Video Chat - 10th March 2022 - Elder Ma'a Is The New AP and Elder Nattress' GA Tour

 P-Day this week had been moved from Monday 7th March to Thursday 10th March due to the mission tour. Despite the extended time period, it was a relatively short chat about what had happened mission wise over the previous 10 days. 

Transfers resulted in Elder Evans being transferred up to Darwin as Zone Leader for the Newly created Alma Zone in the Northern Territory. Elder East's new companion is Elder Ma'a who was part of the group that arrived and quarantined together with Elder East back in 2020. Elder Ma'a is from Sydney. Elder East says that Elder Ma'a has had a steep learning curve with all of the AP work over the last week.

First up, the transfers on Tuesday 1st March were impacted by the Alice Springs missionaries missing their flight down to Adelaide. The next flight down they could go on was Friday 4th March. This had a flow-on effect throughout many of the other missionary companionships that were changing during transfers and caused a lot of extra work. Elder East said that the last of the "ripples" were resolved the day that we were chatting - Thursday 10th March. 

Friday 4h March featured a whole mission Leadership Council with President Johansson, with another Misisoanry Leadership Council run by Elder Brett Nattress, the General Authority from the First Quorum of the Seventy (and 1st Counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency) who was doing a mission tour. Elder East said that they spent a lot of Sunday night doing reports for Elder Nattress. The APs were also involved in leading sessions at both MLCs, covering the topics of accountability and goal setting.

Elder K. Brett Nattress

On Tuesday 8th March there was a Zone Conference and mini-MLC held. There was meant to be another MLC on Wednesday but Elder Nattress' flights were changed by the airline at the last minute.

On Wednesday 9th March Elders East and Ma'a had a lesson with a person who was referred from the Sisters in the City Branch. It turned out that it had been arranged for Elder Paul Lekias, an Area Authority that knows us and Elder East, to came along as a friendshipper to the lesson. Elder East said that it was great having Elder Lekias there and that there were times they let him lead the discussion. He was very positive and very bold.

Elder East shared with us a mission video that he was a part of that would be posted on social media later in the day. Besides introducing the video, he also speaks some lines of Samoan in the video as well. We know he'd been trying to learn some Samoan earlier in his mission, Apparently Sister Johansson helped him get his pronunciation correct and the Samoans we know reckon he did a pretty good job.

https://fb.watch/bOJZEnVRkv/

Video Chat - 10th January 2022 - Out of Isolation & More Christmas Conference Photos

Our chat with Elder East this week was whilst we were on holiday in Hobart, Tasmania. It was actually hard to get a time togetehr to talk as we were out of range on Bruny Island a lot of the day, and Elder East was busy. I don't have any notes from our chat in the evening, but there are a few things I remember. 

• We chatted about his older sister Jayde, who had caught Covid during the week.
• Elder East tested negative for covid and was now out of isolation.
• We'd asked him to say hello to Sister Jury in the AAM as she's friends with a family we know in Tasmania. Unfortunately, Sister Jury was currently isolating as covid positive.

The family Facebook group did put up a lot of photos earlier in the week from the Christmas Conference that included Elder East in them.

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 - 15th November 2021 - Called as an Assistant to the President

In a huge surprise, Elder East let us know last P Day that he was being transferred yet again. Elder Rea was Elder East's third trainee and he has yet to finish training one of them. The transfer news was rather exciting and intimidating though. He was told on the Saturday night (13th Nov) to pack his bags because he was being transferred but he thought it was just the APs playing a joke on him. It turns out that they weren't. Elder East was called to be a new Assistant to the President to be companions with Elder Read.

Elder East is sad to be leaving Port Pirie, he'd expected to be spending Christmas there. He didn't get to say goodbye as they had arranged to be attending church in Whyalla on Sunday (14th Nov) and visiting investigators and members in Whyalla and Port Augusta during the day. 

Elder Brown will finish training Elder Rea - the second time Elder Brown has finished the training of a missionary who started with Elder East. Elder East says that Elder Rea is strong - he'll be a good missionary. 

The traditional rundown of Elder East's week.

Tuesday was spent doorknocking in the rain. 

On Wednesday they had a big companionship study session preparing for several planned lessons later in the day. Unfortunately, both of the lessons ended up canceling, but they thought the preparation they had done was really good. Elder East said that they then went and visited a nearby small town to ascertain if they were going to undertake some missionary work there. Then it was time to drive down to Adelaide where they stayed with other Elders overnight.

Thursday was a special devotional for the AAM missionaries. Elder Lekias, the Area Authority was there in person, but they were also joined via video by Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita, the second counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, Elder Carl B Cook from the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Ulisses Soares from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder East said that the devotional was good. All four of the area and general authorities spoke to them about their missionary service. He was called up by Elder Lekias at one point to share the purpose of being a missionary. Elder East thought it might be because Elder Lekias knows our family, however, we found out later that he'd actually asked for a recommendation from President Johansson on who to ask up, and President had recommended Elder East.

On Thursday evening Elders East and Rea spent the night down in Adelaide, spending the evening phoning people around Whyalla and Port Augusta to visit on Sunday. 

They drove back to Port Pirie on Friday morning and then spent the afternoon doorknocking and doing lessons.

Elder East said they had a lot of lessons on Saturday. 

Sunday they headed out to Whyalla for Church. They have their own chapel and had 23 in attendance even though they were missing a couple of families, so Whyalla Branch is actually bigger than Port Pirie. Elder East commented that the main entrance into Whyalla is through the industrial part of town. He said that it looked like the setting for a Young Adult dystopian novel. Having said that, once you were in town there was a nice view out into the bay. Being a holiday area the town also has a lot of touristy things to do. 

At the Whyalla Sacrament meeting they had the opportunity to bless the sacrament for the branch. Their investigator wasn't able to come to Chruch that day, but they were able to meet up with another former investigator and a less active member family in Whyalla and have lessons with both. They also caught up with a family in Port Augusta and had a lesson with them too. Elder East said that all of the lessons they had that day were really nice and that he enjoyed them. They arranged to eb able to keep in touch and continue teaching with all of the people they visited. They learned on the way back to Port Pirie that the APs weren't joking about Elder East being transferred, and Sunday night was spent starting to pack.

When we spoke to him on P Day he said that he'd only been down in Adelaide for about 2 hours, having left Port Pirie around lunchtime. He said that some of the other missionaries were acting a bit differently around him now that he was about to become an AP. He commented that the APs flat was big. They quite often have to accommodate missionaries in transit both in and out of the mission, along with transfers and conferences. 

Typically APs serve for about three transfers, so he's hoping for a bit of stability in his new role. He doesn't know many of those in his new district, only having served around one of the 8 missionaries. He thinks that his role will now be more orientated towards ministering to missionaries rather than directly proselyting. The APs physically attend Firle Ward, but are remotely responsible for Mildura Ward. As an AP he is likely to travel a lot on tradeoffs and to accompany President Johansson as he travels in his official capacity. 

 He mentioned that one of the people he had been teaching in Onkaparinga Ward is now in Firle Ward so he might be able to catch up with them.

Virtual Mission Tour by Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita - Photos

The Adelaide Mission blog has updated with a post about the Virtual Mission Tour by Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita between the 6th and 9th October 2020. 

There aren't any close-up photos of Elder East in the post, but there are a number of large photos with him in, so have fun playing "Spot the Elder East".

Tues 6th Oct 2020 - 1st Mission Conference (Firle Chapel)

This was called "The Happy Companionship" role play.

Thurs 8th Oct 2020 - Mission Social Media Training: Brother Shawn Cates in Salt Lake City (via Zoom)

Thurs 8th Oct 2020 - 3rd Mission Conference (via Zoom)

Learning some origami from Sister Yamashita as an object lesson.

Fri 9th Oct 2020 - 4th Mission Conference (Firle Chapel)

Several photos of the missionaries doing role plays.

Elder Yamashita invited the missionaries to stand during the closing hymn (Called to Serve) and show their enthusiasm by fist-pumping. As you might be able to tell from Elder East's expression, fist-pumping isn't really an East family thing. :)

Video Chat - 14th October 2020 - All Mission Conference

It was back to the regular Wednesday P-Day this week and we caught up with Elder East for a video chat on Wednesday afternoon. The major event of course was the Mission Conference held last week that had Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita, the second counselor in the Area Presidency, joining in by Zoom from New Zealand. There were apparently 24 different sessions across the week for various groups, but only four that Elder East was involved in. 

On the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, all of the Adelaide missionaries came to Firle chapel for training and instruction. On the Thursday all of the missionaries joined in via Zoom from their respective accommodation. Some of the themes covered during the sessions included helping to strengthen wards, and changes to how missionaries do finding (ie finding people who are interested/willing to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.) Apparently getting out of bed on time was also stressed :)

At which point, a segway to the fact that we were sent the following picture from Elder Reeves' mum. Obviously, it was a tiring day when this was taken.

Elder Reeves' companion is friends with Elder Kennach, so we can suspect as to how the photo ended up with Elder Reeves' mum. 

Elder East advised that their district has merged with another district, so they now have 10 missionaries in the district, and Elder Kennach is no longer the District Leader. They are scheduled to go on trade-offs with the new District Leader Elder Le Moyne and his companion this coming Thursday. Trade-offs seem to be a regular, formal occurrence in the mission and are set to last for 24 hours (Noon to Noon). 

As much as the district has increased in size, they are mindful of how quickly the Samoan missionaries were repatriated and recognise that the Tongans could also go at any moment. This will keep the mission's number of missionaries quite low with the pandemic limiting the ability of missionaries to come out into the mission field. In addition, Elder East commented that they're going to lose a lot of missionaries at the next transfer as a number of missionaries complete their missions. He knows that one of the APs, their Zone Leader, and a bunch of the sisters are all due to go home. He thinks the mission numbers will be low for a while.

One of the new missionaries in Elder East's zone is Sister Hall. She was the MTC companion of Georgia Abel, from Elder East's home ward. Sister Abel had told Sister Hall to keep an eye out for Elder East when she got to Adelaide and to say hi. 

They are usually teaching a lesson each day, but they still have days where they don't get to teach at all. They have most of their appointments on Saturdays and Sundays. They'll usually have 3 or 4 scheduled each day of the weekend, but several usually cancel and they'll end up only teaching two.

Some updates on those with whom they are sharing the Gospel with:

• Tarvi - they had a good meeting with him last week where Elder East had felt that they'd connected, but he's decided he needs to do more study of the Book of Mormon. He's asked for a couple of months time to study before starting lessons again.
• Fonzie - the older gentleman they'd done service before a while ago keeps canceling their appointments.
• Edward - an investigator who has just gotten himself a job at one of the Universities. This will enable him to get a car and get himself to Church. He was previously scheduled to be baptised before the pandemic. They are meeting with him each Sunday, and apparently, he has friends in the Ward.
• Kylie - there was some confusion between the Elders and the Adelaide City Branch sisters (Thom & Ip) as to who was meant to be teaching Kylie, so they're now working together to assist her. Elder East said that it was a good opportunity to get to know the Sisters a bit better.
• After going into the city for Elder East to vote they ended catching up teaching a gentleman who lives in his car. Elder east felt that he "connected" with him, talking about why he went on his mission. They ended up giving him a Book of Mormon, but were unable to set up another appointment to teach him.
• They had rung an elderly lady and set up an appointment to go around and teach. Her son rang back the next day telling them not to come around as she has dementia and doesn't understand what is going on. I offered that it might have been a good opportunity to offer to still come around and help in any way. Even if you can't teach, there are always opportunities to provide service and help others.
• They taught a Tamil gentleman in his room in a shared house. It sounded like the house was fairly crowded, and Elder East said there were no lights in the corridors. Sounds a bit like one of those dodgy slumlord houses. The gentleman himself was nice but his English wasn't strong, so it was difficult to get concepts across well.

Dot point list of other things we discussed during the chat:

• Last Friday, Elder East managed to get in to the South Australian Electoral Commission in the CBD to vote in the upcoming ACT election.
• Adelaide is starting to get warm - up into the low thirties. Elder East doesn't have any short-sleeved shirts, but he's just rolling up his sleeves. It'll probably be another 7-8 months before his good winter jacket gets used again.
• They have Stake Conference coming up this next weekend where a new Stake Presidency is being called. Numbers at Stake Conference are limited due to the pandemic, however, the missionaries have received a specific invite to attend.
• Elder East has been cooking a lot of sausages and crepes. Apparently, he and his companion are now "over" crepes.
• Elder East had his first sit down meal in a member family's home from the Ward he's serving in. The Ward Mission Leader had them over and they had a roast meal for the missionaries. No complaints from Elder East there. They even got sent home with the leftovers.
• They're due to have interviews with the Mission President again soon. Seth enjoyed his time with President Marquis last time.
• Elder East recently received letters to Grandma, Alex G and John Larkin.
• Elder Aihoa (Elder East's Twelth Cousin) poked his head in on the call and said hello to us.

Video Chat - 2nd September 2020 - Mission Conference with General Authorities

The AAM did things a little bit differently to the other missions for the Mission Conference. The other missions had the individual companionships connect via Zoom to the broadcast coming from Salt Lake City. The AAM held Zone Conferences on the same day and so were watching it all together (well, In Adelaide and in Darwin). Elder East said the broadcast included panel displays of companionships watching those providing talks. I'm presuming that it was something like the image below.

He said that there was a funny moment as every so often they would focus on an individual companionship. At one point they focused on a companionship where one of the missionaries was playing on his phone. His companion realised they were on screen and tried to get his companion off of his phone.

Elder East enjoyed the messages. He said that some of the things that stood out to him were:

• Sister Nielson spoke about the Jaredite barges in Ether 8 and that the wind was always blowing the barges forward. So it is with us, the Lord is always trying to move us forward.
• Elder Nielson quoted one of the other brethren that "We didn't come this far, to come this far."
• Elder Stevenson spoke about accompanying President Nelson in scouting future Temple sites.

He also enjoyed the Zone Conference beforehand. Several missionaries are called up to present talks that each missionary has preprepared. One of the missionaries that was called up to talk was told that it was because it was his last Zone Conference, which he hadn't realized. He's an Australian who will be able to make it home. Apparently, there's also a Samoan sister who is getting close to finishing her mission. Because Samoa and many of the other islands aren't allowing people back into their borders, there is a discussion about whether she can be released into the custody of family members of hers that live in Australia.

Their investigator who they committed to baptism still seems to be doing well. He was sick on Sunday and wasn't able to come to church or have his second discussion, but, not wanting to miss out on Church, did Zoom in to Sunday School. Their third discussion with him was due for Wednesday evening, but Elder East would be at the temple, so Elder De Guzman would be teaching him with another Elder.

They don't have any other investigators that are progressing very strongly. They had six lessons scheduled for the previous day, but they all fell through, although a couple were rescheduled.

There are now 11 missionaries in their district. There is a new companionship that was transferred in. One of the Elders that were in Elder East's MTC group is now in the district. He wasn't meant to be going to Adelaide but was going to Samoa, but has now ended up in the AAM. Elder East found out a bit more about Elder Lwin, the missionary from Myanmar who transferred in recently. Apparently, there are only two branches of the Church in all of Myanmar. He's a bit worried about home as Myanmar is only just experiencing its first wave of the Covid pandemic.

Whilst he was out in public, somebody complimented him on his Star Wars tie. Somebody else made the comment that the missionaries looked like they were The Blues Brothers. Elder East was disappointed to learn that none of the other missionaries knew who the Blues Brothers were.

He went on trade-offs on Friday & Saturday last week and got to go teaching with Elder Roberts. They visited somebody who had been investigating the Church for a while. Elder Roberts felt prompted to invite the person to be baptised, but they declined, saying that they were unwilling to change. The investigator decided that he wasn't going to continue on with the discussions, but ended up supplying a bunch of referrals and giving the Elders $50. They did try to explain that they can't accept money but he insisted. They're trying to work out what to do with the money - likely donate it to the Branch Welfare fund to assist those in need. Elder East said that he also got to speak with Elder Reeves during trade-offs which he enjoyed.

He's still enjoying Church at the branch even though it's small. The Gospel Doctrine teacher was actually a former Mission President over the AAM. Edler east mentioned that they were visited by a counselor in the Stake Presidency. He knew Seth's Uncle and Auntie (Jon & Glenda East) when he lived in Sydney and figured that Seth was probably related to them.

We had a lot of talk about Elder East's preparation for the Temple. He was being picked up to get to the temple by 5:30pm for a 6pm start. We went through some of the things we'd discussed in our temple preparation classes 

Some dot points on other things we discussed:

• One Elder spent all two years of his mission in the Adelaide City branch.
• They haven't been good in keeping up their running for exercise.
• They're ending up with more spare time on their hands due to limited finding opportunities, few members to be able to work with, and having gone through their area book. The only finding they're allowed to do at the moment is follow up on previous investigators from the area book that they haven't been able to contact yet, and via referrals. The lack of members in the branch is pretty much limiting the second option.
• We talked a little about recent world news. The actor who played the Black Panther in the MCU died. Brisbane has been chosen to host the AFL Grand Final.
• Jewel explained her Creative Captain proposal that she'd made at school, as well as some news on "social influencers."
• Elder East isn't writing in his journal much but is keeping a  copy of the emails that he's sending out.

We mentioned how we saw the movie Tenet, and it's still a long time away, but we could see him quite enjoying it after his mission. He admitted that with the spare time he'd been having that he'd started a list of date ideas for post-mission, and brought out a paper towel that had a list of ideas written down on it. He read through a couple and Jewel thought they sounded really good. Maybe so, but it's a long time 'til you have to worry about dating, Elder East.