Video Chat - 30th June 2021 - Lockdown and Change Over of Mission Presidents

The last week was a tale of two halves for the missionaries in the Northern Territory. Elders East and Evans had been tracting and teaching between Thursday and Saturday, and had some people who were going to come along to Church on Sunday. Unfortunately, they then got the message on Sunday morning that due to Covid concerns in the community that Church meetings were being canceled. The whole Darwin and Palmerston region received only 90 minutes notice that the government was implementing a several-day lockdown starting at 1pm on the Sunday afternoon.

Elder East said that there was then a mad rush on the shops. They were able to head over to a member's home to have sacrament before the lockdown and saw that the nearby shopping centre car parks were full with many people now parking on the surrounding roads. People were trying to get into the shops to buy stuff before the lockdown started.

Since the lockdown started, Elder East has been able to call upon his experience from earlier in his mission by conducting a lot of missionary work and lessons via phone calls and Zoom. Only three of the missionaries in the NT have experience in doing missionary work during a lockdown so he's providing training to the Zone about how to adjust their missionary work. He said that one of the things to focus on is that when using technology for lessons, the lessons need to be a lot shorter and more succinct than what you would do when teaching in person.

They've been having success calling and teaching during the lockdown period, and on Tuesday even managed to teach a lesson to a lady down in Alice Springs. She was in Palmerston pre-lockdown and was visiting friends who were tracted out by the Elders. She was receptive and they were able to exchange contact details and then subsequently arrange to teach her remotely.

Elder East says that he'd like to get out to see more of the remote areas in the Northern Territory. He commented that there is meant to be a branch in Katherine, but that everybody there is currently less-active. He says that he'd love to go down and help reactivate 5 or 6 people to help get the branch going again and then do missionary work in the area.

President Marquis broadcast a farewell on Sunday evening to the mission via Zoom. He was conducting a several day handover with the new president starting 28th June, and flying out on the 1st July.. President Johansson, the new mission president, arrived in the mission on Monday and called Elders East and Evans on Tuesday evening. Elder East described him as "pretty chill". He was calling just to say hello and to let them know that he's hoping to come up soon and to visit them in the NT. Given the current lockdown, he may need to do his official "meet & greet" via Zoom. 

A couple of final dot point notes from our chat:

• For P-Day during lockdown, the NT missionaries tried doing some games via Zoom.
• They had some issues with their grocery shopping earlier in the day. They tried using the self-checkouts at the shops, however, the system has issues with the Bank of America debit cards that they are issued with. 
• Elder East asked if we could send through some English-Samoan dictionaries or documents to help him understand some of the Samoan language he's trying to teach himself. He's said before that Samoan is kind of like an unofficial second language of the mission. 
• We got to see a bit of the view from their flat as Elder East went out onto their balcony at one point whilst talking with us. 

Video Chat - 23rd June 2021 - Nandos: The Fanciest Place to Eat In Palmerston!

 We started out on P-Day last week letting Elder east know that friends of the family - Don and Tamara from Perth were on their way holidaying around Australia, and were currently in Darwin, wondering if they could take Elder east and his companion out for a meal. We passed on their number to Elder East and they ended up going out for lunch that day. 

Don and Tamara told the Elders they could choose wherever they wanted to eat - money was no limit ... so the Elders chose  .... Nandos. When queried by Mum as to why Nandos, it's because that's about the classiest place to eat in their area :) There isn't apparently much open in the way of high-class food establishments in Palmerston in the middle of the day. They then went out for dessert afterward. 

Elder East said it was great catching up with them. We got some photos of their lunchtime together. Elder East said that this involved Elder Evans showing them some tricks on how to take selfies. 

Last week they ended up doing trade-offs with the Darwin Elders over Thursday and Friday. Elder East said that he and one of the Darwin Elderws did service for a lady on the Friday morning and had an appointment with her again in the evening to be fed. They explained that they were on trade-offs and it would be a change in Elders in the evening. Elder east went back with Elder Evans in the evening for dinner. He said that the lady mustn't have realised that he was still the same missionary that came by in the morning as the lady was "talking smack" about the service they provided. [shrug]

On the Saturday they had the farewell dinner with the Marquis' and the other missionaries. Apparently, all of the previous farewell dinners with the other zones during the week had had pizza for dinner. President marquis was apparently over pizza and wanted Thai, so he took them all out to a Thai restaurant for dinner. The photo of Sister Marquis and Elder east was of Sister Marquis holding up Elder East's squid dinner. Elder East commented that he's really going to miss the Marquis'.

After the dinner, they had a Family Home Evening at the senior missionary couple's home. They had an activity where each person wrote something on a piece of paper, then folded the paper over. The next person then had to draw what the person had written. The paper was then folded again and the next person had to write what the last thing drawn was, and so on and so on. A bit like Chinese whispers but with writing and drawing.  Elder east said it was fun, but he commented that his drawing skills weren't bad, whilst a lot of others struggled with the drawing part.

Elder East let us know that he'd received his 12 month "halfway there" package that we'd sent him.  He said it was good, but some of the stuff was unusable as only part of a pair (eg gloves)... we pointed out that we'd send the other half of the missing stuff soon.

They had a good day on Tuesday. They had a lesson with a lady they had found during trade-offs who really enjoyed out. She was happy to have a copy of the Book of Mormon. They had a second lesson with her on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday they had a follow-up lesson with an Indonesian lady who wanted them to also teach her family. He said that besides the ladys' daughter, her mother-in-law was also there. The mother-in-law was a Seventh Day Adventist and when she raised topics, the lady and the mother-in-law would debate things. he said that they sometimes got off track a bit, but it was still good to be able to have a discussion with them, especially where the lady was defending principles that the Elders were teaching.

Some minor dot points from our discussion:

• On Sunday they had between 30-40 at Church.
• After Sister Ip's greenie went back to Sydney, Sister Smith flew up from Adelaide to be Sister Ip's new companion. Sisters Hall and Degaris are now serving in Palmerston.
• We gave Elder East grief about wearing white socks with his suit, saying that it was a fashion faux pas. 
• They visited a Filipino family in the ward. The family told them to come back later. When they did, the family had food for them to take away for dinner.

Farewell Dinner With the Marquis' - 19th June 2021

Elder east told us that the Marquis' would be coming up last Saturday to have a farewell dinner and Family Home evening with the missionaries in the Darwin Zone. The AAM blog updated the following day with photos of the evening. As usual, I've gone through and pulled out the photos with Elder East in them. First a couple of photos from the dinner.

Then several photos of the Family Home Evening. We have no idea what's up with Elder East wearing white socks.

Video Chat - 16th June 2021 - One Year Mark and Door Knocking

Elder East held a District Council this week so we were lucky enough to get some photos of the Darwin District/Zone from him during our P-Day chat.

They also participated in a Missionary Leadership Council via Zoom. I've already reposted some of the photos from the MLC that had Elder East in them.

Some observations from Elder East on Darwin: He says he never needs to look at the weather forecast. he knows it will get down to about 24 degrees at night time and about 30 degrees during the day. Humidity will set in around 10am and last until about 5pm. The humidity isn't really bad at the moment, but hard when you're walking around a lot in it.

He also says they haven't encountered any cats yet, but lots of loud dogs. He mentioned that the Sister Missionaries had a small dog try and attack them recently. He also sent through the following photo. Not sure of the story behind it, but the dog doesn't exactly look very loud or ferocious.

Elder East says that seeing as they're allowed to doorknock, they're trying to do 2-3 hours of doorknocking per day. They're effectively reopening the area, so there's a lot of finding to be done. Elder East commented that they seem to be meeting a lot more different people whilst doorknocking. They were both prompted to door knock what turned out to be a government housing street and didn't get to finish it as they ended up teaching people.

Elder East also sent us the photo below - I presume it's from when they were out doorknocking.

Elder East commented that whilst the strangest experience he's had was back in Onakapringa, he's had most of his "milder" strange experiences in Darwin. He didn't really elaborate on that as we pushed him to find out about what this strangest experience was that we hadn't heard about.

He said that it occurred just before he transferred to Darwin, which is why we didn't hear about it - most of the news was about the transfer to Darwin. He said that they were trying to visit some less active members. The member had moved but the person referred them to their next-door neighbour who "might be interested". It turns out the next-door neighbour was a schizophrenic "bible basher" who would shout out 'hallelujah" whilst talking and arguing. Elder East said that he was only about 5 foot tall, had a stocky build and a beard - it was like trying to talk to an angry gnome. What's more though, was that as well as wanting to argue, the angry gnome was insisting that the Elders had to purchase one of his paintings, which they declined to do. That wasn't the end of it though. Apparently, after Elder East was transferred the angry gnome found the phone number of a Bishop in a different Ward and was insisting that the missionaries come back around to see him.  

Some dot points of other things we spoke about:

• President Marquis was coming up on Saturday (19th June) to have his Farewell Family Home Evening and Dinner with the Darwin missionaries.
• The Marquis impending return home is starting to hit in. They received their 2nd last email from President Marquis during the week. The new Mission President, President Johanssen arrives on the 28th June, while the Amrquis' leave on the 1st July. Elder East says that he'll miss President Marquis.
• He received an email from Kendal asking questions about preparing to serve her mission.
• The Darwin Sister Misisoanries are now in a three-way companionship after the greenie returned to serve in Sydney.
• The Missionary Training Centres are starting to open back up throughout the world.
• They've had one meal with a member so far. They did some service for a Sister who fed them afterwards.
• Elders East and Evans are sharing the meal preparation. They're eating a lot of salads and walking a lot. He commented that there seems to be a pattern for missionaries to start off becoming unfit during the first half of their mission, then spending the last 6 months of their mission trying to get fit again.
• Elder East is looking like he's developing a tan.
• This week represented one year since Elder East started his mission via the home MTC on 11th June 2020. He knows that we've sent him a "halfway" package that should be amongst the mail that President Marquis is taking up to Darwin with him.

Video Chat - 26th May 2021 - Zone Conference and Stake Conference

Time for another update from the weekly video chat with Elder East.

Reflecting on his opportunity to go through the Temple on the previous P Day he said that it was a good experience, but he couldn't help shake the impression that his focus should be "out there" (ie doing missionary work), rather than "in here" (ie doing Temple work.)

They had Zone Conference the previous day. Elder East joked that the Marquis' are trunky, or at least ready to go home after their three years of service. Their personal effects have already been shipped home and they're currently living out of suitcases in a hotel. They have three grandchildren that they haven't met yet, and another one due soon.

The focus for Zone Conference was on teaching skills. This included remote training from Elder Bednar on talking about Gospel principles. They also broke into Zones for individual Zone training, which for Marion Zone meant training from Elder East. He mentioned that he didn't get to socialise that much during Zoen Conference compared to normal due to his training preparation, as well as focusing on chatting to several missionaries and a senior couple who were due to go home the following week.

He said that there was a surprise announcement during the last 15 minutes of the conference that they're going to be allowed to start tracting again. (ie door knocking.) Elder East is excited as this is another opportunity to be able to find people willing to hear the gospel. He's missing the fact that his Zone Leader and training responsibilities have reduced his opportunities to find people to teach.

The previous weekend they had Stake Conference and were happy to have one of their investigators at Stake Conference one of the members had helped bring him along. The Stake President had met them and their investigator before the meeting started and made a special effort of acknowledging the missionaries serving in the stake.

The regularly scheduled transfers are due to occur on Monday (31st May). Elder East reckons he wouldn't mind a change, as he's now been in the ward for over 4 months. At the same time, he'd be disappointed to miss seeing those whom they're teaching progress in the gospel.

A few final dot points from our discussion:

• He asked us if we had any MoTab music that he could have. It's one of the things they're allowed to listen to, and he didn't take any with him.
• They were going to be heading off to get a sewing needle later that afternoon. A member had offered to fix his bag that had broken, but they needed a stronger sewing needle to do so.
• They had a lesson scheduled to teach that evening as well as for each of the next three days.
• All three members of the companionship are doing cooking. They've learnt to buy frozen vegetables as fresh ones tend to get forgotten and go off.
• Edler Brown and Edler East are having to adjust to having different training styles.
• Elder East has been out on his mission for 349 days ...

Video Chat - 06th January 2021 - Transferred to Gulfview Heights Ward With Elder Lwin

We got the news that even though Elder East has only been in his current area for just over 3 weeks, he is being transferred again. Normally it is 6 weeks between transfers however several new missionaries were coming into the mission out of the normal transfer cycle, resulting in changes to several companionships. His current companions would be remaining in the area but would be moving to a different flat - the accommodation they stayed in when they first came into the mission and quarantined.

Elder East is being transferred to the Gulfview Heights Ward and his new companion is Elder Lwin. Elder Lwin is from Myanmar and only has 5 weeks left of his mission. Elder Lwin was around Elder East in his first area, and Elder East says' that Elder Lwin "is pretty cool." 

Elder East was of course disappointed at being transferred yet again. His 5th area in less than 6 months. He sent an email to the Mission President with lots of questions about what he can do to help in his new area, etc. He said that he received a quick and large reply from President Marquis. One of the main things is that Elder Lwin is about to finish his mission. He is a convert to the Church and the only Church member in his family. He will be going back to Myanmar where there is only a single branch of the Church. Elder Lwin may not get many opportunities for spiritual support from others when he returns home. President Marquis wants Elder East to help ensure that Elder Lwin has an uplifting end to his missionary service before he heads home. Elder East appreciated gaining an understanding of why the changes were taking place and what the Mission President would like him to do.

Elder East says that he's going to be focussing not only on helping Elder Lwin leave on a spiritual high but also on eating healthy and exercising as well. He believes that they'll have a car in their area and that he will be the driver.

Elder East shared with us about the country trip that he and Elders Nalesoni and Aiho had taken on Monday to visit remote members. Their trip included a visit to a part-member family, a former investigator, as well as a less-active member family who they found out own a pizza shop and who gave them some pizzas. The Elders ended up driving over 230kms 

The main event from the trip though was a visit with Kit Fortune and his mother. Both Elissa and I knew the Fortunes from Greenmount Ward when we were young. I went to primary school (Years 5 & 6) with the younger of the Fortune boys, Mark, and used to go around to their home to play. The Fortune's recognised Elder East's last name and asked if he was related to Ken and Betty East (his grandparents), at which point they worked out the relationship. Kit remembers me as "The Star Wars kid". They were very thankful for the Elders' visit and it was a positive experience for Elder East.

A couple of last points from our general discussion. Elder East said that his favourite piece of artwork is Moroni burying the gold plates. I'm unsure if he was referring to this particular painting or a similar one, but he says he has it as the wallpaper on his phone.

Elder East said that he'd been going through some of old General Conference notes in his journal and came across those from President Uchtdorf's talk "Your Great Adventure". He liked the analogy about us facing our trials, whether they be giant spiders, trolls or dragons. One of the members he'd recently visited - Brother Howse, the former Mission President of Sydney - had reminded him that God knew Covid was going to happen, and how it would affect things. But regardless of whether our trials are Covid, or one of many other things as per Elder Uchtdorf's talk, it's up to us as to how we react and to ensure that we survive spiritually.

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 - 26th August 2020 - Morialta Falls Hike

For P-Day the district (and the Grants) went on a hike to Morialta Falls in the Morialta Conservation Park. This is the same Conservation area that President Marquis took the Elders to when they finished quarantine. Elder East said that they took a different, longer hiking route this time. Part of the highlight of the hike was having an echidna crossing a river towards them.

Elder East is scheduled to go through the Adelaide Temple on the evening of Wednesday 2nd September. He had his Temple Recommend interview with President Marquis last Sunday which he quite enjoyed. He was encouraged and reassured by President Marquis of Elder East's worthiness and preparation to go through the temple. Elder East thinks that there will be 2 other Elders and possibly 1 or 2 Sisters going through the Temple at the same time. One of them was an Elder in his online MTC, but he was in a different district and Elder East didn't know him very well.

Their escape room activity at Adelaide Adventure Rooms on P-Day last week was fun. The scenario was that it was a jailbreak, with them handcuffed to a bench in different cells. They managed to finish with about 15 minutes to go. Elder East said that Elder De Guzman was really good at picking locks which helped them in the first part of the challenge.  Elder East was able to show off his geographical knowledge in the puzzle in the last part of the challenge. It involved trying to match postcards and plane tickets to locations throughout the world. Elder East would have been a natural at that, and the other missionaries were apparently impressed.

Elder East is getting a bit tired of the same old wraps he was making for meals and has bought some different sauces and jalapenos to "spice things up" a bit. They have been having some variety with pasta too, but he also says that he's eating too much junk food. We were surprised by this, but he explained that the constant backwards and forwards to the flat for meals was becoming too time-consuming and so they were starting to eat out more. He did point out proudly that they had bought vegetables last week. Hadn't used them yet, but they had bought them.

Tomorrow (Thursday) there will be a combined Five Mission (ie five Australian missions) Conference with a member of the Seventy and the Presiding Bishopric speaking to them. (He had thought it was going to be last Monday, but he got the date wrong.) Mum explained that the Presiding Bishopric focuses a lot on the service given by the Church around the world. She spoke of how her Mission President (Glen L Pace) had been in the Presiding Bishopric and had gone to Ethiopia in the 80's to see how the Church could assist during the famine. Elder East mentioned that they were teaching somebody from Ethiopia at the moment.

Their finding and teaching are still a bit haphazard. Having finished going through old investigators in their area book, they are focusing on those who didn't answer or those who were too busy when previously contacted. Unfortunately, they're not currently allowed to street contact, tract or use any other finding method in public, and there are very few members to try and work with. Most of their discussions last week, including six scheduled for last Friday fell through. They have managed to teach three discussions so far this week. They have one lady they've taught twice that they're trying to get a French BoM for. Another person they've always managed to teach in person at the chapel. They also taught a lesson to a member. Elder East says that he's working on learning to ask questions that help the individuals apply the gospel to themselves.

They're still going running in the mornings, but not on P-days, Sundays or in the rain. Elder East is also trying to do some additional exercise in the afternoons - "muscle stuff". He has bought himself some more t-shirts and shorts for running/exercising.

For his current personal study, he has taken up a challenge by the Stake President to read the Book of Mormon before the next Stake Conference. He's currently in Mosiah. He's been supplementing some of his studies by listening to the related BYU Round Table scripture discussions that I loaded onto his phone before departure. He's enjoying re-discovering concepts and doctrines that he's learnt, but which are now popping out at him in the scriptures. One example this week was studying more about the concept of the First Resurrection.

Because of the irregular movements of missionaries in and out of the mission due to Covid-19 restrictions, transfers aren't as scheduled or regular as they used to be. There will likely be a mini-transfer tomorrow for the Sisters coming out of quarantine. Elder East believes there may be a companionship of sister missionaries assigned to the Adelaide City Branch. In other transfer news, Elder Bataar was replaced by Elder Lwin from Myanmar who has trained seven times! Their current District Leader is being transferred out today, which Elder East is sad about. He believes that Elder Reeves' three-way companionship is about to be split down to a regular companionship.

He is enjoying the Sacrament meetings, even though none of the people they invited to Church came along this week.  He's really enjoying the Sunday School lessons in the Branch. The Sunday School teacher is a former mission president and is a good teacher. There was an investigator that brought himself along to Church this week after having seen the Book of Mormon play.

I sent Elder East some photos of himself when he was 4 years old. he was with several statues from along North Terrace in Adelaide when we drove across the Nullarbor in 2006. I checked out the location of the statues and they are literally less than 200 metres across the road from the Adelaide City Branch chapel. I told him he needed to take some modern photos of himself with the statues.

Dot point notes:

• We spoke about Sister missionaries in Houston that were recently broken into and stabbed by a neighbor.
• Some discussion about major happenings in world news.
• He had less emails to respond to this week - Alex, Jewel and Kendall
• He's not feeling homesick (for us at least)
• Although both Elders in a companionship have phones, there is just a single SIM card that belongs to the area. The SIM card is primarily kept by the senior companion but swapped as needed.
• He's gotten himself some "rule-compliant" socks.
• He seems to be adjusting better to the missionary lifestyle of living with somebody else.
• Mum asked him when he felt the Spirit throughout the week. He responded whilst teaching lessons and during the Temple Recommend interview with President Marquis. 

[Late update: We received a happy message from Elder East later in the evening, letting us know that they had taught the investigator who brought himself to Church on Sunday. Not only had they taught him, but they had committed him to baptism. Elder East wrote "He's been prepared. He's done his research and he's willing to [keep the commandments]. [His baptism is scheduled for] October 31st." The Elders understand that's a long way off and that there will be challenges ahead, but it's exciting for them.]