Monday, December 26, 2011



Well it was a great week! Last Sunday, I spoke in sacrament meeting! I gave a talk on the wise men and the shepherds coming to Christ, and how we need to follow their examples. It was a success. Monday we had our Zone P day in Yakima, it was a basketball tournament, and my team got last place unfortunately, but every single game we played was super close, we just ended up losing them all except for 1. So that was a bummer, but it was still really fun. If Yakima wasn't 40 miles away I'd like to do that every P day. Anyways Wednesday we had Christmas Zone Conference, in Kennewick with the whole east side of the Mission. It was a lot of fun to see Pres. and Sis. Greer. They're so awesome! We had a few testimonies by people in the mission and presidency and then we had lunch, it was really Good! Ham and Funeral Potatoes! After that we watched...drum roll... Kung Fu Panda 2! haha It was really funny. After it was all over we got our Christmas presents, for the elders it was a consecrated oil vial with WKM engraved on it (Washington Kennewick Mission) So those are pretty cool, and a Christmas card from President and Sister Greer, and a Christmas card from the First Presidency. I thought it was pretty cool that we were on their mailing list. After that the guys from my district went to Far West, which is our Deseret Book equivalent, and discovered that that is quite the missionary hot spot after Zone Conferences. and then with Christmas Eve, we had a lot less time to work this week! But we got stuff done nonetheless. I guess I'll start off with the Man of the Week! Eduardo Solis! We had his baptism on friday night, and he had a good turn out from family, so they're supporting him good. They had a party at his house after and fed us Enchiladas, so that's always a plus. It was awesome the night before, we went over to teach him about missionary work, and he wanted us to help him get the scriptures on his phone, so I helped him find it and now he has the Gospel Library app, so that's pretty sweet! We taught him about missionary work and encouraged him to share the gospel with friends and family and maybe even go on a full time mission a year from now. So we have great hopes for Eduardo, he is Awesome.

The Rivera family, we are still struggling to get them to church, or meet with them. It was hard to get a hold of a lot of our investigators because of all of the festivities. I don't know if I mentioned that Luis Velasquez said he didn't want to be baptized on the 24th anymore, so we told him to pray about it and haven't been able to get a hold of him since then really.

Daniel and Nancy have stopped progressing. We've taught them all of the lessons we're just trying to help Daniel find out for himself if these things are true and then we will commit them to baptizing, they were also hard to get a hold of because of Christmas. Odilia is out of town, its been kind of a slow week with our investigators, but we have been working on finding. We cover a large area so we decided on full days we are going to try our best to set apart 1 to 2 hours to finding people who have been prepared to receive the gospel, so we did have a couple of lessons with people we hadn't met with before, so hopefully we'll be able to increase our teaching pool.

Christmas Eve was a ton of fun, the Sunnyside Spanish Elders and the Prosser English elders came over, because every Saturday, Cafe Grande Vue gives us free sandwiches so we usually have them over on Saturday afternoons. We had Dinner with the Rood's, which is a family in the Sunnyside English ward, so it was the six of us, Sunnyside Spanish and English and us, Grandview Spanish. They also had Bro. Anderson from the English Ward Bishopric and his family so it was quite the party. We had lasagna and shrimp cocktails and after we played a gift game with dice, every time you rolled a 3 you got to grab a gift from under the tree or steal one, so Elder Bao and I ended up with some good snacks, and a puzzle. After the party we went home, and spent the rest of the night, reading Luke 2, building our puzzle, and singing Christmas songs. On Christmas, we got up and opened presents of course, and then we went around trying to round up people for church. We didn't have much success because the Spanish people party late on Christmas eve. Luckily, Eduardo came, because he was getting confirmed that day. So his friend from the branch confirmed him. It was awesome, what a great gift for Christmas, The Gift of the Holy Ghost! It was a good day! After Church we went to the Anderson's house for lunch. He is a chiropractor, and he has a nice house! Anyways we had a Breakfast Lunch, of Pancakes and Waffles and such, and then we helped their kids play with their toys. and I called home from there and Elder Bao Skyped his family. We had dinner with the Oropezas, They fed us tamales, and Pollo Barbacoa. And then we visited some other families and had plenty of festivities. It was a great week! This week we're ready to work Hard!

Monday, December 19, 2011

Baptism Friday

Its been a great week, we had lots of lessons so that was good.
We've had the opportunity to meet with Pedro and Isela a lot this
week. They feed us all the time, and Pedro has recognized that we are
men of God from day 1, but the problem is, Pedro is a very talkative
guy. We've had one lesson in 4 visits this week, because we get there
and Pedro talks alot! Its all religious conversation, and its been
good, because after one of the visits he said he was really greatful
for us coming over because other people he knows won't listen to him
when he starts talking about the Lord. He's optimistic and humble,
everytime we come I ask, How was your day today Pedro? How was work?
and he says, "You know, I can't complain. All days are good, all days
I'm blessed by the Lord with so many things" We had our Branch
Christmas Dinner on Saturday night and they came. It was awesome, we
had some good enchiladas and Rice and then we reenacted the Christmas
story, and I played the part of an Angel, and Elder Bao was one of the
Wisemen. We definitely have great expectations for Pedro and Isela's
family.
Next Eduardo: Eduardo Solis was found by the investigators over a year
ago. We met with him about 2 weeks ago and shared some scriptures
about faith and asked him to pray about baptism, and that friday we
got a text from him telling us he had decided to be baptized! So
everythings been progressing good! He is 19 years old and he is
friends with some members and works for a Bishop in Prosser. We had
his baptismal interview yesterday and he passed! So he will be
baptized by his boss, Bishop Merrick, this Friday night at 7 o clock!
Its going to be pretty awesome! We're excited about him and his desire
to share the gospel with his girlfriend when she returns from
california, and his sister who he lives with, and theres also a chance
that he'll go serve a mission next year! So we are super excited about
him.
The Rivera family, is very difficult to get a hold of, the mom and 2
sons are on date, but the dad and 2 daughters aren't. We call them all
week, and maybe catch them at home for 1 lesson a week. They won't
come to church, because of the Dad. He wants a sign but hasn't put any
effort into seeking for one. So hopefully we can turn that around this
week. We're going to try to get a lesson with them and one of the
member families.
Well we don't have much time We've got to drive to yakima for zone
pday! Sorry to cut this short!
Talk to you on sunday!

Monday, December 12, 2011

7 people on date for baptism

This week was gooood! We have 7 people on date for Baptism. Odilia
Villa, she is a single mother with 2 sons, her kids are kind of a
handful. She hasn't come to church yet so we're working on that and
she agreed to being baptized on Jan. 21 and so did her 10 yr old son.
The mom and 2 sons of the Riveras family: Its a family of 6 and we've
been teaching them for a while. The father has had bad experiences
with other churches and is unsure. The family is pretty much divided,
where the mom is all for it, the dad and 2 daughters are hesitant. We
have trouble getting in contact with them and getting them to church.
Luis Velasquez, we got him on date last week, he's about 40 and
unmarried. His family lives in mexico and he's pretty accepting of
everything. He's on date for December 24th.
Eduardo Soliz, he's about 20 and lives with some friends in one of the
trailer parks. Apparently the missionaries found him a year and a half
ago and taught him a lot but couldn't ever get him to commit to
baptism. We met with him at the beginning of this week and I shared
Ether 12:6, "You will receive no witness until after the trial of your
faith" and he told us that it was a social thing, he was worried about
what his friends from work would think and they had been giving him
some trouble. So we used that scripture and asked him to read and pray
about it, and on friday afternoon we got a text that said he wanted to
be baptized! We're going for the 24th of December.
So those are our seven, We also met with Daniel and Nancy, he hadn't
read or prayed since our last visit, unfortunately so we recommitted
him to do that and commited him to come to church, and they did! They
came to sunday school, but had to go home early to get ready for work,
but before they left we took them to go meet the primary teacher and
his daughter really wanted to go, so thats good! Its a good sign your
investigator will come to church if their daughter cries because she
couldn't go to primary that day.
We met with another couple for the first time on Thursday night. On
this night ours and the Sunny side elders' schedules conflicted so we
couldn't have dinner at the same time, so we were just going to go get
our free meal at subway. So we were meeting with these new
investigators Pedro and Isela for the first time, and Isela asks if
we'd had Dinner and we told her we were going to subway. She said
she'd feed us. And Pedro said "You know, all of this stuff, my home,
this food, isn't mine. It was given to me by the Lord and what kind of
person would I be if I didn't share it?" They basically said we could
come and eat anytime. Pedro asked me to pray for him to come closer to
god and have a soft heart. It was awesome! This tuesday we're going
back for Dinner and lesson 1 so we'll see how it goes!
We found a couple people while tracting this week, the one that stands
out most was a lady we met in an apartment complex, Eva. We knocked on
her door and she opened it and told us to come in. She gave us her
whole religious shpeal. She used to be a bad person with a lot of
addictions but she's getting better, through reading the bible and
religion. She started out catholic and had all of her statues of
saints in her home, and one day read in the bible about Idolatry. The
first thing she did was go around smashing her virgin marry statues
with a hammer and throwing them all away. She then turned to Jehovahs
witness, and was comparing their bible with the regular one, and saw
that they had cut a lot of stuff out of it so she dropped them, and
went Baptist. and thats where she is now. So I told her about the book
of mormon, how the reason why there are so many religions is because
everybody interprets the bible differently, and I used the metaphor
from Tad R. Callisters awesome Book of Mormon talk from Conference.
Read it! Thats an order! anyway how if you draw a dot on a piece of
paper, how many lines can you draw through it? like a million! but if
you draw a second dot on that same paper, how many lines can you draw
that go through both of those dots? Just 1. The first dot represents
the bible the many lines represent different churches. The second dot
represents the Book of Mormon, and the line that goes through both of
those dots is the True Church of Jesus Christ, The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints. So I used the dot metaphor and we gave
her a book of mormon and asked her if whe would read from it and she
said she would, so thats good, we'll go back and visit her this week
and see how she liked it, and teach her.
Sunday was good. We had a Recent convert fireside in Yakima, and it
was awesome! It was good to see Ma and Pa Greer, and all the other
elders in the Zone and the Assistants to the President. We sang our
mission song, which is a compilation of Called to Serve and The lord
needs valiant servants. Its a pretty sweet song. Sister Greer asked me
to learn to play it on the piano because Brother and Sister Wilson are
going home in 6 months and she's the one that usually plays it. So
I'll have to work on that. The Whites have a piano that I play when we
have a bit of spare time. Anyway thats about it!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Grandview

Hey I'm doing alright! Our Area is Grandview, its a small little town
and its 30 miles west from the Tricities and 40 miles east of Yakima,
but we are in the Yakima Zone/stake. Our Branch is in Sunnyside, which
is about 5 miles away, and there are also 2 other Spanish elders in
the Sunnyside area, whom we share dinner appointments with and go to
the same Branch. Its a pretty nice little area. I'll start with the
Members we're staying with: Brother and Sister White. They're super
cool. Sister White teaches Biology at the High School, and Brother
White teaches an afternoon computer class at YVCC Yakima Valley
Community College, and substitutes at the High school some mornings.
Every saturday morning Brother White makes pancakes for us so thats
Awesome. And one morning, we helped them put up their christmas
decorations, so I'm not totally missing out on a real Christmas. They
have 2 well trained dogs, Zeek and Toby. I probably spelled zeek's
name wrong, and he'll punish me for that later. They're a lot of fun
to have around and play with. They're a super cool family. Elder Bao,
my trainer is from Ecuador. He learned english here on his mission and
he's pretty fluent now. He's super cool. Our Branch president,
President Bingham. We ate dinner at their house last night, and they
have a nice house out in the boonies and grow a lot of fruits and
vegetables. We had fresh apple juice, potatoes, salad, broccoli, and
peach pie. Of course that was all from storage because its winter
right now. First impression of fruits and vegetables in washington:
What was I eating before? It all looks so fresh and vibrantly colored,
and the apples are big and delicious! There's a lot of farming, and a
lot of grape growing. They have several wineries here because of the
grapes, hehehe but of course nothings growing right now because it is
COLD! Its about 40 at the highest, but with a little moisture in the
air it feels a lot colder, and then gets down to like low 30s when the
sun sets and then like 20 over night. Well we've taught a variety of
people. Its interesting the older generation all speaks spanish but
everyone thats younger than about 30 speaks primarily english. We
teach people in varying circumstances: lots of small homes and trailer
parks but theres also some that aren't doing too bad. Theres always
Chiuahuas barking at us in the Trailer parks. We teach this one
investigator, he lives in someones basement, and the ceiling is less
than 6 feet. So I was ducking pretty bad when we visited him. Another
investigator family we're teaching, Daniel and Nancy. They're super
cool, they live in one of the trailer parks but they take care of it
so it looks nice. He's a really cool guy, he speaks english pretty
good. Him and his wife went to high school here and he was actually
really smart and was in all the AP classes, but had to wait til he was
23 to start college because he didn't have his green card yet. Now
he's got his green card and is working on a computer Science degree.
So we've been having him read the Book of Mormon, and he is getting
really in to it. I read him Mormon 8:35 where mormon is saying that he
saw our day and is writing these things to us. And I told him how we
can apply the things in the book of Mormon to our lives and he caught
on to that really quick. We're going to follow up and see if he prayed
about it, this wednesday and then we're going to go for The baptismal
commitment, I'm having trouble understanding the spanish, because they
talk so fast, I usually get the main Idea of what people are saying.
It gets frustrating, I want to be fluent now! But its something you
have to work through and it builds character, hahaa. First time going
to church in the field was interesting. We have Sunday School,
Priesthood and then sacrament meeting last. Sunday school was a bit of
a challenge. Symbolism in the Book of Revelation, is a tough topic as
it is but it is even more so in Spanish! hahaha. Sacrament meeting was
interesting, By the closing prayer our numbers had halfed. Hehehe.
We'll have to work on that. Well Pday is great, We get 2 free meals
from subway a week, so we got ours for lunch today. So that was
delicious. Other than that, we're just working up a storm! We're
trying to get 20 baptisms between us and the sunnyside elders by the
end of the year. We'll be having, in the words of the other elders, a
"Mexican Swim Party" or a "Wet Christmas" Inactivity is also a pretty
big thing that we're working on. There's plenty of work to do! Love
you all! Bubye!
-Elder Partridge

Saturday, December 3, 2011


November 29, 2011

Dear Mom, & Dad,
                I’m writing you from a temporary residence in one of the tri cities. I’m not sure which one.  Well today was awesome!  We landed in the tri cities airport in Pasco at 12:00 Washington time.  It is such a small airport. (Ha ha)  I’d never been in such a small airport.
                Well we met up with the AP’s and Pres. & Sister Greer and we picked up our bags and loaded them into a trailer and drove to the mission home.  It was such a beautiful home!  We met the rest of the Presidency and ate lunch, after that we had a lot of orientations and interviews with the mission president.  He told me that I was a leader and would do great if I continue to be strictly obedient.
                He’s really an inspired man.  Sister Greer says you’re supposed to cook funeral potatoes with broken up potato chips on top.  Apparently it’s the Arizona way.
                At five we finished up and they sent us on exchanges with elders.  I went with a Spanish elder to a lesson in Pasco, but the investigator wasn’t home.  So we went and talked to someone else.  We came back to the Mission Home at 6 ish for dinner.  Ham and death potatoes!  The corn was so good.
                After that President Greer talked to us some more.  We got assigned our areas and trainers.   I’ll be going to the Yakima Zone in the Grandview Area and my trainers name is Elder Bao.  He is from Ecuador!  We’ll meet up at the Gage building tomorrow morning. Fun Fun Fun!!!
Elder Derek S. Partridge

Friday, November 25, 2011

Alright! Well the last week is going pretty good. Its kind of a different schedule because of thanksgiving, but we've gotten to see lots of apostles! On tuesday night, D. Todd Christopherson came to our devotional and it was awesome!!!! We were kind of hanging around the side by the parking lot ten minutes after it had ended, and people had cleared out. It was just me and 3 other guys in my district when he came driving by on his way home, He slowed down and rolled down his window and said "Thank you Elders!" and we said thank you back. It was pretty awesome. Today we have a relaxed schedule. We started with breakfast as usual and then study time for an hour and after that we had our Thanksgiving morning devotional, and Russel M. Nelson spoke at that one, so that was really cool. We've been waiting our whole time here to have an apostle come and we're finally getting a couple in our last week! It was a good talk! His wife told us somewhat concerning his achievements as a heart surgeon and then how he dropped it all to become an apostle. After that, we had our thanksgiving dinner in the cafeteria. Not much like home at all. I made sure to get 4 glasses of sprite-cranberry juice so that I could hold to tradition. This afternoon/after dinner we're doing a service project of assembling health kits for the humanitarian services. and tonight we have another devotional, there will definitely be another apostle and it might even be 2 apostles since its a 2 hour devotional.

So thanksgiving, has been alright so far, but I miss family. Seeing apostles will make it worth it though hahaha.

The rest of this week: Tomorrow, we have infield orientation all day. Which I'm not sure exactly what it is. Its like an all day thing for departing missionaries, but I do know we get breaks and somebody said we're encouraged to email or write home during these breaks, and then that moves our Pday to saturday. So I can write home 3 days in a row! To my dismay, the bookstore won't be having a black friday sale at 3 am tomorrow, and they'll actually be closed the whole day, so thats a bummer. Sunday is pretty normal, except we'll be having a departure devotional, which I hear is just pres. Brown Calling out all of the missions and you stand up when he calls your mission, and then he talks for a bit. Monday will be last day of classes, and than I leave on tuesday. The word is that you can call home from the airport and they sell 3 hour phone cards for 5 dollars in the bookstore, so we'll see about it. Love you bunches, I really appreciate and miss everyone in our family today. Thats what I'm thankful for, Mom Dad Heather, Brian, Jordan, Justin, and Megan.

Love you bunches!

-Elder Partridge

Friday, November 18, 2011


Nice! I enjoy your letters and hearing from home!
Well this has been a wonderful week! I guess I'll start with last PDAY. Our district was heading to the temple, and Elder hundley, Elder Baker, Elder Shamanis, and I were a little bit late. When we got down into the basement where they rent clothes to the elders we saw a sign that said they needed help in the laundry that day, so instead of doing a session, we volunteered in the laundry! It was an awesome experience, I got to learn how they fold those socks and it was really fun! The good news with our investigators is that We finished teaching the plan of salvation to Natalia (Hermana Self) and we committed her to baptism!!! I love the opportunities we have to teach our teachers as investigators. I don't remember if I told you how they do it, but the teachers will take on a role of one of their previous investigators and we teach them the lessons! It rained a bit on saturday last week and its looking as if we're going to get some more today and tomorrow and possibly some snow, so we'll see if it happens! On sunday we got new zone leaders because the district above us was leaving on monday. Elder Farrel and Elder Brown in our district are the new zone leaders. Elder Farrel is from Preston Idaho and Elder Brown is from somewhere in utah. It was pretty crazy! The zone above us is gone and in less then 2 weeks we will be leaving too!!! Our fireside was about tithing, apparently it is a leading factor in people going inactive after baptism. If the missionaries don't teach tithing effectively, the converts won't get a firm testimony in it because they can't pay tithing until after baptism, and its sometimes hard for missionaries to teach it when they don't have a firm testimony of why it is important, because they haven't paid tithing on their mission, so Its important for us to study and pray about the law of tithe to learn to teach it effectively.
Monday, we committed Natalia to be baptized on November 30th, and she accepted so it was pretty much an awesome day. Even teaching the gospel to fake investigators is really rewarding!
Tuesday was awesome! Elder Tad Callister of the presidency of the seventy spoke to us about The apostasy
He said it is just as important to teach as the restoration, because without the apostasy, there would be no need for the restoration! I hadn't ever thought about it that way before.
anyway, he said the 10 evidences of the great apostasy are:
1. Apostles are killed. The apostles were critical to keep the doctrine pure, the church went from being led by revelation to being led by reason.
2. Scriptures foretold of it, in Amos 8:11, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 etc.
3. The Bible ends. The epistles were written to correct errors, and the bible ended in 100 AD, would the church really be perfect by then?
4. Dramatic loss of miracles and gifts of the spirit
5. Teachings of christ were lost
Eternal Marriage 1 peter 3:7
Nature of god, etc.
"Everything is now so entangled with these decrees that we dare not hope to call the world back to true christianity." -Erasmus
6. Ordinances altered or changed
Isaiah 24:5 Mark 10:16
Baptism by immersion etc.
7. Manner of Prayers
The enemy brakes the line of communication when attacking
No longer prayed in the name of Jesus Christ, started praying to saints
8. Scriptures only for clergy
"If the church of Jesus Christ had continued would they have taken the scriptures away from the people or made efforts to make the scriptures available to as many people as possible?"
9. Church no longer bore the name of Christ.
Apparently no church claimed that name before the 19th century
"I pray you leave my name alone and call yourselves not lutherans but Christians." -Martin Luther
10. No priesthood,
no line of authority, people with out authority ordained bishops.
And then he compared the church to a plane that had an engine caught on fire, the pilot isn't going to dive straight for the earth, the pilot is going to land as steadily and slowly as possible to ensure a safe landing, so it was with The Church of Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father waited and prepared for the safest time to bring his church back so that it would never apostasize again!
on wednesday we got a new district in our zone, apparently we got a ton of missionaries that day because were not getting any next week because of Thanksgiving. So its been pretty crowded. We had our last thursday night lights soccer game! Our zone has a tradition of playing soccer every thursday night for gym time and its a lot of fun. We won't be having it next week because of the Thanksgiving devotional and thats our last thursday in the MTC!
I got my travel plans yesterday! I can call next week to tell more, but I'll be flying from salt lake to pasco on the morning of November 29th and apparently we can also call from the airport. We'll see!
Well thats about it!

Friday, November 11, 2011

November 11, 2011


Well Its good to finally get your emails! haha and it took quite some time to read them all. Can I wait til like december 7th to tell you what I want for christmas? I'll have a better idea once I've been out in the field for a bit. I'm super excited for that quilt!!!! That'll be really nice to have. Glad to hear all is well at home!
Well its been a good week in the MTC! Its been kind of different, last week it was pretty bleak and stormy and we got a small amount of snow but this week has been clear and sunny. On sunday we woke up to a little bit of snow that actually stuck to the ground but it really wasn't much and it melted by noon. Daylight savings time started last weekend!!! We got to sleep for 9 hours instead of 8 that night! That was nice, I've never experienced that before. Well we had Mission conference because it was fast sunday, and some people from the mtc presidency spoke. I was going to go to choir that day but I guess they don't have choir on fast day. Its been a good week!
We've been teaching our "investigators" which are our two teachers acting like somebody that they taught on their missions. With Natalia, (Hermana Self) we taught the first half of lesson 2, the plan of salvation, and we were going to commit her to get baptized but during the lesson we found out that her marriage was less than happy, so instead I committed her to pray, read the scriptures, and go to church with her family, and the gospel would bless her family. She agreed to "come to church with us". Enrico, (Hermano Burnham) is a little behind, we finished lesson 1 with him and commited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.
Aside from that, I'm past my halfway mark! Que Loco! Time is really flying by haha Next week our oldest district will be leaving so we will be the oldest district after that. So on sunday we should be finding out who the new zone leaders are. Whoever gets called as zone leaders, they've got some big shoes to fill! Elder Cummins and Millerberg were the best! I mean how many zone leaders will tuck you in at night??? Anyway, I'll miss those guys. They're all great.
I'm really pushing through Predicad Mi Evangelio. (Preach My Gospel) I have about 3 chapters left, Its basically the best book ever. Read it. Even if you're not going on a mission, the how to study chapter is great! Also the Book of Mormon and How to develop christlike attributes. Anyway I love preach my gospel so much.

Friday, November 4, 2011

November 4, 2011


Hey! How is it going!!!! Brian's birthday is coming up! I printed some pictures so I'll send them in the mail soon.
Another Great week at the MTC! We are now teaching 2 investigators in spanish and we have 3-4 lessons a week. The program is really inspired here, I can just about teach the whole first lesson in spanish now, so I'm going to work on lesson 2, el plan de salvacion this week. Our tuesday night devotional was by W. Craig Zwick, it was funny because word got out that President Monson gave the BYU devotional that morning so everyone was hoping he'd come by the MTC and talk to us also, so lots of people came early and were disappointed to have another from the presidency of the seventy. I like Zwick though, I think that was my first time hearing him speak but I remember seeing him on the General Authority page of the Ensign all these years. His wife talked about the spirit and something that stuck out to me was she said "Seek the companionship of the spirit, it is Vital! Don't get too preoccupied with mission rules or learning the language and lose focus on being spiritual" Its so true! Its important to learn spanish if you're going to a spanish speaking mission, but your vast spanish vocabulary isn't going to convert, the spirit is! I haven't gotten much mail from friends haha thats okay, I don't miss them either!!!
Well I hope all is well at home, I'm doing great out here! Thanks so much for the package!!! I love the fudge and cookies and the socks are awesome and I'm wearing my favorite green shirt in the laundry room even as I type this! LOVE YOU BYE!

Friday, October 28, 2011

October 29, 2011

It was a good week in the MTC or should I say El CCM. Sunday was so awesome, we had a fireside by the director of the missionary program, who's name escapes me right now but I do remember his last name was Allen. He was really a funny enthusiastic speaker and as part of his talk he had us sing like 8 hymns. The chorister just stayed standing next to him while he talked and they were all ready to start whatever song he commanded. This is also when I realized being MTC organist would be a lot of fun. It was a great fireside! Well the MTC is awesome, I have a lot of cool elders in my district. There is one from Idaho named Elder Farrel and he is pretty funny. We also have a samoan, who I've become really good friends with. Elder Hundley is my MTC companion. Its kind of crazy haha. Well we've been teaching a fake investigator in spanish since friday. We got through the restoration and then we found out he was really one of our teachers and he he let us know how we did, it was kind of an undercover operation. We're getting a lot of experience with teaching in spanish so that is good. On tuesday night Elder Hallstrom spoke to us. I was sitting on the 2nd row and when I walked in I waved at him and he waved back at me!!! He talked about obedience and being good missionaries. Its become pretty clear that obedience is the key to becoming good missionaries. Well I'd like to send pictures but i'd have to get them printed in the bookstore and mail them out. Maybe I'll get around to doing that today. The computers at the MTC are all locked up pretty tight. They're using a special version of windows 7 and its programmed so that you can't do anything except use missionary resources, which is good, but one of the things i won't be able to do is email photos, but once I get out in the field I should be able to. Tell everyone to send me letters. I love letters. I'll reply quickly I promise! Well thats it, have a good week!

Sunday, October 23, 2011



Hey Ma!
I'm running out of computer time but I'll do my best. The MTC is awesome! They're taking good care of me, my district is awesome my zone is awesome my teachers are awesome.
The spirit has been strong here and the gift of tongues is present in the learning of spanish. We are learning to pray teach and bear testimony in spanish, and it is a lot to memorize, But I'm doing great here. Don't you worry! For some reason I can't think of anything to say, bubye!
-Elder Partridge

Friday, October 14, 2011

MTC Address

Hey this is Elder Partridge, I'm leaving next week for the MTC. This blog will have my weekly emails and my updated address throughout my mission in Kennewick, Washington! Here is my MTC Address:

Elder Derek Spencer Partridge
MTC Mailbox # 236
WA-KENN 1129
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

I will be in the MTC for six weeks then I'll be heading out to washington right at the beginning of December.