Video Chat - 16th June 2021 - One Year Mark and Door Knocking

Elder East held a District Council this week so we were lucky enough to get some photos of the Darwin District/Zone from him during our P-Day chat.

They also participated in a Missionary Leadership Council via Zoom. I've already reposted some of the photos from the MLC that had Elder East in them.

Some observations from Elder East on Darwin: He says he never needs to look at the weather forecast. he knows it will get down to about 24 degrees at night time and about 30 degrees during the day. Humidity will set in around 10am and last until about 5pm. The humidity isn't really bad at the moment, but hard when you're walking around a lot in it.

He also says they haven't encountered any cats yet, but lots of loud dogs. He mentioned that the Sister Missionaries had a small dog try and attack them recently. He also sent through the following photo. Not sure of the story behind it, but the dog doesn't exactly look very loud or ferocious.

Elder East says that seeing as they're allowed to doorknock, they're trying to do 2-3 hours of doorknocking per day. They're effectively reopening the area, so there's a lot of finding to be done. Elder East commented that they seem to be meeting a lot more different people whilst doorknocking. They were both prompted to door knock what turned out to be a government housing street and didn't get to finish it as they ended up teaching people.

Elder East also sent us the photo below - I presume it's from when they were out doorknocking.

Elder East commented that whilst the strangest experience he's had was back in Onakapringa, he's had most of his "milder" strange experiences in Darwin. He didn't really elaborate on that as we pushed him to find out about what this strangest experience was that we hadn't heard about.

He said that it occurred just before he transferred to Darwin, which is why we didn't hear about it - most of the news was about the transfer to Darwin. He said that they were trying to visit some less active members. The member had moved but the person referred them to their next-door neighbour who "might be interested". It turns out the next-door neighbour was a schizophrenic "bible basher" who would shout out 'hallelujah" whilst talking and arguing. Elder East said that he was only about 5 foot tall, had a stocky build and a beard - it was like trying to talk to an angry gnome. What's more though, was that as well as wanting to argue, the angry gnome was insisting that the Elders had to purchase one of his paintings, which they declined to do. That wasn't the end of it though. Apparently, after Elder East was transferred the angry gnome found the phone number of a Bishop in a different Ward and was insisting that the missionaries come back around to see him.  

Some dot points of other things we spoke about:

• President Marquis was coming up on Saturday (19th June) to have his Farewell Family Home Evening and Dinner with the Darwin missionaries.
• The Marquis impending return home is starting to hit in. They received their 2nd last email from President Marquis during the week. The new Mission President, President Johanssen arrives on the 28th June, while the Amrquis' leave on the 1st July. Elder East says that he'll miss President Marquis.
• He received an email from Kendal asking questions about preparing to serve her mission.
• The Darwin Sister Misisoanries are now in a three-way companionship after the greenie returned to serve in Sydney.
• The Missionary Training Centres are starting to open back up throughout the world.
• They've had one meal with a member so far. They did some service for a Sister who fed them afterwards.
• Elders East and Evans are sharing the meal preparation. They're eating a lot of salads and walking a lot. He commented that there seems to be a pattern for missionaries to start off becoming unfit during the first half of their mission, then spending the last 6 months of their mission trying to get fit again.
• Elder East is looking like he's developing a tan.
• This week represented one year since Elder East started his mission via the home MTC on 11th June 2020. He knows that we've sent him a "halfway" package that should be amongst the mail that President Marquis is taking up to Darwin with him.

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

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

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

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

Other dot point notes:

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

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

Video Chat - 31st March 2021 - Dreams of Being an Urban Hipster

It was only a quick chat again this P-Day, but Elder East did send through a bunch of photos later in the day. 

They had Zone Conference on the previous Thursday which Elder East said was really good. The fact that he didn't have to run part of it was probably one of the positives. :) He said that there was training from President Marquis and the APs on lots of little things, such as motivation, baptism, driving, and so on. 

He specifically mentioned the driving instruction as several historical incidents were raised in the training, including the missionary car crash in New Caledonia back in 2019 that resulted in a death. We already knew about this accident as we knew the driver - Jacob Hable. The Hable family had lived in Canberra for several years and we keep in touch via social media. Elder Hable was serving in the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission near the end of the mission when the car crash occurred during heavy rain. I've included a couple of photos below that the Hable family shared from the accident.

Elder East also spoke to us about being "Dear Johnned" several weeks ago. Although they were only ever writing as "friends", it was fairly obvious that both Elder East and his friend had emotions for each other, so her advice that she was now dating somebody was hard emotionally for Elder East. Still, he recognises that his focus at the moment is on serving the Lord and being a missionary. 

Below are the photos that he sent us for this week, along with commentary where provided. The first photo from Wed 24th March is "with Nick, Rob, Sophie, and Cruise (the dog) We're teaching the kids. Their family is really big into 8ball and they also have a pet snake."

The second photo is from "Zone Conference [ Thurs 25th March] with Sister Hall and Sister Fakai our old Christies beach sisters".

The third photo [Fri 26th March]  is "at sports night (held every Friday) ft Elder Levi (he is leaving this transfer to his original assignment of Perth) and some members." 

The following picture [Sat 27th March] is with Sis Macdonald, a member. Elder East says that he particularly liked how he looks in this photo.

Next is a photo [Sun 28th March] with some of the Ellis family kids and Wyatt who was recently baptised.

A photo from District Council that was held on Monday 29th March. 

Elder East was happy to get a hold of a cat. [Mon 29th March]

Edler East said that they had a District P-Day activity down at Hallett Cove earlier in the day, and that he went full "Dad mode" at lunchtime - cooking bacon, sausages, eggs and more. He's decided he wants a barbecue at his missionary flat. He reckons that he can then become an urban hipster. [Wed 31st March].

Sunset photo taken on Wed 31st March.

Elder East commented that he's making a lot of friends with missionaries who are from Brisbane, so he's thinking of Brisbane as a possible place to move to for university after his mission, as he now has a number of friends from there. He currently thinks that after returning in June next year that he'll spend the second half of 2022 working before starting university at the start of 2023. 

Maybe he can find a course and becoming a Certified Professional Urban Hipster Tongmaster ...

Banter with Dad - Kneecaps in the Bible

 Just thought I'd share some banter from last P-day when we were trying to arrange via Messenger a time for the video chat later in the day. The three people in the conversation are EE (Elder East), D (Dad) and M (Mum). The picture of Minori the Cat is from the conversation, whilst I've added the other pictures to this blog entry to help explain the quotes being used.

D: [After accidentally putting an angry reaction emoji on a previous comment by EE] The reaction was an accident

EE: All good I presumed

D: I was being oppressed ... there was violence inherent in the system

EE: It's repressed dad we've been over this

EE: Is she attacking or kneading?

D; Attacking

EE: Hand monster?

D: Yep

EE: Haha, beautiful kitty

D: She was dabbing me, which is her way of asking for the hand monster

...

EE: No district P-day, but we're having a meet with the recent converts to play sports around 3 And Kennach is getting a haircut from another elder at 1

M: sounds good - do you want to see if an elder can cut your hair? Must be getting long again

EE: I just figured I'd let it grow for a bit and see how it looks

D: Crazy wild haired old man, claiming to be a scientist

EE: Claiming to be a preacher actually

M: you two make me laugh

M: this banter

M: miss this banter and the quoting

EE: Thank you, no one gets my quotes or references here.

D: Zoe: Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killin’? Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.

EE: That's my favourite thank you

Elder East - The Cookie Version

Sister Reeves' mum, Kathy, and Elissa have been communicating a lot since they realised both of their sons would be heading into the AAM together. Kathy sent through photos of the following cookies she had made last week and which she was sending through to Elder Reeves in Adelaide. She's obviously very talented.

We reckon they're all awesome, but of course, the Elder East cookie is our favourite :)

Elder Reeves Thinks Elder East Is a Legend

Elder Reeves' Mum sent Elder East's Mum the following funny snippet from Elder Reeves' weekly email this week.

Looks like Elder East is going to have to work on his Samoan, Tongan and Maori.