Sunday, September 27, 2015

WOW.....just like that, another month has come and almost gone!!  Where do the weeks go to??  Our 3rd mission will be over before we know it.....then what???  Maybe another mission??

But, let's review our past week:

I had completed the afghan for Becky's office....with her logo colors of course!  The unveiling was on Monday morning in her office.  It looks like we may have 'nailed it' with our color choices!!  Hopefully they will enjoy it in the office!!

I was able to get a few other little 'projects' accomplished here at our mission apartment since we were basically 'home' this week!  We LOVE traveling, but we also enjoy being 'home'!!!  And I love being productive while Dad/Wayne/Elder-Dr. is busy working on the phone with a lot of missionaries.

BUT.....even he got a little 'break' from phone calls this week.  That 'break' was greatly needed.  He got some 'casual' reading accomplished.....YEA for him.  And 'Lucy' was helping him with that.  She seemed to enjoy the 'treat' having us home-based this week as much as we did.

We got a text from Mel and Denise.....they would be passing through Atlanta from High Point, N.C. on their way to Chattanooga, TN on Tuesday afternoon.  We could meet up with them at Betty Marion's for a minute if we could make it up there.  We hot-tailed it up the freeway and got to spend a few hours with them and Betty and Johnny and Charlotte (his wife).  How FUN to spend a bit with them.  We made the most of our 2 hours!!

Because the FIRST DAY OF FALL was this week, it just felt a little like FALL!!  Go figure.  I was in the mood to make some cornbread.  AND we got to go to the Georgia Atlanta Mission Transfer Meeting on Wednesday as well.  What a great day......Elder/Dr. Allgaier even saw a few patients at the transfer meeting.  President and Sister Foote appreciated him being able to do that for them.

We were able to make it up to the Atlanta Temple on Saturday.  While it was a very gloomy, rainy day in and around Atlanta, we enjoyed the peaceful spirit from being inside the temple.

And Saturday night I was able to watch the General Women's Broadcast from the comfort of our apartment.  This foto shows President and Sister Cottle's daughter....well, somewhat!  Her blonde head right in the upper middle (red blouse) was cut off because the camera didn't go up quite far enough to get a full foto of her.  How fun to see her though.  I know the Cottle's were excited to see her on T.V.!!

Sunday we decided to attend Fast and Testimony meeting at the Atlanta Ward!  This is always a treat to go there because there is such a diversity of folks in that ward.  We LOVE it.  Here Elder McChesney shows dad that their suits are exactly alike!!!  YUP.....same inside labels and material and all!!!  How funny!!!  Good tastes in both of the great elders!

After church we went outside to get a foto of Elder Dimanche and his companion, Elder Atkin.

We have become very attached to Elder Dimanche!!  He is from Haiti.

When I handed my phone to Elder Dimanche to take a foto of Dad and I, look what we got as a 'prize'!!!  I LOVE it when the missionaries take selfies with my phone camera!!!  They are just the best.

This is a really neat building in downtown Atlanta.  It is located right next to Fort McPherson, a Military base formed in 1885.  Cool.  And right across the street you can smell the sweet aromas coming from the Nabisco OREO factory.....they were baking today!!!  And on Fast Sunday that is hard to not notice that smell!!

This is the foto Elder Dimanche was taking of us when they took a little selfie too!!  We very much enjoyed being there today.  We have been asked by the Bishopric to come back on November 8th and speak in their Sacrament Meeting.  We are very much looking forward to doing that.

Well, even though we have been 'close to home' this week, we still found ourselves busy.  We are grateful for our mission.  We are grateful for supportive children and grandchildren who allow us the opportunity of doing this.  We feel very, very blessed indeed!!  See y'all next week......

Sunday, September 20, 2015

I was able to finish up a couple of projects that I had going.  That is always a good feeling.  The 4
'matching' scarves are headed to China......request from David.  I LOVE having a purpose with my crocheting.  I just simply can NOT sit still and do nothing.  I need to keep my fingers busy.

And I was able to finish this afghan that I sent to Becky's office....her company 'colors'!  A little something to brighten up her office.  Anybody else have something they want me to make for them.  I have the yarn for Elder Spencer Allgaier's afghan for him but he won't get it until he gets home.  If I try to mail it to him in Mexico I fear he will never see it!!!

 The first couple of days this past week we were able to be home and catch up on things around the apartment and here in Peachtree City.  Felt good.....when it WAS time to start packing for our trip to Savannah, GA for the last of the Zone Conferences, 'Lucy' decided she wanted to go with us so she hopped into dad's suitcase!!  Nice try putty-kat!!

On Thursday, we had a double date with President and Sister Cottle, the Mission President of the Georgia Macon Mission and his wife.  We went to a great seafood restaurant on the River Walk in Savannah, GA.  What a GREAT, FUN place and a GREAT, FUN evening with them.  They have become our dear, dear friends!!

Dad and President Cottle were having a 'High Priest' scripture discussion sitting in front of our Hampton Inn Hotel.

Part of Zone Conference is 'picture taking time'!!  I called Sister Cottle to look back and I got a cute shot of her!!!

President Cottle was checking out the fotos the elders took on his iPhone.  And a couple of 'selfie's' added to the mix.  I think President Cottle liked them.....

Friday was also a significant day for us.....3 years ago was when Jonathan passed away!  Michelle Kitchens sent this foto of the grave she took when she stopped by.  How sweet that was of her.  We kept ourselves busy on that day so as to not have too much time to 'think'!  We surely love Jonathan so much and miss him terribly.  How grateful we are for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Eternal Family that we have.

On Saturday we headed from Savannah to Brunswick, GA.  We had gotten permission from 2 of our 9 mission presidents.  You see, Brunswick, Georgia is about 20 miles outside our mission boundaries!!!  Even though it is still in Georgia.  And because we are from Brunswick, Maryland, we wanted to visit our 'counterpart'!!  We found the BRUNSWICK FIRE HOUSE right away.  And there were even a few firemen around.  We were talking to a few of them.  This guys name is Freddy.  I told him I wanted to give him a Brunswick Maryland lapel pin.  He said, wait a minute, I will exchange a Brunswick GA Fire Patch with you.  How fun was that!!!

After visiting Brunswick, GA for a little bit, we drove over to St. Simon Island, about 15 minutes away.  We got to walk up the Lighthouse there.  Very cool.  And then we drove around the Island a bit.

On Sunday, September 20th we attend church in the Darien Branch located in Darien, GA.  It is a small branch but they have a very nice building where they meet.  After their Branch Conference on this day they had a GREAT potluck lunch!  GREAT food and we enjoyed visiting with the members.

This is President Padgett.  He was been Branch President in the past, Stake President in the past and is a living history book of the area.  SO, guess who had lots of questions for him??  Yup, Elder/Dr. Allgaier needed to know everything about the area.

After church we started our 5 hours drive back to Peachtree City.  And most of it, by choice, was on back roads.  NO, not this kind of backroads.  This is just so typical of the backroads though.  Once you turn off the main paved road, it turns to clay/dirt.  Reminds me of my 'growing-up' years as a child in North Carolina.

OH YEAH......WE 'FOUND' OUR BELOVED COTTON FIELDS!!!  And a couple of the fields were ready to harvest!!!  LOVE these fields.  We will surely miss seeing them when we finish our mission.

These fields give a new meaning to the scripture in Doctrine & Covenants...."The field is white all ready to harvest...."  We surely LOVE them....

We could not believe our eyes as we came upon this truck pulling 2 trailers.  As we got closer we realized they were full of PEANUTS!!!  Glory-be!!!  How fun to see that.  Not only are we in cotton country, but we are also in peanut country!!!

 

 And as we pulled into Peachtree City, the sun was just setting!!!  How nice to be 'home' for a few days.

 We thought we would just relax a minute and unpack.  But wait.....there was a knock on our door.  It was our wonderful elders.....Elder Facey, Elder Barton and Elder Norlund.  We love our elders.  They take such good care of our mail, etc. when we are out of town.  We gave them a miniature baseball bat with Atlanta Braves logo on it but they were made in the Slugger Bat Factory in Louisville, Kentucky.  We got them when we were up there last time.  They were so excited to get them.  YES, that is dad pitching a ball to them down the hallway.  Elder Barton actually hit this ball.  Elder Norlund was playing catcher.  Never a dull minute around our place.

Just when we think our weeks can not get any busier, some how we manage to do just that.  We are getting pretty good at PACKING A BUNCH in our weeks.....and even days!!  We love our mission and don't even want to think about being finished and having to go home!!!  :-(  Until next week.....

Sunday, September 13, 2015

It has been a really really full week again!  I have said it before and I will say it again.....I don't know how that happens!  But we are grateful we can keep up with everything and all of the travels.

This is Elder Thompson and his family.  After Elder Thompson was released from his mission back in June, he decided he wanted to return to Georgia and introduce a lot of folks to his family.  How sweet they are.  Elder Thompson is ONE of the two missionaries who helped us move in our apartment the very first day we arrived.  We will never forget their wonderful help.

On Monday, we invited the missionaries who live in the next apartment building to come for dinner.  They wanted GERMAN PANCAKES and HOMEMADE FRESH PEACH SONKER!!!  Yea, go figure.....who would have come up with THAT combination!  But, that is what I fixed.  They seemed to enjoy it.  L to R:  Elder Facey, Elder Norland and Elder Barton.

 I found a cute little SNOWFLAKE CROCHET PATTERN I wanted to try.  Here is what they look like.  I think I will be making a bunch more as little gifts!  :-)

Tuesday was Georgia Macon Mission Zone Conference in Columbus.  We LOVE being with President and Sister Cottle and their wonderful missionaries!  Meet Elder Goodsell!  Name sound familiar??  It should.  It was his great-grandfather, Wylie Goodsell, that was Esther and Earl Allgaier home teacher and the one who invited them to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints back in the 1960's!!!!  We filled Elder Goodsell in on the great Moroni Hill Story.  He had not heard much about it.  Oh my......are we loosing that important story through the generations!?  I hope not.

And our dear, dear friends......President and Sister Cottle of the wonderful Georgia Macon Mission!  What GREAT leaders they are.

On Wednesday we took a little ROAD TRIP with Elder and Sister Hardgrave.  They are the Area Mental Health Advisors.  We try to do things with them from time to time and when we are both in town.  We drove down to WARM SPRINGS, GA. to see President Teddy Roosevelt's Little White House.  It was very cool.  Never even knew it was there.

President Roosevelt actually passed away in this bed.  He suffered from the affects of Polio which he had.  He was sitting in the room next to his bedroom having his portrait painted when he slumped over.  The woman painting his portrait thought he had just passed out, because he did that a lot apparently.  Obviously, that was not the case. She moved the painting aside and never touched it again.

This is the portrait.  It hangs in the gallery next to the Little White House.  Just as it was when he passed away.

As we were traveling back from Warm Springs, we saw this PIGGLY WIGGLY and we just had to stop.  Love my Piggly Wiggly's from when I was a kid and that is where we used to buy groceries.  AAHHH the good ole days!!  Notice Elder Hardgrave and Sister Hardgrave with Elder/Dr. Allgaier coming out of the store.

On Thursday we headed down to the Georgia Macon Mission for Zone Conference in Augusta.

However, we were way overdue for an oil change.  SO, we stopped at Nalley Honda and got that taken care of as we drove out of town.  We never sit still for long.....always have 'work' with us!

As we got into Augusta we had about one hour before the Museum closed.  We popped in there quickly so we could see a few things.  It was very nice.

They even had a little 'medicine' section in the museum.  And guess where I found Elder/Dr. Allgaier??  Yes sire!!!

On Friday while we were sitting in Zone Conference we got notification that a sister companionship were in a car accident.  They didn't see a car coming and pulled out in front of them.  The car was hit on the driver's side at the back door.  The Sisters were very shaken up, as one would expect.  Sister Finlinson (mission nurse) and Elder/Dr. Allgaier were sorting things out for them and trying to make sure they got the care they needed!

I 'found' another Hiatt cousin at Zone Conference here in Augusta.  He is one of the Zone Leaders.  When I saw the Hiatt name I was hoping I would get to talk to Elder Hiatt and find out.  Sure enough, he told me was comes from Mesa, Arizona.  Before that his family was from Utah.  Before that his family came from Mt. Airy, N.C.!!!!  BINGO....there we have another cousin.  I was telling him all about 'our' ancestors from Mt. Airy.  He had been told stories about the Hiatt Family Cemetery.  I told him that we both have a lot of relatives buried there.  He really wants to visit there someday!  Love the tender mercies of our mission!!!

On Saturday afternoon we attended the OPEN HOUSE of the newly constructed Fayetteville GA Stake Center.  It is beautiful.  This is a new building in the stake that we reside in.

We are finally back in PTC (Peachtree City) for a few days.  It feels so good to be back 'home'!  We even got to go on a walk this afternoon.  Pretty with the sun shining through the trees.

We were walking on our favorite part of the golf cart path.  Lots of golf carts out and about......as usual.

I was able to finish up 4 crocheted scarves that David will be delivering to a family he knows in China.  I am excited that I got to make these for them.  They wanted matching scarves for their 4 children.  It makes me happy to be able to help others!!!

On Sunday we attended church in the Flat Creek Ward in the Peachtree City Building.  Elder/Dr. Allgaier had been asked by the mission nurse to make a 'house call' on a sister missionary.  She was having 'ear problems'!  We were happy to do that.  SO, we took our black bag with us today.  Problem solved, medicine phoned in and they are good to go!  It was a gorgeous day here in Georgia with LOW humidity, if you can believe that!

And thus we have another week!!!  Stay tuned.....there is never a dull minute around here......We LOVE our mission.  We know we won't be able to do this forever so we will enjoy it while we can!!  :-)