Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Good Week!

Hey everyone!

This has been quite the interesting week. I'll save the best for the end.... Alright so first off, hope Mom had a great birthday!!! And I hope Richard has a good one this week! And Mitch the week after! Haha. Covering my bases now ;)  We had a great time celebrating Mom's birthday and Hump Day with our ice cream cake, yumm :)

So this week we met this lady and taught her and oh boy, she's an interesting one. She talked the majority of the time and she had some really great experiences to share, but she also had some really weird ones to share... As we were talking she asked us if we knew what gold dust was. Um....nope. Never heard of it. Come to find out, gold dust appears when your prayers reach heaven--whoa!!! Can you believe it?!?!?! Hahahaha. Hopefully that sarcasm is not disrespectful to anyone but come on, really? She went on to tell us about this lady who was in church with her who opened her Bible and there was gold dust all in it. Then about this preacher who was preaching and gold dust was just coming out of his clothes--by his collar, through his sleeves, everywhere. Aren't there prophecies of false prophets?  As a missionary I have found it really truly very hard not to laugh when people are totally serious about things like this. She said one day she decided to lay out for a tan and she had put on a little oil, but it wasn't shiny at all and when she was outside she looked down at her feet and gold dust started coming out of her skin! Mind=blown. Hahaha I'm sorry but I can't help it. There are a lot of people that believe this and they found the words 'gold' and 'dust' in the book of Job and it really makes no sense to what they say it means, but whatever. I guess my prayers have never reached heaven.... ;) The next day we were studying and Sister Richardson had her scriptures open and all the sudden she looked up at me with this priceless look on her face-like "gasp, oh my gosh!" and I thought something was wrong so I said what and she was like "GOLD DUST!" Oh my gosh we BUSTED UP! It had to be one of the funniest moments ever. So yeah, we got a good laugh out of all this. And are still getting a good laugh out of it....

One of my greatest loves that have come from being a missionary is how much I've been able to learn and understand about the gospel and the scriptures, and all that I continue to learn. I have grown so much in this area and I LOVE it! We had interviews with President Cottle on Saturday and I went in and asked a bunch of doctrine questions I have been studying a lot about and man oh man I love asking people that have so much knowledge! He began explaining some things to me and stopped all the sudden and was like "come in here" and we went back where Sister Cottle and the other missionaries were and he explained some things to all of us. We got answers! Hehehe I love it when that happens! The scriptures contain soooo much knowledge and it is honestly the most rewarding thing ever to figure things out and really learn for yourself.

We went to see Edgar and Elizabeth on Saturday and Elizabeth was really distraught because Joey was in the hospital and he wasn't calming down or anything. Elizabeth is in a wheelchair so she never really leaves the house. She was crying so we told her we would go and visit him, convenient because the hospital is right down the street from them and us. So we saw Joey and he was pretty drugged up and we called our branch president and bless his heart, he came and gave him a blessing. That was the day of the youth temple trip and he had been up and about since 2 am and it was 7:30 pm when he got to the hospital. What a trooper! He gave Joey a blessing and it was great and we saw him again Sunday and will see him again soon. When we went on Sunday Edgar was walking out and he invited us to come over for Thanksgiving dinner. Awwww! We don't feel like a burden to them so we are really excited :) By the way, they're having fried turkey. Can you get any more Southern than that? Haha.

Alright this part wasn't the good part of the week... we've kind of dropped Willie. He may or may not be more interested in/converted to a or some missionaries than the gospel and it made us feel really uncomfortable and he has hangups about the gospel that we don't feel he's really trying to resolve so we've stopped going by. If he wants to come to church he will. He said he would keep coming and never convert but he didn't make an effort yesterday. Things fell apart there that was pretty sad. Not his time I guess.... 

Okie dokie, best part of the week! Charlene! I don't think I already mentioned this...but if I did, it's a cool story! So we've been teaching her you know and it's awesome, she said she doesn't know how we found her even though we know Heavenly Father led us to her, and yeah. Well! We were looking through our Area Book and that's where we keep teaching records for people we are teaching on a regular basis. They have what we call former records in there, so after you drop someone or they drop you you put it in there because it might be helpful to missionaries down the road, when it's the right time for that person to be taught. We were looking at a former record and the address and stuff and these elders were teaching this couple and they dropped them obviously, but on the record they wrote that this one elder had this really good feeling about these people and practically begged for missionaries to go back in the future. Guess who lives at that address now. CHARLENE!!!! Isn't that the coolest story ever?! That elder was right, that place was special!! I don't know what happened to the couple that was living there, but that was a very special home and Charlene is now getting baptized. How COOL!!!!! That was just a super awesome miracle I wanted to share with y'all this week. Charlene made it to church this week even though I think Satan still tried to keep her home. She was able to enjoy the Primary Program and she LOVED the song 'I am a Child of God'. She wants it sung at her baptism. Done and done! She really wasn't feeling well and she stayed after with us and the elders gave her a blessing. And she asked Elder Holt (the one with red hair) to baptize her and it was the cutest thing ever. Oh my goodness, I just love it. Elder Holt is right out of high school and all the elders just seem so young and when she asked him he said he would be honored to and it was just the best moment. This is like his fourth time baptizing someone since he's been out, and he hasn't been out very long. Being a missionary is just so fun! 

One other depressing thing though is that seven more sisters are going home at the end of this transfer and zero are coming out. ZERO! How sad! Only three elders are coming out as well. So they have to close three areas that sisters are in and put elders in instead. Fingers crossed it won't be us! That would be a bad rep to have... every area I go in they close it to sisters, hahaha. Nah, I'm thinking we'll stay... I hope!  But overall this week was good and I hope it was good for you all back home as well! I hope this week is wonderful and I love you and pray for you daily!

Much love,
Sister Applegate
 
 
It was Charlene's birthday last Monday, so this is what we did for her! :) 

 Happy birthday to Mom last Tuesday, and Happy Hump Day to us on Wednesday! We celebrated by going to Dairy Queen and having leftover birthday ice cream cake :) 







It was also Sister Taylor's Hump Day, and lucky us, she had a meeting in Macon on Thursday so she brought us Panda Express again! Yeuhh!!! Hahaha. My birthday tradition of having Panda Express for dinner might keep up on my mission if she wants to do it one more time at least next month.... ;) This is the sign we left her though when she came to drop off the food at our house. Totally snuck in behind them and scared them half to death. Haha. Perfect timing. P.S. my fortune was 100 percent correct. :) Sister Taylor is a wonderful friend!
 




 


So something happened this week and it kind of freaked Sister Richardson and I out and we've been really cautious, but the day/night it happened we were at home for the night and I was sitting at my desk and Sister R was standing right outside the doorway in the hallway and then all of the sudden something just explodes and I see all these sparks by her head! I thought it was the light bulb above her, but that wasn't it so we just ran and locked the back door. Haha. Well come to find out, we went in our room and we had left the light on and the light literally did explode! Just shattered... all over. All that's left in that light socket is the part that screws in and some hanging wire. Glad I wasn't praying at that time or I would've gotten hit... haha. But seriously it was kind of crazy. Don't know how we're going to get that one out.
 

 


Extra pics from Georgia. Southerners are right--the cotton fields really do look like a blanket of snow! You can't really tell from these pictures, but my my they are so pretty! Makes me feel right at home :) 



 

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