Hey Family and Friends!
Hope you are all doing well! Missing you all but know that I'm in the right place.
Not much to report here, just same old same old. Less than a week till we take off for Alabama! Time flies!
4th of July at the MTC was awesome! Yes, we were in class most of the day, but we got out of evening classes early, and we had a 4th of July celebration (Assembly/Devotial type thing). It was a little annoying at times when they were trying to "celebrate all national independence days" to accomodate the foreign missionaries, but I guess I can see why they would do that. That night they let us watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks (really cool!) and we had no curfew!
I didn't talk a lot about our branch in our last letter. Our branch has 5 districts. 2 of them are normal, 10-person, 3 week english speaking districts. The other three are Cambodian-speaking (12), Hmong-speaking (3) and Vietnamese-speaking (5) all here for 12 weeks. To my knowledge they are the only districts speaking those languages in the MTC right now. This creates interesting dynamics, because we are here when they are on weeks 7-9, and they are at times really frustrated. I don't blame them, they have seen a ton of English districts come and go. But, they're awesome and a great support to our branch. President Jackson (our branch president) is an orthopaedic therapist.
I said last letter that we have an awesome district, but Im gonna say it again. Were all really bummed that in a week we are gonna be split up, but we are having fun while we can. I am the only guy in our district who has been to BYU, and theres a guy from the U and one from Utah State, so their is a little bit of rivalry/pranks, but its all in fun. Actually a lot of older guys in our district (Im the youngest of us). At least 1 21-year old and 2 20-year olds, maybe more Im not sure. But Im suprised at how many older missionaries (by older I mean older than 19) there are here.
Ive met President Brown (the MTC President) three times over the last week. Really good, down-to-earth kind of guy.
We (the Alabamans) had the opportunity to meet Elder and Sister Specht yesterday, a senior couple that is headed to Alabama this next week.
There was a day last week (I can't remember when it was) when the whole day it was really smoky and hazy outside. Are the fires bad, or are they better? I know they held a region-wide fast last Sunday, but I guess Im just wondering how its doing.
We leave Tuesday Morning. I have to report to the Travel Office at the MTC at 4 AM! Our flight leaves at 7, we have a layover in Atlanta and we arrive in Alabama around 1:05 Central Time.
Taught a lesson in District on Sunday. It was, I felt, the first lesson Ive given that was, how should I put this, of the spirit. Not that Ive been horrible at giving lessons in the past, but I just have improved so much here, it was really satisfying. And it was 35-40 minutes long, and I had to prepare it with pretty much just my scriptures. So, not to brag, but I feel I'm getting better.
Our travel day is Tuesday, so they basically just took a P-day away from us. But Ill be able to call you, so it all works out!
Just don't have that much time. Will send a letter w/more experiences and stuff.
Love
Elder Coleman Madsen
| Coleman and Kaleb Kjar before they each depart for their missions |
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