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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