When the Going Gets Tough...

Entrance to Batu Caves

Beautiful Malaysia

...just keep going!! The best swimming advice I ever heard was something like: "I just kick when I don't feel like kicking and stroke when I don't feel like stroking!" Well, it went something like that, but I forget the exact quote.

Shout out to my older sister Cectpa (Sister) Maddy Coleman for making it!! Congrats on going home and hope you don't get married before I come home!

Well, this week is Easter and I'm stoked. It's also General Conference, which is the best! I love it. I hope you realize how great A) Christ is--He literally never did, thought, said, or wanted anything that was wrong, and He's willing to aid us in our quest to reach the same level, and B) having a living prophet is. We have a mouthpiece of the Lord and he speaks to us twice a year!! Take advantage of this opportunity!!! 

The work is going on, and here's something I'm really realizing - when you hit a wall, and you hit it several times in a row, and you don't know how to get over / around it - realize that part of the plan is learning HOW to do things you haven't thought of before. Part of being 100% committed is going beyond your current skill set or level of effort and reaching higher!! And it's easy when you're working with the Lord. He will tell you everything you need to do!

Love you all!! See you next week!

Elder Clay Coleman

He's going to have some 'splaining to do about this picture...

So Many Blessings

Elder Coleman LOVES durian!! He says the obsession is real!

Hello all.

This week was great, as usual. It's way nice to be out here and have the opportunity to study the scriptures/gospel every morning. It's an incredibly revelatory experience. Every morning I get new insights on the gospel I didn't have the previous day. Suffice it to say that thanks to the talks and the scriptures I've been reading lately, my entire perspective on the gospel has changed over the last week or so. 

At Zone Conference in February, President Mains challenged us to all read the Book of Mormon and study it focusing on the Doctrine of Christ (see the talk "Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar to know what I mean about reading the Book of Mormon on a topic). This week I had an I had an interesting realization. Repentance and obedience are sister principles, almost interchangeable. We could say the gospel/ doctrine of Christ is faith, obedience, the sacrament/baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost as we live our covenants, then enduring to the end. Repentance is there for when we make mistakes, but in reality repentance and obedience are constantly switching roles as we mortals take steps forward and backward all the time. We live, and naturally make mistakes and then repent and then obey / go forward again. Pretty great. 

I'm discovering that, at this point, the Lord uses me very effectively to find people, but I'm not yet up to par with helping people progress. Of course everyone has their agency, but I still need to learn better skills in regards to helping people take steps towards baptism. Every now and then I get a bit discouraged with my own personal faults and weaknesses, but I really love Elder Klebingat's advice from the last General Conference: we should acknowledge but not be paralyzed by our weaknesses. I think that's an important principle of life - to keep pushing on in the face of or in spite of our weaknesses.

My sister goes home from her mission in Russia next Tuesday. My family is understandably excited beyond anything else. It's going to be weird to be the only full-time missionary in the family. I don't really know what to think about the whole thing other than it's making me come to terms with the fact that my mission is coming to its close. I'm going to work as hard as I possibly can, but I think I'm in denial it's almost over. Something that is a major blessing for me, Maddy and I haven't always been the closest, we often times would clash when we were back at home. But my mom sent what my sister's companion said about her last week, and I'm coming to realize that my sister and I have become quite similar missionaries in terms of our strengths and weaknesses!! I think the Lord has changed us on our mission experiences so we can come home and become better friends and be more kind to each other. What a blessing. 

This week.... so many blessings. We have really put into practice a training about gratitude. Elder Mikovits challenged our district (which is PUMPING right now) to every time after we see a miracle or blessing, to stop and say thanks to God. That was something I was doing the majority of the time, but now we are especially keen to stop and offer up our gratitude. It's really been effective. God is really working through us!! We see this pattern in Alma 53:10:

"10 And now behold, I have somewhat to say concerning the people of Ammon, who, in the beginning, were Lamanites; but by Ammon and his brethren, or rather by the power and word of God, they had been converted unto the Lord;" 

Well, Mormon was definitely writing that line, when he realized that those missionaries were NOT the reason for the success but rather the Lord worked through them and then His power brought them into the fold. So that's one advantage of the gratitude thing. To always remember our role is the pen and not the author! God and Jesus Christ are working through us. That's how success happens, lasting success anyway.

Love you!

Elder Clay Coleman

Boldly Testifying

Some pics from his last week with Elder Misa

Hello President Mains!

Another crazy week jam packed full of miracles.

This week Elder Hansen and I really put into action the answer to my question during the mission tour. I asked Elder Funk about planning appointments, and he brought it to my attention that there is a definite distinction between planning and scheduling. Scheduling is sometimes out of our control as our investigators may not have anytime to meet, but we can still make plans of what to teach them if the Lord grants that we can meet them!! So we did a very thorough weekly planning session and saw some miracle appointments as a result. That was cool.

This week I really gained a testimony of a certain line from Preach My Gospel. It says in the weekly planning section, "Prayerfully identify members and investigators to ask for referrals." Well, Elder Hansen and I decided to kneel down and pray right then and there. We asked, and after the prayer listened for an answer. I had the thought to visit an older single lady in our branch named T. Single... so it seemed!! I really did't understand why we should go to visit her, assuming she has no one to refer. Turns out she is a widow who stays at her unbaptized son's home whose wife is also not a member, and her sister also lives with her who also has not yet be baptized. I was shocked to see that her family was quite big and that none of them had joined the church. Then, I asked T (the member) how long it had been since the missionaries had been to visit her and she said THREE YEARS!! So Elder Hansen and I both learned that 1) when PMG says to prayerfully do something, you should probably do it with a prayer; and 2) that we have a great opportunity to help this family come into the restored Church of Jesus Christ. So we were very blessed this week.

Elder Hansen and I will become close friends. I think this transfer is going to be really good. Another cool experience was when an investigator told us that she got anti'ed this week by her uncle (who is a pastor) BUT when she prayed about it, she got a feeling to just "continue." Then we taught her the restoration and when we explained clearly about this church being God's church, she really just understood and though she had been baptized in a different church, she said she would be baptized again!! Pretty cool.

Oh, and the coolest thing that happened this week - Elder Hansen and I (along with member present Elder Chan who is the Area Seventy) were invited to share a message with a bunch of head pastors from a church here in Klang. We went to an investigator's house and they were out visiting their flock and just so happened to be on the night that I scheduled an appointment with the couple. Well, it was insane. We racked our brain and kept offering silent prayers as to what we should share with them, and both Elder Hansen and I kept getting the same thought: the Restoration of the Gospel. So we shook our heads and went with it. Though we had been companions for barely 24 hours, we taught the entire lesson in unity. The Spirit was so strong. We were 100% being led by Spirit. We testified boldly of the Prophet Joseph Smith and taught his First Vision in his own words. We proclaimed to men of great wisdom and knowledge of the Bible that God speaks again to men on earth through a living day prophet. We shared the message and invited them to pray for themselves. The best part of all, as Elder Chan noticed - before we began, the pastors said "You share first, then we will share a message!" Well, after we shared, they shrunk at the notion of sharing. Elder Chan was so stoked and repeatedly said that we had confounded them with the truth. They couldn't respond because they had just heard the truth!!!

Here's what Elder Hansen had to say about it:

"Eventually the head Pastor said 'Why don't you share something, then we can share something with you' thinking that two 20 year-olds had nothing on his years of study and ministry. So my comp and I said a quick prayer asking what we should teach because we didn't want it to turn into a fight. Well. we both got "teach the truth." So we start teaching the Restoration. It was awesome. Keep in mind that this was the first lesson with us two as comps and we threw down. I've never felt the Spirit in a lesson like that before. We were teaching in unity, boldly testifying. We, well the Spirit, taught it so simple and truthfully. The Spirit was strong when my comp bore testimony that God talks to man today through a living prophet. It was incredible. I felt like an 1800's missionary, standing on a soap box and declaring the truth. And then you have a Seventy there to add his witness. Cool. So we sit down and they were just wide eyed. Couldn't believe what they had just heard. We sat down and said ok you can share your message now and they said 'No thank you.' Haha through the meek and humble shall God confound the wise. They were speechless."

Wow. Well lots of good stuff is happening and hopefully many seeds are being planted for future growth as well.

Love you, President!! Have a great week!

Elder Coleman

This Work is True!

 

S and our card he found in the Bible 

Love this family!

Happy day for Thamilarasi!!

Hey everyone!!

Another great week of hard work and learnings and many spiritual impressions. I love it out here. Every week is full of gems, and I'm writing them all down in a spiritual journal of mine. Shout out to Elder Bodhaine for the counsel to write "small plates," but they are truly packed full of things I've learned and blessings and times I've followed the spirit.

Well, this week Thamilarasi was baptized!! She was first contacted a long time ago and had been taught by many elders here in Klang. We are so happy she finally got baptized. The cool part was that miracle about the member living with her getting a job and a new place to stay outside of her home (see last week's post).

Another way cool thing that happened this week - bit of a story that started two weeks ago. One night, Elder Misa and I didn't have anything to do, so once we called all our potentials, we felt like going to get some food. But instead of biking there, we had a strange impression just to walk. We were so confused, but we did it anyway. 

So we are walking, and we pass by McDonald's and Elder Misa gets an impression to go inside RIGHT NOW. At this point we're already going out on a limb, so we just went!!! We expected to find someone super prepared inside, but, no one. We talked to some people, but they were all           M u s l i m (and we can't teach anyone of that religion). We were confused. After getting some food, we left and were just thinking that we had followed our own thoughts! But then, at the next traffic light, we hear "Elders!!!!" And a man stops on his moto. He was a potential investigator that had been taught once but never met with the missionaries again. Well, we give him our card and got his number. 

We called it several times, got in contact with his father (the number he gave us was his dad's) and set up an appointment. When it was time to go to his house, we only knew the general area and not the specific location! So we couldn't make it. But yesterday, we got a missed call from a new number, and I called back only to find out that it was A's dad! We got an appointment, and he is very prepared to receive the restored gospel. We feel very optimistic and the whole group is very open. We have another appointment this Thursday with them. So, going back to the miracle of it all, it turns out that the father's phone had been stolen, so he felt bad that we couldn't meet! So he went into his son's room, opened up his Bible, and the first thing he finds is our card that we had given him. (See pic) So he had the thought to call, thinking it might be us, and sure enough it was. Pretty cool and miraculous.

This work is true! The Gospel has been restored and the Book of Mormon is God's word!!! If you want to know for yourself, read some of it and tell me that it doesn't encourage you to come and reconcile yourself with God. Tell me it doesn't invite you to increase your faith.

Love you all!!!

Malaysia Boleh!

Elder Clay Coleman

Chinese New Year Feast!!

God is in Charge!

Hey everyone!!!

This week is Zone Conference in Singapore. The Zone Leaders in KL are doing a great job, and they had the District leaders ask a really great question during reporting: "What do you want to get out of Zone Conference?" I have never asked myself that question before, so I thought it was a great idea, something that will really focus my attention and learning here. So I took it to the Lord and got some great ideas. I think this principle of trying to establish the end goal right from the start is a very important and valuable principle - it can give us the direction and purpose we need to really get going in some direction that will help us use our time and resources more effectively.

I don't think all of those thoughts will be answered directly by the speakers and training (but who knows, they probably could), but I have faith the Spirit will give me answers over the next couple days. God Moves in a mysterious way (hymn 285??). In the words of Jessie "Ammi right??"

Well, the work takes a few steps forward and a few steps back every day. A lot of the time, the people we meet tell us "I/we will call you when I/we have time." === in Asian language that means "I'm not actually very interested" because I've had like 1 or 2 people call back EVER so.... that can be frustrating. Sometimes you're just like "JUST TELL ME YOU DON'T WANT!!" hahaha But this week I really learned that God is in charge! Our Heavenly Father is in charge and knows what the heck He's doing. All we've got to do is trust. I learned that through two experiences. 

The first great experience is that someone we met on the train this week, a lady named Cecelia, came to church!!! Elder Misa saw a couple ladies that looked like Sarawakians, and that was what motivated us to go sit next to them and talk with them. Then turns out she really wanted to come to church, and when she arrived, she got fellowshipped SO DANG WELL. The Klang branch could write a textbook on fellowshipping people. So she's really excited to learn and wants to keep coming to our church. So that was cool. I know God uses whatever means He wants to get us to talk to and find those people He's preparing for this message.

The second really cool experience was when a member, VJ, told us some exciting news. His friend Tamilarasi, who has been learning for the past 7+ months, was letting VJ stay at her house until he could find some work and get his own living spaces. She was waiting for him to move out before she could be baptized, so two weeks ago we met her and told her that, well, if God thinks now is the right time for her to be baptized, He will open the way! He will give VJ a new place to stay if it is His will for her to be baptized now. So we prayed like that for a week and a half, and well, God came through! Now VJ has new work and so GREAT!! Tamilarasi can be baptized!! God really is in charge, that I know. 

Loving life and enjoying it how it is!!! Everything can teach us, and sometimes we just gotta sit back and soak in where we are and who we are with and everything around us.

Love you all!

Elder Coleman

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Elder Misa and I as good friends and as great friends  

Hey everyone!!

Last week we hit up the world's largest indoor rollercoaster and the amusement park, so we didn't have time to shoot off a ton of emails!! So sorry.

Well, this past week was very good. We're working really hard, and we're really enjoying the Zone Leaders' vision for the Zone. Their vision is to get the Kuala Lumpur Zone baptizing weekly - an incredible standard, but who can limit the Lord? Who can say what the Lord CAN'T do? Abraham's wife Sarah laughed when she heard she was going to have a child at her advanced age, but we know how that turned out. So we're working hard and trying to be nothing but the conduits so we can allow God to do whatever is HIS will. We want to be led to prepared people, say what needs to be said, go to the right place at the right time, influence less actives for good, clean our houses, get investigators wanting to be baptized - we can do this ALL, if we just let the Lord work through us. We just have to be the tools for God to work. 

Anyways, one cool experience is that yesterday Elder Misa and I were looking for people to teach, and we stopped this Indian guy named Mohan and started talking to him. I smelt his breath, that he smokes, then the Spirit instructed me to tell him right then and there that the teachings of Jesus Christ will help him quit smoking. I was shocked and tried to think of a way to politely say it to him. It came, and the second I said that, he invited us into his home. He agreed to pray to Heavenly Father for a week, along with the promise that if God can help him quit smoking, he will follow God and only God for the rest of his life. Pretty cool!!!

We also met the most prepared Indonesian family ever. The mother is a pastor and often travels to the small villages all over east Malaysia and preaches to them - but when we started teaching her about the Book of Mormon, she said "Please don't be offended (and I started expecting the worst), but I'm going to follow the Spirit on this one. If the Spirit tells me this is good, then I will accept it. If not, then I will not. Hope that doesn't offend you, but I'm not going to just take your word for this." WOOOOOOOOOOOOW I was so stoked! Then we read together John 16:12-13: 

12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

 13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. 

and then Moroni 10:3-5:

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

It was way cool and the woman was just like "Great. I need to read this myself and dig around, see if it's good." So I replied, "I promise that if you dig-dig, you will find HIDDEN GEMS!" Haha so overall it was a great experience. That day, we had prayed about where we should go find people, and the Lord brought to my mind the flats where they live. So pretty sick that we followed the prompting then found them!!

We're working hard and trying to allow the Lord to work though us - after it all, it is the Lord's work anyway!!

Love you all!!

Elder Clay Coleman

Great P-day but No Time to Email

Riding the world's largest indoor roller coaster!

Today we had a great p-day, but unfortunately if we want to do anything with any other missionaries, we have to travel very far. So today to do our activity, we didn't have the opportunity to email. I'm getting off now. Sorry. Love you and praying for you and Maddy.