Video Call - 16th May 2022 - Elder East's Final Zone Conference

Another rundown of Elder East's week in the mission field. On the evening of the previous P Day, the APs went over to the Travers family in Firle Ward. Whilst there, they were presented with a belated birthday cake for both of them. The Travers were originally going to be providing Elder East a cake on his birthday until the Covid isolation intervened.

Elder East also took a photo of their cat. He's a doppelganger of our cat Matt Matt back home.

On Tuesday they had a Stake Missionary Correlation Meeting as well as spent a lot of time in the Mission Office. They were able to teach a lesson to a man and his children in the afternoon. The same family would end up coming along to Church on Sunday which was a great step for them to take.

On Wednesday they had the Firle District Council. This included some singing practice as the District was going to be providing a musical item at the next Zone Conference. In the late afternoon, the APs were able to go and do a session in the Temple. Whilst in the Temple they happened to run into the Lees from Elder East's home ward. Brother Lee is from Adelaide and was back there visiting family.

On Thursday they met with the Senior Couples in Adelaide to work out the logistics for the following week. There will be 15 missionaries leaving the AAM and going to their original assignments in New Zealand, another 2 missionaries coming in, and 2 missionaries finishing up their missions. Sixteen missionaries all need to be at the Adelaide airport for a 6am flight next Monday (23rd May). They're flying up to Sydney and then on to their various destinations from there. Because most of them are heading internationally, they'll all have to be at the Adelaide airport by 3:30am. Quite a logistical task.

Later in the day, the Ward Mission Leader took them out to Hungry hacks for dinner.

On Friday they had a combined Zone Conference between 9am and 3pm for the two Adelaide zones. As a part of the Zone Conferences, those who are leaving the mission get to give a farewell testimony. With all of the New Zealanders getting ready to leave, they gave testimonies, however, Elder East wasn't asked to, even though it was his last Zone Conference. We figure that President Johansson must have either forgotten or not realised it was Elder East's last conference too. 

Elder Easts ent us through a number of photos of the Zone Conference. First up is a photo of when he was teaching that one of the Sister Missionaries took.

Then there are a couple of group photos. We're assuming that one is of just his Zone, and the other one is both Zones that were in attendance at the Conference.

Then we have some photos from after Conference. The first is with Elder Gard sitting on his knee. The story behind this is that in mission vernacular, a missionary you train is jokingly referred to as your son. Elder East trained Elder Rea, and Elder Rea trained Elder Gard, so this is a "grandfather & grandson" photo - hence the "grandson sitting on the grandfather's knee" pose and expressions.

The final one is a photo of Elder East with two of his previous companions - Elder Rea and Elder Brown.

On Saturday they had breakfast with a Senior Missionary Couple at the Bishop's home. The rest of the day was spent on trade-offs manning a stall at the Marion Stake Family History Day. They helped set up the stall in the morning and then manned it during the afternoon. In the evening they went for dinner at a Sister's home. She had a cat that Elder East made friends with, of course.

On Sunday, they had the family whom they taught on Tuesday come along to Church.

Some other quick notes from our chat:

• Both Elder Rea and Elder Gard are part of the group of missionaries due to depart to missions in New Zealand.
• Elder East has started two modules of his "My Plan" program that helps missionaries prepare for returning home.
• Elder East still hasn't heard anything re his University application.

Video Chat - 28th February 2022 - Visiting Robinvale Branch

It was only a brief chat with Elder East on P Day (28th Feb).  The previous Monday they had flown back from the Northern Territory.  The following week was spent sorting out transfers and the upcoming Mission Conference. 

Elder East advised that they are changing the way they do transfers. They will no longer be announcing all of the changes beforehand, simply advising missionaries whether to get ready to be transferred or not. We asked Elder East if he was being affected by transfers but he wouldn't let us know.

He let us know that during the week he refilmed a video with Elder McCarthy about the Spirit World. Apparently there were issues with the quality of the first take. The video now has to be edited and gotten ready to put up on social media.

On Saturday morning they provided some service to a member in Firle Ward who is getting ready to move by shifting a load of bricks in their yard.

Later on Saturday they drove up to Mildura. They would be spending the rest of the weekend there to help assist with a devotional being put on by President Johansson on the Sunday evening. 

On Sunday they went to Church in Robinvale - a town about 90km east of  Mildura. Elder East said that it's meant to be an English-speaking branch, but most of the meeting was in Tongan. The one-hour Sacrament meeting also went for nearly two hours.

They had dinner with the Mildura Bishop before the devotional on Sunday evening and drove back to Adelaide on the P Day we chatted. Elder East ends up doing a lot of traveling on P Days. 

Some other quick dot points from our conversation:

• Five new missionaries are coming into the AAm during the next mid-transfer cycle. Four of them are reassignments of missionaries meant to be heading to New Zealand. There's a family friend in Sydney who's meant to be heading to New Zealand in April, however, she's currently scheduled to go to the AAM if unable to go to New Zealand. She probably doesn't know that yet though.
• There are three Missionary Leadership Councils coming up followed by a Mission Tour by Elder Nattress from the Area Presidency the following week. Consequently, P Day on the 7th March has been rescheduled to Thurs 10th March. 
• Elder East had forgotten to tell uis that he'd been able to attend the Adelaide Temple the previous week. The Mission Leadership Council had been invited to go along with the Johanssons to the temple.
• Elder East is currently thinking that he'll focus on doing a general science degree at ANU when he returns from his mission.

Video Chat - 4th August 2021 - Lots of Changes: Social Media, P Day Change and More

Another quick update from Elder East this week but he advised of some big changes within the mission, including:

• This would be the last P Day on a Wednesday. As of next week, the mission will be changing to having P Days on Mondays.
• Missionaries will no longer be able to go to the Temple except at the start and end of their missions. Due to the Adelaide temple being closed under Covid restrictions for much of the time he was in Adelaide, Elder East has only been to the Adelaide temple once so far. 
• The Darwin missionaries were going to trial doorknocking in the evenings, which was something that hasn't been done for a while.
• The hours of the standard day for the Darwin missionaries have been aligned to the standard 6:30am to 10:30pm day in Adeliade and most other missions. In Darwin it had previously been 6am to 10pm.
• The AAM would be becoming a social media mission. The missionaries would now have access to Facebook. Elder East spent some time making a more missionary-orientated profile for his Facebook account during the week. 

Elder East also let us know about some of the things that had happened during the week. 

On Friday Zone Conference was held down in Adelaide so the Darwin missionaries joined in via Zoom. Elder East and Evans provided training on resolving concerns and asking inspired questions as a part of one of the sessions.

On Saturday they provided 3-4 hours of service to different people along with the sister missionaries. At one home they helped move rocks in a garden. At another home, they mowed a backyard. They discovered however that there was broken glass in the long grass, so had to be careful of that.

Church on Sunday coincided with a Young Men's Camp that was being held so the numbers at Church were low.

On Tuesday Elder East was sick with a cold. It happened to coincide with it being Elder Evans' birthday, so Elder East took him out to McDonald's for lunch.

Elder East mentioned that they were given some donuts as well. I didn't note when, but ti was important enough for them to document via photo :)

A couple of final observations from Elder East. He commented that being able to use Facebook is a big thing for many of the missionaries. He says that he likes being able to befriend other missionaries, but he finds Facebook too much of a distraction. 

They are still doing a lot of teaching - helping a lot of people with concerns. They had a lesson scheduled for 5pm that P Day. 

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 - 19th May 2021 - Going to the Temple For the Second Time

My connection during our video chat last P-Day kept dropping out, so I didn’t get to hear all of what was said, and as usual at the moment, it wasn’t an overly long call. The bad connection was due to us chatting earlier than our normal call time, so I was trying to connect whilst at work. The reason for the earlier call was that a number of the AAM missionaries, including Elder East, were getting the chance to go through the Adelaide Temple during the afternoon. It was going to be only the second time that Elder East will have been through the temple, so it was exciting for him. The fact that he was going to be going through with four of his previous missionary companions was an added bonus. Elissa mentioned that she was teaching about consecration in Seminary that week, and that consecration includes the consecration of ourselves and our time. She compared it to Elder East’s preparation and service as a missionary and in the temple.

Elder East mentioned that he enjoyed the Canberra Youth Fireside that he’d been asked to participate in via Zoom on Sunday evening. Besides the opportunity to speak to the Canberran youth, he also enjoyed catching up with the other Canberran missionaries at the end of the fireside.

Elder East spoke about how the number of the missionaries in the AAM didn’t seem to increase, even with the new intake of missionaries. Two Sisters had unexpectedly gone home for health reasons, with both being reassigned to serve in their home missions. Another Elder had gone home several weeks ago as well. He still had some time left on his mission, but had struggled to adjust with the reassignment from serving in his original mission in Africa, and serving back here in Australia. Elder East thinks that the Elder is regretting his choice to return home as he has called on P-Days to talk with some of the missionaries still serving in the AAM.

Some minor dot points:

• Elder East says it was cool to catch up with Elder Reeves when he stayed with them overnight during the new missionary intake. He says that Elder Reeves has injured his back though which is a concern for him at the moment.
• Elder East now thinks that he’ll continue to train Elder Davey, even if their three-way companionship is broken up at transfers.
• He said that he enjoyed catching up with me at the airport on Monday.

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 - 10th February 2021 - Unfortunate Car / Gate Interface

Elder East seemed to be happy and to have had another positive week. They attended a multi-stake fireside on Sunday evening and had two of their investigators come along for the evening. The first one was the young lady who was recently scheduled for baptism. Elder East said that they found out that her mother turns out to be a less-active member of the Church. The other investigator who came along was somebody who they weren't actually teaching at the time. Not sure if that will change now.

The AAM blog had a write-up about the fireside which included a few photos with Elder East in them, so let's play "Where's Elder East?"

Edler East says that he's enjoying being a Zone Leader. He is enjoying helping people and wants to get better in his service. Their companionship had training with the APs on "Model Exchanges" during the week. This was to help Elder East as a new Zone Leader to learn how to be more effective when doing exchanges with other companionships. There are plans for him to exchange with all of the other companionships in the Zone in the coming week. 

He mentioned that the APs said that missionaries shouldn't have pictures of girlfriends/boyfriends up in their flats. Elder East thinks this was in response to him having a picture of Kendal up on his study desk.

One of the APs, Elder Rogers was due to go home on Friday - it was out of cycle so that he would be able to start at university. We briefly chatted with Elder East about his post-mission plans. We know that it's still a long way away, and don't want to distract him from his mission focus, but just wondered if he's had any inspiration whilst out. Elder East says that he's feeling less certain about heading down the sciences path as careers in science tend to be more limited than other areas.

Elder East says that it's setting in that Elder Taua is heading home in less than 4 weeks. Elder Taua's had to deal with arranging his travel home as well as details for his final Temple visit on top of giving a "farewell" testimony at Zone Conference. Elder Taua joked that they're trying to make him trunky.

After almost leaving last month Elder Lwin is not on the list of missionaries going home next transfer. Given the issues around getting a flight back to Myanmar and the military coup in the country his ability to get home is becoming even further uncertain. Elder East says that missionaries are joking that if the Myanmar problems continue, Elder Lwin will beat Elder Batar's record of being out for nearly 29 months.

Elder East commented that Elder Kennach's companion has gone home for medical reasons, so he's been put in a three-way companionship with Elder Nalesoni and Elder Aiho. That means three of Elder East's old companions are now all serving together.  We joked that they're all probably comparing notes about what it was like being his companion.

Some additional dot points about things we discussed:

• Even though the Adelaide temple has reopened, it's unlikely missionaries will get the opportunity to go except for this arriving or going home. They are working on trying to get recent converts to attend the temple though.
• They're not getting many member meals in the ward.; They did get a roast meal with an investigator family whose children they are currently teaching.
• The ward has a lot of missionary things in place - a ward mission leader, missionary correlation, and so on, but he'd like to see things a little less administrative and a bit more spiritually focussed.
• He's currently studying 3rd Nephi in his personal studies.
• Elder East has started putting on a lot of weight. He and Elder Taua are eating a lot of takeaway/junk food.
• Elder East managed to scratch the side of their car down a gate as they were leaving their ward missionary correlation meeting.
• Elder East has always had to put up with us complaining before his mission that his smiles never looked natural. We talked about some of the "photo faces" that certain missionaries always seem to have in mission photos.  Sister Matenga always seems to have a smirk/lopsided smile. Sister Anderson always has her eyes shut. Elder Nalesoni always looks serious and like he's frowning. Elder East did point out that he does actually have one photo of Elder Naelsoni smiling :)

Temple Endowment - 2nd September 2020

Elder East ended up going through the Adelaide Temple last Wednesday night (2nd Sep) to receive his Endowment along with four other missionaries from the AAM.

Sister Grant from the Mission office was kind enough to take this photo of him whilst he was waiting at the mission office beforehand.

The AAM blog has been updated with photos from the evening, so we've grabbed some of them, especially those that included Elder East.

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!

Video Chat - 12th August 2020 - Learning to Adjust

Elder East said that we probably won't get an email from him this week, so I took notes during our weekly family video chat.

He started out by saying that he might only show his mouth in the video. He had just gotten himself a haircut that he wasn’t happy with and didn't want to show his whole head. It was shorter on top than Mum usually does it, but it didn’t look too bad.

The first bit of conversation was about Mum’s car accident as we’d just gotten the news that Jelly Bean (her car) was being written off and that Mum was now driving around Danielle Devito (his car). Elder East did give Mum some little tips about his old car … like not locking the driver’s door when in the car as it doesn’t unlock from the inside and you have to then climb out the passenger’s side. (Note: Not sure why he didn’t just wind down the driver’s door window and open it that way.]

The major theme of the chat was that Elder East is having trouble adjusting to his new companion.  There's nothing of a serious nature, just getting used to people who do things differently. Elder De Guzman likes to have three cooked meals a day, most with rice, whilst Elder East would typically just have an apple for breakfast and maybe a sandwich for lunch. It’s frustrating for Elder East in that in his view all of the cooked meals result in a lot of extra cleaning that needs to be done, and a lot of extra time traveling to and from their flat.

Their typical day consists of leaving the flat at 10am, traveling to the chapel by bus to work, bussing back to the flat for lunch, bussing back to the chapel for more work, and then bussing back in the evening.

At the chapel, they spend a lot of time calling through old investigators in the area books. They actually seem to be doing not too bad in that regard. He said that they had 3 appointments scheduled for that evening, had taught 2 lessons on Monday and 4 lessons on Tuesday. He'd taught a couple of the lessons with Elder Roberts as Elder De Guzman had been playing the piano whilst Elder East was making calls to investigators. We commented that he was teaching far more than we typically did on our missions.

They've only had a single meal with a member so far. He took them out to a claypot dinner in Chinatown. The one he had wanted to take them too wasn't available so they tried a different one, which ended up being a lot more expensive than he'd planned. The bill came to $140. The member had intended to pay for the missionaries, but he only had $100. Elder De Guzman didn't have any money, so Elder East ended up paying the other $40.

Elder East mentioned that he and Elder De Guzman need to work on how the training is going to operate. Elder De Guzman is very much of the opinion that Elder East will learn by doing things as he goes, whereas Elder East prefers to learn about how to do things beforehand before putting them into practice. They obviously need to work about how make Elder East's training more effective.

We talked about how the Adelaide Temple would be opening up so that he would be able to go the Temple for the first time (as opposed to just the baptistery.) We had asked the Mission President several months ago about whether we might be able to come over when that occurred to help assist. President Marquis was fine with that, but the shut borders mean that that's no longer an option. Instead, we've ordered the clothes he needs for the temple from the Sydney Distribution Centre. We did need some assistance from Sister Grant in the Mission Office who went and helped get some measurements from Elder East.

A few other minor points:

• Sister Abel from Stromlo Ward had an MTC companion who is about to transfer into the AAM, so she's been told to keep an eye out for Elder Seth.
• Elder East has bought some new, mission-rule-compliant plain socks to replace the picture socks that Mum had gotten for him.
• We talked about the kayaker who died earlier in the week down at Point Hut Crossing, just down the road from home.
• Elder East was planning to email Alex G, Grandma and Kendall R. We noted that we weren't a part of the list that was going to get an email.