This afternoon and evening we had the opportunity to go out to Thompson to pick up Sisters Cottam and Gardner and take them up to our Zone Training Meeting. We also had interviews with President Holm. Later in the evening, we attended another "No More Strangers Fireside" for investigators, new members and returning members. It was a very spiritual event. Two sisters were asked to bear their testimonies, they won't be baptized until Saturday, but they bore very powerful testimonies. One of the Sisters is in the Navy and lives up in North Augusta, we hope to attend her baptism at noon on Saturday. She also said, that she will deploy with the Navy for 6 months in June, so we will want to get with her prior to that and see what we can do to help her prepare spiritually for that time she will be away.

This afternoon we visited Sister Westbrook for a home teaching visit; we had a nice visit with her. Afterward we dropped in on Sister Wooley, a new family in the ward whose husband is suffering from many war relaed mental illnesses. We wanted to see how she was doing; she seemed much happier and more settled from the first time we saw her last week. We hope things continue to improve for the entire family.

Later in the afternoon, we attended the graduation ceremony for one of our LDS soldiers, Brother Jessop, and the son of one of Elder Gowans' old B-52 buddies, Anthony Ramos. It was great to see him and his wife; if recollection is correct, it has been around 25 years since we were at Barksdale AFB together. It is incredible how fast time flies. Brother Jessop came to church after his arrival at Fort Gordon for a couple of 3 weeks, after that he never returned. We did see him from time-to-time during our Saturday morning visits.

 Private Jessop

 Elder Gowans and Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Ramos

 Steve Ramos

The Ramos clan

This evening we did our Home Teaching visits to the Branch and Relief Society Presidency. We visited the Esteps, the Halfords and Sister Arnett. We gave them all as a lesson the article on the Atonement out of the March Ensign.

A couple of days ago, we received a notice that several trees were going to be removed from around the apartment complexes. Today a very tall pine tree was removed that stood just outside our front room window about 15 feet away. It had always concerned us; it was so tall and it appeared that it had grown out of a large planter box, so we always wondered how deep the roots were and that if there were a danger of it falling onto the apartment complex. They removed the tree in four sections, our guess was that the tree was nearly 100 feet tall.

 Our building in the background. We live in the 1st floor apartment right behind the tree.

 Big Dog!

 The lumber jack is securing a large strap to the tree in two locations. He is standing just to the right of the trunk.

 Off it comes.

 Up it goes!

 Around it comes.

 Down it comes

 The crane operator stands it on the ground and another lumberjack begins to trim off the branches to be fed into the chopper. 

 The bobcat operator helps load the heavy limbs into the chopper 

 Here comes the next section.

 And the next.

 And the last

The end!
This evening after the Branch Presidency Meeting and after Relief Society Presidency Meeting, we went to visit with Brother Paul Miller. He has been here since early fall and will finish this leg of his training in April. Then he will return in the fall for another round of training. After we visited with him, we went to visit Brother Stewart who is here attending X-Ray tech school. He will be here until August.

Red Cross service this morning. They have changed things up a bit in the clinic where Elder Gowans serves, so he doesn't have as many people to shuttle out to their cars. Sister Gowans finally got her Common Access Card (CAC) working today; so now she is someone! Her very own CAC.

This evening we took Brother Derouen out to dinner along with our younger missionaries. We went to Zaxby's, it is a chicken place. So, as you guessed it, we all had some sort of chicken. We had a nice time together and a great visit. It was nice to get to know him on a more social level.

We have had a wonderful Sabbath Day. This morning Brother Derouen was confirmed a member of the Church and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a joy to witness; he has grown and progressed and matured in the gospel, I can't help but think that the Heavens rejoiced over this young man. Brother Delong also came to church; he has been less active and has worked real hard in returning to activity; he had forgotten to move his clock forward, so he showed up just before 10 am. We all had a good chuckle with him.

We also learned of some very sad news today. Our dear friends, I won't mention their name, are divorcing. We found out today, that he has been living a long string of lies for a long time and that he had been beating his wife and abusing her mentally with all his lies. Her parents flew out to pick her up and take her home; they will be leaving no earlier than tomorrow, Monday. We loved this couple and had really tried hard to be their friends help them nurture their new marriage. We hope and pray for them both that she will be well, and that he will get the help he needs.

We stopped in to see a couple of families tonight, the first was the Stock family. He is home from Afghanistan for his two week break; it was wonderful to see him and the family together. He looks real well. We also had the opportunity to meet his dad. A real nice gentlemen. We also stopped in to see Brother Woodley and the O'Keefe family.

We had a nice visit with the Rockhill family and taught them the Plan of Salvation. Although they are both members, their knowledge of the gospel is very small, so they wanted to get to know more about the church to help them feel more at home and one with the other members. We committed them to come to church, find their scriptures and read and pray every day.

This morning we were up bright and early to get up to Post and pick up our AIT students and take them to the temple. Sister Nuusila, a new Tongan sister, asked that we come and pick her up; along with her we had Brothers Child, Palmer, Voorhees and Meadows to pick up as well. Poor Sister Nuusila had everything all arranged, clear up to her commanding officer, but her Platoon Sgt wouldn't release her. No one had passed down to him the documentation; we left her in tears, we felt so bad about leaving her behind, she was so looking forward to going. We had a real  good group, it was very pleasing to see so many there. Besides the ones mentioned above, we also had Brother Miller, and Sister Westbrook. At the temple those who could, went in and went through an endowment session, while the rest of us did baptisms and confirmations. After we were through at the temple, we went over to the book store and then to lunch at Rush's.

 From left to right: Brother Palmer, Meadows, Child and Sister Westbrook. Brother Palmer had just been ordained a priest last Sunday; so this was his first trip to the Temple.

 From left to right: Sister Westbrook, Brothers Child, Palmer, Voohees, Meadows and Miller. All these folks are military. Sister Westbrook is Air Force, the next four are AIT students and Brother Miller is in Warrant Officer Training.

This evening, after the Temple, we had a wonderful experience. Brother George Derouen was baptized at 5pm. It was a wonderful event to see him finally baptized, he was just a glow with joy. What an incredible change has come over him, he has truly had a change of heart.

 From left to right: Elder Gowans, Brother Derouen, Elder Lavulo and Elder Dixon.  Brother Derouen is permanent party stationed at Fort Gordon. Brother Derouen was praying to know what to do about religion, faith and so forth, when a few days later the missionaries knocked on his door and he let them in.

Later in the evening we were back on post to drop Brother Child back off at his barracks, so we decided to find a new fellow we had just learned about. While standing outside of B-369 a fellow came up to us and asked what time and where church was! We had no idea this member was there, but when he saw us he knew he needed to ask; we introduced him to Brothers Palmer and Voorhees; good things happen when we are out and about! We learned that the other fellow we went to find was not at his barracks, but we were able to find him and invite him to church.

This evening's Institute class was very successful! We had 10 in attendance other than ourselves. The discussion was on the topic of Moving Forward the Cause of Zion. We enjoy the camaraderie of those who come. We have a mixture of permanent party, retirees, AIT students and those who are here TDY. We learned that there are two essential elements necessary to move Zion forward, a living prophet and you and I who are willing to follow the prophet.