Video Chat - 29th November 2021 - Training During Zone Conferences

 Another busy week for Elder East. We got to speak to him early on P Day and he gave us a run down of his past week.

Tuesday of last week was the Firle Zone Conference which Darwin also joined in via Zoom. The plan was for Elder Evans and himself to start off the training after which President Johansson would then take the remainder of the session. President Johansson ended up having to take a phone call though leaving them to do all of the training. The topic was Teaching with Power & Authority. Elder East said that it went well. 

Wednesday was spent contacting and talking with remote Ward & Branch Councils throughout the mission as well as getting to teach a lesson with a recent convert.

Thursday was the Modbury Zone Conference where they once again were involved in training and teaching with the missionaries in the Zone. Elders Brown & Rea (his old companion and his last trainee) were called as the new Zone Leaders for the Zone on Thursday after Zone Conference.

Missionary Leadership Council was held on Friday where they worked with the Elders and Sisters in leadership roles. The MLC also included involvement with the Pacific Area Social media Council which was a Zoom meeting chaired by leaders in Salt Lake City. Elder East commented that he saw Sister Page, serving in Stromlo Ward during the meeting. He said that he also got chatting with Sister Malu, another missionary from Canberra, about things back at home.

Later on Friday, they got to return and visit the recent convert again that they taught on Tuesday and got to spend another time teaching her, but also with her kids this time as well. 

Saturday was spent helping to move missionaries around as a result of some more companionship changes.

On Sunday they attended Church at Firle Ward. They had the opportunity to bless the sacrament as many of the youth were away.

Elder East says that the coming week should be less hectic. They have one more Zone Conference, to do which will happen on Tuesday (30th Nov), whilst Thursday is a planning day. They have to help President Johansson plan out the mission calendar for 2022.

Two of Elder East's previous companions headed home this week, Elder Kennach and Elder Cooke. Elder Kennach was having to do a long trek to get home, Flying Adelaide to Perth to Dubai to Auckland. All up they have seven missionaries heading home in the near future and only two trainees coming in.

A few other notes from our discussion:

• Elder East is getting a South Australian driver's licence. Because the mission covers areas in SA, NT, VIC, NSW and WA they have to cross borders reasonably frequently, and having a local licence will make things easier during Covid times.
• In doing this he checked how many demerit points he has. because he's still only a P plater, the two fines he's received means he only has a single demerit point left. he says that he's been driving extra cautiously.
• He commented that he received the Dice Advent Calendar that we sent him, but is yet to receive the Christmas decorations that Elissa has sent to him.
• One of the enws sitser missioanries is a "D&D geek". He'll appreciate having somebody to geek out with.
• He mentioned that he has had a lot of members try and joke about his surname during his mission  ... but he's heard them all several times over by now.
• Elder East has been focusing on journal writing recently. He hasn't written much in his journal up to now but does have three notebooks of notes from meetings, conferences, spiritual thoughts and impressions he's received and so on. 

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 - 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.)

Elder East Helps Teach Seminary

 Elder East's mum teaches Seminary. One of this week's lessons suggested getting some of the youth up and to imagine they were missionaries. She figured that what might be better was seeing if she could actually get Elder East and Elder Kennach to present that part of the lesson. 

She contacted the Mission Office with her request and details of the seminary lesson, and she received a same-day response advising "Your request meets with hearty approval!".

Elders East and Kennach were permitted to have a quick call with us on Saturday night (17th Oct)  to go through what was involved in preparing for the lesson. 

Elder East and Kennach successfully joined in on the Tuesday (20th Oct) seminary lessons - both the 6:30am lesson and the 5:30pm lesson. The main things they were asked to cover were: 

• Personally preparing to give priesthood ordinances
• Personally preparing to receive an ordinance
• The importance of priesthood authority (ie line of authority)

As usual, the morning class was a bit more subdued - everybody always looks half-asleep/half-dead in the morning class, but the afternoon class was more involved, even if they don't look it in the screenshot further down.

President Stuart, the Canberra Stake President, managed to poke his head in online whilst the afternoon seminary lesson was on.

Elder East enjoyed studying for the lessons and said the lessons and preparation were one of the highlights of the week. 

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 - 23rd September 2020 - He's Staying ... Nope, He's Going

We messaged Elder East on Monday evening with just a quick "Any news on transfers?" message, knowing that they were meant to be announced that day. Later in the evening, he responded, advising that he was staying in the city, but that Elder De Guzman was being transferred out. Elder Roberts, one of the other Elders in the district would be joining Elders East and Kennach to form another three-way companionship. The Branch would also be getting sisters - Sister Thom who would be training a  Mandarin-speaking greenie.

On Wednesday morning we messaged each other to arrange a time to talk, which would end up being after lunch. He also sent through the following photo that he'd taken the previous evening.

We then spoke on Wednesday afternoon. Elder East was happy with the companionship changes. He was happy to be staying in the city and said that the companionship responsibilities for the other two were a bit more balanced/equal. Elder Kennach would be mainly training Elder East, whilst Elder Roberts focused on District Leader responsibilities.

Elder East gave us a bit of a rundown about his busy last week. Last Thursday first up involved a flat inspection which they passed, followed by a District Council, and then a Zoom meeting for training in the EdApp - a new training tool for missionaries.

On Friday morning they had the second part of their "Arrivers training" for new missionaries. Normally it would be just a specific intake that would receive the training, but because of the schedule havoc that quarantine and border changes had caused, the training featured three intake groups - two from July and one from August. That means he got to catch up with Elder Reeves again  After the arrivers training, both Elder East and Elder De Guzman then went on a day and a half long trade-off with the APs (ie Assistants to the President).

Elder East enjoyed the trade-offs with the APs. He got to his first dinner appointment in a member's home - the Tehini family - on the Friday night. The family had previously lived in Canberra and attended Woden Ward. Brother Tehini figured out who Elder East was, remembering me from my time as a Ward Advisor as well as the rest of the family. What was even funnier was that they had a friend come over for some help during the evening, a Sister Coxon, who just happened to be related to somebody we know in Canberra as well.

Elder East got to take part in teaching two lessons whilst on trade-offs - one over the phone, and one in person. He said the in-person one was interesting. It was the non-member husband of a sister from Church. Elder East reckoned that he was like an atheist version of me - knowledgeable but stubborn. They did some planning beforehand for the lessons which is something his companionship hadn't done yet and which he quite enjoyed, He's wanting to do that more in his own companionship.

On Sunday, their Hungarian investigator bought his mum to church. She is actually a less-active member but it is many years since she had been to church. She doesn't speak much English so there was a lot of translation going on. Elder East was very happy with how their investigator is progressing.

They found out that Elder De Guzman would be leaving on Monday afternoon and the actual full details of transfers on the Monday evening.

On the Tuesday morning, they had a small meeting with some of the recent converts to allow Elder De Guzman to say goodbye, before the actual transfers on Tuesday afternoon.

Elder East said that transfers were hectic. Only several hours before transfers, the mission received news that eight of the Samoan Elders were about to get flights home and needed to go into quarantine, which disrupted the planned transfers.

In regards to the Sisters coming into the branch, Elder East was a bit apprehensive. Apparently, Sister Thom is known as being overly strict. Keeping the rules isn't a problem for Elder East, but there are a lot of special rules (8 pages worth!) that apply just to the city area. Elder east says that these rules have been relaxed a bit because of the impact of the pandemic, but he's concerned that the sisters will try going by the "old" rules and that there will be some friction.  Elder & Sister companionships aren't meant to be alone together so having sisters in the branch causes a lot more logistical issues when there is more than one companionship about.

Elder East spoke about the fact that he's been studying President nelson's talks since he was called as an apostle, and has been really enjoying them. Two that have stood out to him so far were 'Cutting the Spiritual Powerline" and Joy Cometh In The Morning". It was great to see him enjoying his study of the words of the Prophet.

Jayde (Elder Easts's sister) then joined us for the video chat and we talked about a number of things, such as how her work and health are going, her studies (in particular music and its effect on mental health), and games. Elder East talked about playing Ultimate Werwolf with missionaries and members on P-Days, whilst Jayde talked about Among Us, a similar hidden role game with an alien theme that she plays with her friends. That's probably the first chat Edler East has had with Jayde since she moved down to Melbourne several years ago.

A quick list of dot points that were spoken about:

• There's a food court nearby the chapel that offers $5 Asian lunches that aren't very good, but which are cheap.
• After Jayde spoke of her pot plants, Elder East said he misses plants - I presume he means being involved in gardening and the plants around our home.
• Jayde showed a video of a cat she came across that reminded her of our old cat Nephi. Elder East lamented he still hasn't gotten to see any cats, but then again, they're usually bussing to places and not walking very often. The only place they tend to walk is to the local shops.
• We realised that we all had the same culinary problem. Neither Elder East, Jayde, or I have been able to find the nacho topping that we all like to use to make our family nachos recipe. 
• Elder Easts needs to ensure he votes in the upcoming ACT territory election.
• There is going to be a virtual Mission Tour during the 1st full week of October, so P-Day that week will be on Monday (5th October). That will be whilst Kendall Reeves is staying with us to visit Jewel.
• The October General Conference is being broadcast on TV in Adelaide so Elder East has invited some of their investigators to watch it when it is on.
• Jayde gave us a mini-tour of her apartment (it's only a studio apartment, so the tour took about 45 seconds to complete.) She showed us the Melbourne CBD skyline from her window, following which Elder East showed the Adelaide CBD skyline from the chapel window he was at.

Addendum: The Late Call

Whilst Jewel and I were at the chapel for the Young Women's activity on Wednesday evening, Elder East sent through a text message saying he was being transferred. We quickly set up a video chat with Mum, Jewel, Elder East and I.

It turns out the eight Samoan missionaries going into quarantine for repatriation weren't the only last-minute change to transfers. Changes to the state borders meant that the six missionaries who flew in at transfers no longer had to go into quarantine, and there were now further changes required. Elder East and Elder Kennach were going to be transferred as a companionship out of the Adelaide City Branch and out to Prospect Ward, Elder Kennach's previous area.

Elder East was sad about the transfer. He had wanted to stay in the Adelaide City Branch and to continue working with the investigators he had. He was happy with the three-way companionship with Elder Kennach and Elder Roberts. Prospect Ward is a bit more of an affluent area as well, which tends to make it a harder area for missionary work. We encouraged him to gain a testimony that that's where Heavenly Father wants him to serve at this time, and to understand and recognise that there will be somebody who will gain from this. Whether it is for him, his companion, investigators, members or somebody else. He will be there for a reason. He just needs to learn to align his will to The Lord's and look for the opportunities.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they will have a car in their new area, and Elder East is the designated driver. He's very nervous about that and is a bit scared of driving in a city that he doesn't know and is bigger than what he's used to.

EdApp and Arriver #2 Training - 17th-18th September 2020

 The AAM Blog has been updated this week with several posts with photos of Elder East. They don't have specific dates mentioned of when they occurred, so we'll need to ask Elder East during our next P-Day chat.

The first event was training in an application called EdApp. This is for missionaries to install on their smartphones to do "microlearning" courses. It appeared that the training in how to use EdApp was done via Zoom.

The second post was about the Second part of Training for newly arrived missionaries. Because of the unpredictable way missionaries have been brought in due to the pandemic, the training featured 26 new missionaries who had come in over three separate recent "intakes". 

We noticed that Elder East and Elder Reeves often seem to be within talking distance

We thought we'd upload a copy of this photo as it has both of Elder East's current companions, Elder De Guzman and Elder Kennach.

Video Chat - 9th September 2020 - Three-way Companionship with Elder Kennach

Because we'd spoken on Father's Day only three days beforehand, this week's video chat was shorter than normal.

The major topic of course was that their companionship was now a three-way companionship, with Elder Kennach coming in from the Prospect Ward. Elder Kennach is from Samoa and arrived in the AAM in Feb 2020 - just before the pandemic hit. His previous companion was from Mongolia (the AAM had several Mongolian elders) and managed to make it onto one of the repatriation flights to Mongolia at short notice. (Monday 7th Sep I believe) Elder East says Elder Kennach is pretty "chill".

Having a third missionary in the companionship has changed the dynamics. Elder East is now doing more cooking. Elder Kennach is sleeping on a mattress on the floor between the Elder's two beds. And they still only have two chairs in their flat ...

Elder Kennach still has responsibility for investigators being taught in the Prospect area, and they went out to teach one gentleman in his home. That's the first time Elder East has been into either a member's or investigator's home on his mission. They helped the investigator around his home - feeding birds, bringing in wood, as well as teaching him a Gospel lesson. As much as Seth enjoyed it, he said it was very time consuming using public transport to get to and from the investigator's home. They also won't be able to get to Prospect Ward on Sundays.

Elder East doesn't think that they will stay in the three-way companionship for long. He says that Islanders also tend not to serve in the Adelaide City Branch, so he doubts that Elder Kennach will stay in the area when the three-way goes back to being a normal two-way companionship.

A few other dot points from the chat:

• Most P-Days are spent playing sports at the chapel
• Edler De Guzman showers in the morning, Elder East showers in the evening, Elder Kennach showers in both :)
• They taught 2 lessons on Tuesday, but none on Monday. 
• They are teaching a Cambodian lady, but there are long gaps between lessons.
• There is another investigator that Elder East described as an "eternal investigator" that has been passed over to their companionship to teach.
• He had plans to write to President Stuart, Alex G and Kendall R.