Elder and Sister Gowans' Missionary Blog

This morning we took one of our Sisters from the Augusta Ward to the Stake Swapmeet. Church members from throughout the stake take clothes, toys, kitchen items and so forth to the swapmeet and then needy folks from throughout the area come and take home things they need for themselves and their families. This sister, she and her husband and 3 children just moved into a rental home and about the only thing they have to their name is a couple of beds, an old warn out TV and a TV stand. We took her up to the swapmeet and before you know it she hands Elder Gowans a stack of red dishes and bowls. As she collects things, he takes them out to the car. Over about an hour and a half of time she literaly filled the car up with two small bikes on the rack on top of the car. Just as we were leaving, someone brought in a very nice sofa with pillows; she saw that and said, "That would look so cute in my house." We had no way of getting it to her house. We all got out to the car when Elder Gowans felt prompted to go back into the church and find out who brought the sofa. No one was sure, but one of the Bishops said that a fellow named Alan, who was standing near by, had a truck. So he went over and asked if he would mind transporting the sofa in his truck, it would be about a 20 minute drive. He was very willing and within 10 minutes we had the couch loaded up and we were on our way; the sister we had brought had no idea what Elder Gowans had just done. When we arrived at her home and saw the truck pull in with the sofa, she let out a yelp, "Thank you"! she exclaimed. She was right, it did look very cute in their home. Now they have a sofa to sit on and lots of toys, clothes and kitchen items for Christmas.

Sister Gowans decided to stay home for the afternoon while Elder Gowans went up to post to visit students. His first priority was to visit those who will be graduating on Monday. With the Holiday Block Leave beginning on Wednesday for some, they are holding all the graduations throughout the day on Monday. We will miss all of them as we will be helping the Holloway family transport their van to Atlanta for shipment to Hawaii. We will have three students graduating on Monday, Brothers Finch, Montierth and Priddy. He was able to visit with each one, but was only able to get one photo, the other two promised to be at church
Sunday so we could take them there.

Brother Finch

Elder Gowans was able to visit 17 of our students and wish many of them a Merry Christmas; some will be in their saftey briefings tomorrow, which occure during church hours. We want them to know that we love them and hope they all have a wonderful Christmas. He did have one young man come up to him and say that he is a member of the church; so he told him that we would look him up after the Holiday Block Leave. It was nice to be able to visit with nearly half of all our current students.

This evening we enjoyed the Augusta Ward Christmas party; many ward members came out. We took photos of many of the families; we will include them here with as many of their names as we know.