywhere.
• He's getting more used to driving again, but he still doesn't like the Adelaide roads. They're too busy for him.
• He was having a bad hair day - it was "obeying gravity" for a change.
• The Elders now have a key to their chapel.
• He was heading off later today to go to the SA Electoral Commission in the city so that he could cast an absentee vote for the upcoming ACT election.
• Elder East is doing a lot of cooking - with dishes such as a mango chicken curry with naan bread on Saturday night and gourmet sausages with grilled onion & capsicum another night.

Video Chat - 30th September 2020 - First Impressions of the Prospect Area

We got to catch up for our video chat early on Wednesday morning as both Mum & Jewel were at home for school holidays. Elder East chatted a bit about his new area. It covers a large area - the Ward had three companionships pre-pandemic. Technically he was already covering the area when Elder Kennach was transferred into Adelaide City Branch to form their three-way companionship. 

The Prospect Ward is reasonably close to the city and is an expensive area - typical inner-city gentrified suburbia. Unfortunately, their flat hasn't been gentrified. It's considered one of the worst in the mission an old flat with a small, poorly stocked kitchen that has a laundry trough for a sink.

The ward still has very low attendance even though pandemic restrictions are being relaxed. They only had about 40 members at Church last Sunday, and Elder East lamented they won't get to see much of the members over the coming weeks. They have General Conference broadcast and then Stake Conference in two consecutive weeks. Elder East got to assist with passing the Sacrament last week.

Elder East is the designated driver for the car in their area - his first driving since he's been in the mission field. He's not particularly fond of driving in Adelaide. His main concern is that there is a lot of street parking in his area which ends up making a lot of the smaller roads practically one lane. In addition, a lot of the main roads have central barriers that prevent cars from being able to cross traffic to turn down side streets, so it's often difficult to find where to turn. He's also not liking driving their automatic car - he prefers driving manuals.

Unfortunately, the Elders don't have a chapel key, so they have to teach either outside of the chapel or at the investigator's home - which many people are reluctant to do in the pandemic situation.

They got to have lunch with a recent convert last week. Just a simple rotisserie chicken and chips, but given the scarcity of member feeds, it was definitely appreciated. They've been unable to get in contact with the Ward Mission Leader and there doesn't appear to be a roster for feeding the missionaries. He did think that they were scheduled for dinner with an investigator that evening though.

Some notes about investigators:

• Their investigator, Katherine, back in the Adelaide City Branch isn't responding back to contact from the new Elders. Elder East is concerned about her as she took a while to get comfortable with missionaries and was progressing with them but now seems to have taken a step back.
• There is a previous missionary contact in Prospect who is actually an anti-Mormon who tries to bash with the missionaries and rile them up. Other missionaries made the mistake of contacting him as he'd appeared as an investigator in the flat book and setting up an appointment which Elder East and Kennach went to. As expected, nothing positive came from it, but they know to mark him down as not being a legitimate investigator. 
• There is a 17-year-old girl who has been coming along to Church with a YSA member. They have a lesson scheduled to teach her but they need to contact her family to get the OK to do so, seeing as she's still considered a minor. 
• They're working with the Prospect investigator they'd been teaching whilst in Adelaide City Branch to get him along to church and teach him more lessons.
• They taught a lesson over the phone to somebody who was couch-surfing in Darwin at the time. (For those not familiar with Australian geography, that's about 300kms/1900miles away from Adelaide.)
• They ended up talking with an excommunicated member for a while but were unable to help her with a desire to return.

 Other dot point notes from the conversation:

• His companion, Elder Kennach is a bit of an artist
• Of the nine Samoans in the Mission, eight of them were repatriated back to Samoa on Transfer Day last week, hence the late minute transfer changes. The only Samoan still remaining is Elder Kennach, his companion. The others were either missionaries who'd served elsewhere who were using the AAM as a stop off as they couldn't get home or those who'sd already served most of their missions in the AAM. 
• Transfers have ended up being very fluid in the current pandemic environment as missionaries continue to come and go to missions outside of the normal transfer cycle.
• There are still a lot of three-way companionships in the mission.
• Some of the American Elders play Magic The Gathering on P-Days, so Seth was interested in getting one of his MTG decks sent over for use on P-Day.
• He is currently studying the 2020 April General Conference talks.
• Their money came through the previous evening so they finally had money to go and restock the flat with food. It had all been moved out when the area closed during the previous transfer.
• P-Day next week will be held on Monday as there will be a Conference with a General Authority on Wednesday.
• They had trade-offs with another companionship (Elder Aiho, and Elder Beaumont-Tafua) on Monday and Tuesday and slept at the other Elder's flat on the Monday and Tuesday nights.
• They had some basketball practice with the other companionship as their allotted exercise time on Tuesday. Elder East commented that the two other Elders played on basketball teams at home, whilst Elder Kennach is very sporty. I think he was implying that he didn't do very well against them.  
• Having run out of things they should/could do, the four Elders ended up having a game of Phase 10 late on Tuesday evening. My thoughts are that it must be hard with all of the pandemic related restrictions they have. Back in our day, if you had any free time, you would just go finding or try working with members. Practically all finding methods such as tracting, street contacting and so on are not allowed at the moment. They've already rung back through old investigators in their area books several times - which is currently their main method of finding. They're currently not allowed to visit member's homes without the members inviting them over first. It must be hard when you've done all you can and there's nothing more you're allowed to do because of the restrictions.

Elder East also sent through a photo of the soccer game they played with some of the members two P-Days ago.

We're looking forward to catching up with him again on Monday.