Transfers - 19th April 2021 - New Campanion: Elder Brown

We got a quick text from Elder East on Monday. Elder East is staying for another transfer in Onkaparinga Ward, but his companion, Elder Beaumont-Tafua has been transferred out. His new companion is Elder Brown. We know that Elder Brown has previously spoken about Elder Brown from trade-offs that he's had with him. We know that Elder Brown brought out some small tabletop games on his mission, so I suspect this will be a very geeky companionship. :) 

Elder East had originally commented that he wouldn't mind being transferred up to Darwin or training, so we'll see if those things happen in the future, but for now, he and Elder Brown are joint Zone Leaders.

Video Chat - 14th April 2021 - That's My Mum and Dad!

We only had a 3-4 minute chat this week whilst Elder East was a passenger during a drive, and most of the time was talking about what was happening at home. Elder East did mention that they had been following up on a very old investigator from their records. At the address, they discovered that the person no longer lived there ... but a family who had attended one of the Ward Friday night sport's nights did. 

Our video chat was supplemented with some messaging, but again, it was mainly Elder East finding out about things back at home. He did send us the following video:

Elder East told us that Elder Beaumont-Tafua saw the video on his messenger stories and "made a comment about how cool Sydney missionaries were getting breakfast, so I had a look at it and was like, "Yo, that's my Mum and Dad!'".

Other dot point notes:

• Elder East's favorite parts of General Conference were President Nelson's Sunday morning talk  and Elder Wong from Sunday morning as well.

• Elder East received a package that we sent him. It included a birthday present, a phone case he had requested, and some mail from home that he needed. Unfortunately, the phone case didn't fit his phone. It turns out that the phone case for a Samsung A70E as opposed to the Samsung A70 that he has. He hasn't opened his present yet.
• They are allowed to go to the ANZAC Day Dawn Service. They just need to find where they're held locally, but it looks like because of COVID restrictions, most events have either been canceled or are ticketed and full.
• Transfers is announced this coming weekend. Elder East thinks he'll be transferred. 

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 March 2021 - Gonna Have To Remove That Toe

On the Wednesday P-Day video chat, we got a bit of a rundown of the week. The highlight for Elder East was the Sunday night when they had dinner with the Stake President and his family as well as a couple of YSAs, and the boyfriend of one of the YSAs.After having a meal together the Elders taught a lesson to everyone which they enjoyed doing.

Elder East sent us through the following photo collage. There are several photos of them with those at the Stake Presidents that evening, as well as one of their investigators and a new member who was baptised the previous week.

We asked Elder East to give us some additional information about his companion, Elder Beaumont-Tafua. He says that he is half-Samoan, half Kiwi/French Canadian. His Dad left the family when he was very young and he was living with his Grandparents before his mission. Elder East has taught him how to play Magic the Gathering. Elder Beaumont-Tafua was in the online MTC at the same time as Elder East, so they knew each other from there, however, he was meant to be heading to Samoa.

Other dot points from the discussion:

• On Monday they were out visiting previous investigators and came back to their car at one point to discover that it had been damaged. It looks like somebody with a towball had backed into their car. They then had to go to the chapel on Tuesday to go and deal online with all of the administrative work in reporting the damage.
• They're still not allowed to street contact, but Elder East doesn't mind as it's generally not very effective. Elder East isn't overly enthused about visiting members to try and enthuse them to do missionary work either. Might explain why they don't get a lot fo member feeds.
• Elder East related a story from when he was serving in Morialta about a lady threatening to call the police on them when they were out visiting investigators because she wanted them to leave her street.
• They'd gone out shopping earlier on P-Day. Elder East had gotten himself some new pants and a book cover. 
• Zone Conference was coming up the next day (Thursday 25th March) but he says that he doesn't have any assignments to do anything ... yet.
• Elder East has an ingrown toenail problem - in a different place than the one he had before his mission.

Chat - 17th March 2021 - Area Photo Collages

Elder East advised that they were having a district P Day activity this week so we wouldn't get a call, but he did share a bunch of photos and chat with us instead. He said that "We send a collage most nights to our zone chat with our daily highlights", so these were his most recent images.

Other dot points from our text chat:

• He is in need of a case for his phone for both protection and to try and keep it clean. Following a few suggestions he decided he liked this one, so I've ordered one for him.

• He wasn't aware of the photos of himself on the Church's news article about the service they provided. His comment was that "I look fat ... Gotta work out more"
• He was needing to go and pay the speeding fine that he received a little while ago. We said that we would put some money into his account towards it, which he was very thankful for. I said not to expect it in the future but that "It's good to be able to have somebody who can pay the price for our sins 🙂 [It's an] object lesson you can use 🙂". He understood the analogy I was making to how the Saviour's atonement works.
• Elder East confirmed that Sister Malu - a sister missionary who just arrived into the mission from Canberra - was sent to Darwin for her first area. 
• They have Stake Missionary Correlation scheduled for Thursday (18th Mar), which will be the first one that Elder East has been to. He thinks that there might be a Zone Conference scheduled for this week as well.
• Elder East has heard once from Elder Taua since he went home, and Elder Taua also participates in a  messenger chat that the missionaries have.
• When we asked as to how his investigators were going he expressed some frustration/sadness saying "We can get them like 50% of the way [towards baptism] then something comes up...". I empathised, advising " Getting them through all of the discussions and to the baptism itself is always a major accomplishment.  Satan is working on them just as hard as you are, and he gets more help."
• I mentioned that I will be flying to see his grandparents in WA in May and have a 4½ hour stopover in Adelaide. I advised that if he's still in Adelaide after the next transfer, I'll discuss with the mission office as to whether I can take him and his companion out to lunch.
• He says that he and his new companion are getting along really well. I asked him that, noting his hyphenated English/Polynesian name, is Elder Beaumont-Tafua more Polynesian or more palagi or half-and-half? Elder East said that "He's white as heck" but that he tries to be more Samoan because his original mission calling was to Samoa. :)

Elder East got in trouble from his Mum during the evening. She saw the following photo on the "Missionary Mommas" Facebook group that she's a member of. 

Elder East had asked his Mum to make an apron for him, but it appears he then left it behind in one of his old flats and it is now being used by other Elders.

Video Chat - 10th March 2021 - New Companion is Elder Beaumont-Tafua

Elissa had a short chat with Elder East on Wednesday morning in regards to the death of a member of his Year 12 graduating class several days earlier. She was concerned as to how much of an impact the news may have had on Elder East. Elder East advised that he didn't really know the young man though. Still, it was sad news with the young man being in a car accident on the Monaro Highway. He was the third member of Elder East's graduating class to have passed away since graduation.

Later in the day, we got to have a short video chat whilst Elissa and I were both still at work. The big news of course was Transfers that had just happened on the Monday. Elder Taua had now returned home and Elder East has stayed in Onkaparinga Ward. His new companion is Elder Tafua (or to be correct according to the mission blog, Elder Beaumont-Tafua.) 

Elder Tafua is from Brisbane. Elder East describes him as a tall, skinny basketballer who is a jack-of-all-trades. Elder East and Elder Tafua were in the online MTC at the same time, although Elder Tafua was heading out a week later than Elder East. They were in different districts, so Elder Tafua isn't in any of the MTC screenshots that Elder East took. Elder Tafua was originally called to serve in Samoa. 

Some dot point notes from our discussion:

• Elder Taua was a bit emotional as he got ready to leave.
• Elders East & Taua were in a three-way companionship on Sunday and Monday as Elder Brown's companion was flying to Darwin for transfers and had to leave on the Sunday.
• Elder East is still a Zone Leader but is sharing the ZL duties with Elder Brown.
• Elder East discovered that Elder Stiles, the newly arrived from Canberra knows Alex Garland.
• Their teaching pool is quite large at the moment. 
• Elder East says that the Friday night sports nights have been "awesome". He didn't explain in what way they were awesome though.
• Joseph Stubbs, one of the YSAs from Canberra was in Onkaparinga Ward on Sunday. Apparently, he was there for a date. :) He gave Elder East $10 to get himself a feed at some point in the week.
• They have a trade-off scheduled on Friday (12th Mar)

Elissa showed Elder East pictures of the cowhide seat covers and other accessories that Jewel received for her birthday. These now adorn the family car that Elder East was driving before his mission.

Elder East was "horrified" at what has been done to Dannielle Devito (his name for the car.).