December 17

Hello Family,
Highlights from this week:
-We have really been trying to step it up with the soft baptismal invitation. More people are telling us they would be baptized if they new that our message was true. However, we also have a lot of appointments that are falling through- I feel like this is helping us find people who have real intent- those who really want to change right now and are looking for that change.
-We have been really trying to sift through those we are teaching- so we can really focus on helping people progress towards baptism. We met some new families this week who we have invited to read and pray- they have accepted and now it is up to us to continue to bring the spirit into the lessons to help them feel that desire to change.
- We did service at the bakery again this week - on Tuesday-and afterwards we went tracting in a trailer park to try and find new people to teach. We had never really knocked there before and we found about 5 new people and set up different times that week to come back and bless their family and home. We were also able to do some following-up with other people we are teaching, and visit some less-actives with a member. We were able to talk to another member about missionary work, and bless her home with the spirit of missionary work.
-Sister Schroeppel and I are really trying to put more of an emphasis on our purpose, we read preach my gospel in some of the car rides so we can try to really find new ways to help the people. It is easy to get stuck in old routines and then you get kinda bored. But when you take new approaches and really focus on that one person, new ideas come and your excitement grow again.
-We met an old investigator at Wal-Mart and she was willing to let us come over and visit her/teach her. She really wants to learn again- from the beginning- she had baptismal date before (when i helped teach her when I was in Homewood) and now she is showing that desire to change. She came to church on Sunday- we met her at the English ward and she was excited to be there and learn. She is opening up and the spirit is touching her heart.
-We had a good lesson with the family who has a baptismal date- we defined more of our role to them, and how we are there to help them progress towards their Savior and baptism. They still want to keep learning to make sure it is something they want to do- so we now need to help them keep on developing their own testimony of the restored gospel. We also had really neat lesson with a recent convert Joaquin. He shared an amazing experience on how is testimony is growing about fasting. I love it when we teach him because that scripture that talks about "Both being edified together"....the teacher and the learner...always comes true. He is an amazing member and will do great things. I am lucky to have my testimony strengthened by them.
We have a god week ahead of us, and are excited for people we have to teach. We are trying to make a lot of changes in this area for the better! It will be a great week.
Love you all!!
Hermana Coleman

Hello Fam!

So this has been a week of following up with lots of people we have met over the last couple weeks. It is interesting to see the difference between those who are really searching for knowledge and realize they need change, and those who are not ready quite yet. It is all shown by action and the time the make to see us. We have learned that it is important to really know peoples intentions- and how we can address  the way THEY learn. Once we know that we can help them and try to help them make commitments the best they can.
We found this family a couple weeks ago and we love spending time with them. The kids have a lot of questions- Evelyn and David and they have two little sisters (who are some of my favorite little girls ever- this past week they giggled super hard as they thought it was the funniest thing to hand feed me marshmallows....haha) we are trying to get more creative with the way that we teach them.
I have learned a lot about hope this week- it is the Christ like attribute I am trying to work on. I find that it is easy to focus on the problems that these people have- instead of the progress they are making- or the fact that they are trying the best they can to learn. But with hope, we can hope for the best in people, believe in them, an they will notice and use that positive support to do things they never thought possible. I am still working on it, but I know it will increase my effectiveness as a missionary if I can be better at it. This is all triggered because I was reading a talk (from General Conference I believe- President Monson's Priesthood session talk) where I think it was President Kimball and he was interviewing one of the missionaries who had the most success on his mission. He asked the missionary why he had had so much success- the missionary told him, " it was because every door I knocked on, I would picture that person dressed in white, ready to be baptized." So from the beginning he believed that the people the Lord was leading him to could be baptized. He had hope! Many things can be accomplished with faith and hope, I am grateful for the opportunity I have to try and grow and increase them each day. Some days it is harder than others, but that is why we are so lucky to learn and try again the next day.
We were able to have a family night with some English members at the mission home last night. We talked about the Holy ghost and also learned a lot from President Holzapfel. Have I mentioned before that I am so lucky to have a President who knows a lot about the scriptures?? Well I am, and he and his wife have a way of teaching and helping you understand the people better. They taught us a lot about Peter last night and helped us to visually picture some of the stories in the New Testament. I am learning a lot more about the life of Christ and his Atonement through the stories of his apostles. It is very neat.
We look forward to another good week- lots of rain today so it should be fun. Love you all!!

Nice and Warm in Alabama!

So the weather still feels like it is September/October-ish. super nice and I am not complaining at all- I love it! I have always been lucky to have a snow-filled Christmas, so I am willing to sacrifice one year of it for very nice weather. We had a fun Monday last week- we walked around a trailer park with one of the members- Elvira- she is one of my favorites, can we have favorites? Anyway, she showed us some investigators that the Sister's from a year ago used to go visit. We taught one lesson with her and it was nice to have someone who could testify who was a recent convert. Super great. We also helped her find some church websites on the computer and ended up showing her pictures of temples..haha I was in heaven. Tuesday we went to the Mission Home for a Holiday luncheon- everything made by Sister Holzapel and her mom- it was delicious!! We also got little mini Preach my Gospels (mine is Spanish) from them - so sweet and we have been using them ever since. We went and taught a family that night (one of the ones we had found last weekend) and taught them- they loved the book of Mormon- it is a mom and her two kids Evelyn(12) and David(9) and she also has two other little ones- 4 and 2 haha it was crazy. at the end of the lesson Evelyn said I feel so go right now, I feel so good inside! we promised her it was the holy ghost and if she read and prayed she would know if the BOM was true. Super neat. We didn't invite them to be baptized because it didn't feel right. The next day President Holzapfel came over to check out the apartment and give us some training. He taught us a lot about the soft approach to the baptismal invitation- and invited us to pray and think about how we could implement it more with all the investigators we have found. He also told us some neat stories from his mission and so we were grateful to have him there- great learning experience. That night we went to the same families house we had taught the night before and read a chapter in the book of Mormon with them. they really liked it and the mom liked that the kids are learning about God. I had been thinking earlier that day on what date we would give them and Jan 5 kept popping into mind- so Sister Schroeppel started bringing up baptism to them and I was able to commit them to that date- it was amazing and we were so happy after- step by step people are getting closer to Christ.
Throughout this week we were able to implement the soft approach to baptism more and now 3 other people who said they would be baptized when they find out these things are true. Through extending the invitation to one of our investigators we found out that she is having marital problems, we promised her if she continues learning and acting upon this message she will receive the help she needs. So neat!
We did some dumpster diving (very lady like) for some cardboard boxes for a elderly lady who is getting ready to move. we found free kids toys (it was at the dollar store) and gave out a mormon.org card- very worth the time. We also had a man this week ask us what church we are from- we told him and he said- "Do ya'll believe in Jesus Christ" we said YES!!! he said wow, I thought ya'll didn't, I would like to learn more about ya'll- so we gave him mormon.org card and got his number to teach him this week. super awesome.
We watched the Christmas Devotional in Spanish at President Bethers house- it was fun and earlier that day we went to an English ward to translate for some of our investigators who couldn't make it to the branch. It was a family and they were able to hear a lot of testimonies so it was great. It is interesting translating from English to Spanish- it is good practice for me though and makes you listen....haha.
Things are good here in Alabama- we have an amazing ward mission leader and us and the Elders are really seeing the work move forward in the Lorna branch. It is a miracle. Also we knew that Alabama won because of much screaming from cars saying "Go BAMA!!!!" haha so that is fun.
I hope everyone has a great week- be safe and talk to you next week!
Hermana Coleman