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 - 28th April 2021 - ANZAC Day and Birthday Surprises

Elder East started off our weekly video chat by letting us know that he had another companion – Elder Cooke. He was now in a three-way companionship. Their companionship got the call at 6:40am on Tuesday morning to be at the chapel by 9:30am for their scheduled interviews with President Marquis … and to pick up their new companion. Elder East thinks that their three-way companionship will only last for a couple of weeks as there are a bunch of new missionaries scheduled to arrive on May 12th.

Elder Cooke is from Brisbane (like most in the AAM) who came out into the mission in January. Elder East describes Elder Cooke as being a “White Poly” who is into games. In fact, Elder East reckons that he himself is the least "nerdy" member of their three-way companionship - funny noting that he is a self-confessed geek/nerd. 

A summary of the week:

On Thursday of last week they received an invite to Saturday dinner from the Mahina family in the ward.  When they got to the dinner on Saturday evening, Elder East was greeted with a surprise birthday combination of Star Wars and Lego 

On Saturday night, after the dinner, Elder East prepped all the ingredients for “Dad’s chilli recipe” ready for his birthday dinner on Sunday.

Sunday was also ANZAC Day, so they were up at 4:00am, left the flat at 4:40am and went to the Onkaparinga Memorial Gardens for the local ANZAC Day Dawn Service. I had organised tickets for them earlier in the week and emailed them through to Elder East after confirmation that they were allowed to attend.  They said that the service didn’t actually start til 5:50am, so they got there too early. Elder East says the service was good. He reckons that there were probably over 500 in attendance, and they did see some other members there at the service. 

Elder East cooked up the chilli in the morning after returning from the Dawn Service.

At church that day the Sacrament Meeting had a missionary theme, so Elder East was one of the speakers. His topic was “Feed My Sheep”. He said that he talked about how they were all there at Church because we have some level of love for the Saviour. Also, that one of the ways we can show love for others I to be friendly, smile and similar in our actions. 

Elder East mentioned that they took on teaching lady that the Sister Missionaries had started teaching.  She came along to Church on Sunday along with her husband and son. 

Whilst at Church the Ellis family called the Elders into the kitchen. There they had a birthday cake and treats for Elder East - it also happened to be the birthday of their twin children. 

Elder East said that they got to teach a lesson in the afternoon, and then for dinner got to have the chilli that Elder East had cooked earlier.  He says that it was OK, but it tasted like a “normal” chilli, and not like Dad’s chilli.

Elder East says that he got spoilt with presents for his birthday. He had previously received a package from us and from the Reeves before his birthday. He said that the mission couple happened to come by on the day as well, and he received a package from Grandma, as well as his mobile phone case that I’d ordered for him

Amongst the photos Elder East sent us, he included these photos, but I'm not sure of the stories behind them. Noting who is in each picture, I'm presuming that the photo with all three elders in it would've been taken on Tuesday 27th April, with the other being taken earlier in the week.

A couple of final dot points from the week:

• They visited a member's home on Monday night and she decided that she was doing a  personality test on the Elders. She reckoned that Elder East was "officious, logical and would make a good Stake President." He's not sure what he thinks of that assessment.
• Elder East has lost 3kgs in weight - down from 96kgs to 93kgs. They're trying hard to be healthy.

Video Chat - 21st April 2021 - Post Transfer Update

We got to have a longer chat with Elder East this week, which was good. The big news of course was transfers, with Elder East staying in the area but Elder Beaumont-Tafua being transferred out and Elder Brown being transferred in. 

Elder Brown was actually born in Canberra, but was raised in Brisbane – his family was only in Canberra for a short time. He is the second oldest of six kids. Prior to his mission he was doing professional cleaning. He was called to the AAM and has been out for around 6 months now. He’s a fan of games and brought several small ones out on his mission. Elders East & Brown are joint Zone Leaders over the Zone, although Elder East lamented that with the changes, there are now only 9 missionaries in the zone at the moment.

Elder East was disappointed at some of the other changes at transfers. They lost the Sister missionaries from Christies Beach. Sister Matenga was due to go home, whilst two other Sisters also went home, one unexpectedly. (Sister Hatch injured her knee and only had several months to go on her mission, so was released to recover.) That leaves only two companions of Sister Missionaries in Adelaide. Elder East says that he likes being around Sisters so it’s not as much of a “boys club” as being around Elders all of the time. The Christies Beach Sisters were working well and being productive. Elders East & Brown will now pick up the work being done by the Sisters as well as remotely covering Mount Gambier.

Elder East commented that President Ellis (Marion Stake President)  is trying to get missionaries to Kangaroo Island. There is a couple there who are interested in being baptised, but need to be taught and married first. Elder East says that they may be taking on Kangaroo Island remotely.

There will be a “mid-transfer” mini-transfer on May 12th, as there will be 5 new missionaries coming in then, out of sync to the normal transfer cycle. This means that there could still be a lot more changes in only a couple of weeks. Elder East is actually kind of disappointed that he didn’t get to Darwin as he thinks it will close soon, so he’s unlikely to serve there. He’s ended up enjoying seeing all of the different areas in Adelaide, but would like to see more outside of Adelaide itself.

Some dot point notes from the rest of our discussion:

• Elder East has broken out his big winter jacket to wear – he reckons it’s been cold over the last couple of weeks. He commented that it doesn’t tend to rain heavily in Adelaide though.
• Missionaries in the AAM will soon be allowed to go to the Adelaide temple.
• Elder East has now been companion with 3 of the 5 other Zone Leaders and Elder Kennach, who is the new AP.
• They were having a District P-Day today and were going to be playing some games together.
• With Elder East’s birthday coming up, he was buying up ingredients to try and make the family’s chili recipe.
• We ordered and sent through tickets for he and his companion to attend the local ANZAC Day Dawn Service

Video Chat - 31st March 2021 - Dreams of Being an Urban Hipster

It was only a quick chat again this P-Day, but Elder East did send through a bunch of photos later in the day. 

They had Zone Conference on the previous Thursday which Elder East said was really good. The fact that he didn't have to run part of it was probably one of the positives. :) He said that there was training from President Marquis and the APs on lots of little things, such as motivation, baptism, driving, and so on. 

He specifically mentioned the driving instruction as several historical incidents were raised in the training, including the missionary car crash in New Caledonia back in 2019 that resulted in a death. We already knew about this accident as we knew the driver - Jacob Hable. The Hable family had lived in Canberra for several years and we keep in touch via social media. Elder Hable was serving in the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission near the end of the mission when the car crash occurred during heavy rain. I've included a couple of photos below that the Hable family shared from the accident.

Elder East also spoke to us about being "Dear Johnned" several weeks ago. Although they were only ever writing as "friends", it was fairly obvious that both Elder East and his friend had emotions for each other, so her advice that she was now dating somebody was hard emotionally for Elder East. Still, he recognises that his focus at the moment is on serving the Lord and being a missionary. 

Below are the photos that he sent us for this week, along with commentary where provided. The first photo from Wed 24th March is "with Nick, Rob, Sophie, and Cruise (the dog) We're teaching the kids. Their family is really big into 8ball and they also have a pet snake."

The second photo is from "Zone Conference [ Thurs 25th March] with Sister Hall and Sister Fakai our old Christies beach sisters".

The third photo [Fri 26th March]  is "at sports night (held every Friday) ft Elder Levi (he is leaving this transfer to his original assignment of Perth) and some members." 

The following picture [Sat 27th March] is with Sis Macdonald, a member. Elder East says that he particularly liked how he looks in this photo.

Next is a photo [Sun 28th March] with some of the Ellis family kids and Wyatt who was recently baptised.

A photo from District Council that was held on Monday 29th March. 

Elder East was happy to get a hold of a cat. [Mon 29th March]

Edler East said that they had a District P-Day activity down at Hallett Cove earlier in the day, and that he went full "Dad mode" at lunchtime - cooking bacon, sausages, eggs and more. He's decided he wants a barbecue at his missionary flat. He reckons that he can then become an urban hipster. [Wed 31st March].

Sunset photo taken on Wed 31st March.

Elder East commented that he's making a lot of friends with missionaries who are from Brisbane, so he's thinking of Brisbane as a possible place to move to for university after his mission, as he now has a number of friends from there. He currently thinks that after returning in June next year that he'll spend the second half of 2022 working before starting university at the start of 2023. 

Maybe he can find a course and becoming a Certified Professional Urban Hipster Tongmaster ...

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 - 10th March 2021 - New Companion is Elder Beaumont-Tafua

Elissa had a short chat with Elder East on Wednesday morning in regards to the death of a member of his Year 12 graduating class several days earlier. She was concerned as to how much of an impact the news may have had on Elder East. Elder East advised that he didn't really know the young man though. Still, it was sad news with the young man being in a car accident on the Monaro Highway. He was the third member of Elder East's graduating class to have passed away since graduation.

Later in the day, we got to have a short video chat whilst Elissa and I were both still at work. The big news of course was Transfers that had just happened on the Monday. Elder Taua had now returned home and Elder East has stayed in Onkaparinga Ward. His new companion is Elder Tafua (or to be correct according to the mission blog, Elder Beaumont-Tafua.) 

Elder Tafua is from Brisbane. Elder East describes him as a tall, skinny basketballer who is a jack-of-all-trades. Elder East and Elder Tafua were in the online MTC at the same time, although Elder Tafua was heading out a week later than Elder East. They were in different districts, so Elder Tafua isn't in any of the MTC screenshots that Elder East took. Elder Tafua was originally called to serve in Samoa. 

Some dot point notes from our discussion:

• Elder Taua was a bit emotional as he got ready to leave.
• Elders East & Taua were in a three-way companionship on Sunday and Monday as Elder Brown's companion was flying to Darwin for transfers and had to leave on the Sunday.
• Elder East is still a Zone Leader but is sharing the ZL duties with Elder Brown.
• Elder East discovered that Elder Stiles, the newly arrived from Canberra knows Alex Garland.
• Their teaching pool is quite large at the moment. 
• Elder East says that the Friday night sports nights have been "awesome". He didn't explain in what way they were awesome though.
• Joseph Stubbs, one of the YSAs from Canberra was in Onkaparinga Ward on Sunday. Apparently, he was there for a date. :) He gave Elder East $10 to get himself a feed at some point in the week.
• They have a trade-off scheduled on Friday (12th Mar)

Elissa showed Elder East pictures of the cowhide seat covers and other accessories that Jewel received for her birthday. These now adorn the family car that Elder East was driving before his mission.

Elder East was "horrified" at what has been done to Dannielle Devito (his name for the car.).

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.