Hello Family and Friends!
I'll start off by addressing an issue that every letter I've gotten this week has complained about: Yes I know that I don't take enough pictures. I don't have my camera right now but will have it on Wednesday, so soon I'll be snapping away and yall'll be happy.
Greenville has been ok this week. President Nimmer (branch president) has outlined sort of a game plan for us in the area. We have been working on finding (tracting) but we've also done a lot of contacting of less actives, many who haven't been to church for years and years. 85% of the branch roster is less or in-active individuals. If the less-actives came we would probably have a ward, or at least a much larger branch. A lot of them live pretty far out, but luckily we aren't as stretched for miles as I was in Highland Home so we can afford the trips. We've met a lot of people with a lot of problems, problems that the gospel of Jesus Christ will help solve.
Yesterday we had 22 people attend sacrament meeting, which is pretty high for Greenville. Sadly, none of our investigators were able to make it. Talk about disappointing. We found out after that Dominique actually needed a ride but her phone was dead, and Amanda was having a pretty rough day and didn't come.
We taught Amanda lessons on the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ this last week. Those went very well and she is moving towards baptism. It was sad that she wasn't able to make it to church but there is always next time, and we're just gonna keep trying. The first time is the hardest time.
We have some pretty sweet wheels here in Greenville. In Highland Home we were driving a pretty battered Toyota Corolla, but here we've been given a white 2012 Chevy Cruze, and its definitely the nicest car I've ever driven.
Its been hard finding new people to teach this last week. We've tracted around but no one has been interested. The first week we were here it seemed like everything was going for us, but now Greenville has seemed like the dead town it was when Elder Kaupert and I were here part-time. We are faithful though that it will get better.
Sorry there isn't a lot to report on this week. For those who sent me packages this last week thank you! They made my day! I am making a push to respond to my letters today. Sorry that I am not good at doing that!
Love you all!
Elder Coleman Madsen
| |
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
October 22, 2012 Letter
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
October 16, 2012 Letter
Hello Family and Friends!
Well, sorry my weekly letter is late this week - our p-day was so crazy we weren't able to write yesterday. Things have been going real well here in Greenville. It has been a really unique experience opening up a new area. The work goes well. We have 10 investigators and 2 with a baptismal date with more on the way today!
My new companion is Elder Kelley. He is a 21-year-old missionary from Detroit, Michigan who was converted to the church when he was eleven. He has been on his mission 16 months now. Elder Kelley is a very hard worker and has a really sociable, down-to-earth personality. It's an honor to be able to serve with him. I will still see Elder Kaupert because he is now my district leader. We have a small district of just Elder Kelley and I and Elder Kaupert and Elder Cusick (the new missionary he is training). We'll have our first district meeting tomorrow.
I will miss my old district. Elder Clanton, my former district leader, is now serving in the Tupelo Mississippi Stake/Zone with Elder Hullinger, one of my MTC companions. Elder Dunn is still serving in the Capitol Ward of Montgomery. Elder and Sister Blau finish their missionary service tomorrow and return home to Centerfield Utah. I will sure miss them, they were great teachers and great examples of effective missionaries to all of us young missionaries in the Alabama Birmingham Mission.
[Mom, you asked about my musical experiences as of late. I played the piano and did a special musical number on the violin for the transfer meeting on Wednesday. All with 2 days notice (no big deal haha). ]
Y'all who follow the mission blog probably saw the pictures from the Montgomery Stake Conference this last weekend. Elder William Walker of the Seventy came and reorganized the stake presidency here with Elder Hymas (an area seventy). Typically missionaries only attend the Sunday Morning Session of Stake Conference, but by Elder Walker's request we came up for the adult session Saturday Evening, which was very focused on missionary work. In that evening session, I was reminded of home when Elder Walker talked about some experiences he had opening up the tours for the renovated Boise Temple. I'm assuming that must have been in the last week or so, the way he was talking about it. President and Sister Holzapfel both spoke at the adult sessions and gave really good talks. I enjoyed being able to see many of the members from Highland Home at both sessions of conference. President Millington, who had been serving as a "transplant" branch president of the Tuskegee Branch, was called as the new stake president. Elder Kaupert and Elder Kelley have served with him and say that he is an amazing individual who goes above and beyond in the call of duty. The stake presidents here in Alabama are very involved in the work.
In Elder Walker's Sunday address he talked about 3 evidences of modern-day revelation today: (1)The giving of Patriarchal Blessings (2)The process of calling full-time missionaries and (3) The process of calling new stake presidents. All three of these things testify that God really does head this work. How could they work so well if they didn't?
I had some new experiences in Montgomery. Because we are about 45 miles away, we spent the night with the Carter Hill Elders and were able to go teach with them Saturday evening. It was a unique experience being the only white Elder with a group of four elders going into "the hood" of Montgomery. Kind of cool though, and I met some good people.
We have a very nice apartment! We have a front room/study with a study table and kitchen table, a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, and an extra room that could serve as a second bedroom if needed. Our apartment is conveniently located right next to Wal-Mart and Super Foods so its easy to get to the store when needed, and not too far away from town.
We have done a lot of tracting in the last five days. We didn't do very much tracting in Highland Home because it wasn't a very good finding option there, but here it has definitely been working well. Friday we had an amazing lesson with Amanda. We almost didn't stop by her house, but the spirit told us to stop by one more. Funny how that works. She had an open heart and mind and has an earnest desire to be baptized. We've had lots of lessons and a lot of people are coming closer to Jesus Christ. We are going to have a lot of people at church Sunday! We recontacted Dominique, an investigator Elder Kaupert and I tracted into, and committed her to come to church. Greenville as of late has been averaging an attendance of about 15 people. I feel we will soon double that with our new investigators coupled with our work with less-active families. We have probably 4 times as many less actives than actives in this area, and there's so much potential with them! In the next few months, you will see amazing growth in Greenville, I promise you that. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to be here at this significant time in the history of the Greenville Branch.
We anxiously await the arrival of the senior couple, but we don't know exactly when they will come. Last we heard Elder May (the housing coordinator for the mission) was having difficulty finding a place for them to stay. Hopefully they'll be here soon.
Well, love and miss y'all. Hope to hear from ya!
Love,
Elder Coleman Madsen
|
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
October 10, 2012 Transfer Day
His address is: 102 Chalet Drive, Greenville, AL 36037
October 8, 2012 Letter
Hello Family and Friends!
Well, its official, Im being transferred.....I will be leaving Highland Home early Wednesday Morning. :/ I've been blessed by this opportunity to serve here for twelve weeks and be trained here! I won't know where I'll be going until the transfer meeting on Wednesday. President's really good with putting the Transfer powerpoint on the blog so you may find out on that before I'm able to contact you.
Elder Kaupert has been an awesome trainer! He will be staying here in Highland Home and training an incoming missionary. We made some pumpkin pies today as a last hurrah :) He still has 15 months left, so odds are we'll be in the same zone or maybe district in the future. He's been here in Highland for 6 months now.
I really am grateful for this opportunity I have had to serve in the Highland Home/Greenville areas and the Montgomery Stake. I kinda hope I stay in the zone, cause Elder Walker of the Seventy is coming this weekend to reorganize the Montgomery Stake Presidency, and I love being there when General Authorities come, but I'll be happy to go wherever I'm called!
Conference was really good! I was really excited about the message about missionary work! I bet a lot of girls my age are accelerating their plans to leave on missions now. It really excited me, I was giddy the whole day - it's such a historic announcement! We were able to have some good conference watching experiences! We spent both days in the Highland Home/Sardis area and made sure conference was going at the church. We help set up conference in Korean for the Kim family to watch over the internet. We watched the Saturday Morning session at the church. We ate lunch there and saw the press conference about missionary work with Elders Nelson, Holland and Evans which was really good. We watched the afternoon session with Cubert and Becky in their home. We had been praying for that session to be what they needed to hear, and the messages about families were perfect for them! Priesthood meeting was really good. Funny enough only Elder Kaupert, Brother Gillion (the branch clerk) and me were there to see it, which surprised me because this was an off week for Alabama football, so I thought there'd be more people there.
Sunday Morning Session we watched with Larry (branch mission leader) and Brenda with our investigator. She came to church a little bit a few years ago, but stopped coming when some friends told her some things that really scared her about the church. Elder Kaupert and I have been teaching her for about 6 weeks now, and she was pretty impressed by what she heard. (go President Eyring and Elder Holland....exactly what she needed to hear!) We had to leave to go watch the afternoon session at someone else's home, but she enjoyed the session so much that she stayed and watched the afternoon session with Larry and Brenda! It was a great conference for the work here in Highland Home.
Well, some sad news. Saturday night one of the McGough's cats (Castillo) was attacked by their dogs (Tip, Spike, Emma and Rusty). We thought Castillo was dead, but luckily he survived. He's at the vet right now, keep him in your prayers.
Well, I guess that even on an LDS mission I can't get away from the fact that I'm a musician. I am playing piano at the transfer meeting and am doing a violin musical number.
It'll be sad to leave our investigators, but I know that there will be new people to meet and to teach in the place i'll end up!
Well, with everything that has happened in the last few days, I don't really remember anything else to report, how sad is that! Love you all! Hope to hear from you!
Love
Elder Madsen
October 1, 2012 Letter
Hello Family and Friends!
We've had a great week! The weather is continuing to stay mild, usually in the low to mid-80s. I enjoy the work we are doing here so much! We have 2 new investigators now who we are really excited about. We taught them first lessons in the last week.
Greenville Branch, as we said before, is getting new missionaries next transfer. The exciting part is they are actually getting two sets of missionaries! They will have a set of elders and a senior couple. [The story of why they're getting two is quite miraculous, I'll tell y'all about it in a letter.] We expect, and are excited for, real growth in the area of Greenville in the coming months. For the first time in about a month, we were able to go out and spend Saturday and Sunday in Greenville, spending the night in the church building. The branch is small in numbers but definitely not small in spirit. We had a short but really powerful fast and testimony meeting yesterday.
This week I have been thinking about the importance of members with missionary work. I know y'all probably hear this a lot, but members are such a valuable part of the missionary process! This woman we've been teaching works with a member in the Highland Home Branch and that member was so helpful in our teaching of the first lesson with her. The best investigators come from member referrals and having members in lessons is so powerful. I would invite everyone who reads this letter to pray every day for more missionary opportunities. I know that as we do this, and as we become more willing to be instruments in the Lord's hands, that we can bring so many souls to Christ.
Cubert and Becky have been doing so well! As I have said, they've really adjusted to member life. When we were teaching them the word of wisdom, the lesson was long (probably 1 1/2 hrs) and the spirit was there. At the end, they committed to keep the Word of Wisdom, and they have held true to that since then, not slipping once! And (just as exciting) they paid their tithing for the first time yesterday!
Another plug-in for member missionary work - I firmly believe that the support Cubert and Becky received from branch members here in Highland was vital to them feeling comfortable with their decision to be baptized, and that that same support helped them so much after they were baptized as they familiarized (and are still familiarizing) themselves with the "Mormon Culture". We [members] are more different than we sometimes think we are, and new members need a friend to help them learn. Be that friend.
Just as important as that, I think its so important for active members of the church to reach out to those who are less active. Oftentimes (though not all the time) those who are coming less feel because they are afraid they aren't wanted. Let them know they are wanted, and be their friend regardless if they are coming to church are not.
Well, back to my life. Some of y'all have asked how often we eat with members. We eat with members really inconsistently. There have been weeks that we have eaten 5 or 6 times with members, and weeks where we haven't eaten at all. The mission has discouraged wards and branches to have "feed the missionary" signups, so we eat with members when they come up to us and ask to feed us. The food, all in all, is very similar to what we have back home, with the exception of the okra, collards, turnip greens and butterbeans. Okra is the best, I could eat some every day! Of course, I've only ever had it fried, and I hear boiled or pickled okra isn't as appetizing. I've not had chittlins yet, and I hope I'll never have to. I'm sort of indifferent with the hush puppies and fried cornbread.
Conference is coming!! We are excited! We are planning on watching the sessions of conference with different less-active members, and we are excited for the influence conference will have. President Holzapfel in a letter challenged us missionaries to have a question that we need answered going into conference. I invite everyone to do so - Conference has a unique power to speak to the soul.
Well, love you all. Thanks for your letters, love and prayers! God be with you!
Love
Elder Coleman Madsen
Monday, September 24, 2012
Sept 24, 2012 Letter
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
Sunday, September 23, 2012
September 17, 2012 Letter
 |
| Coleman and his companion at the temple (photo from mission pres blog) |
Hello Family and Friends!!
A lot to report on this last week!
We went on an exchange with Elders Clanton and Dunn again this last week. I was with Elder Dunn again, this time in Montgomery. We had a two-day exchange, so I spent Tuesday and Wednesday night there. Wednesday during our lunch hour I was able to see the Martin Luther King Jr. home and take a tour of it. It was a neat, almost spiritual experience for me to see. The marks are still there from where the bomb exploded. A lot of cool history happened in Montgomery.
We had some really good teaching experiences while I was in Montgomery. Tuesday night we had dinner with a man they had met on the street with his family. It turned into a good lesson on our beliefs, and we were able to resolve a lot of their concerns about the church. When you are on exchanges and are in a different area its always a bittersweet experience having good lessons, because you really enjoy them but at the same time you know that you wont be able to teach these people. While we were there we spent a lot of time contacting former investigators. Wednesday night we were able to go on splits with the ward mission leader and teach some of the less active members in the ward. I enjoyed the experiences I had there. While Elders Clanton and Kaupert were in Highland Home Elder Clanton interviewed Cubert and Becky for baptism.
Friday we had the funeral for Chic, the less-active man who died last Sunday. I won't say it was a fun experience, because funerals never really are, but it was good to see the community there to support the family. A lot of the people in the branch were really supportive. Two ladies spent over 30 hours each this week helping the family prepare for the funeral. A brother-in-law who lives in Clanton (out of our area) who is an active member of the church "preached" at the funeral, and dedicated the grave. It was comforting that even though a lot of the family has distanced themselves from the church recently, they still had a Melchizedek Priesthood holder conduct the funeral. Events like this, sad as they are, sometimes open the door for us as missionaries to reach out to those who have experienced loss of a loved one. Hopefully this experience will open those doors.
Friday afternoon Elder Jensen (Elder Kaupert's previous companion) and his companion Elder Zundel came from Hamilton and spent the night with us. Although they didn't teach them the missionary lessons, Elder Kaupert and Elder Jensen did a lot of service for Cubert and Becky before I came, and they wanted him to be able to share the special day with them.
Saturday was the baptism. It was the most spiritual baptism I have ever been to, and everyone else involved said the same thing. A lot of Cubert and Becky's children and their families(who are less actives) came. President and Sister Holzapfel showed up, which was just as much a suprise to us as it was to everyone else. Cubert really enjoyed when President Holzapfel spoke to the branch on Pioneer day, that first Sunday I was here, so he was really happy to see him again. Elder and Sister Callister, the senior missionary couple who came with us to a teaching appointment with Cubert and Becky a month-and-a-half ago, came as well. Everyone was crying. Jerry, Cubert's nephew and the High Priest's group leader in the branch, conducted and gave a talk at the baptism. Elder Kaupert also gave a talk, and I accompanied the hymns and played the interlude music (Highland Home is short on pianists). Everyone involved was spiritually fed. President took pictures which should be on the blog soon. [I have one picture from the event but I think the one he has is better.]
Sunday we were able to confirm them members of the church (I confirmed Becky). Its hard to describe how amazing of an experience this was for me. Suffice it to say I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world right now than Highland Home. I have some more information on the baptism which I will send in a different letter.
Well, a lot to report on, and little time to do it in. This is just a brief summary of some of the good experiences we had this week, it would take me hours and hours to adequately describe them.
Love and Miss yall!
 |
| Baptism |
 |
| On the property where he lives |
 |
| More property shots |
 |
| Storms |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)