We met with two real fine families tonight. The first family, the Tracy family, we had met with before, however, we recently found out that he will deploy shortly in the future. So we went over to give him and his wife our predeployment briefing. We were also able to give her some suggestions on what to do about some health concerns as she is expecting a baby. They are one of those families whom we love to visit and always wish the best for them.

Then we met a new family, the Smith family. They live way out in the Martinez Ward. He is a physician in the ER. They have a sweet family. We had a real nice visit with them too and found out that they were very aware of the Military Relations Mission. Most of our families have not been very aware of our mission if at all.

This morning we resumed our inventorying of books at the library. We were doing the Reference Library Section until the computer stopped working. Then we went into the children's section and put the books back in order.

This morning we attended our District Development Meeting. We participated in the instructional phase. Sister Gowans taught for 10 minutes on the Christ-like attribute of Charity and Elder Gowans taught for 10 minutes on the Christ-like attribute of Diligence.

We had one appointment this evening which was postponed until tomorrow night, so this evening we went out to drop in on two families. The first one said she had not attended a Mormon church for 16 years and wanted her name removed from the records of the church. We told her we would get in touch with her Bishop. The second family was way out in Thomson, GA; however, we could not find the address. It was nearly a 30 minute trip out there.

We excitedly await the results of the elections.

This evening we had a return appointment with the Mitton family. We have come to love this family so much. We were invited to do a family home evening with them and to give a blessing to their mom, but ended up giving a blessing to all who were home. We taught on the topic of faith using Heb 11:1 as our text. We invited them to remember last evening and how the Holy Ghost brought the correct things to say to their minds and hearts that eventually ended up facilitating the reconciliation with their father. It was another Spirit filled, lovely evening.

This evening we witnessed a beautiful reconciliation between a father and his 4 children. It took over two hours, but by the end of the session they had come to an understanding of each other. It was difficult for them, but they all spoke as inspired by the Holy Ghost and although there were some angry and tense moments, the Spirit prevailed and love was restored. The last word was, "Dad would you like a slice of pie?" Beautiful!

Words cannot express the incredible afternoon we have had today as we were taught so profoundly by Elder David A. Bednar. Basically he stood and instructed us by precept and by example for 3 hours. He began the afternoon by teaching us a pattern of learning and then throughout the remainder of the evening we employed that pattern as he had missionaries stand and share what they had learned through a diligent study of what it means to learn by study and also by faith. Then for nearly 2 of those 3 hours he answered some very profound and deep questions concerning personal struggles the missionaries faced. The Spirit of God was incredibly strong as we were all in awe of the amount of learning that took place as we were taught by the Spirit through Elder Bednar a true Apostle of Jesus Christ. Truly man cannot write all that transpired and do justice to it. It can only be understood by the Spirit of God.

We had a great Institute class this evening. The topic was faith as taught by Either and recorded by Moroni in his abridgment of the Jaredite record. We studied how faith is consistent, how it is sure, and how evidence moves us to increase our faith. We also discussed how hope comes of faith and as our faith strong our hope will be ever bright. We discussed how our weaknesses were given by God to help us remain humble and seek His grace to overcome them, whereby they may become strengths. We had a good number of students there for which we are very grateful.

We finally had time today to work on our Institute lesson for tomorrow evening. Our tempo has been so high this week that it has been pushed later into the week than we like.

This afternoon we met with Brother and Sister Orr who have been instrumental in helping us organize this Family Resource Group for the sisters in our stake whose husbands are assigned to Fort Gordon. We feel now that we have a real good plan in place for this up coming organizational meeting that we will hold on the 10th.

This evening we met with an Air Force airman who is studying the gospel with the Elders. She is really awesome. She has been staying up nights into the wee hours of the morning reading and studying. She is already well into Alma. In fact she and Elder Nielson are racing to see who can get finished first. We also met with the Anthony Family. His punishment for not coming home when told, but rather staying in SLC and getting married was rather stiff. He was busted back in rank all the way to E-1, he was an E-4; extra duty every day of the week, so we will be on 12 hours and off 12 hours, then the weekends he works 8 hour shifts. He will begin getting his rank back in 45 days; one step at a time. We really feel bad for them. It is a real struggle for them right now. He earns about 1000 dollars a month that will have to pay the car payment, insurance, food, phone bill and so forth.