March 25, 2013

Coleman was transferred last Wednesday.  He is serving as a zone leader and is in a 
new area in the north of the mission. Coleman's new address is:

194 Shelton Road #116
Madison, AL 35758


Hello Family and Friends!
 
Hello from Madison, Alabama! Wow, this is a really big change! So much to talk about this 
time.
 
I am serving with Elder Oslapas in the Madison 1st, 2nd and 3rd Wards. The 
Huntsville/Madison area is big on engineering. NASA and the DoD have operations here. The area has the 2nd most number of government contractors in the nation - 2nd only to the 
Washington DC/Arlington area. This attracts a lot of people from Utah and Idaho (Mormons) so there are a lot of mormons here (it's nicknamed "the mormon bubble"). It 
feels like I'm serving in Utah (no joke!).
 
Our zone covers the entire Madison Stake, which includes the Madison wards, the Decatur 
ward, the Athens ward, the Cullman ward and the Guntersville Ward. If you know anyone in 
those areas let me know - I'll probably end up going on exchanges in all of them.
 
We had an amazing music missionary opportunity this last weekend. The Huntsville and 
Madison stakes put on an "Easter Cantata" with a 90-voice choir and actors. It was a

community event and there were a lot of non-members there (we had 3 investigators). 
I was blown away-it was amazing. They had amazing sound - almost MOTAB quality, and 
that's coming from one of the harshest music critics you'll ever meet :) . They performed 
Saturday and Sunday Nights.

It was a little overwhelming being assigned to a completely new part of the mission as a 
zone leader. The first couple of days I thought I was going to die. But I'm a lot better 
now. God really is always there to support us when we need him. I feel like I'll grow a 
lot this next transfer, which is good. This area is about as opposite of Highland Home/

Greenville/Montgomery area as you can get, but there is a lot of work to be done here.
 
I forgot to mention this earlier in my letter, but since we are assigned to all 3 wards we 

attend them all, so we are in church from 8:30 to 4:30. I probably met close to 600 people 

yesterday between all 3.
 
As you know, sister missionaries continue to come and bless our mission. In Madison we 
also have a set of sisters (Decatur and Athens have sisters as well). I've only been here 
for a few days, but I've been able to see the amazing ways that only sisters can bless 
the lives of people they interact with.
 
Gosh, too many investigators to mention right now. One we've worked a lot these last few 
days with is E---. He is Puerto Rican and grew up in spanish Harlem.  We went over to his 

house and taught him Thursday and Friday, and he came with us to the cantata Saturday 

and to church Sunday. 

Bad news - the Madison library has really old computers that don't have SD card slots, so 
it will probably take a while for me to get my pictures to you - I've taken a lot in the 
last week.
 
Don't have a lot of time now --Love you!
 
Elder Coleman Madsen


Totally forgot to mention this - we will be going to the temple tomorrow! We are really 
excited for that. I don't think I'll see anyone from my old stomping grounds though, I 
think that Montgomery is coming another day.
 
You probably saw on the blog how historic this transfer was in the mission. So many sisters! 3 of our zones split as well  so now we have 9 zones.