April 1, 2013

Hello Family and Friends!
 
Things have been going well in Madison! We were able to go to the temple on Tuesday. 
After the temple trip, we went on an exchange in Athens, which is about 25 minutes west 
of Madison. We spent the night there and came back to Madison Wednesday morning.
 
We committed Ed--- to baptism on Friday (April 12th). He's been to church twice now - 
sadly he wasn't able to come yesterday. He had to take some pretty severe medicine (for 
his MS) the day before and he just wasn't able to come. He's still really excited about 
everything though. He's been to church twice.
 
Er-- is another investigator we have. He's dating a member of the church and has been 
having the discussions for a few months. He just really wants to make sure that he is 
making the right decision, and that he doesn't join the church for the wrong reasons. 
He's come to church both Sundays, but between the two he got pretty sick so we weren't 
able to teach him this last week. We have an appt scheduled in a couple of days.
 
M--- is another investigator we have. He's also been investigating for a while, and 
really enjoys church. He is just having difficulty recognizing the spirit, and in turn, 
an answer of whether it's all true. He has been coming to church really regular, and for 
the last 3 sundays has brought his girlfriend with him. She's really felt at home in

relief society and we're trying to arrange for the sisters to go over there and teach her.

Mom to answer your question - Missionaries are organized into "districts" with 
a district leader, and districts are organized into "zones" with two zone 
leaders. Up until this transfer we had 6 zones in the mission and 12 zone leaders, but 
because of the rapidly growing numbers they created 3 new zones, so now we have 9 zones 
(18 zone leaders). The zone leader position is unique because our proselyting area is 
techniquely the whole zone (which is all of the missionaries in the Madison Alabama 
Stake). We go on exchanges a lot (at least once a week), and conduct training. Elder 
Oslapas ("oh-sh-la-paz") and I will be conducting a 3-hour long zone training 
meeting tomorrow.
 
We had zone leader council in Birmingham on Friday (probably on the blog) with all the 
zone leaders, the assistants, and a couple sister companionships that President specially 
invited. (Since a lot of the decisions we make are about sisters, President wants to make 
sure their voice is heard). By the way, you probably saw this but Elder Kaupert(Coleman's 
first companion) is the new assistant. It was over 5 hours long and it was a new 
experience to be trained by President in that kind of a setting (it was kind of intense). 
I enjoyed it though.

((from Susan - A good friend of mine growing up, Janet, lives in Decatur AL with hubby 

Jim and their kids--Colemans zone!!))   

Both the Decatur Elders and Sisters have mentioned in calls we've had that they've met 
Sister B-- and that she's asked about me. The Decatur Sisters asked for my address 
because evidently she wants to send me a package. We'll probably be headed to Decatur on 
exchange some time next week.

Well, I'm about to be booted off the computer. Hope y'all have a great week!
 
Love
 
Elder Coleman Madsen

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.