Video Chat - 24th March 2021 - Gonna Have To Remove That Toe

On the Wednesday P-Day video chat, we got a bit of a rundown of the week. The highlight for Elder East was the Sunday night when they had dinner with the Stake President and his family as well as a couple of YSAs, and the boyfriend of one of the YSAs.After having a meal together the Elders taught a lesson to everyone which they enjoyed doing.

Elder East sent us through the following photo collage. There are several photos of them with those at the Stake Presidents that evening, as well as one of their investigators and a new member who was baptised the previous week.

We asked Elder East to give us some additional information about his companion, Elder Beaumont-Tafua. He says that he is half-Samoan, half Kiwi/French Canadian. His Dad left the family when he was very young and he was living with his Grandparents before his mission. Elder East has taught him how to play Magic the Gathering. Elder Beaumont-Tafua was in the online MTC at the same time as Elder East, so they knew each other from there, however, he was meant to be heading to Samoa.

Other dot points from the discussion:

• On Monday they were out visiting previous investigators and came back to their car at one point to discover that it had been damaged. It looks like somebody with a towball had backed into their car. They then had to go to the chapel on Tuesday to go and deal online with all of the administrative work in reporting the damage.
• They're still not allowed to street contact, but Elder East doesn't mind as it's generally not very effective. Elder East isn't overly enthused about visiting members to try and enthuse them to do missionary work either. Might explain why they don't get a lot fo member feeds.
• Elder East related a story from when he was serving in Morialta about a lady threatening to call the police on them when they were out visiting investigators because she wanted them to leave her street.
• They'd gone out shopping earlier on P-Day. Elder East had gotten himself some new pants and a book cover. 
• Zone Conference was coming up the next day (Thursday 25th March) but he says that he doesn't have any assignments to do anything ... yet.
• Elder East has an ingrown toenail problem - in a different place than the one he had before his mission.

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.

Video Chat - 23rd December 2020 - Unexpected Chat & Murray River Cruise

President Marquis had arranged for a P-Day activity for the Adelaide missionaries this week, so we hadn't planned on chatting this Wednesday. Fortunately, Elder East was able to have two chats with us once in a library on the way home, and once in the evening. 

The P-Day activity itself involved meeting at one of the chapels and then driving out in convoy to Murray Bridge where they then took a cruise along the Murray River on a paddleboat. I'm presuming that we'll see some photos up on the mission blog at some point.

 

Elder East said it was a good chance to socialise with the other missionaries. As expected, he said he spent a lot of time talking with Elder Reeves. 

We learned a bit about his new area during our chats. Their mission flat is in a block of six units. It's a two-bedroom unit - they all have beds, which isn't always the case in a three-way companionship.

Morialta Ward is a big ward but Elder East says that there's not a strong level of trust from the members. He says that it's because it's the ward that the mission home is in and so, over time, a number of missionaries "with issues" that needed to be close to the mission office have been assigned to the ward. Subsequently, they don't get many meals with members. 

He said that they did have a meal with the Howes family and that the dad had been the Mission President of the Sydney North Mission when it was recreated in 2013.  

They also met up with the McCappin family at one point - Brother McCappin (David) and I served together as missionaries in Tamworth. He mentioned to Elder East about cutting my hair one time. I explained to Elder East that I'd gotten a haircut from a member and that they'd put a "Step" in my haircut. The Mission President had said that it wasn't in line with the missionary grooming guidelines and has asked me to lose it. We decided that the easiest way to do so was just to get a crewcut all over. I sent through the following picture of Elder McCappin and myself to Elder East. His comment was that I was "White white". I commented that it was more that "some of me had a tan."

They were asked to go visit some of the recent converts last week which they did. In doing so they actually came across a barbecue at one of their homes that also had the Bishop and EQP's families present. 

There aren't a lot of previous investigators for the companionship to contact in their area book. There were some females who were being taught but they are being looked after by the Sister Missionaries in the neighboring City Branch. Elder East says that he's already tried calling everybody in their area book twice since transfers.

The next couple of days have several mission activities planned. On Thursday (Christmas Eve) they will be having a Zone Conference for the Adelaide Zones followed by a dinner, and then on Friday, Christmas Day, they will be doing a service project with the Salvation Army for most of the day. We'll get to chat with Elder East again in the late afternoon/evening of Christmas Day.

Some other quick dot point notes:

• Elder East is a bit frustrated at being transferred again.  He's been in the mission for 4 transfers and has been in 4 different wards so far. We encouraged him to gain a testimony that this is where the Lord would have him be at this time. 
• He's also a bit frustrated that there have been changes in mission rules that are limiting the number of times that missionaries can gettogether outside of their companionships. (No trade-offs this transfer, and only one district P-Day activity allowed.) Again, we encouraged him to understand that there would be reasons as to why the Mission President has these rules currently in place, and he doesn't know what issues other missionaries might be struggling with that prompted these decisions. Sicne when did Elder East become social?
• He did say that despite being frustrated, the fact it's Christmas time and being able to chat with Elder Reeves a bit has helped him out.
• Elder East has splurged on buying Christmas food and is intending to do a baked ham and roast veges on Christmas Day. He said that he "didn't want wraps for Christmas dinner."
• As planned, he had purchased a new suit as a Christmas present from us to him which we'll reimburse him for. 
• He quickly skimmed through some of his photos to show us photos with some of the ward members.

• Another series of photos featured a koala that they happened to pass by somewhere.

• He showed us around the lounge room of his flat where they have a makeshift Christmas tree with lights setup. Underneath it were presents that he'd received from the Reeves and Lisa Koskinen.

Video Chat - 16th December 2020 - Transferred to Morialta Ward

We didn’t get a long video chat this week. The reason is because Elder East has been transferred again. He’s been transferred to Morialta Ward. He is in a three-way companionship with Elder Nalesoni and Elder Aiho. Elder Nalesoni was Elder East’s companion during quarantine, whilst Elder Aiho is the Elder from Tahiti who is his Twelfth Cousin. 

Elder East sent us a photo of Elder Nalesoni when he was telling us who his new companions were. No photo of Elder Aiho though - he was in the bathroom at the time.

Apparently, their new accommodation is close to a Hungry Jacks and an Oporto's but they're trying to limit eating takeaway to only once per fortnight. A quick check of the Adelaide map shows that having those two places together in the ward boundaries means that they must live somewhere near the suburb of Firle.

Morialta is meant to be a strong ward - averaging an attendance of 220 pre-covid, and still over 160 since returning from the pandemic break. The ward takes in part of Adelaide's eastern suburbs and hills, and then stretches about 150kms out into the countryside, past the town of Swan Reach.

Elder East is obviously disappointed to be leaving Marion Ward and no longer being the District Leader for Marion. He joked that he’s there as a “fixer” to help them with the work. Elder East is the only one in the companionship with a phone at the moment, so that will make things even harder. They do however have a car, and probably much to Elder East's joy, Elder Nalesoni is the designated driver.

They had a busy P-day ahead with Elder Aiho having to get an X-ray after having fallen off of his bike. New guidance from the Mission President is that districts are only allowed to have one "District P-day" per transfer, so that will be a change to the way a lot of P-days have been happening for them so far.

Elder East let us know that he received two packages during the week. The first was from the Reeves.

The second was from Grandma and Grandad. Elder East said that he loved it but it’s honestly way too much. I’m sure the fact he’s in a three-way means that they’ll try and help him eat any goodies.

The chat was a bit different in that Elissa was busy at work during the call, and Jayde had been able to join us too, so it was mainly Jayde, Jewel, Elder East, and myself talking. There was a lot of chat talking about how the pandemic was affecting missionary work, and about how the missionaries weren't allowed in the CBD in the AAM.