August 6, 2012

Ive had a really good last week!

 

Wednesday we had a zone meeting in Prattville. Montgomery Zone is the lowest baptizing zone in the mission, so the assistants came and basically told us to step it up. The south itself is a historically lower baptizing area than the rest of the world, but over the last 10 years all of the southern missions have seen dramatic increases in baptisms. Except the Alabama Birmingham Mission. But now we are experiencing that growth. The mission had a record of baptisms last month and we are definitley moving in the right direction. President Holzapfel is an amazing man, who I wouldn't be suprised to see on the General Authority chart in the next year or two, no joke. He is definitley leading our mission to success.

 

I went on my first companion exchange after the zone meeting on Wednesday. I spent the day in Prattville, a richer city northwest of Montgomery, with one of my zone leaders Elder H---. He's on his last transfer but is still focused on the work. We tracted out portions of the town and didn't have a whole lot of succes, but had a really good meeting with a former investigator and I wouldnt be suprised if it resulted in a baptism.

 

Friday we had the unique opportunity of having the C---s, a senior couples, come to Highland Home and spend part of the day with us. They coordinate a "Master Teacher program" in the mission, and they taught us how to teach. They were able to come to a few appointments with us. I feel like their instruction was super-informative, even more so than a lot of the stuff that I learned in the MTC. There are some things that you just can't learn until you are out in the field. Partly because of their instruction, Elder K-- and I have really mastered how to teach the first lesson together, and we got three new investigators in Greenville yesterday, one who is already committed to a baptismal date even though we only met him that once. We were on fire that day. Three investigators probably doesn't sound like a whole lot, but for Greenville it definitely is. The area has never held a lot of success.

 

There's a lot of interesting history to the area. To give you an idea of the climate back then, since there's been a mormon church in highland home (in the 20s or so) the church has been burned down by arson twice. This current building they are in the fourth that they've had, and its pretty old. They are scheduled to get a new one in the next few years. Theres some interesting histories that Ill have to send to you at some point.

 

Cubert and Becky are doing really well, and have been coming to church every week. Theres another family that we saw on Friday, that also has committed to be baptized, though they haven't put a date on it yet. That baptismal committment was a miracle! The mom was a devout baptist, but we had the C---s with us, and she slowly softened her heart. The gospel is true for everyone, people just have to lower the walls that they put up in their minds. Things are going really well here!

 

We have a multi-zone conference in two weeks with Elder Koelliker (i think thats how you spell it) of the Seventy in Birmingham.

 

Our mission has been used for pilot programs a lot. One that we are doing right now, although I think they are implementing it world-wide now, is ti-wi boxes in our cars, that track how fast we are going and where we are and sends the information to Salt Lake. A dinger goes off when you speed, and with so many violations your driving privileges can be suspended. Kind of annoying, but I see why they do it.

 

I haven't even told you about the dogs yet. The M--s, especially Sister M--, (family whose property they live on) love dogs and cats. They have 9 dogs and I don't even know how many cats. The inside dogs are Molly, George, Dutch and Pete, and the outside dogs are Heidi, Spike, Emma, and I can't remember the other two's names right now. But i'll send you pictures of Molly and Pete, my favorites, at some point.

 

Weve been blessed with rain lately. Alabamas had a drought along with the rest of the country, and its been nice to have the rain to cool everything off.

 Love you all!

 

Elder Madsen

 

 

July 30, 2012

Elder Madsen in Alabama

Hi Family and Friends!

This week has been a good week. No doubt you've seen the pictures on President's blog of our Pioneer day extravaganza in Highland Home.

Its been really hot! The heat index (which combines the temperature and the humidity) has been over 110.

Where he lives

The work here in Highland Home has been really successful. Cubert and his wife Becky accepted a commitment to be baptized on Friday. It was the first baptismal committment that I, personally, extended. In Highland weve been trying to motivate the less active to come out to church. Here in Alabama there are more (or at least it seems like there's more) less active than there are active, so we as missionaries spend a lot of time with them. This area isn't generally known for a lot of baptisms, but we have been making a lot of progress in the last couple weeks. We've had good sacrament meeting attendance in the branches too!

We had my first district meeting last Wednesday. There are only six of us: Elder and Sister B---, a senior military relations couple serving in Montgomery, and Elder C--- (my district leader) and Elder D---, who serve in the Capitol ward, also in Montgomery. We normally have to drive up to Montgomery for district meeting, but because everyone is so short on miles the couple missionaries drove the Capitol elders down here since they drive their own car. We talked a lot about how to integrate service into our routines. We have a zone meeting in Montgomery this Wednesday, which I think will take most of the day.

Everyone down here is "kin". Its kinda different because, through marriage, the Highland Home branch is pretty much one giant extended family (literally!). The hardest thing is trying to memorize/internalize how everyone is related.

Our tendency, now, is to each week spend one day in Luverne, one or two days in Greenville, two days in Honoraville, and the rest of our time in Highland Home. Its really interesting that, although its not the largest town, 90% of the members in our area live in Highland Home, which is probably like 40% LDS (including inactive).

We cover a whole lot of area (two and a half counties), and still somehow manage to stay within our quota on miles. Weve gone on some pretty insane bike rides. Ill wager (and im not exaggerating) that Elder K and I ride our bikes more than any other companionship in the mission.

Saturdays we usually go over to Greenville and focus our efforts there. Every other weekend (this last weekend) we spend the night in the upstairs of the church to save miles, and then attend sacrament meeting with the Greenville Branch. The branch pretty much consists of President N and his family, his parents, one other couple and their son, and a few less actives. So we had 16 in branch yesterday, including us, which was above average. Elder K and I gave the sacrament meeting talks. Really nice people. 

I included a picture of our "poolhouse" where we live .  The people here have a lot of land. The M--- (family they live with) have a forest and a pond and more outbuildings than I can count. Brother M--- collects a whole lot of old items. He has covered wagons and handcarts and cotton gins and a whole lot of other things that I have no idea what they are. I have only seen a small portion of the property but what I've seen has been very impressive.

Alabama is the 2nd poorest state in the nation (or so I've been told), and this particular area of Alabama is one of the poorest. There are a lot of people, mainly older people, that work the land and have been here a long time, and they are some of the hardest working people I have ever met. Different areas have different problems. I stand by what I said last week though, that these are some of the nicest people that I have ever met.

I have to thank the Allens for the Subway card they gave me. It saved me when I was really hungry a couple of days this week.

They have these really pretty flowering bush/tree/plant things here called crepe myrtles. They are my favorite thing in the wildlife I've seen so far.

I feel like I am becoming a better missionary, and am enjoying my time here! Thanks for all the letters family and friends, its good to here from you all! I promise that, if Ive not responded to you yet, that I will soon!

Love you all!

Elder Coleman Madsen.

(Susan: The following are some photos off the mission blog.  Thanks to the Mission President for posting them.  You can see more at alabamamissionupdate.blogspot.com)

Some brethren from the Highland Home branch w/missionaries

Highland Home Missionaries (Elders Madsen and Kaupert)

Coleman and his companion at Pioneer Day Celebration

Week 4 - July 23rd letter

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. 

 

Snail mail week 3

16 July 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

     By the time you get this we will have already talked on Tuesday.  The MTC has been a great experience!

     Last night  Jenny Oaks Baker came to the MTC and gave a 1 hour concert for our evening devotional.  She played Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms (not really sure of the name—mom will know it though)(susan--that’s the name and it’s my favorite JOB song!!) and a lot of really pretty hymns.  I can honestly say I enjoyed it more than 99% of the people in the MTC.  It was so good.

     We had our final interviews, meetings, sacrament meeting and district meeting for our branch today. I’ve enjoyed our Branch, we have a great branch presidency and wives. As you are all aware, my companion Elder Bresee, went home Thursday morning.  It was a sad/stressful experience, but he’s where he needs to be right now.  I’m glad that I had those two weeks to get to know him and learn from him.

     One thing I forgot to mention in an earlier letter:  those preparing to go on missions, watch the District Episodes on the church missionary website.  I didn’t do that, and its my biggest regret.  The teaching that the elders and sisters do in those episodes is exactly how they train us to teach here.

     Lessons are nearly over and I’m just so grateful for the teachers here.  The sister teachers are amazing!  I haven’t gone into a lot of detail about my district.  Elders Forbes, Hullinger, Hunt, and I are headed to Birmingham and the other five are headed to Jacksonville Florida. Dad, Elder Forbes’ father served in Boise I think the same time you did.  He asked his father if he knew a Madsen, and he said he knew a  Jeff Madsen from Pleasant Grove.  Would that have been you?  Also, Elder Forbes’ mom grew up in Price.  Maiden name Targerson(sp?).

     I’m in a threesome with Elder Hunt and Elder Hullinger, which has been good. There are some obvious disadvantages to 3 people in 1 companionship, but we are doing really well, and gave some great TRC lessons the last few days.  The three of us are really close with Elder Nielson and Elder Derr, so we sometimes call ourselves the “fivesome”.

     The food is so good. Granted, it is cafeteria food, but there are always so many options. There are usually 3 different entrees, plus a salad entrée, a wrap line and soup at lunch and dinner. For breakfast they have cereal, cream of wheat, oatmeal and two breakfast entrees, and on Wednesdays and Sundays they have an ice cream bar. Some elders like to complain about it, but they’re gonna miss it in a few days.

     Friday was In-Field orientation, where they gave us a series of seminars and breakout activities on things we don’t learn in classes, which is basically everything besides teaching lessons. It was the most informative part of the MTC. Future missionaries need to remember to take lots of notes on it, because there is so much information in such a little time.

     We had a departure devotional with the Mission Presidency before the Jenny Oaks Baker concert last night, where we got a lot of good advice from them and their wives. Evidently the 2 biggest reasons missionaries go home is 1) they don’t stay with their companions and 2) they get involved with the opposite gender.

     Besides six hours of class and TRC’s, we also get teaching opportunities in zone teaching, which takes the place of Language Study for English speaking missionaries. The English districts in our zone and zone 29 (we are 30). Zones and branches are the same thing in the MTC, and our stakes are called districts, so its confusing because we have 2 different types of districts. Our other english speaking branch that I talked about left last week, so we are the only English speaking district in our branch. It’s funny because I’m the only English Speaker in leadership meetings. English districts measure time in the MTC in days, but the 12 week districts say they measure time in English districts.  I feel bad for them sometimes, they get so restless.  We haven’t gotten any new districts, the branch is really small but they are getting two additional English districts on Wednesday.

Love Elder Madsen

Week #3, July 17, 2012 In Transit

No letter from Coleman this week--he's traveling to Alabama!!  We got to talk with him at 6:00 a.m. as he was boarding his plane in SLC to head to Atlanta and then on to Birmingham.  His flight was delayed in SLC and they were late arriving in Atlanta so we didn't get to talk to him for a longer period. He sounded great--happy and eager to be there, which was more than I could say for us at 6 a.m..  We also talked to him briefly Tuesday evening about 6.  He called to let us know that he arrived safely and was at the mission home for dinner.  Seventeen missionaries arrived the same day, including 4 missionaries waiting for visas to Argentina.  He has been assigned to the Highland Home Zone and his companion is Elder Kaupert.  Coleman sent a brief email with his address.  There are a couple of photos of Coleman on the Alabama mission blog alabamamissionupdate.blogspot.com, maintained by his mission president. We'll post any photos when we eventually get them from Coleman. --Susan

Hey!

 

Elder Coleman Madsen

4470 Honoraville Rd

Honoraville AL 36042

 

Serving in Highland Home, area is Butler and Crenshaw counties in Alabama, really big.

 

Talk to you soon!

 

Elder Madsen

Coleman's 2nd weekly letter

Hey Family and Friends!

Hope you are all doing well! Missing you all but know that I'm in the right place.

Not much to report here, just same old same old. Less than a week till we take off for Alabama! Time flies!

4th of July at the MTC was awesome! Yes, we were in class most of the day, but we got out of evening classes early, and we had a 4th of July celebration (Assembly/Devotial type thing). It was a little annoying at times when they were trying to "celebrate all national independence days" to accomodate the foreign missionaries, but I guess I can see why they would do that. That night they let us watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks (really cool!) and we had no curfew!

I didn't talk a lot about our branch in our last letter. Our branch has 5 districts. 2 of them are normal, 10-person, 3 week english speaking districts. The other three are Cambodian-speaking (12), Hmong-speaking (3) and Vietnamese-speaking (5) all here for 12 weeks. To my knowledge they are the only districts speaking those languages in the MTC right now. This creates interesting dynamics, because we are here when they are on weeks 7-9, and they are at times really frustrated. I don't blame them, they have seen a ton of English districts come and go. But, they're awesome and a great support to our branch. President Jackson (our branch president) is an orthopaedic therapist.

I said last letter that we have an awesome district, but Im gonna say it again. Were all really bummed that in a week we are gonna be split up, but we are having fun while we can. I am the only guy in our district who has been to BYU, and theres a guy from the U and one from Utah State, so their is a little bit of rivalry/pranks, but its all in fun. Actually a lot of older guys in our district (Im the youngest of us). At least 1 21-year old and 2 20-year olds, maybe more Im not sure. But Im suprised at how many older missionaries (by older I mean older than 19) there are here.

Ive met President Brown (the MTC President) three times over the last week. Really good, down-to-earth kind of guy.

We (the Alabamans) had the opportunity to meet Elder and Sister Specht yesterday, a senior couple that is headed to Alabama this next week.

There was a day last week (I can't remember when it was) when the whole day it was really smoky and hazy outside. Are the fires bad, or are they better? I know they held a region-wide fast last Sunday, but I guess Im just wondering how its doing.

We leave Tuesday Morning. I have to report to the Travel Office at the MTC at 4 AM! Our flight leaves at 7, we have a layover in Atlanta and we arrive in Alabama around 1:05 Central Time.

Taught a lesson in District on Sunday. It was, I felt, the first lesson Ive given that was, how should I put this, of the spirit. Not that Ive been horrible at giving lessons in the past, but I just have improved so much here, it was really satisfying. And it was 35-40 minutes long, and I had to prepare it with pretty much just my scriptures. So, not to brag, but I feel I'm getting better.

Our travel day is Tuesday, so they basically just took a P-day away from us. But Ill be able to call you, so it all works out!

Just don't have that much time. Will send a letter w/more experiences and stuff.

Love

Elder Coleman Madsen

Coleman and Kaleb Kjar before they each depart for their missions

Elder Madsen's 1st Mission Letter

July 3, 2012

Week #1

My first week in the MTC is coming to an end!! It seems like a month has already gone by.  It has been really up and down, but I enjoy it, and the spirit is so strong here.

 

First, my companion. Elder Kevin Bresee (pronounced Bruzee) is from Suprise, Arizona (a city 45 minutes north of Phoenix). He is twenty years old and has been working for a year and a half or so at his dads work to raise money for his mission. We have been doing well, and have taught a few times now. The first time kinda sucked (not gonna lie), but we have been getting better and better. Yesterday we taught Junichi, our TRC progressing investigator, for the first time. It was a little frustrating because his traditional japanese beliefs had few parallels with what we are trying to teach him. It was a good experience though.

 

I have the most awesome district in the MTC, no joke! There's Elder Bresee and I, Elder Nielson (Austin, Texas) and Elder Derr (Hyrum, Utah), Elder Forbes (St. George, Utah) and Elder Hales (Salt Lake Area), Elder Hamilton (Parowan Utah) and Elder Albertson (small town in eastern Idaho, name escapes me), and Elder Hunt (Idaho Falls) and Elder Hullinger (Pleasant Grove). No sisters :( . But these elders make up for it! I was assigned to be district leader on Thursday night. As if I wasn't stressed out enough! But the elders have been great, and I am humbled to have this opportunity to serve them.

 

Our classes, have been good, even if they are long. Brother Ferrin and Brother Faircluff, who are both around 23, are great teachers. Classes, at least for the first couple days, were a little stressful because they require us to get out of our comfort zone. But now I enjoy them so much.

 

Sunday at the MTC was an unforgetable experience. I was lucky cause I got to go to a number of leadership training seminars that have helped me so much. Our Branch Presidency: President Jackson, Brother Reynolds and Brother Willis are all amazing men who just have a great spirit. I was able to interview with President Jackson on Sunday and he gave great counsel. From 10 to 12 we had a mission conference, with great talks by the mission presidency and their wives. We had fast and testimony after that, where 7 of the 10 elders in our district bore testimonies. President Nelle of the mission presidency was there at our meeting. We had our first district meeting that day as well. Luckily I didnt have to teach.

 

The evening topped it all off. We had Ted Gibbons, brother of Elder Larry Gibbons, at the evening devotional talking about the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith from the perspective of Willard Richards. After that we watched a mash-up of the Joseph Smith and Emma movies, with some other scenes too. There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

 

Its hard coming to the MTC at the beginning, its hard to be in situations both spiritual and stressfull. But the Lord is so close here. I, just a week into the MTC, am closer to my Heavenly Father than I have ever been before.

 

Theres so much to say, but not enough time. When I get into the field ill have twice as much time for weekly emails, so ill be able to go more in depth.

 

Use Dearelder.com to contact me! It is by far the easiest and fastest way for me to get it.

 

I love you all!

Elder Coleman Madsen