Video Chat - 22nd November 2021 - Elder Evans Joins as a New Assistant to the President

We chatted with Elder East twice during last P-Day. He was rather down when we first spoke to him early in the morning as there had been some issues in the mission over the last 3 or 4 days. This had resulted in a lot of interviews by the Mission President and a number of changes in companionships. Missionaries hadn’t been the best at keeping the mission rules – nothing serious enough to be sent home over – but enough that it would affect the work and their ability to recognize the promptings of the Spirit. Helping President Johansson deal with that had obviously taken a bit of an emotional toll on Elder East. When we spoke to him again later in the day he was more upbeat and positive about how things were going.

Elder East filled us in on some more details of Elder Read. He said that they had been getting along well. Elder Read had previously lived in London, working as a kitchenhand before heading back to Melbourne. He was originally called to serve in one of the Chilean missions and spent several months there before Covid hit. He was reassigned to serve in the Adelaide Mission, but got caught up in the Melbourne lockdown and served some time there. He is now in the Adelaide Mission to complete his service. 

The rundown of their previous week (16th - 22nd Nov) was as follows:

Monday (15th Nov) - after having spoken to us on P Day he also contacted and spoke with Grandma and Grandad Yates to thank them for a car and money that they had sent through to him. They were pleasantly surprised to get to talk to him.

Tuesday (16th Nov) was Transfers, so a hectic day, as well as learning the ropes of being an AP from Elder Read. They got to have a farewell meal at a Burger restaurant with one of Elder East’s former companions (and his 13th cousin)  Elder Aiho who was heading home.

Wednesday (17th Nov) they had several new trainees fly in, so it was a matter of dropping Elder Aiho off at the airport and picking up three new missionaries - Two Elders and one Sister. They got to have lunch with the new trainees.

Thursday through to Saturday was helping President Johansson in dealing with a lot of interviews to deal with the issues that had arisen. He commented that they went out so that Elder Read could get a new suit on Saturday at one point. 

On Sunday they joined in the Marion Stake Conference. He said that they had a number of difficulties with their technology as they tried to broadcast the meeting. He said it got a bit humorous as the Zoom chat full of messages about problems with the broadcast was displayed behind the speaker at the pulpit.  Elder East mentioned that he got to catch up with some of the missionaries and old investigators he had taught in Onakapringa and Marion Wards. 

As a result of the missionary interviews, there were a number of leadership changes and movements amongst the missionaries.  Elder East now had a new companion as a fellow Assistant to the President, his former companion Elder Evans. Elder East said that Elder Evans was very surprised to be called as an AP. He had been serving down in Victor Harbour.

The coming week was going to include a lot of Zone Conferences where they would be accompanying President Johansson. 

Some other short notes from our discussion:

• They'd only had one "home cooked" meal during the week as quite often they're accompanying and eating with president Johansson. 
• One of Elder East's former companions, Elder Taua, who is now home from his mission, has gotten engaged to one of the former Sister Missionaries from the AAM. 
• Part of the upcoming training will be on rebalancing the service vs proselyting hours for the missionaries. As Covid restrictions reduce, the options for proselyting are opening up and should be more of a focus.
• Elder East got to show us a nativity display that is set up outside the mission office.

Video Chat - 1st November 2021 - His New Trainee, Companion Number 18, Elder Rea

The big news this week of course was Elder East picking up his new trainee, Elder Rea. I'll give a bit of a summary of Elder East's week as per usual.

The rest of his previous P-Day (Mon 24th Oct) was spent helping to open up Elder Reeves' new flat. Elder Reeves' area was being split and he was opening the new area with a new trainee as well. Elder East said that he was jealous that the new flat had a barbecue, although it did have a garage only accessible from a laneway, which wasn't so good. 

On Tuesday Elders East and Reeves went to the combined Adelaide Zones' Conference. Elder Reeves was providing the music (piano) for the conference so it was otherwise fairly quiet for Elder East. He said it was good with the missionaries doing a breakdown of D&C section 4. He did lament however that conference post-lunch sessions are always hard as they "digest" after lunch. 

Elder East said that he caught up with some of his previous companions at the conference - Elder Davey & Evans as well as Elder Stiles - the other missionary from Canberra.

On Wednesday the new trainees arrived during the afternoon. Elder East has been assigned Elder Rea from Mount Marrow, near Ipswich in Queensland. Elder Rea was originally assigned to the Wellington New Zealand Mission but will be serving in the AAM until the respective boundaries open up and missionaries from Australia can travel to New Zealand. Elder Rea is young - only 18 - and is the third of six children. He has two older brothers that are both on missions at the moment as well, and two younger sisters and a younger brother. Prior to coming on his mission Elder Rea was doing a carpentry apprenticeship. When we asked Elder East what type of carpentry he said "furniture, heritage stuff". Elder Rea is very tall - six foot two. Elder East describes Elder Rea as a "real country boy."

After orientation for the trainees on Wednesday afternoon, President Johansson took them all out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. It turned out to be a more expensive restaurant than President Johansson was expecting, but he decided they'd stay and told the missionaries to order what they wanted.  Elder East ordered a $65 rack of ribs. He reckoned it was the best meal he's had since Christmas dinner last year. 

The Elders all spent the night at Elder Reeves' new flat again before joining in a District Council on Thursday morning. Elders East & Rea then drove up to Port Lincoln and got Elder Rea settled in.

On Friday they went out to several appointments and taught several lessons.

On Saturday they went and provided some service at a member's home doing gardening. The family then gave them lunch and the Elders also taught a lesson. Afterwards, Elder Rea had his first taste of tracting which Elder East said that he enjoyed. 

On Sunday after Church, they attended a barbecue that was put on by some of the members. 

They have a referral from a Bishop in Melbourne from somebody in one of the country towns who is interested in being taught and getting baptised. They have to try and work out how they can teach them, and how the members can help support them as the person is 3.5 hours away from the missionaries in the Eyre Peninsula and an hour away from the nearest members.

Elder East says that Elder Rea is doing well after his first few days in the mission field.

Other notes from our discussion:

• Elder Rea went to school with one of the missionaries in the AAM.
• Elder Rea reckons that Elder East must be cheating at a card game they've played together :)
• They have four dinners and two lunches scheduled with members for the coming week.
• On Thursday nights they will often get leftover bakery products from one of the sisters from the branch who works in a bakery.
• Elder East has had a quick message from Elder Haycock since he returned home to say that he's doing OK. 
• Elder East reckons that he's getting into "Christmas mode" - whatever that may mean :)
• President Johansson is looking at reintroducing some of the rules around when and how missionaries can get together for social gatherings. He'd previously removed the rules in place from President Marquis. I think Elder East is kind of happy to see some of them being reintroduced.

Video Chat - 23rd August 2021 - Family History Lockdown and New Companion Elder Roberts

With the Elders being in lockdown from the Monday afternoon until Thursday lunchtime it was a quieter week for the Elders. They finished going through trying to contact all of the members of Katherine Branch by phone. Elder East says that they only ended up having three people respond. One who wasn't interested, one who had moved down to Perth, and so they would help move their Church records down to their new ward, and the Kajma family. The Kajma family remembered our family from when we lived in Perth.

Also during the lockdown, Elder East had spent time working on some of his family history. We were able to help him out in linking up to his extended family in the Family Search application.

The big news however was transfers which was held on the P Day that we spoke. Whilst Elder east was staying in the NT, his companion, Elder Evans was transferred down to South Australia to reopen Victor Harbour and Elder Roberts was transferred up to Darwin to be Elder East's new companion. Elder Roberts is from Sydney and came into the AAM at the same time as Elder East. They were quarantined for 14 days together when they first arrived so already knew each other. Elder Nalesoni, one of Elder East's old companions, also happened to be part of those missionaries who quarantined together. He also transferred up to Darwin this transfers, so they now have 3 of that group of 5 missionaries who quarantined together, now serving up in Darwin.

Elder Roberts was excited to be up in Darwin, whilst Elder Evans was excited to be reopening a new area. Elder East said that President Johansson was moving missionaries out of some of the older areas to reopen areas closed during covid. Besides Victor Harbour, this has also included Alice Springs and Mt Gambier. The Port Pirie missionaries are also being encouraged to go out to Port Augusta and Whyalla, much in the same way that they're being encouraged to get down to Katherine one weekend.

Elder East commented that Elder Guzman, his trainer, was about to go home. he was disappointed that he wasn't going to be able to farewell him in person.

Other notes from the week included:

• The missionaries were coopted to sing a musical item at Church - I Love To See The Temple. They sang the first two verses in English, which Elder East said went well. The third verse was sung in Samoan, which he said went OK. The final verse was sung in Thai, which was "not OK." Apparently, the one missionary who knew how to speak Thai couldn't really sing in Thai.
• They helped teach the Missionary preparation class on Sunday evening. They had five youth from the two branches in attendance which they were happy with.
• They have several investigators who are doing well.
• They found a block of units that have a bunch of street cats. Elder East tried to befriend one, but he said that it's rather skittish.
• Speaking of cats, they went to give an administration to a Church member who was sick in hospital. He gave them money and a charge to feed his cats whilst he is in hospital. I'm pretty sure Elder East would be OK with that. 

Video Chat - 4th August 2021 - Lots of Changes: Social Media, P Day Change and More

Another quick update from Elder East this week but he advised of some big changes within the mission, including:

• This would be the last P Day on a Wednesday. As of next week, the mission will be changing to having P Days on Mondays.
• Missionaries will no longer be able to go to the Temple except at the start and end of their missions. Due to the Adelaide temple being closed under Covid restrictions for much of the time he was in Adelaide, Elder East has only been to the Adelaide temple once so far. 
• The Darwin missionaries were going to trial doorknocking in the evenings, which was something that hasn't been done for a while.
• The hours of the standard day for the Darwin missionaries have been aligned to the standard 6:30am to 10:30pm day in Adeliade and most other missions. In Darwin it had previously been 6am to 10pm.
• The AAM would be becoming a social media mission. The missionaries would now have access to Facebook. Elder East spent some time making a more missionary-orientated profile for his Facebook account during the week. 

Elder East also let us know about some of the things that had happened during the week. 

On Friday Zone Conference was held down in Adelaide so the Darwin missionaries joined in via Zoom. Elder East and Evans provided training on resolving concerns and asking inspired questions as a part of one of the sessions.

On Saturday they provided 3-4 hours of service to different people along with the sister missionaries. At one home they helped move rocks in a garden. At another home, they mowed a backyard. They discovered however that there was broken glass in the long grass, so had to be careful of that.

Church on Sunday coincided with a Young Men's Camp that was being held so the numbers at Church were low.

On Tuesday Elder East was sick with a cold. It happened to coincide with it being Elder Evans' birthday, so Elder East took him out to McDonald's for lunch.

Elder East mentioned that they were given some donuts as well. I didn't note when, but ti was important enough for them to document via photo :)

A couple of final observations from Elder East. He commented that being able to use Facebook is a big thing for many of the missionaries. He says that he likes being able to befriend other missionaries, but he finds Facebook too much of a distraction. 

They are still doing a lot of teaching - helping a lot of people with concerns. They had a lesson scheduled for 5pm that P Day. 

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 - 23rd June 2021 - Nandos: The Fanciest Place to Eat In Palmerston!

 We started out on P-Day last week letting Elder east know that friends of the family - Don and Tamara from Perth were on their way holidaying around Australia, and were currently in Darwin, wondering if they could take Elder east and his companion out for a meal. We passed on their number to Elder East and they ended up going out for lunch that day. 

Don and Tamara told the Elders they could choose wherever they wanted to eat - money was no limit ... so the Elders chose  .... Nandos. When queried by Mum as to why Nandos, it's because that's about the classiest place to eat in their area :) There isn't apparently much open in the way of high-class food establishments in Palmerston in the middle of the day. They then went out for dessert afterward. 

Elder East said it was great catching up with them. We got some photos of their lunchtime together. Elder East said that this involved Elder Evans showing them some tricks on how to take selfies. 

Last week they ended up doing trade-offs with the Darwin Elders over Thursday and Friday. Elder East said that he and one of the Darwin Elderws did service for a lady on the Friday morning and had an appointment with her again in the evening to be fed. They explained that they were on trade-offs and it would be a change in Elders in the evening. Elder east went back with Elder Evans in the evening for dinner. He said that the lady mustn't have realised that he was still the same missionary that came by in the morning as the lady was "talking smack" about the service they provided. [shrug]

On the Saturday they had the farewell dinner with the Marquis' and the other missionaries. Apparently, all of the previous farewell dinners with the other zones during the week had had pizza for dinner. President marquis was apparently over pizza and wanted Thai, so he took them all out to a Thai restaurant for dinner. The photo of Sister Marquis and Elder east was of Sister Marquis holding up Elder East's squid dinner. Elder East commented that he's really going to miss the Marquis'.

After the dinner, they had a Family Home Evening at the senior missionary couple's home. They had an activity where each person wrote something on a piece of paper, then folded the paper over. The next person then had to draw what the person had written. The paper was then folded again and the next person had to write what the last thing drawn was, and so on and so on. A bit like Chinese whispers but with writing and drawing.  Elder east said it was fun, but he commented that his drawing skills weren't bad, whilst a lot of others struggled with the drawing part.

Elder East let us know that he'd received his 12 month "halfway there" package that we'd sent him.  He said it was good, but some of the stuff was unusable as only part of a pair (eg gloves)... we pointed out that we'd send the other half of the missing stuff soon.

They had a good day on Tuesday. They had a lesson with a lady they had found during trade-offs who really enjoyed out. She was happy to have a copy of the Book of Mormon. They had a second lesson with her on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday they had a follow-up lesson with an Indonesian lady who wanted them to also teach her family. He said that besides the ladys' daughter, her mother-in-law was also there. The mother-in-law was a Seventh Day Adventist and when she raised topics, the lady and the mother-in-law would debate things. he said that they sometimes got off track a bit, but it was still good to be able to have a discussion with them, especially where the lady was defending principles that the Elders were teaching.

Some minor dot points from our discussion:

• On Sunday they had between 30-40 at Church.
• After Sister Ip's greenie went back to Sydney, Sister Smith flew up from Adelaide to be Sister Ip's new companion. Sisters Hall and Degaris are now serving in Palmerston.
• We gave Elder East grief about wearing white socks with his suit, saying that it was a fashion faux pas. 
• They visited a Filipino family in the ward. The family told them to come back later. When they did, the family had food for them to take away for dinner.

Video Chat - 2nd June 2021 - Transferred to Darwin!

We found out on P Day that Elder East had been transferred the previous day ... to Darwin! Don't know how accurate it is, but it's meant to be one of the longest missionary transfers in the world. When transfers were announced on Monday night, Elder East wasn't told where he was being transferred to, but he was told to pack to be ready to fly. He knew that meant a transfer to Darwin.

His new companion is Elder Evans who was born and initially raised in Perth, but who has lived in most Australian state capitals. He's spent most of his recent years in Brisbane, which is where he was called from.

Elder East announced his transfer to us by sending us the following photos.

He complained that much of the land was covered by clouds during their flight, but the photos he took of the outback were pretty good. 

Their new area is the Palmerston Branch, which is a satellite city of Darwin, about a further 20kms inland.  Besides taking in Palmerston, they cover the entire top part of the Northern Territory - extending about 700kms east-west, and in the north-south direction, about 250kms at its narrowest point and out to about 470kms at its widest. The only bit of it they don't cover is Darwin itself, which has its own missionaries.

Elder East is happy to be up in Darwin (yes, I know, technically not Darwin, but everyone refers to it as Darwin). Both he and Edler Evans are the Zone leaders for Darwin. There are currently two other Elders and two Sisters in the zone as well as a senior couple, but they will be joined by another companionship of Sisters in a couple of days. One fo the Sisters is training a greenie who is arriving a  couple of days after transfers.

We asked Elder East what his new companion was like, and he was like "You can ask him yourself, he's just over here". Elder Evans then joined in our chat for about 5 minutes. Elder Evans has already served around a year as well, having served in the San Pablo Philippines Mission. After arriving in the AAM he was "trained" by Elder Guzman (Elder East's trainer), so they joked that he and Elder East are brothers.

He lived for a month in Canberra staying with the Sandlers, a family that Elissa knew. He is into sport, and not playing Magic the Gathering (to Elder East's disappointment.) Edler east has said that they're aiming to try and be fit in Darwin, knowing that they're going to be sweating a lot in the warm weather. Elder east also wants to get back to the same weight he was when he came out on his mission (85kgs).

A few more dot points of things we discussed:

• He's interested in going to Kakadu National Park, but it's probably too far away (about 240kms.)
• He wants to see crocodiles while in the NT. There is a crocodile tourist park not far away (Crocodylus Park.) They might be able to go there.
• Missionaries aren't allowed to go near beaches in the NT because of the threat of crocodiles.
• Elder East was wearing the West Coast Eagles face mask during his transfer flight. I gave it to him on my way back from Perth. I'd gotten it in Perth as a gift from Don & Tamara. Don & Tamara have since left Perth for an extended holiday and are currently travelling and exploring the northwest of WA. They are planning to go to Darwin, so will try catching up with Elder East.
• Elder Evans is Elder East's twelfth missionary companion ... and he still hasn't reached his twelve-month mark yet.
• Elissa is getting ready to send a "12-month" package to Elder East.
• Seth and one of the new Sister missionaries recognised each other, but couldn't pick where from. They worked out they were in the same group during the 2020 FSY in Sydney. 
• The hymn they were singing in the transfer day photos was "Hope of Israel."