1 more week!

September 21, 2019

Hola mis amigos!

Another week has come and gone- weeks go by SO fast. I can't believe I'm leaving next week! Our district got our travel plans yesterday which was super exciting and scary and made it seem so real! I'm leaving next Monday (the 30th) at 4 am, woohoo! The flight isn’t too long though, and I'll get to McAllen at a reasonable time which is all good. There are only four other people in my travel group which is crazy because the group going to Madrid has 20! But it's just me and 4 Elders...I thought I always had to have a companion but I guess not haha! Anyway, it’s really bittersweet to leave the MTC because I love my companions and district and teacher and free food, but I'm also really excited to get going! I just wish my whole district were going to Texas but sadly none of them are :( The picture of us all sitting in the bed making scared faces is from yesterday when we got our plans because we were freakin out a little, but we're SO EXCITED!!

This week we switched TRC assignments so we're teaching a woman from Uruguay named Carolina! She's PRECIOUS. We love her. She says all her “y”s like “sh” so it's a little hard to understand, but so cool! I love how Spanish is just like English in that there are so many different accents and ways of saying things. We taught her a lot about faith and prayer, and it was so good! A question she had was about esparanza (hope) and obras (works). She told us that when she has hope, she finds it easy to do good things, but when she doesn't have hope, she doesn't do good things. So, we shared Alma 32 with her and talked about how we need to nourish our faith. When we nourish our faith and do good works, and see God's hand in our life, our faith grows, and it's like a circle. We're not sure if we're teaching her next week, because we're starting Skype calls with members on Monday. But we'll see.

Random things for the week:
1. We FAILED our cleaning check...hopefully they'll let us leave the MTC haha
2. Riley/ Sister Siebers came to the MTC on Wednesday and I love seeing her around, it's like my favorite thing
3. Another cold and rainy day on Friday, but it snowed on the mountains again, yay!!
4. I think Hermana Parker may have killed Hermana Mittens because we haven't seen her all week and last Saturday she fed her ranch dressing...

This week I've been focusing a ton on Christ and Christ-like attributes like patience, diligence, obedience, and charity. I was reading in Jesus the Christ and it had a quote from John 17 that says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” I love that scripture a ton. The only way that we can progress and become more like Christ is to really know him. It reminded me of a devotional we watched on the first week called Character of Christ by Elder Bednar. The main point of the talk was that Christ’s character is to turn outward and help others while the natural man tends to turn inward and be self-absorbed. Christ is a perfect example to me, and I love learning about Him and all the things He did for the people in His day and for us today. He loves us so much and I strive every day to be more like Him.

Sorry for the short email, love you guys!
Hermana Coleman

Donny Osmond

September 7, 2019

Hi everyone!!

I hope that everyone has had a great week! My week has flown by once again! On Sunday, we had a devotional by Wendy Ulrich and it was really psychological but also spiritual and I loved it! It's so cool; every devotional feels like it’s just for me, it's amazing. She talked about having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. We should all strive to have growth mindsets, which means that we can change and grow! While we all have our own genetic makeup and whatnot, we can make our weaknesses become strong, even if it takes a lot of failure to get there. 

This week we started Spanish TRCs (lessons with friends of the church)! On Monday we did some contacting but it actually turned into a 20 minute lesson that we were definitely not prepared for 😊. What happened was, we went in there and started talking and then we thought someone would come get us to switch but no one did so we just stayed! It was good though. Then on Wednesday and Thursday we got assigned to teach Oscar. We taught on the Plan of salvation and the restoration. It was really hard, but he understood our lesson in Spanish and I think he really enjoyed the lessons. Coming out of the first lesson especially, I just felt so happy and excited that I get to do this for the next while! 

Yesterday we were eating lunch with some senior couples and one of them served his mission in southern Texas! He said that people from Texas say “MacAllen” instead of “McAllen” which is super interesting...not sure if I should trust him though because he was kind of laughing when he said it. I can never tell when people are joking, it's a struggle.

Another highlight of the week was last night. I'm not sure if it was a big deal outside the MTC, but the church put on a broadcast for President Nelson's birthday and we all got to leave class early to watch it! They played a bunch of music and showed really cute pictures of the Prophet and his family, I LOVED it. It was my favorite thing to get to hear good music again oh my. And Donny Osman sang like 3 songs!! I love Donny Osmand because he's Joseph in “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat” AND he's in an episode of Friends. Not to mention he still has an amazing voice and he's like 70! (sorry that's probably not right but I don't have google) So yeah anyways, I loved it, if you didn't watch it then you should go watch it ASAP. so good.

I just wanna end this email with a cool challenge that someone gave in some conference talk awhile ago that Hermana Silva shared with us. It goes like this: ~Start every morning with a prayer. Thank your Heavenly Father for the scriptures and for the light and knowledge they bring us. Then, after you pray, think of a question that you have about the gospel or your life. THEN, open the Book of Mormon to any page and read until you find an answer. Do this for 30 days and see what happens. ~ So I've only done it for one day, but it's so cool! My question got answered in a way I totally didn't expect, but it was nonetheless answered. I know that God can speak to us through the scriptures, and I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. I'm so thankful for it in my life.
I love and miss you all! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Love,
Hermana Coleman

Happy Saturday!

August 31, 2019

Happy Saturday!

This week has been SO good and fun and I honestly love the MTC and my companions!!! This week we've been learning a ton more Spanish and starting to practice lessons with our district and our teacher- it's hard but it's so cool how the words just kinda come out sometimes (we love the gift of tongues!). We also started teaching actual lessons (in English) in TRC (still not really sure what it stands for). The TRC is where they have “investigators” and we go in there and teach them a 25-minute lessons. We LOVE it. Its seriously amazing how things just work out and how all three of us just complement each other. BUT, next week we start the lessons in Spanish so that'll be fun/scary. I can’t really remember all of this week so I'll just share some highlights...
On Thursday our district decided to play beach volleyball for exercise and it was one of my favorite things, it made me SO happy. It was crazy hot but it was just so nice to get to play again.
We got Papa John's pizza for dinner Friday night, 10/10
So for those who've been to the MTC, you probably know about Hermana Mittens, but for those who don't, she’s this cat that lives on campus and she’s so cute!! Her real name is Luna Harris and she sleeps outside our building all the time, I LOVE HER. I picked her up and took a picture so there's that.
In all seriousness, this week has been great, and I'm learning so much Spanish and so much about Christ. Something we talked about a lot this week was the Holy Ghost. A lot of people share stories about a time when they prayed and they had a huge revaluation where they knew the church was true. I always felt bad because that had never happened to me. The day before I got here, Elder Bednar (an Apostle for our church) came and spoke about how, if we're being good and doing what were supposed to, we should have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion. It's so important for us to recognize and be able to discern the whispers of the Holy Ghost, because when we do, we will be led to do what's right and be able to recognize the Holy Ghost even better! A scripture I like that talks about this is D&C 11:12 which says, “And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.” Anything that invites us to do good and justly, walk humbly, and judge righteously is from God. And, the more we do these things, the more God will inspire us. 
I love you all a ton, thanks for your emails and packages!

Love,
Hermana Coleman

Week 1

August 24, 2019

Hola!!

These past few days have been CRAZY! My flight from Connecticut left at 5:50am on Wednesday and I got to the MTC in Provo around 12:45. I'm in a trio (I have two companions) which is super fun - their names are Hermana Glatt and Hermana Parker, from Colorado and Salt Lake City. Somehow, we all got into the intermediate Spanish class, so we're moving very fast haha. We learned how to pray in Spanish yesterday, how to introduce ourselves the day before and tonight we're learning how to testify. Also, there's this thing called syl which stands for "speak your language", so theoretically, we're supposed to try saying EVERYTHING in Spanish and if we don't know something we ask, "me permite hablar en ingles?" (will you allow me to speak in English?) and then we can say some words in English. THEN, we look the words up, write them down and try to use them in the future. We're doing so so at that...We may be struggling a little.

In addition to companionships, we have districts, which are just the people in our Spanish class. Because we're in the intermediate class, our district is really small, so there's us three, a trio of Elders, and a companionship of Elders. They're all really fun and good at Spanish so that's good. Our teacher's name is Hermana Silva, she served her mission in Mexico City and got home about a year ago. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to have two teachers, but so far we've just had her and then last night we combined with another district of like 20 Elders so it was just us sisters ☹. Anyway, the teacher is from Texas!! He is a native speaker; his parents are Mexican but he grew up in Puerto Rico/ Texas so he "speaks both languages perfectly" according to himself. But it was super cool because he just talked so fast and all in Spanish and I could understand him!! Very exciting.

This week we all had to pick a Christlike attribute to work on. I chose charity, which is the pure love of Christ. 1 Peter 4:8 says, "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity preventeth a multitude of sins." I really like the scripture because I've noticed that when I just focus on loving people, it helps me resist temptation, makes me a happier person, and helps me to be more focused on Christ. It's so important for us to see everyone as God sees them - as sons and daughters of God.

I hope everyone is having a great week! Thanks for the emails, and sorry if I didn't respond, it's been SO busy! 

Love,

Hermana Coleman