Mountains and Miracles

Fam,   I'm afraid that I have gotten to the point on my mission where coming up with an email every week is hard. I still enjoy making titles though, haha. I want you all to know I love and think of you, and appreciate every email I get, even if I can't respond to everyone.    So I have a goal to become a Latina, and so far I can gradually eat spicier and spicer food #thankyoufuegoTakis It's interesting to see how my tastes change. I love the latino culture! These people are real, hardworking, open, and loving. I've gotten several invites to go visit Colombia with people so we'll see how that goes one day haha.    First things first, two miracles, two souls came unto Christ in the waters of baptism this Saturday! [D], the son of my recent convert [A](they speak English), and [F], our investigator from Colombia who has made amazing changes in his life. My mission president baptized him which was super special. We joined the baptism with the Elders and it...

Familia,   Couple thoughts today, since it hasn't been that long. Sister Garbett and I had to get a pep talk last night because we've both been worn out by opposition lately.    Something cool this week was that we had a fun pass off lesson with the English elders. We found a young man tracting a couple weeks ago and taught him a time or two. It's part of our recent effort to find the Lord's prepared everywhere, whether they speak Spanish or not. It was really fun to work together to explain how the Spirit feels to this young man. I loved hearing him say that he feels like he is ready for a more spiritual part of his life. He's been feeling lost lately and searching for the light. Golden! His grandpa is a member of the church and had shared his testimony with him. The young man attempted to describe this warm feeling he had in his heart. It really is hard to describe, but for me I think it's like warmth and love filling my heart. And then I just know ...

Heyyyy familia!   We have P-day today(Wednesday) instead of Monday because we're going to the temple(yay!), so it's been like a week and a half since my last letter. More exciting events this week, though it was a little slower than last week   Hermana Garbett turned 20! Fun to make her cupcakes and everything. I'll be turning 20 soon too that's super weird. One of our investigators also had a birthday last week and we set up that we would all fast the day in between their birthdays haha. I'm learning about the power of fasting and we're trying to help him receive and recognize his answer about the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the Book of Mormon, and the prophet Joseph Smith :)   While trying to figure out how to explain it to other people this week, I learned a lot about faith. Faith is a principle of action and power. We must act first and then we receive the witness! I decided it's like a car, if we expect God to help us and an...

Hola mis queridos!!    WOW so many cool things happened this week. Saturday we were nearly jumping for joy so many cool things happened and then on Sunday it felt like dark clouds had gathered and rained opposition on us instead :/ I will attempt to explain.    First I just want to talk about my mission and how I am so grateful that we are so focused on our purpose. Our mission president and leaders have been really encouraging us to "internalize our purpose" which means behind every decision we make it is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel". That means the vision to baptize!! My companion Hermana Garbett and I have seen miracles and unity come from this principle. I have learned on my mission that God not only asks his missionaries to obey in order to keep their behavior in line, but to change our very hearts and wills. A changed missionary is one whose will is God's will! The more I give my heart to God, the...

Mis queridos,   I love my new companion!!! Sister Garbett is from Alabama and has been out for around the same amount of time as I have been. This is the first time that I haven't been in training or training someone else so it's a little different! But I love feeling like we both decently know what we're doing. I feel like I'm getting a break since training was pretty stressful for me. I learned some humility though, so that's good. I've had some sweet experiences with being led by the Spirit. I've finally figured out that companionship unity and following the Spirit are always more important than what I think. Still working on completely applying that knowledge, but it's pretty cool. Yesterday we were headed to an apartment and then I had an impression to change plans and go somewhere else. We ended up finding someone at home with their member brother there which opened the opportunity for us to go in! And another time we contacted a lady and found...

Ok Fam!   First, I'm sorry my last two letters have been lame and short and if I seemed kind of bummed out. I want my letters to encourage and uplift all of you! Of course missionary life isn't easy and I won't pretend it is, but still. This week has been very very eventful! First things, transfer calls!! And....I'M STAYING. Against everything I thought would happen Hermana Coleman is the one getting transferred and I'm staying in my first area! Let's go 6 months in my first area what?! I've been preparing myself to leave but it was not to be. Time to trust God that He has more for me to do here!    My companion was super sad though, this weekend has been full of crying with our investigators and members. Ok I didn't give myself a lot of time again so I'll try to give some highlights from the week. First, we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders at the beginning of the week and it changed my life literally. I just had a lot of good reali...

My favorite people, Naturally in the course of missionary life, a really amazing week is followed by a pretty hard one. So that's what happened this week.    Allow me to introduce our investigator [L]. We had the most difficult lesson with her this week. She is from Puerto Rico and from and Evangelical family and knows the Bible well. We tried to teach her about the premortal life this week but she had doubts and then got back on the topic of some of her concerns about women in the church and the lesson just felt contentious. I was trying so hard to salvage the Spirit and trying to teach her something but she was going off and just wouldn't listen! At one point in the lesson I looked at her and said, [L], are you happy? She said well no, but I feel happy when I read the Bible. I tried to promise her more happiness when she read the Book of Mormon, but she said she didn't believe in it. I just wanted so bad for her to open her heart to the love God has for her but I coul...