Video Call - 6th June 2022 - Farewell P-Day Celebration

 It was Elder East's last P Day with the other missionaries. The following P Day he would be heading into the mission home and getting ready to go home. His Zone had an activity day as a farewell for him and a birthday celebration for Elder Burgess. 

Elder East did try calling us from the activity but there was so much noise we couldn't hear what he was saying. We ended up cutting the call short, with Elder East letting us know that he'd try calling us later in the day. Unfortunately, that didn't eventuate. 

The little we did hear him say was that it had been a hectic week, and that President Johansson had been in the Northern Territory for most of it. 

Later in the day we did see a video from one of the other missionaries from Canberra who was serving in the AAM. The video had footage from their P Day activity. I've tried to grab some screenshots of the video below with some added commentary. 

The first shot is of Elder East getting an egg splattered on his head. They appeared to be playing some sort of game where the losers got wet or got hit with eggs. This egg hit was a sneak attack though ;)

Photo of the missionaries having lunch. You'll notice that Elder East has changed out of his wet/egg-splattered clothes. 

Trying to eat a donut suspended from a string without using your hands.

Elder Ma'a and Sister Malu have been making banners as a farewell gift for some of the missionaries as they complete their missions. This si Elder East's banner.

The banner can also be used as a cape apparently ...

Singing 'God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again."

Video Chat - 25th April 2022 - Elder East Gets Covid and Gets Choc-Mint Ice Cream

It was a sick Elder East that spoke to us on the ANZAC Day public holiday P-Day. He had been confirmed as having Covid and was in isolation in Darwin. He had a sore throat and was congested but hadn't been hit too harshly by it.

Being a public holiday we had both Jayde and Jewel join us in the chat as well so that everybody could chat with him. 

He gave us a rundown of events over the preceding week.

On the previous Monday (18th April) they were still in their split companionships awaiting for the trainers of the new missionaries to come out of isolation (one had Covid and the other was a household contact). On the Monday night Elder East and Jian went to a Family Home Evening being held by the City Branch for the YSA and students in the branch. It was a good opportunity for Elder Jian to start getting to know those in the Branch and for Elder East to catch up with people from when he served there.

On the Tuesday the second trainer also came down with Covid, meaning that the greenies would need to remain with the APs for the rest of the week. He said that this meant that they were doing a lot more in the way of study and administration with the new Elders, as well as follow-up calls and tracting.

On the Wednesday they had several meetings - a District Council for Firle as well as a Technology Council. Elder East says that they were able to handover the running of the Facebook group for the missionary's families to the Social Media missionaries. After their meetings, they went and provided some service to a member who is getting ready to move to Africa, as well as getting haircuts.

On the Thursday, Elders East & Ma'a flew up with President Johansson to Darwin, leaving their greenies with other missionaries back in Adelaide. There was a get-together for the NT-based missionaries after which the APs traded off with the Alice Springs missionaries and went tracting in Darwin. 

On Friday they had the Zone Conference for the NT-based missionaries. The APs were meant to provide some training at the conference, however, President Johansson went longer than planned with his training, so they ended up not doing their session. On the Friday evening there was a sports night at the chapel being run by the local Church members that the missionaries joined in with.

On the Friday evening Elder East noticed that he was getting a sniffly nose, but he put it down to having been inside in air conditioning the whole day.

On the Saturday, President Johansson arranged for a number of people to go down together to visit with members in Katherine. There is a branch of the church at Katherine, but the members there are mostly less active. President Johansson hired a Kia Carnival and drove down with the APs, the Zone Leaders, and a senior missionary couple based in Darwin. 

It was a 6-hour round trip so besides looking at giant termite mounds by the roadside they broke the driving up with some stops. They stopped at the Adelaide River War Cemetary which contains graves of those killed by Japanese bombings in World War II. Whilst in Katherine itself they also had a look at the Katherine Hot Springs - one of the tourist spots in the area. 

Whilst visiting with the members Elder East highlighted their experience with one of them. The person was desirous of having the sacrament but hadn't had the opportunity to do so for a number of years. President Johansson gave the OK for the missionaries to conduct a short sacrament service with them even though it was a Saturday. 

They drove back to Darwin in the afternoon/evening, with President Johansson shouting the APs to dinner at a seafood buffet restaurant that night. By this time Elder East was starting to feel sick. President Johansson had had a cold earlier in the week and Elder East presumed that he'd caught President's cold which was making him feel sick. 

By Sunday morning Elder Easts' throat was really sore and he undertook a RAT test.

The positive result meant that all of the NT missionaries were now required to isolate themselves as contacts. The APs were in the Palmerston flat with Elder Evans and his companion.  

We managed to have quite a long chat with Elder East. There was a lot of banter and discussion with his sisters. Jayde ubered him some ice cream for his sore throat whilst we were talking. She said she made sure it was a flavour that he liked which the other missionaries probably wouldn't like - choc-mint.

The coming week was going to be difficult in isolation. The Elders would try and do as much as they could remotely when feeling better, but it was all about recuperating and recovering.

Video Chat - 18th April 2022 - Mini-Training Companionships with Elders Wolff and Jian

The mission had three new Elders come in on Wednesday (13th Apr) including Elder Wolff, who knows Elder East from Canberra. 

• Two of the new Elders were assigned to go into the Adelaide City branch as Mandarin-speaking missionaries. The existing companionship in the City branch was going to be split with each Elder training one of the new missionaries.  Unfortunately, the City Branch Elders came down with Covid and so were unable to take on the new missionaries when they arrived.
•  Elder Wolff was going up to Darwin, and unfortunately for him, the airline kept canceling and changing his flights. 

The upshot was that Elder Wolff was companions with  Elder East from his arrival on Wednesday until his eventual flight up to Darwin on the Saturday. Meanwhile, the two Mandarin-speaking greenies were in a three-way companionship with Elder Ma’a during that time. Elder East said that he and Elder Wolff got along well. He did joke however that Elder Wolff did struggle to stay awake whilst having to just sit around during some of the long AP-related meetings that Elder East had to go to. He provided the following photo as proof.

After Elder Wolff flew up to Darwin on the Saturday, the three-way companionship with Elder Ma’a was broken up. One of the Mandarin-speaking greenies, Elder Jian, became Elder East’s temporary new companion. Elder Jian is from Sydney and his family comes from Hong Kong, however, he doesn’t know any Mandarin and is pretty much learning the language from scratch.

Elder East commented that they had a really good lesson on Saturday night (16th Apr). They’d received a referral from the Sister missionaries that Elder Wolf and East followed up on on Friday. They were asked to come back on Saturday, which Elder Jian & East did and were able to meet with the family (husband, wife, and sister). The family was Indian from a non-Christian background and the Elders had the opportunity to explain about Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation. The family had questions about karma which Elder East said they answered using the Book of Mormon. (Alma 41:15 perhaps? Galatians 6:7 is also relevant.) They invited the family to pray which the wife was willing to do. Elder East said that the Spirit was very strong during the lesson, which they helped the family to identify.

The following day on Easter Sunday the Elders had three people they have been meeting with at Church. Because a number of people were away over Easter, the Elders helped prepare and bless the sacrament. Later in the day, they were able to teach a lesson to one of their investigators.

Elder East commented that they were busy but in a good way. They were busy doing missionary work, not busy doing administrative work, which was making Elder East very happy.

Some other notes from our discussion:

• His workshops at the Zone Conferences during the previous week had gone well.
• There was a baptism on Saturday morning of somebody that Elder Reeves had helped teach when he was on his mission. Elder Reeves (now just Hamish) was able to join in and watch the baptism via Zoom.
• The Easter groceries we’d ordered for Elder East arrived on the Thursday after some initial issues from the delivery driver about where to find the mission office. Elder East said it was the perfect mix of junk vs healthy food.

•  The APs will be accompanying President Johansson up to Darwin next Thursday (22nd Apr) to assist with the Zone Conference for the NT missionaries.
•  The APs had planned to have an activity going Op Shopping with the two companionships in the district the previous P-Day (11th Apr). The Mission President had advised them not to go, so they didn't, even though the other two companionships still met up. Several days later, one of the companionships tested positive for covid and both companionships had to go into isolation.
• Elder Wolff was studying engineering at university before his mission. He suggested to Elder East that he might want to start off part-time at university when he gets back and not overload himself straight away.

Video Chat - 20th/25th/27th December 2021 - A Very Mission Christmas

 We've had a number of chats with Elder East since our last recorded P-day chat (Thurs 16th Dec). They have generally been brief, and I haven't always been in a situation to be able to take notes of what was discussed. I'll combine them all into this single post. It will include our video chats from P day (Mon 20th Dec), two calls on Christmas day (a short one in the morning and a longer one in the evening) and a brief call on P-day Mon 27th Dec.

One of the big events that happened recently was the Mission Christmas Conference on Fri 17th Dec. Elder East conducted the meeting, whilst President Johansson of course provided training. There were meant to be talks from other members of the Mission Presidency, however they ended up not being able to attend so the APs and Sister Johanssen were all invited to share their testimonies.

The Christmas conference made a lot of work for the APs as the Darwin and Alice Springs missionaries were flown down and had to be picked up from the airport, as well as being housed, transported and looked after.  After the Christmas conference they had to take the NT missionaries to be Covid tested due to restrictions around crossing the NT/SA border. Both Elder East and Elder Evans had to be Covid tested too as a part of returning from their trip across the border to Mildura the previous weekend.

The second major event that had occurred recently was the announcement at the Christmas Conference that the mission structure would be reducing from 4 Zones to 2 Zones. Elder East said that they were holding a meeting on the evening of the 20th Dec to finalise all of the details. Between those changes and transfers which were coming up on the 27th Dec, there was a lot of time being spent with President Johansson doing organisational administration.

On Christmas Day itself, the APs joined in with the 14 missionaries from Marion Zone at a meal put on by a member out in Murray Bridge. Elder East said that the member traditionally put on a large meal for missionaries at Christmas time. Elder East was able to catch up with some old companions as well as Elder Reeves at the Christmas Day function.

Elder Reeves had gotten Elder East some Lego as a Christmas present. Elder East had bought Elder Reeves an electric guitar as a Christmas present (more I think from a humorous POV.) Elder east said that he'd been in a second-hand store and picked up a new suit, shoes and wallet in the store and then found the electric guitar for $20. He didn't know how good the guitar was but wanted to get it for Elder Reeves anyway.

Elder East commented that he's putting on too much weight as an AP due to all of the bad eating habits of an AP lifestyle. He reckoned that the inability to plan long term and the constantly changing demands for their time are the biggest challenge of being an AP. He reckons that he'd love to have a "proper" P-day for once as an AP

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 - 28th April 2021 - ANZAC Day and Birthday Surprises

Elder East started off our weekly video chat by letting us know that he had another companion – Elder Cooke. He was now in a three-way companionship. Their companionship got the call at 6:40am on Tuesday morning to be at the chapel by 9:30am for their scheduled interviews with President Marquis … and to pick up their new companion. Elder East thinks that their three-way companionship will only last for a couple of weeks as there are a bunch of new missionaries scheduled to arrive on May 12th.

Elder Cooke is from Brisbane (like most in the AAM) who came out into the mission in January. Elder East describes Elder Cooke as being a “White Poly” who is into games. In fact, Elder East reckons that he himself is the least "nerdy" member of their three-way companionship - funny noting that he is a self-confessed geek/nerd. 

A summary of the week:

On Thursday of last week they received an invite to Saturday dinner from the Mahina family in the ward.  When they got to the dinner on Saturday evening, Elder East was greeted with a surprise birthday combination of Star Wars and Lego 

On Saturday night, after the dinner, Elder East prepped all the ingredients for “Dad’s chilli recipe” ready for his birthday dinner on Sunday.

Sunday was also ANZAC Day, so they were up at 4:00am, left the flat at 4:40am and went to the Onkaparinga Memorial Gardens for the local ANZAC Day Dawn Service. I had organised tickets for them earlier in the week and emailed them through to Elder East after confirmation that they were allowed to attend.  They said that the service didn’t actually start til 5:50am, so they got there too early. Elder East says the service was good. He reckons that there were probably over 500 in attendance, and they did see some other members there at the service. 

Elder East cooked up the chilli in the morning after returning from the Dawn Service.

At church that day the Sacrament Meeting had a missionary theme, so Elder East was one of the speakers. His topic was “Feed My Sheep”. He said that he talked about how they were all there at Church because we have some level of love for the Saviour. Also, that one of the ways we can show love for others I to be friendly, smile and similar in our actions. 

Elder East mentioned that they took on teaching lady that the Sister Missionaries had started teaching.  She came along to Church on Sunday along with her husband and son. 

Whilst at Church the Ellis family called the Elders into the kitchen. There they had a birthday cake and treats for Elder East - it also happened to be the birthday of their twin children. 

Elder East said that they got to teach a lesson in the afternoon, and then for dinner got to have the chilli that Elder East had cooked earlier.  He says that it was OK, but it tasted like a “normal” chilli, and not like Dad’s chilli.

Elder East says that he got spoilt with presents for his birthday. He had previously received a package from us and from the Reeves before his birthday. He said that the mission couple happened to come by on the day as well, and he received a package from Grandma, as well as his mobile phone case that I’d ordered for him

Amongst the photos Elder East sent us, he included these photos, but I'm not sure of the stories behind them. Noting who is in each picture, I'm presuming that the photo with all three elders in it would've been taken on Tuesday 27th April, with the other being taken earlier in the week.

A couple of final dot points from the week:

• They visited a member's home on Monday night and she decided that she was doing a  personality test on the Elders. She reckoned that Elder East was "officious, logical and would make a good Stake President." He's not sure what he thinks of that assessment.
• Elder East has lost 3kgs in weight - down from 96kgs to 93kgs. They're trying hard to be healthy.