This morning we were called by one of our missionaries asking if we could pick up two people to bring to church. Of course, we said, "Sure"! So we dashed out to get them. We arrived about 10 minutes before church. It gave us sometime to start handing out fliers that we had made up announcing our LDS FRG. (Family Readiness Group). It is a support group for all Military spouses both LDS and nonLDS who would like to participate.We received a lot of enthusiastic responses from many of our military families. We hope that many will come out and support this effort. We have 4 weeks to prepare for it. The planned date to organize it is the 10th of November.

After church Elder Gowans was asked to assist in giving 4 blessings, all to LDS military and family members.  We are thankful for their confidence in us.

After serviceman's group, we dashed out to North Augusta to meet with a couple whose marriage is in severe trouble. We told them that we are not professional councilors, however, with the Lord's help we would be able offer them some appropriate advise, council and wisdom from two who have been through much of what they have gone through too. 

Here is a photo from Saturday's baptism. 

This morning we made our traditional trip out to the Post to visit our AIT soldiers. We were very blessed to find most of whom we were looking for. In the past couple of weeks we have received nearly a dozen new students. We have made contact with but a couple. In fact we were waiting for one soldier to come down when another that we had yet to find, identified himself to us. We love it when that happens. Then this evening we had one return our call; she was so excited to have made contact with us.

This afternoon we visited one family. We found out he is in orthodontics school here at Fort Gordon. We had a real nice visit with them.

Then we went back up to the Post to take in some of the Oktoberfest fun. We walked around to look at all the carnival type attractions, then we walked over to the food booths and bought some good German food and then listened to the Rising Star competition.  We bought an Elephant ear to enjoy together and then we left for home.

This evening in Institute, we studied the topic of Prayer from Either 1-5. Moroni recorded in his abridgment for us the brother of Jared's many prayers he offered for and in behalf his family and their friends and their families. It is one of only a handful of sources in all of scripture where we can find actual prayers and where we can go to learn how our own prayers should be. Proper prayers, prayers that are meaningful to our Father in Heaven, take work, they take thought and effort. If we don't feel like we have done some mental work after having offered a prayer, then we are probably not offering very effective prayers. Through the brother of Jared's prayers, we learn that prayers should be specific and bold yet humble, offered in complete faith, with thought, sincerity and real intent. We should admit our own failings, shortcomings, weaknesses, sins and other transgressions, and admit that we need God's power of forgiveness, mercy and compassion, just as Jared did. We should be generous in our gratitude for all our many wonderful blessings received at His hand, we should ask for help in remembering our blessings so that we never forget them. Finally, our prayers should be offered in accordance with the promptings of His Spirit, that they might always be uttered in accordance with His will. Father knows just what we need before we ever pray, He knows just how to bless us before we ask, but if we go on in our prayers contrary to His will, then we will not obtain what we really need and He cannot bless us with what He has ready for us.

Sister Gowans had an appointment up at the hospital this morning; while on the way there we received a phone call from our LDS chaplain who had received a phone call from a worried father about his son. His son has been on station for about 3 weeks or so and had suddenly come down with a very bad skin rash. We went up to see him and had to get him out of bed, poor fella. We had a nice visit with him wherein he explained what was going on. We called our LDS assistant chaplain and he assisted Elder Gowans in giving him a blessing. We then walked him back to his room and told him that we would see him in a couple of days, on Saturday when we make our weekly visit.

We met a Navy family this evening. He had just recently returned from a deployment back in mid August. From time-to-time, we find families who, like this one, had a deployed family member of whom we new nothing about and who we could have possibly been serving or helping out in some way. We had an enjoyable time, they even treated us to dinner.

This evening we paid a visit to a family whose husband/father just returned from deployment. It is great to see a lovely family reunited after many months of separation. It was obvious that the girls were really happy to have their daddy home and it was obvious that he was glad to be back home with his girls. He does have a son, but he is very young and was rather noisy, so he was sent to his room. Then we went up north and visited an army orthodontist. He is a colonel in the army. He says instead of straightening teeth he straightens papers. Their youngest son is 12, he is the last child left at home. We had a nice visit with these families and hope they know they can call us at anytime.

We spent most of the day preparing for Friday's institute class. We didn't have anything else going on the entire day. We also spent an hour trying to drum up some more appointments since Saturday and Sunday afternoon we were busy with conference, which is our usual appointment making time. We were able to get a couple of more for the week, which just about filled our schedule.

This evening we met with a great family. He is in the National Guard and will deploy after the first of the year. This is his first deployment, but it will not be their first separation. They were very appreciative of the predeployment briefing that we gave them; it gave them some things to ponder on and do to make sure they are well prepared.

Since it is Columbus Day (Observed), and since the hospital would be closed there was no need for Red Cross volunteers. We took Elder and Sister Berry with us up to North Augusta and visited the Living History Museum. It was a nice quiet, peaceful place with beautiful grounds and a few rebuilt buildings that would have been erected during the colonial period. We had a nice walk and during the walk we came across the Barn. We learned that the barn is booked up for weddings every week through 2014! Is this a place where you would want to be married? The Temple or the Barn?

 

Here are two restored cabins.

 And other nice photos of the area

 The Berrys

 The Gowans

This afternoon we had copied our flier that will go out to all the military families, ward leaders and so forth, announcing the organization of the LDS FRG (Family Readiness Group). We distributed it to all the  missionaries who came to the transfer dinner this evening. They will take it back to the wards and distribute it to the military families and ward leaders.

We then had FHE; it was a rather quiet evening with only 5 people there tonight.