This morning Elder Gowans took the car in for an oil change, tire rotation and inspection of vital parts. Happily it passed with no problems. Then this afternoon he accomplished his first lawn mowing of the season. Sister Stock, whose lawn he mowed from time-to-time last season, has moved to a new rental home with her children. Now they have a yard that is a little larger, but much of the grass is in a flood plain and so remains quite wet. So all he needed to mow was the dry areas. It took about an hour.

This evening we visited one of our very fun families, the Mack family. He will deploy sometime in July; so now is the time to start preparations. We gave them our predeployment briefing which covers many of the important spiritual preparations that need to be done prior to family separation. We spent about 30 minutes with them and then we went to visit brother Delong, whom we have mentioned before in our blog. We discussed with him in basic terms the laws of mercy and justice, the atonement, and judgement. Then we discussed with him the importance of reading and studying the Book of Mormon. He committed from that night forward to read and study this marvelous work and a wonder. From his home we went up to Sister Arnett's home. She called and asked for a blessing; so we told her we would come up after our appointments. We spent an hour with her visiting and sister Gowans was able to give her some good tips on taking some medication and helping her body ease into them. Elder Gowans gave her the blessing and then we left for home.