The time we left the GANM

It's been a pretty good week! We've definitely had our fair share of challenges this week but can't complain. Theres a lot of good and the bad we just ignore and move on. 

In case anyone was wondering about my bike, we got it fixed and the problem was that there was glass in the tire. RIP.

This week we had 4 week follow up. So all of the people who came out with me went to the mission office and we had a meeting about how we have been doing and got our driver training. It was really awesome to see all the girls from the MTC and see how they are all doing. 

After 4 week, we went to go get some food because it was like 2 and we never go that long without lunch. So we look up the nearest McDonalds on google maps and head to it. It was 3 miles away so only took us like 5 minutes. When we got there we could see stone mountain and we were like that's weird stone mountain isn't in our mission. So then we were all feeling uneasy and we spent like 10 minutes in the parking lot looking at maps and found out that we were in fact in the Georgia Atlanta Mission (GAM). Not in the Georgia Atlanta North Mission (GANM). So we got out of there as quick as we could. At least now we know where the line is. Sorta. 

We've kinda had an interesting week. We went through our people and dropped almost everyone. No one is progressing or even texting us back so we've had to drop them all. So now Sister Ferria and I are only teaching Lisa. If you remember Folarin and Gavin from last week, they dropped us. So we were feeling a little sad about that but we are looking for the elect and we just have to keep looking until we find them. 

This week was Sister Ferris' 3 months! So we bought her a cake and made it. It was so good. 

So Saturday we left the house and it was cold. Yes cold. It was like 65 degrees and we were all so confused. I never thought it would be cooler than 90 degrees ever. It was a nice surprise. It's been storming so that has cooled it down significantly. Blessings. 

We had the best sacrament meeting this week. Instead of a normal meeting we had a musical testimony meeting. Anyone could get up and share a hymn and why they love that hymn and we would sing their favorite verse of that hymn. It was so powerful and one of the most spiritual meetings I've been in. It was amazing to see. In a normal testimony meeting, there are long pauses where people don't get up. But in this one, everyone was racing to get up there and share about their hymn. Music is one of the ways that I feel the spirit the most. And I invite yall to really pay attention to the words of the hymns you're singing next sunday.  

This week we had a little devotional type thing with Sister Marsh. She talked to us about gratitude. And it was such a good reminder to me of how important gratitude is. Gratitude is how we touch heaven. It was a good reminder to tell those around us that we are grateful for them and also how important it is to express our gratitude to Heavenly Father. It is so powerful to get down on our knees and just say a prayer of gratitude. So I invite yall to remember to Express your gratitude. Say a prayer and tell Heavenly Father how grateful you are for the things that you have and ask him to tell you who you could express your gratitude to.

I hope all yall have a good week

Sister Coleman

1- my Georgia coke

2- Peep Sister Ferris face

3- we met uga on campus 

4- I wrote a million cards to get ready to find those elect lol

The theme of this week is bikes

It's been a good week this week! The theme of this week is bikes because so many bike stories always. 

We were about to head out when Sister Nielson messaged us and said that Sister Trussell crashed her bike. So we headed over there and she was in a lot of pain. She hit a trashcan and she flew off the front of her bike into a ditch. So she hurt her ribs pretty bad. We think they're bruised so she's trying to heal. 

Bike story #2. When Sister Ferris and I were on the rescue to go get Sister Trussell, my favorite dress got caught and ripped in my bike. I'm so sad. But maybe I can fix it somehow we will see. 

Bike #3. We went to teach a lesson and tract. When we got back, my tire was completely flat. So we had to walk our bikes the 2 miles home. There's a hole in my tire so our branch president took it today and is getting it fixed because he's a saint. 

So basically all my stuff is getting ruined currently. I also fell off a curb and scraped up my shoe which is also sad. 

On monday night we got to have dinner with our branch president. President Joyner. He's seriously a saint. Still crying that he got my bike fixed. 

On Tuesday we got to have dinner with Elena. She is one of the people we are teaching. She's on baptismal date for September 28. Her boyfriend is a member and he made us bomb tacos. I've had tacos more than I've had fried chicken and I'm loving my life. 

We also had zone conference this week. It was pretty fun. I got to see Sister Howard who was one of the girls in my MTC district. I love her a million. Unfortunately President Marsh couldn't be there because he was sick but I learned a lot of new ways to improve my teaching. We talked a lot about using families and temples in our lessons and finding and I love it so much. It's really amazing seeing how talking about families brings the spirit.

This week school started!! We are pumped. It went from dead to packed in one day. So now we spend every week day on campus talking to people. It's pretty hard because we have to stop people but we are getting the hang of it. 

Since school started, institute is starting. So we had a social to kick off the year. We invited every single person in our contacts. It was amazing because we met a girl named Lisa a while ago and she seemed Interested but never texted us back. But we invited her to the social and she came! And she wants to learn more. We were able to have a lesson with her a couple days later and it was a great lesson. We talked to her about the restoration and the spirit was so strong. After I told her about the first vision she said that she was speechless. We are very excited for her and we can't wait to meet up with her again this week. 

An amazing resource that we got this week is question of the soul Book of Mormons. We made a list of questions of the soul like "is there a God" etc. And we put a tab in the Book of Mormon where the answer is. Its been awesome using it around to contact people. And it's been a great resource for me to study as well. It's crazy how many of our questions the Book of Mormon answers. 

We are teaching a couple other people. Gavin and Folarin. They are both really nice. We had a lesson with each of them. Our lesson with Folarin was better than the one with Gavin but we are excited about them as well. 

We went to waffle house with an investigator the other day. I figured I needed to go all in because I'm in Georgia at waffle house. So I got the peach waffles. And I'm glad I got the experience but they were not very good. But hey waffle house. I don't know why it's so popular here cause it's honestly not very good.

Good news! We got another sim card! So now we have 2 phones between the 4 of us. It's great because we split up during the day and so before only one companionship had a phone which was not the greatest. We are happy. 

Also I asked a guy yesterday if his family lived in Athens and he's like "yeah they live in my house?" Because he's like 35 with kids. I'm not used to people that aren't YSA. 

We met 3 cool people this week. Their names are Ceasar, Nnenna (yes that is how it's spelled), and Ammishaddai (Numbers 1:12) The names people have yall.

Today we had sisters p day so all the sisters in our zone went out shopping and I got a cute UGA shirt and stickers I'm pumped. 

It's still really hot here and we are just biking away in the sun. It's a blast. I'm going to have the strongest legs. 

Something that I learned this week was how important prayer is and how powerful it can be. Everytime I hear one of our investigators pray, they are so sincere and powerful. It makes me cry everytime. Lisa said a prayer in our lesson and it was the sweetest. I think that we can all strive to have more sincere prayer and ask specific questions and be willing to receive those answers. 

J. Devn Cornish of the seventy said:

"Prayer is one of the most precious gifts of God to man.

We must not imagine that any kind of prayer, no matter how sincere, will be very effective if all we do is to say the prayer. We must not only say our prayers; we must also live them. The Lord is much more pleased with the person who prays and then goes to work than with the person who only prays. Much like medicine, prayer works only when we use it as directed"

I hope yall have an amazing week

Sister Coleman

Pic1 cute sign in a store

Pic 2 our new nametags from chick fil a

Pic 3 my poor bike

Pic 4 braids and the cute dress my mom sent me

Pic 5 it's hot

Pic 6 the wall in waffle house 

Power Rangers

Not a lot to report this week. 

Some of the highlights:

We knocked on this guys door and we tried to talk to him about family. But he's confused and thinks we are asking him to have more kids? So we're like no we're just talking about strengthening our families through Jesus Christ. So then we talk about family history and he says "I can't do family history because I'm a power ranger and I come from something else." So that's interesting. 

We also met a Buddhist stripper.

We had interviews with President and Sister Marsh this week so that was fun. I love them a lot

We had exchanges with the STLs this week in Athens. I went with Sister Hoffman and we had a good time! We went to this members house for dinner and she made us the best tacos I've ever had. Man they were so good. 

We got 7 new people! They all cancelled on us but you do what you can. 

Also rush is this week. Yall. I thought the movies about sororities were exaggerations and they are not. Holy cow it's insane. If any of yall have seen that funny viral video of the girls with their heads in the door and they're all like chanting this weird thing. I saw that in real life. It's quite the experience. 

It's been really hot this week. We went and volunteered at these gardens on campus and we were working in the green house and I've never sweat that much in my life. 

Also we had dinner with these sweet roommates that we tracted into. It was so fun. They are pretty strong in their faith but they fed us tacos and we just chatted about faith and gave them some Book of Mormons to read. 

Also I had tacos 3 times this week and I am so happy about it. 

Our district talked about accepting service from people because it makes them feel good. So this week anytime we've been offered water we accept and it's been awesome. We get some great conversations out of it and we get some cold water so a win win honestly. 

Sunday was interesting. Sister Trussell and Ferris talked, Sister Nielson played piano, and Sister Nielson and I taught relief society. So we ran the whole show. 

In relief society we taught about the talk "careful vs casual" by Beck Craven. And I really like her quote. She said

"We do not lower our standards to fit in or to make someone else feel comfortable. We are disciples of Jesus Christ, and as such we are about elevating others, lifting them to a higher, holier place where they too can reap greater blessings.

I invite each of us to seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost to know what adjustments we need to make in our lives to be more carefully aligned with our covenants. I also plead with you not to be critical of others making this same journey. “Judgment is mine, saith the Lord.” We are each in the process of growth and change."

We should always remember that we are disciples of Christ and we are supposed to stand out. As we pray and seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost, we can find those things that we can be more careful in living and keep us snugly on the covenant path. 

I encourage all of you to pray and ask for that guidance.

Have a great week!

Sister Coleman

Pic 1 there was a nice rainbow

Pic 2 us looking wrecked at the gardens

Quad Life

Hello friends and family! It has been quite the week let me tell y'all. 

So I need to give a little background real quick. In our mission, we have quite a few initiatives and new things that President Marsh is trying out. One of those things is a quadship. So it's four people in one area and they split up and cover the same area. They are all companions technically so they can split different ways depending on how they feel God needs them. So surprise I'm in a quad now! We had an emergency transfer and we got Sister Trussell! She is from southern Mississippi. She was originally called to the Atlanta mission but when the Macon mission was dissolved, our mission took in a stake from the Atlanta mission so now she's in our mission. So fun. It has been quite the adventure honestly. We aren't sure exactly how to do everything but we are slowly figuring it out. We moved the beds so we have 2 people in each room. 

It's been quite the adjustment so if any of y'all have experience in quads let me know lol. 

Another initiative in our mission is to talk about the family. Our mission president made these family cards to hand out to people and they are really cool. He believes that using the family is the best way to talk to people because who doesn't love talking about the family. 

We also have a big push on revelation. Which I love. We could not do this without that help from God. It's been amazing learning more about how to receive that help and how to use it with what we do.

We also went on exchanges this week. I went with one of the senior STLs and a sister from the Spanish branch near here. We went to Lilburn for the day. It was really fun! We had dinner with this super sweet old lady. We asked her if she likes to cook and she said no. So we said well thank you so much for doing it for us! And she says she didn't make any of it. It's all from Kroger Haha. It was really good though. Gotta love fried chicken. It was really fun being in Lilburn and learning from these other sisters and seeing what it's like to not be in a YSA haha.

We've had a lot of miracles this week. Things are really starting to look up. We found 5 news this week! Woot. And we had 2 people at church yesterday which was so exciting. We had Elena and Shania. Anddddd we got Elena a baptismal date! We are so pumped. 

Things are really starting to pick up here because school starts again on the 14th. Woot woot. Also good news. Rush is going to be this week. We've been seeing all the sorority girls around getting ready and I'm so pumped for it. 

We also met a pretty cool Baptist guy this week. We had a nice Bible bash with him. 

We got some good southern rain this Sunday. It was comi ng down so hard we had to call someone for a ride because we camt bike in that. It was fun though. I like watching the rain. Just not biking in it. 

We also had a branch dinner last night. It was so fun getting to know more of the people in the branch and they made some good food. Ot was some rice with some red beans in like a sauce. It was good. Love it. 

The longer I'm here, the more I realize that I don't know. But everyday I learn so much more about this gospel and Jesus Christ and I love it. 

I read this talk this week by Jeffrey R Holland and he said 

"If we give our heart to God, if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do the best we can to live the gospel, then tomorrow—and every other day—is ultimately going to be magnificent, even if we don’t always recognize it as such. Why? Because our Heavenly Father wants it to be! He wants to bless us. A rewarding, abundant, and eternal life is the very object of His merciful plan for His children! It is a plan predicated on the truth “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever."

Heavenly Father wants the absolute best for us. His whole plan is centered on our happiness. Men are that they might have joy! If we keep trying and doing the best we can, then He is going to bless us beyond anything we could imagine. God doesn't want us to fail and he's going to do what He can to help us succeed. 

I really love this video so I encourage y'all to watch it and share it with someone you think would like it. 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=eng&cid=email-shared

Thank y'all for all you do and keep living life to the fullest

All the blessings,

Sister Coleman

Pic 1 

We went to the stake president's house and he keeps bees. So those boxes in the distance are full of bees. Terrifying.

Pic 2 my companions

Pic 3 cute house we tracted into

Pic 4 it's been getting hotter so we die on our bikes

Pic 5 the rain

Pic 6 us with our new comp Sister Trussell. We went and got Canes

Pic 7 chicken trucks that are all around here