Video Chat - 11th April 2022 - Overnight Trip Up to Broken Hill With President Johansson

We got a run down from Elder East on some happenings from the previous week.

On the previous Tuesday (5th Apr) they had a Missionary Leadership Council on the importance of the Book of Mormon. Elders East & Ma’a also had the opportunity to have dinner with the Adelaide Temple President and his family.

Wednesday was a day of meetings - Technology Council followed by District Council. They then had trade-offs with the Zone Leaders. They went out tracting, as well as providing some service in Fulham Gardens.

They completed their trade-offs on Friday morning after which they headed off with President Johansson to go and get their flu shots at 10am. Whilst waiting, President told them that he had to drive up to Broken Hill in a couple of hours and wanted the APs to accompany him on the drive. So that was their Thursday afternoon, accompanying President Johansson on a drive up to Broken Hill to do some paperwork that had to be done in person. The mission had re-opened the Broken Hill area for missionaries only three weeks earlier, so they ended up staying with the Elders overnight before driving back on Friday morning. Once back in Adelaide they were able to catch up and have a meal with a family who were visiting from Alice Springs. Elder Ma’a knew them well from his time serving in Alice Springs.

They were able to teach a number of lessons on Saturday including a video lesson with a lady that Elder East had previously taught when in Onkaparinga Ward. Saturday evening was taken up with making calls advising missionaries who would be affected by the following mid-cycle transfer.

On Wednesday Elder East had received an email about starting his preparation course for returning home. He admitted that this made him a little but trunkee. He is feeling a bit burnt-out. It is likely that he will remain AP until the end of his mission. If that is the case, he’s likely to be in a three-way companionship during the last 3 weeks of his mission as he helps train up his replacement.

Other notes from our chat:

• The mission is dealing with several missionaries who have Covid or are in isolation including the Port Pirie Elders. Probably the most unfortunate is the Elder who was due to leave for his original assignment in Italy. He undertook his mandatory PCR test two days before leaving even though he had no symptoms … and subsequently returned a positive result.
• They have an Elder Chick coming into the mission. He is the son of a missionary who was in the same MTC and mission as Elder East’s mum. We’ve actually caught up with them several times in the intervening years and sent a few photos of the younger Elder Chick through to Elder East.
• Elder East says that his new suit is doing well. It’s a bit darker than he expected it to be. It’s also “stretchy”, which he likes.
• We also spoke a bit about Easter. Elder East wasn’t too keen on having too much chocolate, so we arranged for a Coles delivery to the office. It included lots of small Easter chocolates that he could share with other people as well as a selection of fruit.
• He called Grandma & Grandad Yates later in the day which they were absolutely thrilled with.

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 - 8th February 2022 - Elder Reeves Goes Home

 We missed out on a call from Elder East on the Monday (7th Feb) but he received permission from President Johansson to give us a quick call the following evening.  The reason why he'd been unable to call us was that it was Transfers week. That meant that some missionaries were finishing up their missions and going home. This included Elder Reeves, who Elder East developed a friendship with before Elder East's mission. 

Elder Reeves had already started his mission in the Provo MTC before Covid hit but was brought back to Australia and reassigned to Adelaide.  They both ended up going into the AAM at the same time and quarantining together.

They had a final P Day activity on the Monday (7th Feb) before the "Leaver's Dinner" and testimony meeting in the evening. The APs were able to join in for the evening so Elder East got to spend some time farewelling Elder Reeves before he was taken to the Airport on Tuesday morning (8th Feb.) Elder East reckons that as much as Elder Reeves had enjoyed his service as a missionary, he was ready to go home.

Elder East mentioned that he'd spoken with President Johansson about whether he was going to extend his mission or not. He'd originally been leaning towards extending but advised that he's now thinking that he'll finish at his allotted time in June.

Looking back at what had happened over the previous week, Elder East said that planning for transfers had taken up a lot of their time. 

The previous P-Day Monday (31st Jan) they had flown back down from being in Alice Springs. One of the missionaries in Mildura ended up dislocating his shoulder. He ended up in hospital until midnight. Due to Covid regulations, his companion wasn't allowed into the hospital. 

Elders East and Evans drove out to Mildura on Tuesday. The Elder with the dislocated shoulder ended up getting a throat infection overnight, was unable to talk, and ended up back in hospital on Tuesday. His companion was put into isolation back in their flat, whilst the APs stayed in a hotel overnight.  

Having confirmed that the welfare of the Mildura Elders was going to be OK the APs drove back to Adelaide on Wednesday before having a Tech Council meeting later in the day.

All of Thursday was spent in meetings with President Johansson. 

On Friday there was a Missionary Leadership Council as well as a Missionary Coordination Council for the Stake which they went along to. The AAM Facebook page put up some photos from the MLC.

On Saturday he met up with the Stephensons who took Elders East and Evans out to lunch. The Stephensons are an American family we know who comes to Australia most summers to play cricket. Most of that time had been in Canberra but were in Adelaide this year. Nic is the youngest of the family and is getting ready to prepare for his mission in the next year or two, so Elder East was happy to oblige with mission preparation tips for him.

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• They have 8 new missionaries coming into the AAM tomorrow (Wed 9th Feb.)
• A Returned Missionary from the AAM just got engaged. He is the fifth returned missionary from the AAM that Elder East knows who has gotten engaged. Three RMs are already married and one even has a child on the way.

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 - 21st July 2021 - Pavlovas, Videos and Snakes

It was only a quick chat this week, but we did at least get sent some more photos from Elder East.

The first photo is of Karen Boree. She was somebody I knew on my mission from Canberra - she was the daughter of the Ward Mission leader when I served in Woden Branch back in the early Nineties. She'd long ago married and moved away but had met Elissa and I when she was back visiting Canberra one time.  Elder East had also gotten to know one of her sons during the 2017 FSY that they'd both attended. Karen is in the Darwin Branch. They'd caught up whilst they were all helping at the Single Adult Convention that was being held in Darwin the previous weekend. Elder East commented that the SA Convention seemed to involve a lot of family history classes.

The next photo collage includes a family that they are teaching about the Gospel. Elder East says that the familyy also spontaneously feeds them. Apparently, most of their meal appointments with others tend to be spontaneous. The middle photo is a screenshot of a video they filmed to contribute to the Mission Facebook page.

I managed to download the video from Facebook ... it should hopefully be below.

The following picture is of the Ashtons,. Elder East said that the senior missionary couple that usually looks after the Darwin missionaries were down in Adelaide for the week, so the Ashtons looked after them for a bit.

The following picture is after their Branch Mission Correlation meeting with the Branch mission leader. The group includes the new Sister Missionary who is currently in Darwin for two weeks whilst Adelaide is under covid restrictions.

The following picture "... is just smoke, we get a lot of fires up here all around the place. This time we just figured we'd drive by it."

The new Sister Missionary is "Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and allergic to Apples, bananas, coconuts and cashews." Elder East decided to try and make a pavlova for her for the district P Day as they were going to have a district picnic. Elder East got some guidance from his Mum on how to cook the pavlova the night before. 

His comment at the end "It did sink a little in one spot and it cracked a bit but I'm impressed with it." Apparently, it tasted good and was popular.

He said that they had a good P Day with the picnic at the botanical gardens, followed by a trip to a museum. There was a fake snake in one of the trees in the park they were at, so they originally thought the following Black-Headed Python was fake too, until it started slithering towards them. He shared with us the following video.

President Johansson and the APs were meant to fly up on Friday (24th Jul) for District Conference, Zone Conference, and interviews but that was canceled due to Covid related border closures. Elder East commented that the missionaries have been volunteered to participate in the choir for District Conference.

Elder East said that they had their first Missionary Leadership Council with President Johansson (remotely of course.) He said that it was good, but Elder East was worried that President Johansson has gotten rid of the "white binder" - the local rules that President Marquis had put in place, but also introduced some new rules as well. (eg missionaries can't cut each other's hair.) As a Zone Leader, Elder East will have to help the missionaries transition to the new guidelines. 

Elder east commented that they're not doing much finding as a companionship at the moment as they're doing a lot of teaching instead.

MLC Photos - 10th June 2021

The AAM blog updated with photos from the Missionary Leadership Council that was held on Thursday 10th June. With the Darwin leaders joining in via Zoom, playing "Where's Elder East?" in the blog photos isn't exactly difficult. 

MLC Photos - 2nd April 2021

 The AAM put up a blog entry about their Missionary Leadership Council that was held via Zoom on the 2nd April. As usual, here's a repost of the photos from the blog post that featured Elder East.

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 - 24th February 2021 - Worn Out His First Lot of Shoes

As usual, we chatted with Elder East last P-Day about the past week. 

Last Thursday was Elder Taua's "Leaver's " dinner and session at the Temple. Elder east was expecting to spend time with the APs that evening but ended up in the Morialta area with his old companions, Elders Kennach and Nalesoni.

The major event was the Missionary Leadership Council that was held the previous Saturday. I mentioned in a separate blog that the Area Authority in attendance was Elder Paul Lekias, and his wife Rebecca whom we both know. Elder East said that the MLC was good, but that it was less of a council and more of being taught, possibly because it was the first one in over a year with an Area or General Authority in attendance. 

The main things covered in the MLC included Referrals, Finding and a doctrinal discussion about the Atonement. There were concerns raised that some of the referrals aren't being contacted. Elder East did note that some referrals are obviously fake. I shared that we got one when I was a missionary in Tamworth for "Slim Dusty". We knew it would be fake but went and checked out the address anyway - it was a car yard :) Elder East said that the Lekias' provided a referral that ended up being in their area. Elder East checked but said that the woman who answered said that she wasn't interested.

On Sunday Elder East spoke in Sacrament Meeting. He said that he used the examples of Nephi vs Laman & Lemuel after the death of Lehi. Nephi was able to keep himself on track whereas Laman & Lemuel didn't have Lehi continually calling them to repentance. He encouraged people not to rely on others to call us to repentance.

Again, there's also another blog entry about how May Sandeline-McCann, Elissa's trainer on her mission, just happened to be visiting Elder East's ward on Sunday when he was speaking and got to tell him "I was your Mum's trainer". That's the second of his parents' missionary companions that Elder East has now met.

On Monday they held District Council  - and Elder East said that he cooked chocolate chip cookies for everyone. 

Speaking of their investigators he spoke of the lady they're teaching. They had another lesson with her. Elder East says she has a medical condition that makes it hard for her to read but she read a whole chapter in the scriptures with them. The two other main investigators they have - Daniel and his cousin - hadn't replied back to their contacts over the last week, so they're concerned as to how they're doing. It had been a week and a half since they've seen them.

They had a referral from the Sister missionaries that they visited. The person was interested, but Elder East described them as crazy. Happy crazy, not depressed crazy though :) Elder East mentioned that the highlight of the week was some finding they did in Seaford, but he didn't explain why it was a highlight. They had three lessons scheduled for Wednesday evening - two with members and one with an investigator.

 A couple of other dot points from our discussion:

• They have started doing some exercise at night time - going for a walk down to the beach and back Obviously they're living within walking distance of the coast.
• They have gone over their kilometre allowance for their car, so they plan on riding bikes for the rest of the month. Elder East has only ridden a bike fro 2 days during the first 8 months of his mission.
• Edler East bought himself some new Church shoes and runners earlier on P-day. He said that he'd worn through his existing shoes.
• A number of missionaries in the mission are counting down their remaining time in the mission field as a lot of them now have elss than 100 days left.