Video Chat - 6th September 2021 - Finally Meeting President Johansson and Talking About Remote Areas

Elder East let us know that they'd received a surprise call from the mission office the previous Tuesday morning (31st Aug) letting them know that Zone Conference had been moved to Wednesday and that President Johansson and the APs were getting ready to fly up to Darwin now. This resulted in a busy couple of hours getting everything ready for the next couple of days such as getting an extra mattress for their flat.  

They had lunch with Pres Johansson at which point Elder East realised he was the last missionary to have met him in person, now two months after he'd been in the mission. Elder East described President Johansson as "cool, laid back, and funny."

Elders East and Roberts would spend the rest of the day and Wednesday on trade-offs with the APs. They had the Zone Conference (just the NT missionaries) on the Wednesday, with Elder East conducting the Conference. Other highlights of the several days included the missionaries being allowed to get together for a Chinese dinner on the Tuesday night, interviews with President and a district activity going bowling.  

Elder East said that his interview with President was primarily all about the work in the surrounding areas, especially the outlying regions. It looks like President is going to get them to try and work more with the remote members. 

• Elders East and Roberts are likely to be flown down to Alice Springs in a week to go on trade-offs with the missionaries and members down there. 
• They were fortunate to have the active member from Katherine in attendance at Church in Palmerston last Sunday, so they finally have contact details for them. This will assist with the potential trip to Katherine that President has also been encouraging them to undertake.
• The main active member family that is in Kununurra, the Kajma family, looks like that they're moving back down to Perth, so the Elders are unlikely to get out to Kununurra
• There's also the possibility they might get flown out to Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula. It's over 1000kms from Darwin - an 11-hour drive, so flights are being investigated by the mission. There are several members out in Nhulunbuy, one of whom is scheduled to be in Darwin during the coming week, so they will be catching up with him on Tuesday night. One of them had posted on Facebook about how'd they'd discovered another member family there when they asked about their son's name at daycare. 

Several other dot point items from our chat about the past week:

• They've had a busy week teaching lessons to people in their area.
• The Elders have been volunteered into the Branch choir, with choir practice after Church each Sunday.
• Elder East is starting to get a lot of mosquito bites as the weather starts to get a bit more humid.
• Elder East thinks this will be his last transfer in Darwin, and that he'll transfer back down to SA at the next transfer.
• He has worn out another pair of casual shoes so bought himself another pair of cheap sneakers to try and last him for the rest of his mission. His sneakers get used during service projects and sports nights as well as just on P-Days.
• Several missionaries have commented that Elder East looks to have lost weight since they last saw him or saw pictures of him in the Liahona. He has been more conscious of being healthier, so he's happy that it's noticeable to others. 
• We were able to share with Elder East about how Grandad Yates was able to baptise a lady who was inspired to join the church from the example that Grandma had set when they were all friends many years ago when living up in the North West. Sister Abel from Elder East's home ward happened to be one of the missionaries who helped teach the lady.
• Elder East showed us the spreadsheet he maintains of when the various missionaries in the mission arrive and are due to leave.

Video Chat - 28th July 2021 - Darwin District Conference

 Once again, it was only a very quick chat with Elder East last P Day. He seems to enjoy spending time with his district / Zone on P Days rather than speaking to his parents :)

Much of the last week had been taken up with District Conference. On Friday they had a  missionary devotional with Elder Lekias, the Area Authority who was visiting Darwin for the District Conference. Elder Lekias knows our family and recognised Elder East as our son.

On the Friday night they had the regular branch sports night. On the Saturday they had a missionary and leadership session of District Conference during the afternoon. Elder East participated along with Sister Smith as "YSAs" as part of a discussion panel with Elder Lekias.

There were the usual Saturday evening and Sunday morning sessions of Conference as well. The missionaries were part of the choir for the Sunday session, performing two hymns - Master the Tempest is Raging, and Count Your Many Blessings.

On Tuesday they had interviews with President Johansson via Zoom. Elder East said that they covered a lot of general topics, as well as some coming changes ... but Elder East wouldn't say what those coming changes were.

Elder East mentioned that they'd also caught up with a Brother King and his family. They are moving from Canberra to Darwin. Brother King was actually Bishop of Woden Ward when I was Bishop of Tuggeranong Ward about 15 years ago. (The two wards met in the same chapel in Canberra.)

Video Chat - 7th July 2021 - Coming Out of Lockdown

It was only a quick call with Elder East this week. The Covid lockdown finished for the Darwin and Palmerston areas on Friday, however, they still weren't able to hold Church last Sunday, and many things were still very quiet. They are expecting Church to be held this coming Sunday (11th July). In fact, Elder East has a speaking assignment.

The main piece of news was that they met with their new mission president - President Johansson.  I realised that I didn't note what day it was and whether it was in person or via Zoom. Elder East said that all of the missionaries were together at the Darwin chapel. They held a group meeting with President Johansson between 11am to Noon, then lunch between Noon and 1pm, then followed by interviews with each of the individual missionaries. Of the 8 missionaries, Elder East was last to be interviewed, so he was there until 4:30pm. [Note: Elissa advised after I published this that the meetings and interviews were via Zoom/]

With President Johansson allowing districts and zones to get together each P Day the Darwin and Palmerston missionaries were doing a bunch of activities together including a chip lunch, an Amazing race activity involving photos, and a spicy noodle eating challenge. 

A few quick dot points from the discussion:

• President Johansson mentioned that he's been instructed not to transfer missionaries too often at the moment, so Elder East may spend a while in the Northern Territory.
• We did send Elder East some English Samoan vocabulary documents however he says that he probably needs an actual dictionary as he has lots of words, but needs to be able to understand participles.
• If Elder East doesn't get transferred during the next transfers (scheduled for 12-13th July) we'll arrange to send him some money so he and his companion can go to Aquascene on the 21st July P Day. Aquascene features large fish that come in at high tide to be hand-fed. I remember going there as a kid back in 1981.

Video Chat - 30th December 2020 - Post-Christmas Refocus

Elder East let us know that he'd had an interview with President Marquis on Monday which seemed to help explain some recent decisions. President Marquis said that he was trying to help improve the Mission's culture, especially trying to strengthen the work ethic. Elder Easts said that he was happy with how Elder East was doing but wanted him to learn to "step up". He wasn't quite sure what President meant by that, so we encouraged him to ask more questions to see how President Marquis feels Elder East can develop.

Elder East said that they had a good day on Tuesday. They were following up on people from their area book. He says that it's only a small area book and they can complete a call around in about 2 hours, but they kept on going. The last person they contacted for the day asked to be given a Priesthood blessing which they obliged with.

Elder East commented that they had been talking to one of the volunteers at the Salvation Army Christmas lunch and discovered that they had been given a Book of Mormon and had previously met with the Sister missionaries. One of the people at the lunch was also a less active member of the Church.

This coming week they have scheduled to go out into the country parts of their area. They have two appointments out Mount Pleasant way, which is a small town about 55kms east of Adelaide. They have a 600km/month limit for their car, so they have to be judicious as to how to use their driving allowance.

They are also working with a member from up in Coober Pedy. It's not in the ward boundaries, however, the member comes down to Adelaide periodically and attends Morialta Ward when in Adelaide. Elder East is trying to work out how to help the family with temple preparation lessons.

Their Christmas dinner was good, but the food only lasted a day. They also gave some of their spare food to the Elders in Firle Ward, so didn't end up going to give out food to some less active members like they'd originally planned. We commented that their Christmas dinner was a combination of the two traditions - baked ham and veges from him, whilst the prawns, mussels, and potato salad was a typical Christmas dinner for his companions. Elder East says that he has also cooked up a stroganoff for his companionship as well which his companions seemed to like.

Elder East is working out how to try and increase the trust of the members in the missionaries in the ward. Elder Naelsoni had a cousin visiting Adelaide from Melbourne over Christmas who happened to visit Church with them on the Sunday. The Bishop excitedly came down to meet him, thinking it was an investigator. Elder East is thinking that getting somebody along to attend Church will be a good way. They're still not really getting any meals with members. We did have a chat about different ways to try and work with and gain trust from members.

Elissa had a bunch of questions she asked Elder East. Here are the questions and answers:

• Best quality of your current companions? Both are very loving. Elder Nalesoni can act a bit weird/funny sometimes but Elder East says he gets away with it as a part of his big Polynesian persona. Elder Aiho has a lot of good missionary knowledge and experience.
• What is he currently studying? He did a lot fo study about Christ's birth in preparation for his possible Mission Conference talk, but has also been studying the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in Alma. He's also been doing some study around Joseph Smith's transition of the Bible.
• What was his favourite Zone Conference talk? He liked Elder Rogers' talk. He is one of 9 siblings, talking about that and making an analogy of the Light of Christ and comparing it to the Star being put on a Christmas Tree. 
• Was there anything that particularly made you laugh or sad this week? It was generally a fun week which was good.  He is feeling a little homesick - not so much missing us, but some of the things we'd do together. (eg play games such as Unfair, watch Star Wars) especially around Christmas time.
• Do they have any particular restrictions around New year's Eve? No - just usual mission rules - be back in the flat by 9pm and in bed by 10:30pm.