Video Chat - 4th April 2022 - Teaching via Video to Mexico

It was back to a regular Monday P Day this week, so it was only 5 days since our last chat, with most of the discussion being on things happening back at home:

• Elder Reeves' Dad has said that he'd like to get baptized. As you'd expect, his family is excited.
• Elder Aiho has gotten engaged. He's been home from his mission for 5 months now.
• We chatted about how Elissa is having some problems at her work, and how I was still sick from Covid.
• They were studying the Passover in Seminary this week and so we talked about different historical versions of the Passover.
• We chatted about General Conference that had just been held with the announcement of 17 new temples being built.

A couple of quick notes from the mission field as well:

• The First Counselor in the Mission Presidency, Elder Raeside has been called as an Area Authority.
• Eight missionaries are coming into the AAM next week - five from New Zealand and 3 greenies. Elder Wolff from Canberra will be one of those greenies.

Elder East also shared that they ended up having a lesson last Wednesday with somebody whom Elder Ma'a had previously taught at the start of his mission. The person in question had moved back to Mexico in the meantime however he and Elder Ma'a reconnected via Facebook. Elder Ma'a and East taught him a lesson via video last Wednesday. He has committed to be baptised and the APs have referred him to the local missionaries in Mexico to continue his gospel lessons.

Even though there wasn't much mission news, Elder East did send us a bunch of photos. 

Given the missionaries, in the above photos photo, we're assuming that this was part of the "Leavers" meeting for those missionaries who were completing their missions last transfer.

We're presuming that this is Elder East's collection of dirt from various towns he's worked in during his mission.

Later in the day Elder East also went suit shopping as he needed a new suit. He contacted us for some feedback on the suits he was trying on. 

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 - 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 - 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 - 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.]

Video Chat - 19th August 2020 - 29 Months and Done

We held our weekly video chat a bit earlier today as Elder East’s district had scheduled to go to an Escape Room during the afternoon.  Mum dialed in from work whilst Dad dialed in from home. Elder East was feeling a bit better in regards to adjusting to having to live around somebody who does things differently to how he does.

The news that Elder East was excited to tell us about was that Elder Bataar was going home to Mongolia. Mongolia had completely closed their borders as a result of the pandemic, and Elder Bataar had been unable to go home and was now heading towards 29 months on his mission. Apparently, the Grants, the senior missionary couple in the AAM office, had developed a good relationship with those in the Mongolian embassy, and Elder Bataar was one of only 30 Mongolian ex-pats who were chosen to be repatriated.  The district held a mini-farewell party at the chapel on Tuesday afternoon along with a couple of investigators. Elder East said that one of the investigators reminded him of Jayde in personality.

Elders East & De Guzman finally finished making phonecalls to previous investigators from their area book this week. Elder East doesn’t think they’re having much success using this method, but there aren't a lot of other finding options at the moment. Only about a third of people answer their phone calls, and they have had a couple of rude/abusive responses. We’d commented that he still seemed to be teaching a lot, so he went through how many lessons they’d taught in the last week. Unfortunately, the three appointments they had for last Wednesday evening all fell through. They taught a lesson to a member on Thursday but didn’t teach any lessons on Friday. There were another two lessons on Saturday, but none on Sunday or Monday, and another two on Tuesday. They had a lesson scheduled for just after our video chat at 1:30pm.

He commented that most of their investigators are students, and of those that are in the country, it's currently a busy time for them at university. The word from other missionaries though is that investigators in the Adelaide City branch are more "chill" than those in the rest of Adelaide. When we asked what that meant, he said that missionaries sometimes encounter "weirder and angrier" people in suburbia.

Sunday attendances at the branch are still small - leaders, missionaries, several couples, and several new converts. One of those in attendance was a backpacker from Belgium. The branch has started up Sunday School classes again as a part of the Sunday meetings. Last Sunday they talked about the Stripling Warriors and Elder East drew upon a lot of the seminary lessons that Mum had sent to him during the week. He said that one of the speakers during Sacrament was one of Elder De Guzman's converts who shared his conversion experience.

Elder East and Elder De Guzman have started going on runs in the morning as part of an exercise routine. They go for a 15-20 minute run past a nursing home and down to the Firle Chapel and Mission Home before doing the 15-20 min run back. Apparently Elder East was a bit self-conscious of trying to exercise in front of his companion in the flat, so he's happy that they're exercising together. We asked if they go anywhere near the Temple but it's apparently in a different direction.

He commented that his clothes were getting a bit tight in a few places. He wasn't sure if he was gaining muscle or putting on weight. Mum queried "where?" - he commented his shirts were tight around the chest. Mum then asked if he was doing any weight training - he said no. Mum commented it's probably not muscle then ... He has been doing a lot of push-ups so it could actually be muscle.

In regards to going to the Temple, Elder & Sister Grant have dropped off a Church booklet for him called Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple. His Mission President has said he'll arrange for a Temple Recommend interview, but they're still waiting on details of when they will be going.

Some other dot points from our conversation:

• President Marquis is trying to reply to each email/letter he sends to him (Missionaries are meant to write to their Mission President each week.)
• The bank that has his mission funds is The Bank of America. He finds that their debit card doesn't work a lot.
• He has only encountered one cat so far, and it ran away
• He received his package with his new set of scriptures, as well as treats from Mum and a Subway voucher.
• They tend to shop weekly, but do a large shop one week, then a smaller shop for perishables the following week. 
• He was unsuccessful in making himself a decent ham & cheese toasted sandwich using a frying pan. We did point out that sandwich toasters aren't that expensive.
• No meals from the members during the week
• Next Monday there is meant to be an Australia-wider Zone Conference with a member of the Seventy in attendance.
• Elder East enjoyed watching Minori during the videochat - she had decided that she was going to head-bump and rub herself all over Dad's phone at one point during the video chat.
• He gave us a virtual tour of the Adelaide City Branch chapel.
• He has received a new name tag - in Mandarin!

Elder East Departs For the Mission Field!

Having only got confirmation on Wednesday afternoon that he was leaving on the Friday, Thursday was a day of packing and getting ready. President Stuart coming by on the Thursday night to set apart Seth again. We arranged to dial in Adam's parents via phone and Elissa's parents via Skype to listen in to the setting apart.

We've got some notes about what was said in the setting apart, but we'll post them up later on.

On Friday morning we went out and did some last-minute shopping for things he needed, including getting a suit bag in place of a second suitcase.

At Elder East's request, we grabbed Butter Chicken wraps from Desi Aroma in the South.Point food court as his last pre-mission meal. Due to the pandemic restrictions in place we had to bring them back home to eat though.

Around the shopping and lunch, Seth was doing last-minute preparations such as setting his phone up with the missionary SOE as well as doing some last-minute online courses.

Then there were a few last-minute photos (and farewells to the cats) before we left for the airport at 3pm. (He won't be happy with me putting up the photo of him and Minori due to the funny face he's pulling ...)

Then it was a matter of checking in his bags and waiting to board at 4pm. We were surprised at how many people were still at the airport and traveling. A lot less than usual, but a lot more than expected.

When it was time to go, there weren't any tears, but there were hugs, and Elder East was finally on his way. We waved to him as he crossed the airbridge to the plane, and stayed until his plane took off.

As we left the airport and went home we followed his flight online until he safely landed in Adelaide at 6:03pm Canberra time. We look forward to seeing his photo go up on the "Arriver's Section" of the AAM blog.