Elder East Returns Home With Honour

 Elder East completed his two years of missionary service in the Australia Adelaide Mission on the 14th June 2022. He flew out of Adelaide at 4:20pm and arrived in Canberra at 6:20pm. 

There was much happiness at the airport from Mum to see her boy again after two years.

It was then a case of heading to the Stake Center where he had his final interview with President Moir ( First Counselor in the Stake Presidency) before being formally released. Unfortunately, a family friend and Stake President, President Stuart had come down sick and tested Covid positive the previous evening and was unable to do the interview himself. 

Elder East had the opportunity to share a beautiful "final testimony" to his family before being formally released.

Back at home, Mum had printed up a poster and stuck it on his bedroom door. The poster summarised Elder East's mission thus.

We are so proud of him and the work that hes done, and his desire to help and assist others. 

Video Call - 23rd May 2022 - Running on Two Hours Sleep & A New Companion

Today was the big day of the New Zealand assigned missionaries flying out of the AAM. When we spoke to Elder East he told us that he was operating on only 2 hours of sleep overnight due to the early check-in times (3:30am) for the departing missionaries. 

Just to add additional drama to the early start, they discovered that three of the missionaries didn't have the right Covid clearance certificates to be able to travel. They did have Covid clearance certificates, but not international Covid clearance certificates. The mission didn't even know that was a thing, and it was just fortunate that the other 12 departing missionaries did have the right type of certificates. Those three missionaries that were unable to depart were rescheduled to fly out on Wednesday (25th May). He said that whilst they were trying to sort out the Covid certificate issue the airport went from empty to full with long lines everywhere.

Just to add further complexity, they also received a call letting them know that some of the missionaries flying into the AAM from the New Zealand missions had missed their flight.

Because of everything that has been going on, lots of Elders have been using the APs flat as a temporary sleeping place. Elder East was happy that now that the other missionaries had flown out, the APs flat could get back a semblance of order again rather than being full of missionaries and luggage in transit.

Mid-transfers were happening the following day (Tues 24th May). President Johansson had made some last-minute changes to those originally planned. Elders East & Ma'a would be going into a three-way companionship to help train a new AP to replace Elder East when he leaves. Their new companion is Elder Nelson - one of the American missionaries who recently arrived into the mission. Elder Nelson is from South Jordan in Utah and has already served about 18 months of his mission in the USA whilst the borders were shut. He will be Elder East's 21st (and presumably final) companion on his mission.

Other quick notes from our chat:

• The Ward had a cottage evening activity during the week. The Elders taught a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. Elder East said that it was a good night.
• They were expecting eight people for Church on Sunday, but none of them ended up coming for various reasons, which they were disappointed about.
• Elder East successfully voted in the Federal Election on Saturday - he'd transferred his enrolment to SA. He ended up having to help other missionaries who still had their enrolments back at home to find appropriate polling centres to vote at
• Elder East will be heading up to Alice Springs next weekend where a number of baptisms will be occurring. 

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 - 14th February 2022 - The Mission is Growing

 As usual, another busy week for the APs in the AAM, or in the words of Elder East "really hectic". Tuesday was transfers. Elder East commented that they did transfers differently this month with the Sister missionaries coming in first to have their transfers, and the Elders coming later to do theirs. He reckons that the Sisters took a long time socialising at transfers with the other Sisters, whilst the Elders were more in and out. 

On Wednesday eight new missionaries arrived. Of the eight new missionaries that arrived, three will be staying in the AAM, whilst the other five are on temporary assignment whilst waiting to get to Perth (x2), Japan, New Zealand and Fiji.  Elder East commented that the new missionaries all look so young, and in the case of the 4' 9' tall sister, very short. 

On Thursday, Elder East said that he cost the mission $800. One of the new missionaries was meant to be flying out to his new area in the Northern Territory on Thursday morning. Elder East forgot about the time difference between NT and SA, and got the missionary to the airport at the right time ... if he was in the NT. But funnily enough, the plane was operating on SA time when departing from the Adelaide airport and had left within the previous hour. They had to rebook the Elder's flight for the following day ... and they made sure to be there on time.

Elder East said that there was a lot of travel coming up. Elder Brett Nattress (First Counselor in the Area Presidency was doing several tours of the mission, He would be coming to visit the NT with President Johansson next week, and then Adeliade in early March. President Johansson decided that he needed to take the APs with him during the trip to assist with a lot of the organisation of what was going on. Consequently, they'll be flying up to Alice Springs on Wed (16th Feb) and then up to Darwin on Sat (19th Feb) before flying back to Adelaide next Monday (21st Feb.) This means that on Sunday at Church, Elder East will possibly get to catch up with some of the people he knew whilst serving in Darwin. 

In the week following that they would be having Zone Conferences, and the following week Elder Nattress will be back for the Adelaide part of the mission tour. 

Some other dot points from our discussion:

• There are another 9 new missionaries coming at mid-transfers in 3 weeks' time. The mission is definitely growing. They'll also be getting several Mandarin-speaking missionaries in April.
• With the relaxation of Covid restrictions, they're now allowed to try following up in person with people again rather than vai electronically.
• He was asked how his clothes were holding out or if he needed new ones before his mission would finish. He said that he needs new suit pants - they've gotten too small - but was going out to buy some today.
• They've been using a lot of the food from the freezer in their flat which has been there since before they arrived back in November.
• The last three nights he's dreamt that he was back home ... but that he was still a missionary.
• He is beginning to think he may head straight to University when he gets home. We chatted about how he needs to focus on the missionary work, but also may need to prayerfully make some decisions soon with respect to his University application. We sent through some university admission information for him to look at on future P Days. He said that he'll probably end up doing some reading about uni admission during his upcoming flights.
• Elder East has grown to like the steak houses that have been used for some of the "Arrivers" dinners. He wants to know if there are any steak houses in Canberra.
• Elissa had joked about what meal he wanted most when he gets back. He's decided he wants a whole week of meals: In no particular order: "Chicken Stroganoff, Chicken and cheese enchiladas, Bang bang chicken noodles, Dad's chilli, Nachos, Maybe go out to a nice Indian place."

Video Chat - 17th January 2022 - Guided By a Dream To Discover the Lost Records

It was a tired Elder East who spoke to on the P Day of 17th January. It was the middle of the transfer period, and they had six new missionaries coming in mid-transfer. Consequently, there were a lot of other moves on. Elder east had been up since 4am to help take a missionary to the airport for transfer up to Alice Springs.

President Johanssen is still contemplating driving up to Alice Springs at some point with the Elders. If they do this, they may stop at Coober Pedy on the way which will be an interesting place to visit. It would also be an interesting place to be stationed as a missionary.

They had Zone Conference for the Nephi Zone on Tuesday. Elder East said the APs didn't have to provide training for as long as planned, however, they did have to assist with the Mission President interviews. Apparently there was about 6-7 hours of work associated with those.

On Wednesday Elder East got to go through the Temple for the third time. He said that it was really nice. He sent through the following photos taken in the temple grounds.  He commented that there had been some renovations to the Temple since when he had first been there.

On Thursday he was able to go on trade-offs with Elder Reeves whilst Elder Evans went with his companion.

They had done a quick trip up to Mildura over the weekend. Driving up on the Saturday, staying Saturday night with the Mildura Elders and returning back on the Sunday. I didn't actually note what they had to drive up there for. :) The long driving over the preceding two days was potentially another factor in Elder East feeling rather tired.

The highlight for Elder East though was a dream he had on Sunday night. He'd mentioned several weeks ago how the online area book system had lost all of the investigator records for Darwin when some of the areas changed. Last Sunday night he dreamt about where the records were being stored in the system. He had a look at the online system at where the dream pointed him too, and came across a section he wasn't familiar with, but was unable to access. 

During the week, tech support contacted the mission office to talk them through how to possibly resolve the issue however the instructions from tech support were not making sense to them. Elder East became involved and recognised that the answer lay in his dream, and that he knew where the records were. Sure enough, upon looking at the dreamt of area that he found of previously they were able to use the instructions from tech support to access it. The area contained not just the missing records they were looking for, but even more. They were not only able to recover the 600 missing investigator records for the Darwin area but close to 2000 historical investigator records from around the mission that unknowingly had disappeared off the system over time. It took Elder East's dream guiding him to the appropriate area to find the records that had been lost. Elder East said that it gave him a real incentive to study up more on spiritual gifts. 

Video Chat - 3rd January 2022 - Covid Hits the Mission

Catching up with my notes of chats with Elder East so there will be several weeks' worth of chats being posted up in a short period of time. We were away for a holiday in Tasmania as well as having a  week in isolation, so it's been a month since I've posted. This particular entry was from when we chatted on Monday 3rd January and covers the previous week. 

The big event this week was Transfers ... and of covid hitting the mission. The previous Tuesday (28th Dec) was Transfers, which included three Elders going home of whom two had been Elder East's companions. (Elders Roberts and Read.) On the Monday evening, there was the traditional Family Home Evening for those leaving at the Mission President's home. Normally the APs would be invited too, but Covid restrictions meant it was limited and they weren't able to attend. 

On Tuesday when they took the leaving missionaries to the airport they discovered that Sister Hall's flight had been canceled and this hadn't been passed on to the mission. So, it was now a case of urgently trying to rebook a flight for her to be able to get home.

On Wednesday they had their new missionaries arrive to be picked up at the airport ... well at least some of them did. Travelers are meant to have a negative Covid test within 48 hours of going into South Australia.  The Covid test for one of the missionaries due to fly in had come back positive. They had another two who were due to come in but their Covid test results hadn't come back in time. 

In the latter part of the week, one of the missionaries was feeling unwell and subsequently returned a positive Covid result. That particular missionary companionship had had lunch with four other missionary companionships after transfers on Tuesday. Those companionships all went into isolation. The APs were required to go and help provide some food drop-offs for those companionships. 

Eventually, all of the mission were asked to isolate as a precaution. Elder East commented that as a part of his responsibilities he'd effectively had contact with every single missionary in the mission during the previous week.

On Saturday (New Years Day) he and Elder Evans went to get Covid tested, waiting two hours before being told that the centre was now full and that they'd missed the cut off. They eventually managed to get tested on Sunday. As of our chat, they were both still in isolation and waiting for their test results to come back. 

Some other notes from our chat:

• Elder East was in a video released by the mission on Social media during the week (Fri 31st Jan.) It featured several people in the Temple grounds talking about New Year's resolutions to be baptised and to attend the temple. Elder East commented to us that he didn't know they were going to film a video and he was in his "everything else needs to be washed" clothes at the time. 

• Missionaries went out to Mildura during this transfer. Subsequently, the APs missionary responsibility has changed from Mildura to the northern half of Firle Ward.
• The AAM started up a private Facebook group during the week for family and friends of AAM missionaries to hear news of what's going on in the mission. "Australia Adelaide Mission - President Johansson"
• Cyclone Seth was causing damage on Australia's eastern coast. Elder's East's mum told him to stop it and get back to SA. 

• They are having problems with their computer system that acts as the area books for missionaries. With the reorganization of several areas, the details of their teaching contacts have disappeared from the system. They are contacting support in Utah for help to try and find out what's wrong.  
• Elder East sent us through some photos of one of their meetings earlier in the week. 

Video Chat - 22nd November 2021 - Elder Evans Joins as a New Assistant to the President

We chatted with Elder East twice during last P-Day. He was rather down when we first spoke to him early in the morning as there had been some issues in the mission over the last 3 or 4 days. This had resulted in a lot of interviews by the Mission President and a number of changes in companionships. Missionaries hadn’t been the best at keeping the mission rules – nothing serious enough to be sent home over – but enough that it would affect the work and their ability to recognize the promptings of the Spirit. Helping President Johansson deal with that had obviously taken a bit of an emotional toll on Elder East. When we spoke to him again later in the day he was more upbeat and positive about how things were going.

Elder East filled us in on some more details of Elder Read. He said that they had been getting along well. Elder Read had previously lived in London, working as a kitchenhand before heading back to Melbourne. He was originally called to serve in one of the Chilean missions and spent several months there before Covid hit. He was reassigned to serve in the Adelaide Mission, but got caught up in the Melbourne lockdown and served some time there. He is now in the Adelaide Mission to complete his service. 

The rundown of their previous week (16th - 22nd Nov) was as follows:

Monday (15th Nov) - after having spoken to us on P Day he also contacted and spoke with Grandma and Grandad Yates to thank them for a car and money that they had sent through to him. They were pleasantly surprised to get to talk to him.

Tuesday (16th Nov) was Transfers, so a hectic day, as well as learning the ropes of being an AP from Elder Read. They got to have a farewell meal at a Burger restaurant with one of Elder East’s former companions (and his 13th cousin)  Elder Aiho who was heading home.

Wednesday (17th Nov) they had several new trainees fly in, so it was a matter of dropping Elder Aiho off at the airport and picking up three new missionaries - Two Elders and one Sister. They got to have lunch with the new trainees.

Thursday through to Saturday was helping President Johansson in dealing with a lot of interviews to deal with the issues that had arisen. He commented that they went out so that Elder Read could get a new suit on Saturday at one point. 

On Sunday they joined in the Marion Stake Conference. He said that they had a number of difficulties with their technology as they tried to broadcast the meeting. He said it got a bit humorous as the Zoom chat full of messages about problems with the broadcast was displayed behind the speaker at the pulpit.  Elder East mentioned that he got to catch up with some of the missionaries and old investigators he had taught in Onakapringa and Marion Wards. 

As a result of the missionary interviews, there were a number of leadership changes and movements amongst the missionaries.  Elder East now had a new companion as a fellow Assistant to the President, his former companion Elder Evans. Elder East said that Elder Evans was very surprised to be called as an AP. He had been serving down in Victor Harbour.

The coming week was going to include a lot of Zone Conferences where they would be accompanying President Johansson. 

Some other short notes from our discussion:

• They'd only had one "home cooked" meal during the week as quite often they're accompanying and eating with president Johansson. 
• One of Elder East's former companions, Elder Taua, who is now home from his mission, has gotten engaged to one of the former Sister Missionaries from the AAM. 
• Part of the upcoming training will be on rebalancing the service vs proselyting hours for the missionaries. As Covid restrictions reduce, the options for proselyting are opening up and should be more of a focus.
• Elder East got to show us a nativity display that is set up outside the mission office.

Video Chat - 15th November 2021 - Called as an Assistant to the President

In a huge surprise, Elder East let us know last P Day that he was being transferred yet again. Elder Rea was Elder East's third trainee and he has yet to finish training one of them. The transfer news was rather exciting and intimidating though. He was told on the Saturday night (13th Nov) to pack his bags because he was being transferred but he thought it was just the APs playing a joke on him. It turns out that they weren't. Elder East was called to be a new Assistant to the President to be companions with Elder Read.

Elder East is sad to be leaving Port Pirie, he'd expected to be spending Christmas there. He didn't get to say goodbye as they had arranged to be attending church in Whyalla on Sunday (14th Nov) and visiting investigators and members in Whyalla and Port Augusta during the day. 

Elder Brown will finish training Elder Rea - the second time Elder Brown has finished the training of a missionary who started with Elder East. Elder East says that Elder Rea is strong - he'll be a good missionary. 

The traditional rundown of Elder East's week.

Tuesday was spent doorknocking in the rain. 

On Wednesday they had a big companionship study session preparing for several planned lessons later in the day. Unfortunately, both of the lessons ended up canceling, but they thought the preparation they had done was really good. Elder East said that they then went and visited a nearby small town to ascertain if they were going to undertake some missionary work there. Then it was time to drive down to Adelaide where they stayed with other Elders overnight.

Thursday was a special devotional for the AAM missionaries. Elder Lekias, the Area Authority was there in person, but they were also joined via video by Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita, the second counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, Elder Carl B Cook from the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Ulisses Soares from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder East said that the devotional was good. All four of the area and general authorities spoke to them about their missionary service. He was called up by Elder Lekias at one point to share the purpose of being a missionary. Elder East thought it might be because Elder Lekias knows our family, however, we found out later that he'd actually asked for a recommendation from President Johansson on who to ask up, and President had recommended Elder East.

On Thursday evening Elders East and Rea spent the night down in Adelaide, spending the evening phoning people around Whyalla and Port Augusta to visit on Sunday. 

They drove back to Port Pirie on Friday morning and then spent the afternoon doorknocking and doing lessons.

Elder East said they had a lot of lessons on Saturday. 

Sunday they headed out to Whyalla for Church. They have their own chapel and had 23 in attendance even though they were missing a couple of families, so Whyalla Branch is actually bigger than Port Pirie. Elder East commented that the main entrance into Whyalla is through the industrial part of town. He said that it looked like the setting for a Young Adult dystopian novel. Having said that, once you were in town there was a nice view out into the bay. Being a holiday area the town also has a lot of touristy things to do. 

At the Whyalla Sacrament meeting they had the opportunity to bless the sacrament for the branch. Their investigator wasn't able to come to Chruch that day, but they were able to meet up with another former investigator and a less active member family in Whyalla and have lessons with both. They also caught up with a family in Port Augusta and had a lesson with them too. Elder East said that all of the lessons they had that day were really nice and that he enjoyed them. They arranged to eb able to keep in touch and continue teaching with all of the people they visited. They learned on the way back to Port Pirie that the APs weren't joking about Elder East being transferred, and Sunday night was spent starting to pack.

When we spoke to him on P Day he said that he'd only been down in Adelaide for about 2 hours, having left Port Pirie around lunchtime. He said that some of the other missionaries were acting a bit differently around him now that he was about to become an AP. He commented that the APs flat was big. They quite often have to accommodate missionaries in transit both in and out of the mission, along with transfers and conferences. 

Typically APs serve for about three transfers, so he's hoping for a bit of stability in his new role. He doesn't know many of those in his new district, only having served around one of the 8 missionaries. He thinks that his role will now be more orientated towards ministering to missionaries rather than directly proselyting. The APs physically attend Firle Ward, but are remotely responsible for Mildura Ward. As an AP he is likely to travel a lot on tradeoffs and to accompany President Johansson as he travels in his official capacity. 

 He mentioned that one of the people he had been teaching in Onkaparinga Ward is now in Firle Ward so he might be able to catch up with them.

Elder East Becomes an Assistant to the President

 We received the following email from the Australia Adelaide Mission on Monday:

Dear Family of Elder East,

It is with great pleasure that I inform you that your missionary, Elder Seth East, has just been called to serve as an Assistant to the President.

This represents a significant accomplishment on his part, and I am sure that you are as proud of him as I am. He will fulfill a significant stewardship as he accepts responsibility to lead the missionaries in the Australia Adelaide mission. Future leadership opportunities in family, church and career will be enhanced by the great experience he will have. 

 We are most grateful to you for helping to prepare your son to take on this very important responsibility in the Lord’s army. Please join me in congratulating Elder East and in providing continuing encouragement in the future. We love him and are blessed by his service in this mission.

With love and appreciation,

President Adolf J, Johansson

Australia Adelaide Mission

Video Chat - 1st November 2021 - His New Trainee, Companion Number 18, Elder Rea

The big news this week of course was Elder East picking up his new trainee, Elder Rea. I'll give a bit of a summary of Elder East's week as per usual.

The rest of his previous P-Day (Mon 24th Oct) was spent helping to open up Elder Reeves' new flat. Elder Reeves' area was being split and he was opening the new area with a new trainee as well. Elder East said that he was jealous that the new flat had a barbecue, although it did have a garage only accessible from a laneway, which wasn't so good. 

On Tuesday Elders East and Reeves went to the combined Adelaide Zones' Conference. Elder Reeves was providing the music (piano) for the conference so it was otherwise fairly quiet for Elder East. He said it was good with the missionaries doing a breakdown of D&C section 4. He did lament however that conference post-lunch sessions are always hard as they "digest" after lunch. 

Elder East said that he caught up with some of his previous companions at the conference - Elder Davey & Evans as well as Elder Stiles - the other missionary from Canberra.

On Wednesday the new trainees arrived during the afternoon. Elder East has been assigned Elder Rea from Mount Marrow, near Ipswich in Queensland. Elder Rea was originally assigned to the Wellington New Zealand Mission but will be serving in the AAM until the respective boundaries open up and missionaries from Australia can travel to New Zealand. Elder Rea is young - only 18 - and is the third of six children. He has two older brothers that are both on missions at the moment as well, and two younger sisters and a younger brother. Prior to coming on his mission Elder Rea was doing a carpentry apprenticeship. When we asked Elder East what type of carpentry he said "furniture, heritage stuff". Elder Rea is very tall - six foot two. Elder East describes Elder Rea as a "real country boy."

After orientation for the trainees on Wednesday afternoon, President Johansson took them all out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. It turned out to be a more expensive restaurant than President Johansson was expecting, but he decided they'd stay and told the missionaries to order what they wanted.  Elder East ordered a $65 rack of ribs. He reckoned it was the best meal he's had since Christmas dinner last year. 

The Elders all spent the night at Elder Reeves' new flat again before joining in a District Council on Thursday morning. Elders East & Rea then drove up to Port Lincoln and got Elder Rea settled in.

On Friday they went out to several appointments and taught several lessons.

On Saturday they went and provided some service at a member's home doing gardening. The family then gave them lunch and the Elders also taught a lesson. Afterwards, Elder Rea had his first taste of tracting which Elder East said that he enjoyed. 

On Sunday after Church, they attended a barbecue that was put on by some of the members. 

They have a referral from a Bishop in Melbourne from somebody in one of the country towns who is interested in being taught and getting baptised. They have to try and work out how they can teach them, and how the members can help support them as the person is 3.5 hours away from the missionaries in the Eyre Peninsula and an hour away from the nearest members.

Elder East says that Elder Rea is doing well after his first few days in the mission field.

Other notes from our discussion:

• Elder Rea went to school with one of the missionaries in the AAM.
• Elder Rea reckons that Elder East must be cheating at a card game they've played together :)
• They have four dinners and two lunches scheduled with members for the coming week.
• On Thursday nights they will often get leftover bakery products from one of the sisters from the branch who works in a bakery.
• Elder East has had a quick message from Elder Haycock since he returned home to say that he's doing OK. 
• Elder East reckons that he's getting into "Christmas mode" - whatever that may mean :)
• President Johansson is looking at reintroducing some of the rules around when and how missionaries can get together for social gatherings. He'd previously removed the rules in place from President Marquis. I think Elder East is kind of happy to see some of them being reintroduced.

Video Chat - 25th October 2021 - Companion Number 17 ... Elder Burgess

It was only a brief chat this week ... as Elder East was once again preparing for a new companion. To see his full companionship list see the Companionship Page on this blog. Elder East had spent the previous week as companions with Elder Burgess from the Gold Coast. 

On Monday  Elders East & Aiho drove down to Adelaide where they stayed overnight for a District Council on Tuesday morning, at which point Elder Burgess then went with Elder East back up to Point Pirie on Tuesday afternoon. 

Elder East said that he and Elder Burgess provided a lot of service to people in Port Pirie during the week. This included going to Sister Harrison, the older Sister who feeds them in the branch, as well as heading out to the town of Gladstone to help clean up a backyard for somebody there. 

Elder East had identified that Gladstone is where one of our relatives was meant to be buried, so they visited the town graveyard whilst out there. They were unable to find our relative's grave though. He did comment that there were unmarked graves there though, so we might need to do some additional research to find out more details. 

Speaking about Elder Burgess Elder East said that they talked a lot and that Elder East helped Elder Burgess out. He says that Elder Burgess has good factual knowledge but little experience teaching or role-playing, so it sounds like this companionship was an opportunity to provide an extended training experience for Elder Burgess. Elder East commented that they did get the opportunity to teach a lesson to a new member in the Branch.  

Following their shortened week together, they got the call on Saturday that Elder East would be receiving one of the new trainees arriving the next Wednesday (27th Oct) and that Elder Burgess would be transferred up to Darwin. 

They drove down to Adelaide to stay at the Playford Elders flat so that Elder Burgess could fly out on Monday to Darwin. In the meantime, Elder East would be companions with Elder Reeves for the 2 days until his trainee arrived. Elder Reeves' area is being split and he is also getting a new trainee on Wednesday too.

Elder East and Reeves had developed a friendship before Elder East's mission started, and their Mums have become friends. They were both excited to hear that their sons would be serving together, even if only for a couple of days. Elder East said that Elder Reeves didn't count as a proper companion though - it's just a temporary companionship. They had spent some time that P Day afternoon driving through some of the Barossa Valley that makes up the Playford Elder's area.

On Tuesday (26th Oct) they will be having a combined Zone Conference for the Adelaide Zones, and then picking up their trainees on Wednesday. 

A few other quick notes from our discussion:

• Elder East discovered that he'd incurred a speeding fine back in Darwin (45km/h in a 40km/h zone), so had to arrange to pay for that. 
• We had planned on going to WA before he started his mission, however, Covid-19 caused that trip to be canceled. We will likely plan for a trip to WA next year after he returns home. 
• Elder East got to see his Mum hand-feeding wild cockatoos on the balcony back home.

Video Chat - 17th Oct 2021 - Companion Number 16 ... Elder Aiho (Again)

 Lots of changes during the past week for Elder East when we spoke to him last week. We actually spoke to him briefly on the Sunday night as he wasn't going to be free during P Day the next day. He sent us a couple of photos from the week and gave us a rundown of his week as follows:

Tuesday - With Elder Haycock preparing to fly home back to Perth, Elder East spent the day with the APs. They were involved in a District Council, after which Elder East found out that he would be companions with Elder Aiho. He and Elder Aiho had previously been companions back in Morialta Ward over the Christmas-New Year period. Elder Aiho had been moved into a three-way companionship during the last transfer. They drove back to Port Pirie on Tuesday afternoon.

Wednesday - They had a teaching appointment that went well.

Thursday - They provided service to a member, cleaning out their backyard that had forty years of accumulated junk in it. Family friend Dannielle also served in Port Pirie on her mission. Presumably, the family made the connection that she and Elder East knew each other as she was sent the following photos which she forwarded on to us.

Friday & Saturday - The Elders had trade-offs over Friday/Saturday with the Elders in Gulfview Heights, swapping the companions on each day. Elder East said that they went tracting on both days and were able to give out a Book of Mormon and also get a return appointment at another home.

Sunday - they were at Church in Port Pirie. Edler East said they had about 30 in attendance, which is good for the branch. Elder East was advised that they needed to come back down to Adelaide tomorrow (Mon 18th Oct) as he was receiving a new companion, Elder Burgess from Queensland. His new companion needed some assistance and President Johansson felt that Elder East was the right person to assist.

Elder East was sounding a bit tired/down during our video call. He's tired of driving to Adelaide - it's a 5-hour round trip and tomorrow is going to be his fifth trip in 2 weeks. (Transfer up, get spare key, change of companion, trade-offs, change of companion)  as well as having his 3rd companion change in 2 weeks. (Roberts > Haycock > Aiho > Burgess.) He's feeling a bit run down.

Some other quick notes:

• He made the comment to us that he believes that one of Mum's ancestors is buried in Gladstone, a town only about 30 minutes away from Port Pirie. Her family came out to South Australia as free settlers back in the 19th century. Elder east will try and get out to visit the grave.
• With all of the driving he's been doing, he needs some different church music to listen to. 
• He got the chance to go to a games store whilst on trade-offs ... and now wants to buya  Dungeons & Dragons book that's just come out ...