Hello everyone! This week has been crazy so I am going to try and make this letter make sense. My companion Hermana Bajorquez left two days ago to St. George. We all loved her and so we were sad to see her go! The morning she was supposed to leave her alarm didn't go off so we woke up to pounding on our door with Elders telling us she had to be the Travel office in 10 min.....yeah that was fun ha ha, we got her off though even though she was a little flustered and we were too, but we sort of got some sleep after that...So now I have a new companion of sorts her name is Hermana Horton- she is so great, very blunt and super funny and great, I love it, and we laugh all the time, especially with the other two sisters- Hermana Goodfellow (One of Daniel Benson's really good friends!) and Hermana Kruetzer- they are seriously so great, we have so much fun at the gym and at nights. Funny story- 2nd day they were here, we had just got back from gym and were all going to take a shower- about 10 minutes later Hermana Kruetzer comes back into the bathroom saying "Hermana's we are locked out!" Yeah- bad news because 1. we didn't have Sunday clothes 2. we didn't have our name tags and 3. we didn't have shoes.....bad and we had to be to language study in 20 minutes....bahaha, so we called the front desk and they said we needed to find other sisters who were not locked out to go and get us a key- I gave them many treats for this service- it was so nice of them, and we were only twenty minutes late for language study.....we have not locked ourselves out since haha. Saturday we got to teach in the TRC again- where we teach members a short message in Spanish- it was so amazing this week! I was kinda feeling tired and sluggish that morning, and was trying to get myself pumped up to teach and the first member we taught- Santiago- was so nice and helpful and I could understand everything he said! (Because he talked slow for us haha), He shared a scripture about missionary work- in Jacob 5 - having to do with the olive tree- and the spirit hit me and I started crying....I was like oh no, this is not good because I still have to try to teach him! I ended up sharing a scripture that I felt prompted to and one of the Elders gave him this awesome commitment- and the spirit was totally there! Then he asked me to give a prayer and I started crying during the prayer so it was a miracle I got it out- I really needed him that day and was so grateful he shared the scripture that I needed- it really is true that other people teach YOU on the mission more than you teach them a lot of the times. Then we got to teach two college students and this time the Elders just looked at me to start talking about halfway through the lesson- I was nervous and then I just started talking and was asking questions I didn't even know I was asking and then I felt prompted to share one of my favorite scriptures from D&C 11: 12-13 and one of the students was so excited about the scripture and told us a personal story about it! It was just neat to have that experience- that when I wasn't really feeling 100% ready to teach, I had scripture in my mind and when they needed to be said the spirit helped me and I am so grateful I was able to have that experience here in the MTC. Later that afternoon I had another cool experience teaching our sub- all 9 of us got to each teach her something as an investigator- and once again, I couldn't understand her whole story and problems very well, but I asked the spirit to help me ask a good question and be able to explain the atonement to her a little bit- It was great! I was surprised at the question that came out of my mouth and I spoke slowly as I tried to explain to her how Jesus Christ can help her in her life. Saturday was just a needed day when it came to having confidence in teaching and just trusting in the Lord and spirit more while I teach. Sunday we got to listen to Elder Bednars Christmas Devotional that he gave to the missionaries on Christmas day- so great, taught me how to take notes better which is really helpful here. This Valentines Day was fun- there was lots of candy and goodies everywhere, that night Hermana Horton got sent chocolate covered strawberries and Hermana Goodfellow got Chocolate cake from the cheese cake factory- lets just say it was a great way to end Valentine's- everything was so delicious- and I enjoyed all the treats I got- (Thank you mom and grandma!) Yesterday we got 3 new Hermanas in our branch- they are advanced so they will be leaving a week before me, but they are great- they live next door to us and tonight we will give them a tour so that will be fun. Everything else it great here, my Elders still crack me up, the other Hermanas love them too so they eat a lot of the meals with us. The Elders are great with helping me practice Spanish, we have goals to try and speak in Spanish most of the day- and our teachers are trying to find incentives for us to do it so that helps the Elders. Even though I am still not very good at the whole teaching in Spanish thing, I know I am learning ways to be a better teacher, and to rely on the Lord to help me and guide me on what to study, I have been studying the scriptures better and trying to practice little techniques so that I am more prepared in lessons so I can have more experiences like I did on Saturday. I am so grateful for the humbling experiences the Lord is giving me here and he is teaching me to rely on him and trust him more, which in turn makes me want to work/study more so I can become a more effective teacher through the Lord. The more I have these experiences the more excited I am to help the people of Alabama. I hope everyone has a good week, and I love you all!
Hermana Coleman
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