This afternoon, we went out to visit Christina Dobins one last time. She believes she will be taken back home tomorrow. We never asked why she was in the hospital, but simply tried to help her feel befriended, warmed and loved. Hopefully, she will take good care of herself.

This evening, we visited a new family to the area, the Hyde family. We had a real enjoyable visit with them and was able to get acquainted and to know each other a little. At the conclusion of the visit, Elder Gowans was asked if he would assist Brother Hyde in giving a blessing to his wife who is 5 weeks pregnant; apparently she has had some miscarriages in the past. We left them with a good thought and feeling spiritually uplifted. We love our Military families; they are wonderful folks.

On any typical Monday, we would have gone to the Post Hospital this morning and worked our Red Cross volunteer jobs, during the afternoon Elder Gowans would have worked out the first draft of Friday's institute lesson. However, being Veteran's Day, we changed things up quite a bit. This morning Elder Gowans worked Friday's institute lesson and got the outline all worked out. Then we drove out to Evans and picked up a 15 Pax van so we could take our student/soldiers out for lunch. We drove back to post and ended up filling the van to near capacity; we hauled 10 young men and women to O'Charleys for a yummy free meal. It really turned out nice. We spent about 3 hours together.

After lunch, we returned the van and then headed back to the apartment for about 15 minutes. We decided we had better head out to the Olive Garden where we were to meet up with Ryan Baum so we could say our farewells to him. We arrived at the Olive Garden at 1720 and got in line for a table. We were told that it would be a 45 minute wait, not too bad. We texted Ryan and told him we should be seated right around 1800, our meeting time. Ryan should up a little before 1800 and about 10 minutes later we were called to our table. We had a real nice dinner and visit together. We wish Ryan all the best and especially, we hope he finds a fantastic young lady to be his wife.

It has been a wonderful day!

 A photo of most of the student/soldiers we went to lunch with. 

Dinner with Ryan

Last night while writing in the blog, Elder Gowans forgot to mention that during the evening, after returning home from the Temple, we received a call from Sister Burgess, the Bishop's wife; she stated that she had just received a phone call from a lady out in Las Vegas who was calling about her Sister who had been admitted to the hospital and was asking if there was someone who could go and visit her. So she called us. Since Sister Gowans' knees were very sore, Elder Gowans called Elder Meacham to see if he would be willing to go with him to visit this lady, her name is Christina. So we went down to check on her. We found a lovely young lady, 28 years old, single, a student at the University of Georgia. We had a very enjoyable visit with her; helped her laugh and feel that she was among friends. We visited with her for about 20 minutes. The reason I bring this up is because this evening we went to visit her once again. Here she is, several thousand miles away from any family; her friends are all in Athens, GA; she is completely alone. We had another nice visit with her this evening and was able to bring her a little joy and cheer. We also gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon to read, she is a member of the Church, but she didn't have her own scriptures with her; Elder Gowans also gave her a copy of one of his books to read. She was very appreciative and grateful that now she would have something good to read.

We had a wonderful Sacrament service this afternoon in our branch. President Baughman, the South Carolina Temple, Temple President came and spoke to us; he did a magnificent job speaking to all our soldiers. He spoke of his own experiences in the military during the Vietnam war. I'm sure he touched a lot of hearts.

This evening, we visited with Brother Kyle Janssen our investigator who will be baptized this Saturday. He had his baptismal interview this evening and was cleared for baptism. This is so wonderful, we are uniting a family. You may recall that Sister Janssen was baptized back in March; now her husband will be too. We are so excited for them.

This morning we left for the Post around 0635. We made our first stop to pick up 2 of our student/soldiers so we could use them as battle buddies to pick up 4 other students/soldiers. Unfortunately, the Platoon Sgt. was at chow and so we had to wait for him for 20 minutes. There is always something that delays us! However, we finally got them checked out and so we were able to pick up the others; even though we were a little late getting to them. We had a wonderful trip to the temple with 10 student/soldiers, 1 wife and 4 escorts (that would be us and other members of the branch presidency). We really did have a wonderful time with them; it is so good to see them enjoy the experiences and the spirit of the temple. We had one young man with us who was there for the first time, Brother Hancock! He had a wonderful experience. Here are some photos of the trip.

 Brothers Mardanlou, Hancock, Moore, Barnes

 Beautiful fall foliage. These are the Crepe Myrtle trees 

 Brother and Sister Amidan; she is due next  month

 Most of the group

 Brothers Hancock and Braithwaite

 Brother Rafn

Brother Boone

Another wonderful day! This morning, we left the apartment early to do some shopping, when we returned we saw President Cottle and his wife over in the parking lot by the young Elder's apartment. We waved and walked over to see what was going on. Without going into details, President Cottle said he came to pick up our Zone Leaders, they were being transferred! It was very sudden, but they were needed somewhere else. We will miss Elders Heiner and Hunstman.

This afternoon, we had the opportunity to visit two more of our Sisters. We first visited with Sister Swartz and had a nice visit with her. Her knee had been bothering her, but through some good physical therapy it was doing much better. We then were able to visit Sister Mack; she gave us some great news today. Her husband will be returning in 4 weeks; his tour of duty is being shortened, so even though he will miss Thanksgiving, he will be home for Christmas.

This evening we visited the Sanders family for two reasons; 1. To see how Sister Sanders is coming along, she is getting better slowly, obviously not fast enough for her; 2. To say so long to her mother in law, Sandy; she has been here around a month now, but has been a wonderful asset to Crystal. We will miss seeing her and hope that she has a safe trip home tomorrow. Crystal's own mother will be coming out in a week or two. So we will have the opportunity to meet her also.

This evening, our institute class discussed the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. We discussed their purpose, their responsibilities and our need to pray for them, to listen to them, and to do as they teach us. It turned out to be a wonderful lesson.

This has been a very interesting day, a  day where the Spirit's guidance has been very evident. We had a very ambitious schedule set up for the day beginning right after lunch. We first had set up appointments to see Sister Swartz, then Sister Stott and finally Sister Malcom. About an hour before our appointment with Sister Swartz she shot us a text saying she was busy and could we come tomorrow. So we arranged to see her tomorrow. Well, now what do we do? So we decided to drop in on Sister Murray. We found her busy making dinner for 3 other families besides her own! This wonderful woman, if she doesn't have enough challenges in her own family, she is always looking out after others. She had a sink full of potatoes to dice, so Elder Gowans asked if she had another knife. She is very willing to allow someone to help, but she will never ask. So we got to work cutting potatoes; after which, we sliced up 4 or 5 sausages. Since we were helping, she was able to get started on the desert, a massive amount of Apple Crisp; she got that already and at that point we needed to leave so we could go see Sister Stott. She walked us out to the car already all done with her dinner prep.

We drove to the Stott's, but didn't find her home, so we shot her off a text to see when she would be back. No answer, so we drove to Walmart to get Sister Gowans some pain patches for her knees. While there we ran into Sister Stock and another Sister from the ward. At that point we had an hour to kill before seeing Sister Malcom. At that time Sister Stott called and said she would be available after 4 pm. We decided to go see Sister Ramsey the Relief Society President for the Grovetown ward. We found her at home and had a nice visit with her. She told us of another Sister who could really use some fellowshipping. So we wrote her name down and will give her a call soon. We reviewed with her her list of sisters with deployed husbands, yes, it matched our list.

From there we dropped in on Sister de La Torre. Darn, we woke her up from a nap. We said hi, and apologized for waking her up and then we headed back to Sister Malcom's. She has not yet let us into her home; she is still in the process of moving in and putting things away, but we had a nice visit with her out in the front; she is warming up to us nicely and we believe she really appreciate's our visits and friendship.

We finally caught Sister Stott and had a short, but nice visit with her. She is lonesome, she doesn't have any family close by, so hopefully she will appreciate our friendship and our visits. We may need to visit her a little more often.

From there we dropped in the Towns. We heard that he returned from his first deployment. Sure enough the entire family was home. He was only gone for 7 weeks. He was assigned as a submarine rider, but apparently the mission was cut short due to lack of mission need. They were certainly all happy that he was home and that they were all back together again.

From this point, more interesting things begin to happen. We didn't have time to drive home for supper, so we drove up on post and went to Burger King, where we were to meet Bishop Burgess and take him to go visit more of our military families on post. We had set up an appointment earlier with the Albert's family at 7 pm, however, we had received a text earlier from them asking if we could come by at 6. We told them we were not meeting up with the Bishop until 6:15, but if wanted we could come by at 6 for a short visit, without the Bishop. So that is what we agreed to do and then visit with them again another time with the Bishop. We were just finishing our meal at 5:45 when we see the Bishop walk into Burger King a whole 30 minutes early. Elder Gowans immediately shot a text to the Albert's saying that they would be there at 6 or a little after with the Bishop. We arrived about 6:08 and had a nice 25 minutes visit with them. He just recently returned from deployment and during his entire absence, she stayed with her family back in California. It is wonderful having them back together and back here at Fort Gordon. This fortuitous circumstance enabled us to get a head start on our visits which enabled us to see everyone we wanted to see during the evening.

From the Albert's, we went to the Stewarts and had a real nice visit with them. From there we went to see the Wickham's where the Bishop invited them to come to church on Sunday. They haven't been since they arrived; they always have an excuse. Anyway, we are hopeful for them. From there we drove off post where we had the opportunity to visit the Ackley  family and the Wilkinson family. The Ackleys just had a baby boy about 2 months ago. He is very cute, they have 2 older girls. He plans on getting out of the Air Force in about 10 months and purchasing a business. The Wilkinson family lives in a home where they have had some severe problems, one with the foundation and the other with a leaky roof. They got the foundation fixed, but the roof still leaks. So we went back with the Bishop and see where the leak is coming in at and he promised them help from the ward in getting the problem fixed. Needless to say they were very appreciative. There are several men in the area who should be able to help fix the problem.

It has been a wonderful miraculous evening; we were able to see and visit everyone we wanted to see and visit with. The Bishop has seen all but a couple of our military families now; we will finish up the visits in the next week or two. We love our work, we love seeing the hand of the Lord in the work; He truly is at the head and guiding us in all we do.

This afternoon 6 of our AIT students graduated from their training. Up until today, we had 45 students, we have obviously now dropped back below the 40 mark. We have had more students recently than ever before; in fact by the end of this month, depending on how many we receive, we could drop close to 30. Here are some photos of today's graduates.

These first two graduated from the 73rd Ordinance Battalion

 Sister Moreno

Brother Tracy

These final four graduated from Signal Battalions 

 Brother Buhrman

 Brother Kemner, Sister Gomez, Brother LaRose

 All three Brethren in the same element of their formation

This is Chaplain Weinrich; we have developed a very nice friendship with him. 

This evening we visited with a very nice lady, Sister Pagel. She is single and a convert of about 3 1/2 years. She joined the church while stationed in Germany. We had a delightful visit with her and hope that in the future we will have more opportunities to see her.