Sister Applegate: I'm OLD!!!! :'(

Haha, hey family and friends!!!!

Today marks my being in Georgia exactly one year--holy smokes!!! I'm one of the OLD missionaries!!! We had interviews with President Cottle this morning and we talked about how I got to Georgia exactly one year ago and President said him and I both are getting old in the mission field. How depressing! At the end of our interview I was like "so you're gonna keep me with Sister Wood for her full 12 week training, right?" and he said he didn't know!!! What?! He said it's all up to revelation and I really, really, reeealllyyyy hope he does keep us together! No one likes two trainers I mean come on, duh! President Cottle jokingly slapped me on the back and was like "you've been here a while though" and I was like "not long enough!" Usually President Cottle doesn't keep people in an area more than 4 transfers (6 months) but on rare occasions people have stayed for 7 1/2 months. I'm hoping I'll be one of those! Sister Cottle said she's pulling for me, praying hard but she said she did that with Waynesboro too and then we got pulled. Haha. It will all work out but I am sooooo happy here! Sister Wood is awesome, she loves tracting and teaching which is AWESOME, and we're having some good success. Nothing beats being a missionary!

Things are just going good right now! Of course we had some hard times this week but the good always outweighs the bad! April when we went over last week hadn't been able to read much of the Book of Mormon because her 18 year old cousin Dakoda who moved in with her starting reading it--say what?! Yeuhh! So we're teaching him too! He's kind of a punk but he's great. Always makes us laugh. Lessons with her are super distracting and she has a lot of hard personal stuff going on but we're hoping a later appointment time next time will work better and be less distracting and then hopefully we'll finally be able to have a good spiritual lesson with her where we can invite her to be baptized.

Angie who we met a couple weeks ago in a grocery store, every time we called a guy would hang up on us but we did want to know if she was interested. The address she gave us was actually where she worked so Sister Wood wanted to stop there and we did. Turns out it's a family chiropractic place so we did get in touch with Angie as well as her mom and her sisters. We have an appointment with her mom later this week. Boom baby!

In talking to Rachelle this week she is really converted to her church but there is so much there--she said she feels like she's in this rut where she goes to her church and feels great, then goes home and nothing changes even though she wants it to. We watched the Restoration movie with her and she committed to come to our church one Sunday instead of hers and even though that is a big sacrifice for her, she committed to do it. I don't know which Sunday it will be, but that's huge! I'm still so excited for her progress.

This week was so great with Preston, hahaha. He's a history buff and SUPER smart so we decided to read 1 Nephi 13 with him where it talks about Christopher Columbus coming to America and the Revolutionary War and stuff and Preston's mind was BLOWN! His eyes were practically bulging out of his head! Hahahaha. And then, oh my gosh then he gave the best prayer! His struggle is still trying to understand that the Godhead is three separate Beings even though he started questioning that doctrine before he knew that was our doctrine. Well, he's really working hard and he prayed TO HEAVENLY FATHER in the NAME of JESUS CHRIST and prayed to know the truth about the Godhead and it was so wonderful!! Ah he's making such great progress! And he's supposed to get a prosthetic leg sometime this year and when he does, look out! There will be a baptism to follow that! :)

We met this lady named Linda this week and she is so cool! Very humble lady. Probably in her 50s. She has to great-granddaughters that stayed in for our lesson and then they asked again and again if they could come to church and if they could bring everyone they know. Haha. They didn't end up making it, but maybe next week! Then we met this older guy named Cicero (Ci-sir-oh) and he is great! We met him on Saturday and he came to church on Sunday! Man! I've been working with people for months who still haven't come to church and he came hours after we met him! Haha. So great! He looked so sharp at church too, we've got some great people here!

We met a lot of potentials tracting on Saturday and one person we met was Marquis. He invited us back last night to teach him and his wife Frances. They have a one year old son named Ayden and a 5 month old named Casen. Oh they are cute! We taught them last night though and it was AWESOME! (singing) We got a family, we got a faammmiilyyyy! :D Both of them said it's like stuff they've learned all their lives but we're kind of filling in the blanks for what they don't know yet. They are such a funny couple, so stubborn and hilarious they act like kids hahaha. They're great though I love them. They were on Mormon.org on their phones and they were going to watch the full length Joseph Smith movie that shows all the persecution he went through and stuff. We're also going to try and teach their neighbor friends and Marquis told us we should go see his mother. I always get nervous when they do Internet research but I'm praying hard for them that they won't be antied and I really believe they'll come to church with us this Sunday. *fingers crossed!* Heavenly Father better leave me in this area one more transfer!!! Haha. March will be like the best month ever here and I'm really hoping to stay.

Here's a funny story for y'all. So we were visiting this less active member named Bonnie. She's kinda crazy and has a bunch of little yappy dogs. I despise them... that may be mean, but I am really not a dog person. Or animal person. At all. So one of the little dogs jumps on my while I'm sitting on the couch and it wouldn't get off and so I gave it a gentle shove (Sister Wood exaggerates and said it was hard but I don't think it was that bad) and it went towards Sister Wood and Bonnie had given us each a glass of lemonade and it knocked into Sister Wood's glass and it spilled all over her skirt, shoes and the floor. Oops... Bonnie's cousin and her cousin's daughter were also there and I didn't know if they or Sister Wood saw that that was totally my fault and not really the dog's so I just sat there and Sister Wood turned to me and was like "did you just push that dog into me?" She said she saw it out of the corner of her eye... bahahahahahahaha. Every time I think about it I laugh. Good thing Sister Wood is a good sport! Hahaha. But it's ok because yesterday when it was cold and we were washing the car I was washing the bottom part of it and she had the hose and she ACCIDENTALLY let some water hit me. Ice cold water. Haha. It really was an accident and it wasn't that much but I just consider that payback. So now we're even :)

This week has been so great though, I hope you all had a great week as well, and I hope this one is wonderful for everyone too! I want to leave y'all with a thought someone shared at church on Sunday-

the speaker said that words like 'charity', 'love', and 'give' are all one-way words; we don't determine how much we get/receive each day, but we do determine how much we give each day. And the more we give, the more we have to give! Things work cool like that. And we can always do things with a happy heart and a smile, because "a sad face never won a battle in war or love."

Love you guys!!!!!!

All my love,

Sister Applegate :)

Me by a Hazlehurst sign. "Be careful never to look like a tourist." -missionary handbook. Haha, oh well!

Plan of Salvation basketball! We did this with a less-active/part member family. Each piece of paper was part of the Plan of Salvation and they had to tell us what happened at each part before taking a shot. Once they made it they could move on.

Sister Wood shoots like a girl. ;)

Cute idea someone showed us

It's Timmy!!!!!! I subbed in Timmy's class all the time!!!! There is an article in the Ensign magazine about working with those with disabilities and my Timmy made it in! Ah! That made me so happy, a touch of home! :D

The Cartmells surprised me-again! I love my Waynesboro family!!! Sister Cartmell had to work but Brother Cartmell and the girls were able to make the trip and were so kind and took Sister Wood and I out to lunch. I love them!!! (The sun was bright and Sister Wood can't open her eyes looking toward the sun)

The elders helped me out so I could surprise Sister Wood for Valentine's Day. I gave them money and they were able to make the purchases and sneak it back to me and I set it out for Sister Wood to find Valentine's morning. She sure was surprised! :)

Thank you family for the package!! We love it! We made a couple of batches of scotch-a-roos for today and tomorrow for different meetings :)

We heart attacked a couple people for Valentine's Day. Here's some pictures from a few of them. Sister Wood made what we call a 'Baptist fish'. Someone told us the fish is a symbol of Christians but we only ever see it on Baptist people's cars. So I call it a Baptist fish.

Got President Hester's truck too ;)