Video Chat - 22nd November 2021 - Elder Evans Joins as a New Assistant to the President

We chatted with Elder East twice during last P-Day. He was rather down when we first spoke to him early in the morning as there had been some issues in the mission over the last 3 or 4 days. This had resulted in a lot of interviews by the Mission President and a number of changes in companionships. Missionaries hadn’t been the best at keeping the mission rules – nothing serious enough to be sent home over – but enough that it would affect the work and their ability to recognize the promptings of the Spirit. Helping President Johansson deal with that had obviously taken a bit of an emotional toll on Elder East. When we spoke to him again later in the day he was more upbeat and positive about how things were going.

Elder East filled us in on some more details of Elder Read. He said that they had been getting along well. Elder Read had previously lived in London, working as a kitchenhand before heading back to Melbourne. He was originally called to serve in one of the Chilean missions and spent several months there before Covid hit. He was reassigned to serve in the Adelaide Mission, but got caught up in the Melbourne lockdown and served some time there. He is now in the Adelaide Mission to complete his service. 

The rundown of their previous week (16th - 22nd Nov) was as follows:

Monday (15th Nov) - after having spoken to us on P Day he also contacted and spoke with Grandma and Grandad Yates to thank them for a car and money that they had sent through to him. They were pleasantly surprised to get to talk to him.

Tuesday (16th Nov) was Transfers, so a hectic day, as well as learning the ropes of being an AP from Elder Read. They got to have a farewell meal at a Burger restaurant with one of Elder East’s former companions (and his 13th cousin)  Elder Aiho who was heading home.

Wednesday (17th Nov) they had several new trainees fly in, so it was a matter of dropping Elder Aiho off at the airport and picking up three new missionaries - Two Elders and one Sister. They got to have lunch with the new trainees.

Thursday through to Saturday was helping President Johansson in dealing with a lot of interviews to deal with the issues that had arisen. He commented that they went out so that Elder Read could get a new suit on Saturday at one point. 

On Sunday they joined in the Marion Stake Conference. He said that they had a number of difficulties with their technology as they tried to broadcast the meeting. He said it got a bit humorous as the Zoom chat full of messages about problems with the broadcast was displayed behind the speaker at the pulpit.  Elder East mentioned that he got to catch up with some of the missionaries and old investigators he had taught in Onakapringa and Marion Wards. 

As a result of the missionary interviews, there were a number of leadership changes and movements amongst the missionaries.  Elder East now had a new companion as a fellow Assistant to the President, his former companion Elder Evans. Elder East said that Elder Evans was very surprised to be called as an AP. He had been serving down in Victor Harbour.

The coming week was going to include a lot of Zone Conferences where they would be accompanying President Johansson. 

Some other short notes from our discussion:

• They'd only had one "home cooked" meal during the week as quite often they're accompanying and eating with president Johansson. 
• One of Elder East's former companions, Elder Taua, who is now home from his mission, has gotten engaged to one of the former Sister Missionaries from the AAM. 
• Part of the upcoming training will be on rebalancing the service vs proselyting hours for the missionaries. As Covid restrictions reduce, the options for proselyting are opening up and should be more of a focus.
• Elder East got to show us a nativity display that is set up outside the mission office.

Video Chat - 3rd March 2021 - Elder Taua's Last P-Day

It was a quick chat with Elder East last P-Day. It was Elder Taua's last P-Day and so they were doing things that he wanted to do. That had involved going for a nature walk and then ten-pin bowling. Judging by the photo we got from Elder East, I'm presuming the nature walk was down on the coast.

 I'd asked if there were any other photos he could send us and he sent through this montage as well.

The rest of the chat can be summed up in a number of dot points. It wasn't a long chat, and a lot of it was more Elder East getting updates on what's been happening at home. News from him was:

• Elder East said that it had been hard for Elder Taua to remain focused being so close to going home. 
• Elder East is hoping to stay in the area during transfers next week.
• They finally got to talk with their investigator Daniel. He's doing OK but has been dealing with some family issues.
• Their other investigator Siritia is doing well.
• They went on an exchange last Friday/Saturday with the Elders in Marion - his old area. He had to ride a bike whilst in that area. Fortunately, it's a fairly flat area he says.
• They also had a short "Hour to Power" trade-off with the APs.

We pointed out that the day was exactly a year since he received his mission call.

The AAM blog updated with another photo of Elder East. There was a post from the 23rd Feb advising that "We ran a bit short on time in our recent MLC so we called a special MLC plus district leaders Zoom training meeting.  Along with the assistants to the president, we trained on better using our Area Book Planners and keeping Progress Records updated daily on our smartphones. " The post included the following photo:

Addendum: We got a quick message on Sunday morning from Elder East saying that he was staying in Onkaparinga Ward. He's obviously getting a new companion, but this will be the first transfer that he hasn't changed area.

Video Chat - 11th November 2020 - Excited About Marion Ward

Elder East took a break from the Elders learning a dance on P-day to video chat with us last Wednesday. (I didn't catch why they were learning a dance - not the type of thing missionaries usually do. Maybe it was something more like a haka or similar given the high proportion of Polynesians in the mission,) The district had originally planned to be playing ultimate frisbee, but the weather had turned bad.

Elder East is quite excited in his new ward - Marion Ward. The ward seems strong - they had around 150 at church the preceding week and Elder East says that their Ward Mission Leader is "amazing". The Ward Mission Leader is a returned missionary from Germany and apparently has a number of plans for missionary work in the ward.

Elder East said that Sacrament meeting itself was really good. He got to bear his testimony as a part of the meeting. They even had one of their investigators turn up to the chapel; ... unfortunately 30 minutes after Sacrament had ended, but they still managed to end up teaching them. Elder East says they have a lot of lessons lined up in the coming week.

They had two meal appointments during the week. :) Neither of them had cats. :( The first dinner appointment was with the second counselor in the Stake Presidency and his family. The counselor remembers a Sister Travers serving in the ward, but there were two Sister Travers serving in the AAM when Dannielle was there, so unsure if it was Sister Dannielle Travers or not.

The other meal was with the Davisons - the Elder's Quorum President and his family. It turns out there was a connection there too - they're related to the Davisons that we know in Sydney. 

Elder East held his first District Council meeting last week, which he had been stressing about. He said that it went short, and he didn't actually do very much, but hopefully it has helped break any concerns he had about having to run meetings in a leadership position.

I asked about how he was handling the nightly calls with companionships in the district, but apparently, he doesn't need to call them, it's just a text message of what's happened throughout the day. Again, not quite as stressful as he thought it would be. He says that Elder Brown, the brand new greenie being trained by Elder Reeves is stressed but doing well. Elder Easts says that Elder Brown comes from a game playing family, so they've got some common interests that they share.

On a personal note, we let him know that there were two packages coming his way. The first containing some Magic The Gathering cards that he was after for P-days, and the second containing advent calendars (and treats) for him and his companion. We asked if there was anything he wants for Christmas. He replied that he'd be interested in some nice P-Day clothes - he didn't take much in the way of non-proselyting clothing. We may end up getting him some vouchers to clothing stores given the difficulty in getting the correct size remotely. We'll see.

And on a side note, it was no real surprise to see that Elder East and Elder Reeves appeared to be hanging out together on P-Day. They seem to have formed a good friendship.

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.