Hello Family and Friends!
We experienced a baptism this last weekend in Madison Alabama! E---- was so excited, and the ward has been so helpful in providing friendship. He had been taught by Elder Andoh-Kesson and Elder Oslapas before, but he didn't come to church so baptism wasn't really an option. We re-committed him to baptism three weeks ago when I got here and really started to keep his commitments. He completed every BOM reading assignment we gave him! It was a really good weekend.
Today's been kind of crazy! I'm actually emailing from Cullman right now, which is about an hour south of Madison. We had our zone activity this morning in Decatur from 9-11. Sister K--- got injured so we had to cut it short. She and a few of the other sisters are at the Decatur Hospital right now. We're not exactly sure what is up (doctors have to do x-rays), but please keep her in your prayers! After we got her to the hospital we drove down here to Cullman to exchange for our mid-transfer. Elder Cowan is with Elder Oslapas and me now. After we do e-mails we'll head back up to Madison.
I've been able to see more areas in our zone this week. We've been to Decatur a couple of times. The Tennessee River is SO BEAUTIFUL!! It's almost a mile wide at Decatur. We plan on coming back to Decatur for a full-length exchange later this week. The weather has been so nice lately. April is the best month (weather-wise) in Alabama (besides tornadoes). Mostly 65-75 degree days. Speaking of tornadoes, the storm last Thursday was kind of crazy. We're so lucky that we have weather radios and text alerts. Missionaries 50 years ago had no idea when the weather was getting bad. No tornadoes touched down near us though. The Lord will provide!
I've only briefly mentioned the large concentration of engineers and US DOD contractors in Madison in past letters. This last week, Elder Oslapas and I had an amazing opportunity to go on the Redstone Arsenal. A member here is the commander of the Flight Test Directorate of the US Army, which is headquartered on the arsenal. I have some pretty cool pictures that I'll send from that. We were able to tour some of the hangars and see some really neat aircraft.
I don't think I've said much about Elder Oslapas yet. He is 21 from Bellingham Washington. Loves airplanes! (He did two years of flight school before he came out). He is an amazing missionary. Don't know very much about Elder Cowan yet (since we've only been with him for a couple of hours) but I'm sure I will get to know more. He is from Colorado Springs.
We had quarterly interviews with President Holzapfel this last Saturday. I enjoy every opportunity I get to learn more from that man. I will miss Sister Holzapfel and him so much when they go. They are planning on coming back in a week or so and teaching with us!
While President was here, he gave Elder Oslapas and me special permission to attend the stake music training workshop that was going on. We attended an advanced organ class, which was really informative. I learned a lot, especially about setting different registrations (different combinations of stops for different voices). I'm a much better pianist now than I was a year ago, and this training helped me apply a lot of that to the organ.
So much to talk about, and as usual, not enough time. Sorry I didn't focus so much on missionary stuff this time, but there was a lot of non-missionary experiences this last week that I wanted to share. The work is going so well here! We've set a few baptism dates this last week and have gotten over 10 member referrals! A lot of good stuff is coming!
Love,
Elder Coleman Madsen
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