Your Week Wins

Dear Family,

Your week wins the exciting contest this week. First off, John I'm so proud of you, Goose! I'm so sad that I missed your baptism but I'm so happy for you! You rock! Happy birthday too! I can't believe you're 8 now. You're getting so big! Sarah, YOU ARE A SWIM ROCKSTAR!!!! It's so fun to hear about your amazing swim season. I'm living through you...you're the swimmer I always wanted to be. And you looked so beautiful for Homecoming! Joe, how was your Halloween party? Were a lot of your friends there? Mom, I'm so glad that you can't remember your dentist appointments! That sounds like a great drug...I might want it for the plane ride home from here! Dad, you didn't tell me a thing about you, but I miss you and love you!

I really don't have a lot of exciting news for you this week. We were able to get a hold of Brice and teach him on Saturday. He's still really positive, but it's going to take a while to get him baptized. We found out that he smokes, but he's willing to quit (YAY!), but needless to say he's not getting baptized on the 14th. Our other 2 baptismal candidates...well we're not talking about them. We haven't seen either one of them for about 3 weeks so we're not baptizing them anytime soon either. As the Swedes would say, tråkig. I really can't explain what it means...there's no English word for it. If Brian Willis, or anyone else who speaks Swedish reads this, please translate. Thank you.

So, keeping in mind that all of our present baptismal candidates fell through and we're not really teaching anyone super prepared, we made a goal to find our baptismal date last week. President Anderson has a goal for every companionship to get a baptism this transfer...we're a little behind. So we did everything we could this wee. Seriously, EVERYTHING! We were absolutely obedient, taught as much as we could and when we weren't teaching we went out finding. We also made time to have at least an hour of finding work every day. We felt great about our week...but no baptismal date...not even a new investigator...or anyone in Church yesterday. But we feel amazing about our week! I remember last transfer when we were having such a slow time, we decided to study a little on faith, hope and finding. We show our faith in Heavenly Father when we go out and do what we need to, and when we've done all we can, we can have hope that he's proud of us. That's what makes us feel so good, even when we don't get the results we want. That's when that word I hate comes into play...you know, pa....ce...can't say it it's a swear word for me. But it's true, we have to be patie..nt and keep showing faith and having hope. I guess that's what makes a successful missionary.

Mom, I just remembered what you said about 2 Nephi and you're so right! It is amazing. I'm always so sad to finish reding in Nephi. He was such a great man. He loved his people so much and obeyed the commandments till the end of his life. 2 Ne 33 is one of my favorite chapters. It's so beautiful! I love verse 3 and especially his last words..."I must obey, amen." I don't know why I love those words so much, but it makes me cry every time! I lvoe the Book of Mormon! But you already know that. It's kind of funny...I've grown up in the church and things like the prophet and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith have always seemed perfectly normal for me. Then I get here where there are 100 members in a city of about 10,000ish (?actually I have no idea how many people live here...but there a lie 100 members.) people and nobody has even heard of Joseph Smith. It's so weird and random to them that 2 girls walk around with this book they've never seen and start asking about God and prophets and Christ...missionary work is so random. And wonderful. I love you all and hope you have another amazing week!

Love,
Syster Coleman