5 Days!

This has been a great week! Most of the Elders in my district left, but there were 4 here, and now there are 3.  They are going to Argentina and the MTC won't reassign them because the visas are coming, but coming slowly, so they just wait everyday to see if they are going to get called to the travel office....they are being good sports though. I don't go to their class anymore, since there are only 3 elders it didn't make sense because I couldn't teach with just one of them, so it would've been 4 of us teaching, so I moved to the sisters district.  4 of us sisters and 3 elders.  I have enjoyed it and have learned some great things there.  I have my moments where I am super focused, and then moments where we are just chatting, but about good things so that is how we justify it i guess.  We have watched some good videos though- a lot of the ones on the youth.lds.org website- they are great and help bring the spirit.  But the exciting, crazy, awesome thing is that I am leaving on TUESDAY!!!! I report to the travel office at 4 am- nice and early, then my flight leaves from SLC at 7:00am, I go to Georgia and then have 45 minutes to get on a plane to ALABAMA! I can't believe I am actually going, I am getting super excited and the missionaries from there- I just met one from Georgia- said that in Alabama the accent is super thick- she said I am going to love it. I am pretty sure I will! (Another reason for my excited mood is that it is such a nice day today and we have been out in the sun throughout the day to day writing letters, it feels so good and is nice to be outside instead of cooped up in the classroom all day). The District president said that since I am going out in the middle of the transfer, instead of having some orientation things I might just meet my trainer and get put right into the work- kinda scary but I am sure my trainer will be great so I am not worried.  Since I am not feeling any of the same pain the doctors and MTC are going to clear me to leave so this is great news as well. We have had some neat experiences this week with teaching.  It has been fun and good for me to teach with the Hermanas- another reason I went to the new district. So With the Elders we had been teaching an investigator Ivalesse- so she knew that I was sick and we had become pretty good friends from my lessons with her before (we taught her twice a week- she is an investigator and when we teach her we act like we are in Venezuela). So the Hermanas teach her too- and so I wasn't going to go teach with them on Tuesday night because 4 people is a lot to try and teach- but I decided to go. It was so exciting to see her and she asked me how I was doing and what happened- I told her the story and said that I was grateful because I learned a lot from it.  She asked- you are God's missionary- why would he allow you to become sick? Then I started talking about how God gives us these types of things to help us- but we don't have to do it alone, and I talked about how I felt the Savior's help through the whole thing.  I asked if she had ever felt this- and she said that she hadn't really, because she believes that he is her Savior but that he doesn't know her and how could he do all that he did for people he doesn't know. then Hermana Hortin shared a great scripture in Alma 7- how the savior knows all our trials, sicknesses and infirmities- super applicable. THEN my companion Hermana Goodfellow testified of the Atonement of Jesus Christ- how is helps us through everything, how he knows her, and how he loves her and that Christ loves her as well (Ivaleese)- it was so powerful and she was being herself and testifying from her heart what she knew to be true and Ivaleese started crying and the spirit was there it was amazing! We explained that the feeling was the Holy Ghost- the Spirit of God and how she can have that through baptism in Christ's church.  We asked her to be baptized, but she said she already had been and was confused, but we had to leave so we told her we would talk more about it next time. We decided it was a good thing to commit  her to that so she could connect the feeling she had with being baptized in this church.  We were so happy that night, that even with four of us we were able to all work together, testify, share scriptures and help clarify things to bring the spirit into the lesson and affect the investigator and show them the love of God and the feeling of the Holy Ghost that they have access to. So neat! That is what we will get to do as missionaries.  Elder Oaks came this week to devotional (awesome) and he talked about teaching by the Holy Ghost- how that is the only thing that will change the heart of the people- they won't remember a lot of what we say- but if we are being obedient, and worthy to have the spirit with us, we can bring that into our lessons and change peoples lives.  I am so grateful for experiences like these here, give us a glimpse of types of experiences we will have in the field. I am super grateful for the MTC, for everything that happened here, and that I am almost ready and able to go out into the field.  With the Lord's help and a positive attitude and hard work what needs to happen will happen, and I am excited to finally see the people of the deep south! Hope everyone is doing well- Espanol is going well, I am trying to practice more and it is helping. Make it a great week and next time I talk to you I will be in Alabama.
Les Quiero!
Hermana Coleman