Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had the best time celebrating! :)
This
past week was lots of fun, we had been looking forward to a lot, and
this coming week has even more that we are looking forward to! President
and Sister Cottle have been touring the mission and going around doing a
role play type thing with every missionary companionship so they can
see how our teaching is. It's hard for them to get to all of us,
especially so many that are far from them, so they are doing this for a
few weeks. It works well, we had a good time with it and then Sister
Thomas and I were lucky enough to be able to take them out to lunch with
us :) President and Sister Cottle are the best mission parents ever I
could not ask for anyone better! They make my mission so happy :)
We
had our district meeting and took the Cottles out on Wednesday
morning/afternoon, and then Wednesday night we were on lock-down for New
Year's Eve. Our branch mission leader brought us pizza since we had to
be in at 6:00
and we just had a party. Not much of a party by the world's definition
probably, I laid on the floor and did nothing for a long time. Hahahaha.
It was so nice and relaxing, I loved it :) Sister Thomas and I ended up
talking almost till midnight, and I fell asleep but she woke me up at 12 and we said Happy New Year and then fell asleep. Happy New Year to y'all! :)
For
the most part this week was pretty cool. There is a member in a nursing
home here from Douglas. She has PPMS (Progressive something Multiple
Sclerosis) and she asked if we could get anyone there to give her a
priesthood blessing, she is on hospice and not doing very well. Two
members of our branch presidency came with us to give her the blessing
and on of them has Multiple Sclerosis. I honestly did not know that is
what this member, Yvette, has. So that turned out to be a super cool
miracle. They were able to talk about it and then he gave her a
blessing, which was very humbling. He said his worse fear is ending up
in a home like her, but as we were leaving he was smiling because of how
cool the situation turned out with him being able to be the one to give
her the blessing when they were both suffering from the same thing. He
said he didn't know if I had known that, but he was so glad to be able
to do it. I told him that I didn't have a clue that that's what she was
suffering from, but I too was grateful for how that worked out.
We
met some really special people today, and had some good lessons. A lot
of potential for all of them. Carrie is doing well and is totally
prepared, because her daughter is kind of crazy and tends to ruin
lessons and flat out asked her mom (demanded actually), who is 83 years
old if she was "fixin' to join the Mormon Church." Carrie told her
daughter not to worry about it or what she believes. Hahaha. It was so
awesome. I think she's been being prepared for a long time, it started
with missionaries from years ago and she really was ready for us to
come. Carrie is Caldean's mom, by the way. We're teaching Caldean as
well.
We also met a lady named Frankie. She
prayed about being right with God, went to a church to join, but felt
that it wasn't right. Then we showed up. :) We have another appointment
with her this week and I think things will really progress with her. It
was a good first lesson.
This week was rough
with Edgar, Elizabeth and Joey. Joey's ignoring us. He had stopped by to
say hi one day and was talking about how he would be going to Hell and
all this stuff and I started talking about the Atonement and forgiveness
and he was like "you hush" and basically told me not to preach to him.
Rude. But I understand he is going through a lot. He had called one of
our members he is friends with that he knows is a convert and asked him
what made him join. He told Joey that he listened. So if we can get Joey
to LISTEN to us, things would be great. This member is going to go
visit him this week though, which should be good. When Joey wasn't home
we had taught Edgar and Elizabeth. Things really backfired and Edgar
went all 'Baptist' on us and said he would never change us and we would
never change him. He said we should be in college right now and... yeah.
That made me really sad. I told him college couldn't teach me anywhere
near the things I've learned and experience by serving a mission.
Elizabeth kind of stood up for us there, but I guess with them we will
just have to do short visits and share scriptures from the Bible and
stay on good terms with them. Prepare them to hear and hopefully accept
the gospel in the Spirit World.
Last week we
met this 22 year old girl named Felicia. She is so cool! We set up a
time to teach her and when we went back her 35 year old sister Cameo and
her two sons were there too. We didn't really get to teach them because
Cameo had to go to work, but they are so COOL! So kind to us and open
to the message. Cameo has a ten year old son named Cameron, and a two
year old son named McCai. It had been a rough couple of weeks with
trying to find new investigators and find success in this area because
so many bad/sad things continue to happen, but meeting this family
turned everything around. I see such great potential in them and then in
the 10 minutes that we met Cameo and her sons, little McCai out of
nowhere walked over to me and reached up to where I was sitting on the
couch and gave me the biggest hug. It pretty much made my entire life :)
I didn't realize until I was writing in my journal that night that that
was Heavenly Father giving me a little comfort and answering a prayer
or two. It just let me know that He had heard me and He had His hand
out. Little McCai is so my favorite... I do think though that he also
knows who we are. Little kids are so close to the veil.
We've
had some good miracles this week. The members of the branch in this
area are so incredible. We've got one in the hospital in Atlanta for a
bone marrow transplant and full body treatment of radiation I believe
and so many other things. He is the rock of this branch. He is only 40
and was 97% in remission of his cancer and blood disease when it came
back. He has 6 kids, the oldest is 12 and the youngest are twin 3 year
old boys. It's hitting the branch hard. Another member that has been
sick for a while had pneumonia in both of his lungs and then suffered a
stroke. I think he is doing ok at the moment, so that's good. Another
member had surgery and they had to cut open her breast bone and remove a
tumor, hopefully it is not cancerous. And if it's not those things, the
other members are going through so much. Their diligence, patience,
obedience, love and gratitude amaze me. The service they continue to
render to everyone, most importantly God, is so inspiring. I want to be
like many of them members that I see here. I've really been able to see
people pull together for the gospel and their families and I see how God
pours out His blessings. The Church in this area is so amazing to me.
Though they don't have enough members to fill callings, they manage.
They know what it means when we call each other 'Brother' and 'Sister'.
Hazlehurst and the members here will always hold a very special place in
my heart. And you better believe that when I get transferred you will
here that and more about it :)
I hope you all
have a wonderful week! Start the new year off great! Good luck with
school, work, and all of your endeavors this week! Love you guys!!!!
Love,
Sister Applegate
Me and Elois :) We found Elois a while ago and turns out she is a less
active member. She came to church for the first time in a long time
yesterday, and it was so wonderful! We were talking about gratitude in Sunday
School and she had been quiet until that point and she told everyone
that I and Sister Richardson and helped her out so much just by
extending friendship when she really needed it. She said that to her,
that was God reaching out to her. Sending us to her and answering her
prayers. She is so sweet I love her!!
Sunrise this morning :)
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