Hello Family and Friends!
We've had a good week in Highland Home! The weather is getting cooler (finally!) as we move into fall weather. We haven't had a day above the mid-80s in over a week now. The nights it has gotten down to the lower 50s, upper 40s.
I talked about Cubert and Becky's baptism last letter. I can't overemphasize how amazing of an experience it was for everybody involved. We had a lot of people there, and everyone said it was the best (most spiritual) baptism they had ever been to.
Biggest news is that they are splitting our area. Starting next transfer (2 weeks) Greenville/Butler County will have its own set of missionaries. This will be a great blessing for the members in the Greenville Area. Greenville hasn't had a convert baptism in recent history. By putting full-time missionaries there specifically hopefully that will open the doors for the gospel to start growing in that area. Funny enough Mom, I found this out from you in your letter I got Wednesday night because President put it on the blog. We called President N---- and confirmed what you had said Thursday Morning, and Friday President Holzapfel told us about it when we were in Birmingham. We haven't been in Greenville for about two weeks because of Cubert and Becky's baptism and other things that have come up in Highland, but this week we plan to get back over there.
Friday we had our temple trip. Our session was from 1 to 3, so with the 2-1/2 hour drive, plus the fact that we picked up a set of Montgomery elders, it was a day-long extravaganza. The Birmingham temple is one of those temples that doesn't really look that pretty unless you see it in real life, the pictures don't really do it justice. It was a great spiritual experience for me! Its a blessing to have a temple in our mission boundaries. Because the Provo Temple was closed for cleaning when I was in the MTC, its great to finally be able attend the temple while serving as a missionary!
Saturday I had a, well, unique experience. We were able to help Brother S---- and his wife load their square hay bales. I think its funny (and they think its funny) that I come from such a rural state yet I've never done something like that before. The funnest part was when Grandma S---- (who was driving the tractor) lost control of the vehicle going down a hill andalmost flipped us over. Didn't get hurt or anything, we weren't going fast enough for that. Sure had fun though.
Yesterday (Sunday) we had our "Homecoming" in Highland Home. The branch invited former branch members back for a special, two-hour long sacrament meeting. All of the still-living former branch presidents and bishops spoke. We had some in-actives who have not been to church for a LONG time there that day. We had 121 people there at the meeting, and that was with a few people out of town and some of the "less active" families not there. It was a record number of people. We filled the whole room and the 4 overflow classrooms, and we had some people outside listening in the hallways. The meeting was perfect length (I thought) - none of the branch presidents spoke for more than 15 minutes. For a lot of the branch members it was a real spiritual experience - a lot of tears were shed. My eyes were watering a little bit.
Afterwords we had food - more food than you have ever seen in your life! I don't know how the Relief Society does it. There were probably 8 tables with plates and plates of food on them. We probably could have fed 250 people.
Elder and Sister Callister (senior missionary couple) came to the homecoming, and they did some teacher training with us after the activity. Something I guess I haven't really ever talked about in my letters, but that is so true, is the impact senior missionaries have on the missions they serve. I've had the opportunity to get to know Elder and Sister Blau and Elder and Sister Callister so well these past few transfers and have learned a lot for them. Every couple in the church should aim towards serving a mission, there are so many opportunities to serve
Not much else to report. We have a new investigator that we are going to start teaching this week in Luverne that "found" us through a member and wants to take the discussions. She was at church on Sunday. We are excited to be able to teach her the next few weeks.
Love you all!
Elder Coleman Madsen
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