Video Chat - 9th August 2021 - Helping With A Baptism and Snakes Whilst Teaching

We had our first Monday P Day chat last week and Elder East was able to share with us some photos from the previous Saturday. He and three other Elders had helped with a baptism. The gentleman who was getting baptised only has one leg and is in a wheelchair. The four Elders were able to help him into the water and to be baptised. 

Somebody on Facebook also happened to post up the following picture of the baptism as well. 

With the changeover from Wednesday to Monday P Days it was a shorter week to chat about, but Elder East mentioned some other happenings during the week:

• They provided some service to an older lady by helping to clean out her garage. During the cleanout Elder East found a slow cooker cookbook that she didn't want that she was happy for him to have. He was quite happy about getting a cookbook. 
• One of the people that they've been teaching came along to Church on Sunday.
• They had a meal appointment on Sunday evening.
• He received his package of MtG cards that we'd sent through to him for P Day.
• There is a Missionary Preparation Devotional this coming Sunday (15th Aug) that they were going to be helping with. This ties in with missionary preparation classes that are being started in Darwin which they will be helping with as well. Elder East said that the missionary preparation classes were going to be taught by the only YSA in Darwin.
• The weather in Darwin is getting more humid but has still been nice.
• They haven't tried doorknocking in the evenings yet.

Elder East also shared a story with us that he hadn't told us about when they had trade-offs recently. They were teaching a family on the balcony of the family's home. As they were teaching they could hear movement from the garage nearby. A black-headed python slithered out from the garage about a metre away from them before slithering away. As you can appreciate, they all stopped and watched to see what the snake was going to do when it appeared.

A few other comments from Elder East about their day to day happenings:

• They do have bikes, but only tend to use them to travel when they have a lot of unplanned time, otherwise, it's better to use their car.
• They consider that they have both the largest and smallest areas in the mission. Large in that it covers most of the top of the Northern Territory, but small in that in a practical sense, there are only 5 suburbs around Palmerston that they can travel to and work in. They spend most of their time in only two suburbs, Durack and Woodroffe.
• Elder East was going to try a family favourite recipe - Chicken & Cheese Enchiladas - this week, so we're interested to see how it goes.
• Edler East is happy with how they're doing with their budgeting as a companionship. They're sticking to their budgets and living within their finances - an important skill to learn when you're living away from home.
• The next Transfers is on Monday 23rd August. Elder East would be happy to stay, but he'd like to be able to help reopen some of the country areas like Mildura, Katherine, Kunnunnura or Alice Springs to missionaries.

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 - 28th July 2021 - Darwin District Conference

 Once again, it was only a very quick chat with Elder East last P Day. He seems to enjoy spending time with his district / Zone on P Days rather than speaking to his parents :)

Much of the last week had been taken up with District Conference. On Friday they had a  missionary devotional with Elder Lekias, the Area Authority who was visiting Darwin for the District Conference. Elder Lekias knows our family and recognised Elder East as our son.

On the Friday night they had the regular branch sports night. On the Saturday they had a missionary and leadership session of District Conference during the afternoon. Elder East participated along with Sister Smith as "YSAs" as part of a discussion panel with Elder Lekias.

There were the usual Saturday evening and Sunday morning sessions of Conference as well. The missionaries were part of the choir for the Sunday session, performing two hymns - Master the Tempest is Raging, and Count Your Many Blessings.

On Tuesday they had interviews with President Johansson via Zoom. Elder East said that they covered a lot of general topics, as well as some coming changes ... but Elder East wouldn't say what those coming changes were.

Elder East mentioned that they'd also caught up with a Brother King and his family. They are moving from Canberra to Darwin. Brother King was actually Bishop of Woden Ward when I was Bishop of Tuggeranong Ward about 15 years ago. (The two wards met in the same chapel in Canberra.)

Video Chat - 21st July 2021 - Pavlovas, Videos and Snakes

It was only a quick chat this week, but we did at least get sent some more photos from Elder East.

The first photo is of Karen Boree. She was somebody I knew on my mission from Canberra - she was the daughter of the Ward Mission leader when I served in Woden Branch back in the early Nineties. She'd long ago married and moved away but had met Elissa and I when she was back visiting Canberra one time.  Elder East had also gotten to know one of her sons during the 2017 FSY that they'd both attended. Karen is in the Darwin Branch. They'd caught up whilst they were all helping at the Single Adult Convention that was being held in Darwin the previous weekend. Elder East commented that the SA Convention seemed to involve a lot of family history classes.

The next photo collage includes a family that they are teaching about the Gospel. Elder East says that the familyy also spontaneously feeds them. Apparently, most of their meal appointments with others tend to be spontaneous. The middle photo is a screenshot of a video they filmed to contribute to the Mission Facebook page.

I managed to download the video from Facebook ... it should hopefully be below.

The following picture is of the Ashtons,. Elder East said that the senior missionary couple that usually looks after the Darwin missionaries were down in Adelaide for the week, so the Ashtons looked after them for a bit.

The following picture is after their Branch Mission Correlation meeting with the Branch mission leader. The group includes the new Sister Missionary who is currently in Darwin for two weeks whilst Adelaide is under covid restrictions.

The following picture "... is just smoke, we get a lot of fires up here all around the place. This time we just figured we'd drive by it."

The new Sister Missionary is "Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and allergic to Apples, bananas, coconuts and cashews." Elder East decided to try and make a pavlova for her for the district P Day as they were going to have a district picnic. Elder East got some guidance from his Mum on how to cook the pavlova the night before. 

His comment at the end "It did sink a little in one spot and it cracked a bit but I'm impressed with it." Apparently, it tasted good and was popular.

He said that they had a good P Day with the picnic at the botanical gardens, followed by a trip to a museum. There was a fake snake in one of the trees in the park they were at, so they originally thought the following Black-Headed Python was fake too, until it started slithering towards them. He shared with us the following video.

President Johansson and the APs were meant to fly up on Friday (24th Jul) for District Conference, Zone Conference, and interviews but that was canceled due to Covid related border closures. Elder East commented that the missionaries have been volunteered to participate in the choir for District Conference.

Elder East said that they had their first Missionary Leadership Council with President Johansson (remotely of course.) He said that it was good, but Elder East was worried that President Johansson has gotten rid of the "white binder" - the local rules that President Marquis had put in place, but also introduced some new rules as well. (eg missionaries can't cut each other's hair.) As a Zone Leader, Elder East will have to help the missionaries transition to the new guidelines. 

Elder east commented that they're not doing much finding as a companionship at the moment as they're doing a lot of teaching instead.

Video Chat - 14th July 2021 - Staying in Darwin, Photos and Main Speaker at Church

The big news for the past week was that it was transfers and both Elder Evans and Elder East are staying together in Darwin which Elder East is quite happy about. In fact, there were only three transfers in the whole mission which were related to new missionaries. One of those was a new Sister missionary coming into the Palmerston Branch, a Sister Sullivan from Cowra, so they're now in a three-way. Elder East thinks she may have previously met her at the original FSY he went to in Sydney back in 2017.

Elder East sent us through a bunch of photos. 

This is a photo of the missionaries with a couple from Palmerston Branch back on the 27th June. This was just after the lockdown had been announced. With Church meetings having been canceled due to the lockdown, they were fortunate to be able to meet together for sacrament before returning for the lockdown

A random chicken they happened to find wandering the streets of Palmerston.

The senior missionary couple held flat inspections recently - and they jokingly gave awards/medals to the missionaries for keeping their various accommodation in good condition.

This was a photo of the P Day activity on 7th July. This was part of their 'Amazing Race" activity where they had to take photos of various things. Most of the companionships were colour coordinated.

Photos of the Elders studying on their balcony. Looks quite nice.

Above are photos from their District Council meeting that was held recently. The lady in the blue on the right is a Single Adult representative. She was there as the missionaries will be helping to run a Single Adult convention in Darwin over the weekend of the 18th and 19th July. 

There is a public golf course near their flat that they sometimes walk through when going places. They came across this turtle the other day. Elder East took a  photo as it reminded him of Fred, the turtle that we "turtle-sat" for a number of years.

Elder East was the final speaker at Church last week (11th July). He was meant to speak for 13-15 minutes on "Emulating Christ". They'd invited a number of people they were teaching along to see him speak. They were excited to see that two of the families that they'd invited come along (pictured in the above two photos.)

Elder East said that he went overtime in his talk. The Sister missionaries must have thought it was good though. They told him that he should be a Stake president based on that talk. It's not the first time sister missionaries have made that comment to him during his mission. Obviously, they think that he speaks well. 

They've been busy teaching during the past week - mainly over Zoom. They taught 2 lessons on the Sunday afternoon, 6 on Monday and another 7 on Tuesday. There was a busy week coming up too. They had Mission Correlation scheduled on Thursday, Mission Leadership Council on Friday and then helping with the Single Adult convention on Saturday and Sunday.

Elder East was also excited about a change that had been brought in by President Johansson. President had relaxed the rules a bit about what music missionaries could listen to, giving them more responsibility in choosing "uplifting" music, so we've got some requests from Elder East for a broader selection of music.

Video Chat - 7th July 2021 - Coming Out of Lockdown

It was only a quick call with Elder East this week. The Covid lockdown finished for the Darwin and Palmerston areas on Friday, however, they still weren't able to hold Church last Sunday, and many things were still very quiet. They are expecting Church to be held this coming Sunday (11th July). In fact, Elder East has a speaking assignment.

The main piece of news was that they met with their new mission president - President Johansson.  I realised that I didn't note what day it was and whether it was in person or via Zoom. Elder East said that all of the missionaries were together at the Darwin chapel. They held a group meeting with President Johansson between 11am to Noon, then lunch between Noon and 1pm, then followed by interviews with each of the individual missionaries. Of the 8 missionaries, Elder East was last to be interviewed, so he was there until 4:30pm. [Note: Elissa advised after I published this that the meetings and interviews were via Zoom/]

With President Johansson allowing districts and zones to get together each P Day the Darwin and Palmerston missionaries were doing a bunch of activities together including a chip lunch, an Amazing race activity involving photos, and a spicy noodle eating challenge. 

A few quick dot points from the discussion:

• President Johansson mentioned that he's been instructed not to transfer missionaries too often at the moment, so Elder East may spend a while in the Northern Territory.
• We did send Elder East some English Samoan vocabulary documents however he says that he probably needs an actual dictionary as he has lots of words, but needs to be able to understand participles.
• If Elder East doesn't get transferred during the next transfers (scheduled for 12-13th July) we'll arrange to send him some money so he and his companion can go to Aquascene on the 21st July P Day. Aquascene features large fish that come in at high tide to be hand-fed. I remember going there as a kid back in 1981.

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.