It is Monday, the beginning of a brand new week! As always, you can find us at the Post Hospital taking care of our Red Cross service. Elder Gowans' job, as you may recall, is to transport patients throughout the hospital; today however he didn't have any calls. When he has nothing to do and while he is waiting, he has been reading Jesus The Christ, by Talmage. He has read close to 300 pages of the over 700 pages in the book. This is probably the second time he has read it. Sister Gowans finished early inputting patient comments into the computer, so we both left a little early today.

We worked on Friday's Institute class, then we drove over to Grovetown to visit a lady whose husband just deployed, but unfortunately she was not at home. We will try again tomorrow when we are out that way. We  wish we had her phone number. We have her husband's, but that won't do us any good any more.

One of our greatest challenges is getting our young troops to church. So many of them are out on their own for the first time so they have to try their new freedoms; one of the first things that some do is decide that church attendance just isn't that important, or it becomes of secondary importance, or they use army excuses not to go. There is so much temptation and pressure from their buddies that many decide to leave church behind. Some will not even answer or return calls. It is very difficult. This is our task, this is our challenge and hopefully over the next 20 months we will be able to make a difference in a few lives. We love them and hopefully they will be able to sense that love and respond positively.