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