Hi Family and Friends!
I'm glad to hear that you got my letter! The last few days in the MTC were pretty crazy. I have written a second half for last weeks letter which I should put in the mail today. But Ill save the time in the email to talk about what has happened here in Alabama!
The plane rides were long! We had to get up at 2:50 AM Tuesday morning and left the MTC at 4. Our flight to Atlanta was set to depart at 7:05, but because of maintenace errors we weren't up in the air until a few minutes before 9. We missed our connecting flight in Atlanta, and almost missed our rescheduled flight. We literally ran off the plane, across the airport, and onto the next one. Two visa missionaries in our party actually missed the flight and were stranded in Atlanta for a few hours!
We did finally get to Birmingham though, and President Holzapfel was there with his wife to greet us. We didn't get half our luggage, so we spent about an hour filing baggage claims. We then had a nice dinner at the mission home, where we each had a personal interview. Funny story, the one sister that came out with us was reassigned as Spanish-speaking that night. Talk about overwhelming. Evidently a lot of the sisters here are Spanish-speaking. We spent the night at a Marriot Hotel.
The transfer meeting was the next morning. At 9:15 the new missionaries had an orientation meeting, where the mission staff went over things we needed to know. At the transfer meeting, I was assigned to labor in Crenshaw and Butler Counties in Alabama with Elder Kaupert. We are in the Montgomery Zone (which corresponds with the Montgomery Stake). We are based out of the Highland Home - Honoraville area of Crenshaw county. It's about as backwoods as it gets, but I love it. There are some of the nicest people here that you could ever meet. We have responsibility for the Greenville and Highland Home Branches of the Montgomery Stake, which correspond to the counties (Greenville is in Butler County, Highland Home is in Crenshaw County). Butler County is a lot larger population-wise than Crenshaw County, but it actually has way less members. Highland Home usually gets 70-80 people at church and Greenville usually gets about 15. We live with the McGoughs, a family in the Highland Home Branch, in a poolhouse in the backyard.
My trainer Elder Kaupert is 24, is from the Bay area and has been out 6 months. He has been serving here in Highland Home for the past three months, so he has gotten to know the people pretty well. We spend a majority of our time here in Crenshaw.
The hardest part is probably the constant bike riding. If it was constant bike riding by itself, itd probably be just fine. But the constant biking+the heat+the humidity+the hills=Pretty dang tiring. But Im getting a lot more used to it. The food here is excellent! Every set of missionaries in Alabama, at least to my knowledge, has a car, but Salt Lake restricts the number of miles we can use each month. Out here we basically just ride to the town we are going to be in for the day and then we bike from there. On Thursday we were in Luverne, on Friday we were in Highlad Home, and on Saturday we drove out to Greenville. We already have one person committed to baptism, and another seriously considering baptism.
Yesterday (Sunday), as youve probably seen on the mission blog, President and Sister Holzapfel came out to Highland Home and spoke at our sacrament meeting. It was an excellent service. We had 102 people out for it, which I'm pretty sure is a record number of members attending on a Sunday for that branch, because there are a lot of less actives in the area. In fact, in Crenshaw we probably do more less-active work than new investigator work, at least right now. President Holzapfel is an amazing speaker: at the transfer meeting he spoke to us for about an hour and a half without notes, and it was all concise and to the point. We had a Pioneer-day celebration after the block with lots of food and desserts. After the meeting, we were able to meet with some members and get more referrals.
Alabama is a really pretty place!
Lots of stories, but I cant talk about all of them in the time that I have! I hope to send you a letter in addition to this email soon.
Love,
Coleman.
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