Video Chat - 16th August 2021 - Lockdowns and Cane Toads

The immediate news from our chat with Elder East last P day was that Darwin was going into a snap lockdown for that Monday afternoon through to Thursday afternoon. The Elders had been out at the shops around 10:30am that morning and could see long lines at the shops. They joked that there must have been a lockdown coming. They got back to their car and sure enough, got a phone call letting them know that a lockdown was about to start. They had the job of letting the other missionaries in Darwin know the details.

There have been some changes in the other NT missionaries over the last week that have occurred out of the transfer cycle. An Elder had been transferred up to Darwin to stay with the Darwin Elders for 14 days in preparation for heading to the Perth mission. We're unsure how the lockdown will affect those plans noting that they were to try and make it easier for him to comply with WA's strict covid border regulations.

In addition, the Sister Missionaries in the Darwin branch have moved down to Adelaide.

Transfers is scheduled to occur next week (Mon 23rd Aug), but Elder East isn't sure how many changes will occur on that day. There were some new missionaries due to come into the mission, but they've been pushed back by three weeks. he speculated whether maybe some were from overseas as they had a New Zealander arrive last transfer.

A quick coverage of happenings through the previous week:

• President Johansson called them on Tuesday night and spoke to them about getting down to work with the less active families in Katherine one weekend. They are about 60-70 members in the branch but they are spread around hundreds of kilometers. The Elders started working their way through calling member's phone numbers, but of the first 20 or so they called, they didn't have anybody answer their calls.
• They had trade-offs on Thursday and Friday with the Darwin Elders, however, the other Elders weren't well. One had an injured foot whilst the other was feeling sick, so it was a fairly quiet time.
• On Sunday evening they helped with the Missionary Preparation devotional. Elder East said the evening went well. They had about 10 youth in attendance, including some Zooming in from Alice Springs.
• They also had a lesson with a young man (19YO) on Sunday. They'd tried catching up with his Dad earlier in the week - but he'd said it wasn't a good time - they were about to start a D&D session with mates. Elder East would have been in his element. They enjoyed the lesson with his son on Sunday - seeing someone learning about the Gospel for the first time.
• They have also been spending time with a part-member family (couple and son) who have been to Church, had a lesson and come along to the branch sports night as well. 

The final event of note relates to the only photo we got from Elder East this week. He explained that they helped catch a cane toad in a lady's yard during the week. The only problem was what to do with it once they caught it. They didn't want to kill it themselves even though it's a dangerous pest, so they ended up putting it securely in the lady's rubbish bin where it would be assumed to die and then be disposed of.

Video Chat - 19th May 2021 - Going to the Temple For the Second Time

My connection during our video chat last P-Day kept dropping out, so I didn’t get to hear all of what was said, and as usual at the moment, it wasn’t an overly long call. The bad connection was due to us chatting earlier than our normal call time, so I was trying to connect whilst at work. The reason for the earlier call was that a number of the AAM missionaries, including Elder East, were getting the chance to go through the Adelaide Temple during the afternoon. It was going to be only the second time that Elder East will have been through the temple, so it was exciting for him. The fact that he was going to be going through with four of his previous missionary companions was an added bonus. Elissa mentioned that she was teaching about consecration in Seminary that week, and that consecration includes the consecration of ourselves and our time. She compared it to Elder East’s preparation and service as a missionary and in the temple.

Elder East mentioned that he enjoyed the Canberra Youth Fireside that he’d been asked to participate in via Zoom on Sunday evening. Besides the opportunity to speak to the Canberran youth, he also enjoyed catching up with the other Canberran missionaries at the end of the fireside.

Elder East spoke about how the number of the missionaries in the AAM didn’t seem to increase, even with the new intake of missionaries. Two Sisters had unexpectedly gone home for health reasons, with both being reassigned to serve in their home missions. Another Elder had gone home several weeks ago as well. He still had some time left on his mission, but had struggled to adjust with the reassignment from serving in his original mission in Africa, and serving back here in Australia. Elder East thinks that the Elder is regretting his choice to return home as he has called on P-Days to talk with some of the missionaries still serving in the AAM.

Some minor dot points:

• Elder East says it was cool to catch up with Elder Reeves when he stayed with them overnight during the new missionary intake. He says that Elder Reeves has injured his back though which is a concern for him at the moment.
• Elder East now thinks that he’ll continue to train Elder Davey, even if their three-way companionship is broken up at transfers.
• He said that he enjoyed catching up with me at the airport on Monday.

Canberra Stake Youth Fireside - 16th May 2021

Canberra Stake arranged for a missionary-themed youth fireside on the evening of Sunday 16th May. They invited a number of currently serving missionaries from the Stake to join in a Q&A with the Canberran youth. Elder East was able to join in, along with Elder Stiles and Sister Malu who are also serving from Canberra in the AAM, and Sister Abel and Elder Vakalahi who were serving from his home ward.

Elissa joined Jewel in going to the fireside so she could see Elder East

I am told that Elder East spoke well to the questions he was asked, with some of his [paraphrased] responses being:

• Q: What is the hardest thing about your mission?  A: Friends you develop who start to learn about the Gospel but who are unwilling to repent or make the commitment to follow the Saviour
• Q: What has surprised you the most?  A: That he doesn't miss home. (Apparently there was a lot of laughter and looks at Elissa after he made that comment to see how she'd react, but as we always comment, we've raised him to be independent and go on a mission. We're glad he's enjoying his mission and isn't homesick.)
• Q: What was the worst food you've eaten? A: Some of his companion's cooking.
• Q: What was a spiritual highlight he's had? A: Receiving the prompting to leave his Sunday class and to go outside to discover that their investigator's husband was outside. 

Easter Devotional Photos - 4th April 2021

There was an Easter Devotional on the evening of Easter Sunday. Once again, there were some photos put up on the AAM blog that included Elder East. Elders East and Beaumont-Tafua attended along with one of their investigators.

Multi-Stake Devotional - 7th March 2021

The AAM blog updated with several recent entries that had photos with Elder East in them.

The first was of the Multi-Stake Devotional held on Sunday 7th March. There are a number of photos with Elder East in them, but they're mainly shots of the back of his head.

From later that Sunday evening there's an image of the Zoom meeting advising of what is happening with transfers the following day.

There are also a lot of photos of the missionaries at transfers on the Monday, however, there was only one shot with Elder East in it.

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 :)

Multi-Stake Devotional - 6th September 2020

The AAM put on a Multi-Stake Devotional/Fireside last Sunday night. Only those who were involved in the program were physically in attendance, with the devotional being broadcast. Elder East had sent us through a link to the broadcast during our Father's Day chat.

There were talks by the Mission President and his wife, a new convert and one of the missionaries, as well as musical items.

Elder East was there because he and several other missionaries were accompanying four new converts from the Adelaide City Branch to do a musical item. They were singing "I Am a Child of God". Even though it's a very well known children's song in the Church, the new members didn't really know the song very well. Add to that they were all singing in English as a second language and they were really struggling to carry the tune, so the four Elders were helping them with the item. I made the comment to Elder East that it takes a lot more faith to get up and perform a musical item, knowing you're going to struggle with it, compared to somebody going up to do a musical item who knows they have a talent for singing.

Elder Reeves played the piano as well as doing a prelude musical item played on a flute, so there was a lot of footage of him.

The closing musical item was a pre-recorded video of the Adelaide missionaries singing a piece combining As Sisters in Zion and Army of Helaman. Elder East was visible right in the middle of all of the missionaries. The missionaries sounded quite good with the arrangement of the songs.