Video Chat - 8th November 2021 - No Fish & Chip Shops in Port Germein

Another weekly recount of how Elder East is doing out in the mission field.

Tuesday was spent doing a lot of doorknocking. They're trying to do at least an hour of doorknocking each day. They had a lesson with a lady who is involved a lot with family history. Elder East said that there was a name in her family tree (William Yates) that was the same as from one of his ancestors in Family Search. He was wondering if there could be some distant relation knowing that he has relatives from around the area. He also discovered that some of these people had graves in Port Pirie so he'll investigate further.

On Wednesday they did more doorknocking as well as provide some service for a member. Elder East said that the service involved a lot of shoveling and that a lot of the service they do is gardening or outside maintenance-related. 

They also had a teaching appointment with somebody they've been teaching for a while. He'd decided that for a laugh he was going to pretend to be a "Fundamentalist" to try and shock Elder Rea during the lesson.

On Thursday they helped a branch member with her family history. Specifically, there was a bit of ICT help required in trying to get her family history off of the old Personal Ancestral File and on to the Family Search website. 

On Friday they did over three hours of doorknocking, and as always is the way, the success didn't come until the end. The last three houses they doorknocked all resulted in return appointments. Maybe they just started at the wrong end of the street :)

Every Saturday they are providing service for a family in helping with their backyard cleanup and this week was no different. Later in the day they also taught a lesson. Elder East said that there was a "cool" thunderstorm that came through during the afternoon. In the evening they were at the nearby town of Port Germein.  They were hoping to get Fish & Chips for dinner whilst in town but found none, so ended up heading back to Port Pirie. Elder East sent us a photo of the two of them at the jetty at Port Germein. 

Elder East said that the highlight of the week spiritually was on Sunday. Besides Church, they were doorknocking and were able to teach two lessons that afternoon. One was to an 18-year-old guy with two of his mates and then another man later on. Elder East said that the Spirit was strong during the lessons. I'd like to hear more of these types of experiences from Elder East and in more detail. Sometimes we only find out about interesting or poignant events weeks or months after they occur when he'll casually mention them. It would be good to record more faith-promoting stories on this blog rather than just being a travelogue. Elder East has them, but he often doesn't think to share them with us even we ask about spiritual highlights of the week. 

Next weekend  (13th-14th Nov) they are hoping to get out to Whyalla Branch and visit the members around Whyalla and Port Augusta. They have contacted the referral from the previous week and arranged for them to come along to Whyalla Branch next Sunday (14th Nov).

They had been hoping to travel down to Adelaide last night (Sun 7th Nov) and then spend P Day with other missionaries before heading back to Port Pirie. Elder East is aiming to try and have a P Day meetup with the Adelaide Elders as a regular fortnightly event. Their plans were thrown into disarray though when they found out on Sunday that they had to travel down to Adelaide over Wednesday and Thursday (10th-11th Nov) for a devotional being held on Thursday. It is going to be a streamed devotional with Elder Lekias (Area Authority), several Area Seventies, and Elder Soares from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Other notes from our discussion:

• They are being fed a lot and are being given lots of leftovers as well. He said that the previous night's meal appointment had left them with about 6 servings of bolognese to take home. he says that their fridge is full and that they have "So much food."
• The mission had a Zoom meeting scheduled with President Johansson for that P Day evening (Mon 8th Nov.)
• Port Pirie Branch averages about 20-25 people in attendance at Sacrament each Sunday.
• Elder Rea is very physically fit. It's motivating Elder East to exercise. They've been going out jogging each morning. Elder East says that Elder Rea is also very smart. High praise from someone who's definitely no mental slouch himself. 

Video Chat - 4th October 2021 - Transferred To Point Pirie via Tea Tree Gully Ward

The big news from Elder East was that, yes, he is being transferred. He will be heading down to train a new missionary out in Port Pirie. There is however a snag in that there are some issues with getting his trainee into the mission. Consequently Elder East would be flying down to Adelaide on Tuesday morning and then serving in a three-way companionship until his trainee arrived.  He would be joining Elders Brown & Burgess in Tea Tree Gully Ward. Elder East has previously served with Elder Brown back in Onkaparinga Ward. Elder Bianchi is a relatively green missionary from Huonville in Tasmania.

As much as Elder East is sad at leaving Darwin, he's happy to be serving in a regional town. The area also covers the Port Augusta and Whyalla Branches, but he doesn't know how much they'll get to go and work outside of Port Pirie. 

Elder East will no longer be Zone Leader, having been one for about 10 months. He thinks that training will be harder from a teaching point of view, but easier from a 'living" point of view than being a  Zone Leader.

Elder East is excited to see Elder Brown even though it's only until his trainee arrives. This will be the third three-way companionship he's had with Elder Brown.

This is only a very small transfer, with few missionaries moving and only two new missionaries coming into the mission. Elder Aiho - another of Elder East's old companions - finishes his mission before the next transfer so he's being moved into a three-way companionship, and his companion is being transferred up to Alice Springs. 

Last week they spent a bit of time with the Darwin Elders. The Darwin Elders are involved with community basketball, so they spent time playing basketball and talking to people on Tuesday afternoon, and then a full trade-off over the Thursday and Friday. Elder east was with Elder Nalesoni - another of his old companions.

Elder East said that they taught a lot of lessons throughout the week. They had lessons with most of the people they had been working with which went well. They had Camille, a less active recent convert, come along to Church which they were happy to see. Elder East knew about transfers before Church started so he was asked to share his testimony during the meeting. After Church they got to go and provide sacrament for a sister out on a property. Elder East was quite impressed that she had emus and peacocks roaming around her property.

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 - 30th September 2020 - First Impressions of the Prospect Area

We got to catch up for our video chat early on Wednesday morning as both Mum & Jewel were at home for school holidays. Elder East chatted a bit about his new area. It covers a large area - the Ward had three companionships pre-pandemic. Technically he was already covering the area when Elder Kennach was transferred into Adelaide City Branch to form their three-way companionship. 

The Prospect Ward is reasonably close to the city and is an expensive area - typical inner-city gentrified suburbia. Unfortunately, their flat hasn't been gentrified. It's considered one of the worst in the mission an old flat with a small, poorly stocked kitchen that has a laundry trough for a sink.

The ward still has very low attendance even though pandemic restrictions are being relaxed. They only had about 40 members at Church last Sunday, and Elder East lamented they won't get to see much of the members over the coming weeks. They have General Conference broadcast and then Stake Conference in two consecutive weeks. Elder East got to assist with passing the Sacrament last week.

Elder East is the designated driver for the car in their area - his first driving since he's been in the mission field. He's not particularly fond of driving in Adelaide. His main concern is that there is a lot of street parking in his area which ends up making a lot of the smaller roads practically one lane. In addition, a lot of the main roads have central barriers that prevent cars from being able to cross traffic to turn down side streets, so it's often difficult to find where to turn. He's also not liking driving their automatic car - he prefers driving manuals.

Unfortunately, the Elders don't have a chapel key, so they have to teach either outside of the chapel or at the investigator's home - which many people are reluctant to do in the pandemic situation.

They got to have lunch with a recent convert last week. Just a simple rotisserie chicken and chips, but given the scarcity of member feeds, it was definitely appreciated. They've been unable to get in contact with the Ward Mission Leader and there doesn't appear to be a roster for feeding the missionaries. He did think that they were scheduled for dinner with an investigator that evening though.

Some notes about investigators:

• Their investigator, Katherine, back in the Adelaide City Branch isn't responding back to contact from the new Elders. Elder East is concerned about her as she took a while to get comfortable with missionaries and was progressing with them but now seems to have taken a step back.
• There is a previous missionary contact in Prospect who is actually an anti-Mormon who tries to bash with the missionaries and rile them up. Other missionaries made the mistake of contacting him as he'd appeared as an investigator in the flat book and setting up an appointment which Elder East and Kennach went to. As expected, nothing positive came from it, but they know to mark him down as not being a legitimate investigator. 
• There is a 17-year-old girl who has been coming along to Church with a YSA member. They have a lesson scheduled to teach her but they need to contact her family to get the OK to do so, seeing as she's still considered a minor. 
• They're working with the Prospect investigator they'd been teaching whilst in Adelaide City Branch to get him along to church and teach him more lessons.
• They taught a lesson over the phone to somebody who was couch-surfing in Darwin at the time. (For those not familiar with Australian geography, that's about 300kms/1900miles away from Adelaide.)
• They ended up talking with an excommunicated member for a while but were unable to help her with a desire to return.

 Other dot point notes from the conversation:

• His companion, Elder Kennach is a bit of an artist
• Of the nine Samoans in the Mission, eight of them were repatriated back to Samoa on Transfer Day last week, hence the late minute transfer changes. The only Samoan still remaining is Elder Kennach, his companion. The others were either missionaries who'd served elsewhere who were using the AAM as a stop off as they couldn't get home or those who'sd already served most of their missions in the AAM. 
• Transfers have ended up being very fluid in the current pandemic environment as missionaries continue to come and go to missions outside of the normal transfer cycle.
• There are still a lot of three-way companionships in the mission.
• Some of the American Elders play Magic The Gathering on P-Days, so Seth was interested in getting one of his MTG decks sent over for use on P-Day.
• He is currently studying the 2020 April General Conference talks.
• Their money came through the previous evening so they finally had money to go and restock the flat with food. It had all been moved out when the area closed during the previous transfer.
• P-Day next week will be held on Monday as there will be a Conference with a General Authority on Wednesday.
• They had trade-offs with another companionship (Elder Aiho, and Elder Beaumont-Tafua) on Monday and Tuesday and slept at the other Elder's flat on the Monday and Tuesday nights.
• They had some basketball practice with the other companionship as their allotted exercise time on Tuesday. Elder East commented that the two other Elders played on basketball teams at home, whilst Elder Kennach is very sporty. I think he was implying that he didn't do very well against them.  
• Having run out of things they should/could do, the four Elders ended up having a game of Phase 10 late on Tuesday evening. My thoughts are that it must be hard with all of the pandemic related restrictions they have. Back in our day, if you had any free time, you would just go finding or try working with members. Practically all finding methods such as tracting, street contacting and so on are not allowed at the moment. They've already rung back through old investigators in their area books several times - which is currently their main method of finding. They're currently not allowed to visit member's homes without the members inviting them over first. It must be hard when you've done all you can and there's nothing more you're allowed to do because of the restrictions.

Elder East also sent through a photo of the soccer game they played with some of the members two P-Days ago.

We're looking forward to catching up with him again on Monday.

Video Chat - 16th September 2020 - Statue Found

 It was only a short video chat this week. On Tuesday night Elder East sent us a quick couple of images:

This is one of the statues we told him to keep an eye out for, as we have a photo of it from when he was young. (see below) Elder East said that their bus stop at the chapel is being renovated and was moved down the road about 100 metres. He found the statue right next to the new bus stop.

Elder East commented that he realised that you can see the building with the Adelaide City Branch chapel in the old photo (he circled it in red.)

The chat on the Wednesday P-Day had to fit in amongst a lot of other things. There was a get together from some of the missionaries and investigators in the morning to celebrate Elder Roberts' 20th birthday. There was both cake and ice cream. We managed to get a quick video chat at this point even though it was in the middle of the day.

Then they traveled out to a different chapel so another missionary could cut Elder De Guzman's and Elder Kennach's hair. Elder East wasn't going to get his hair cut - he wants to grow it out for a bit.and see how it goes. He did manage to catch up with Elder Reeves whilst the others were getting their hair cut. Oh, and we already know what Elder East's hair will look like if he grows it out ...

Then it was back to another location for a game of soccer. After an hour the score was still nil-all (typical soccer score), so they ended up playing til "first goal wins."

We had another quick chat with Elder East before dinner time, so that Jewel could chat with him. She got to tell him about her win at the Inspire Art competition and get some advice re working at McDonalds.

Elder East made a request to Jewel to send him some song lyrics - "I can't listen to music, but I can sing." For posterity, the lyrics he requested were Kokomo by The Beach Boys, Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's, Your Man by Josh Turner, Loch Lomond by Peter Hollens, Caledonia by Dougie Maclean and September by Earth, Wind and Fire.

We also had a brief cameo appearance during the chat by one of the Branch members - Stephen. He said that he often translates for the missionaries into Chinese.

We did have a bit of a chat about transfers. It's scheduled for next Monday, and they'll find out the changes on Saturday evening. He is expecting changes because of the three-way situation, but unsure if either Elder De Guzman or himself will transfer at all. He said "It's very likely a lot will happen because Kennach will leave us, Elder Peate our district leader is also in a three-way training two guys and he goes home next Wednesday ... A lot of stuff needs to happen and there are only so many companions that it always affects a lot of people." Elder East is hoping to stay in the Adelaide City Branch.

A few more quick dot points:

• Things are a bit haphazard at the moment in the area. Elder East likes things to be organised, so he's finding that frustrating.
• He emailed the Mission President on P-Day with a more detailed explanation of the issues he's having in adjusting to missionary training. 
• They went to teach Elder Kennach's investigator from Prospect Ward on Tuesday evening. Elder East said that the investigator had a lot of questions, but Elder East was happy that he felt he knew the answers to all of them.
• He knows that a number of the recent converts are coming up to having been members for 12 months, and was wondering about preparing them for the temple. I suggested speaking to a member of the Branch Presidency as the Branch should really take the lead in temple preparation, and the Branch President needs to interview them about their readiness.
• Last Sunday they had another investigator come to Church after asking a member friend about Church. The investigator had a grandmother who was a member of the Church. The investigator dreamt about their Grandmother and consequently became interested in investigating the Church. He came to Sacrament meeting last Sunday and stayed for Sunday School, and then had a discussion with the Elders afterwards. The Elders were prompted to invite him to baptised and he has agreed - setting a date in October. It's exciting for the Elders and for the investigator.