Video Chat - 5th May 2021 - King Benjamin Is Inspiring

 Not a long chat this week, so only some quick notes:

• We chatted about what inspired Elder East this week, and he talked about Mosiah 3:13 in his cripture study  he feels particularly relevant to the missioanry work that he's doing. 

13 And the Lord God hath sent his holy prophets among all the children of men, to declare these things to every kindred, nation, and tongue, that thereby whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with exceedingly great joy, even as though he had already come among them.

It's a quote from King Benjamin, who also happens to eb one of my favoruite prophets from the Book of Mormon. We spen time talking a bit about all of the various things that we find inspiring.

• He's getting on well with his companions, a bit too well he says. They have to make sure that they don't get distracted. Elder East says that he seems to act as the senior companion, tsakaing the elad on most things.
• Elder East says that member work is starting to grow. They do have a regualr meal with a family in the ward every Tuesday evening.
• They have a number of investigators still at the moment - Danielle, Shane and rachael. They taught five enw people last week as well, but even thoguht they're alll interetsed, they haven't been able to follow up with them for follow up treaching appointments yet.
• Elissa had been preparing an escape room activity for one of her upcoming Seminary lessons. It features a time-traveling Elder East. She'd sent a copy of it through to Elder East to read ... but he hadn't looked at it yet ...

• They haven't taken over the Christie's Beach area that was vacated by the Sister Misisoanries as they were expecting to do. President Marquis has advised that there are plans to open the area back up again with Sisters, so it's not worth merging the information for the two araes togetehr to then have to split them again not long afetrwards.
• One of Elder East's old companions Elder Tukukino has gone home early.
• They had District Council the previous day and Elder Stiles from Canberra was responsible for running it as the current District Leader. 
• I told him that I'd receievd permission from his President Marquis to take him and his companion(s) to lunch during my Adelaide stopover on my flight back from Perth. His response was "the adelaide airport's a bit far." [shrug] Hew as also disappointed to hear that President marquis had said that Elder East will still be in Adelaide after the mid-transfer missioanry intake. Elder East doesn't think he'll ever get to serve outside of Adelaide despite the size of the mission.
• This week was a "nice cat week". He got to meet a lot of "Nice cats".

P-Day Barbecue at Hallett Cove - 25th November 2020

In a shocking development, Elder East actually sent us through a bunch of photos on P-day last week. In fact, he sent through more photos today than I think he's sent the rest of his mission put together. :)

Some of the photos were from earlier in the day where the missionaries in the Marion District had a barbecue at a point overlooking Hallet Cove.  Hallett Cove is a southern coastal suburb of Adelaide and features a conservation park with a boardwalk along the coast. Today was a day for them to socialize out in the open together amongst some scenery. They had a good selection of barbecued food to choose from, sausages, bacon, eggs and chicken. No vegetables I note.

It looks like the barbecue itself was held at the Heron Way Reserve, a newly renovated area at the southern end of Hallett Cove. Elder East didn't send any photos of it, but here are some from the web.

Further up from the Reserve was the boardwalk which heads past a feature called The Sugarloaf. Again, unsure if they actually walked the boardwalk or not, but here are photos from the web of what it looks like.

Here are the related photos we got from Elder East. Ones of both him and Elder Tukukino staring off into the ocean across Hallett Cove. I'm presuming these must have been taken before the P-Day - probably when they realised it would be a good location for a District P-Day activity and then sought permission from the APs. Then there are a couple of photos of the Marion District on the P-Day itself. Elder East said they enjoyed themselves, but he was a bit suburnt.

Zone Conference Photos - 14th November 2020

Posting up some of the recent photos from the mission blog that include Elder East. These are from the Zone Conference held on the 14th November 2020. Enjoy playing 'Spot the Elder East".

Video Chat 18th November 2020 - Preparing For Lockdown

 Again it was only a short chat with Elder East last P-Day, but this time it was due to the pandemic. We exchanged messages in the morning to arrange a time for our video chat - Elder East was going to be doing some service (shifting bricks for an investigator), so he wasn't going to be available to chat at the usual time.

By the time we did speak to Elder East in the afternoon, things had all changed. In the preceding couple of days, there had been a Coronavirus outbreak in Adelaide and the government was proposing restrictions. The district had originally planned a barbecue for P-Day, however because of the Coronavirus concerns the missionaries were told not to have any get-togethers with other missionaries, so they had to cancel their barbecue. 

By the time we spoke in the afternoon, it had been announced that all of Adelaide was being put into a week-long lockdown and all of the Elder's plans had been thrown into disarray. They needed to change a number of appointments, and ensure they had everything they needed for a week inside their flat.

Elder East had two major concerns - his investigators, and the missionaries who were due to finish their mission and go home. They did also have three member meals/appointments scheduled for the week.

He mentioned two investigators that he was particularly cognisant of - one was a member referral, whilst the other was a self-referral from Facebook, a "Christian" who was wanting to come to a Church. They would miss out on teaching them face-to-face. 

Re the missionaries getting ready to leave, one is meant to be heading home to Queensland on 15th Dec, whilst the other is due to head home to the Philippines on 8th Dec. They were unsure how this lockdown would affect them, but the concern was they may not be allowed to leave as they were in a "hotspot" and would therefore miss getting home for Christmas.  Zone Conference had been held the previous Friday, and those missionaries had given their "farewell" testimonies at the meeting. Now they were unsure if they'd be leaving.

Elder East did also mention that he wasn't sure how lockdown would affect their phone usage. Missionaries normally have a 30GB data allowance on their phone each month, however, Elder East currently only has 2GB/month at the moment. He'll have to be judicious with his phone usage.

The rest of the time was catching Elder East up with happenings at home, as well as encouraging him to see if he could get the packages waiting for him at the Mission Office. We'd sent through 2 packages last week to the mission office for him, and the tracking said that they'd been delivered. We figured they'd be handy for him to have during lockdown.

I'll also note that Elder Tukukino did happen to poke his head in for a quick hello and chat to us as well.

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.