Humberto

Its been another good week in boardman!
So last week I told about how we found Humberto. Well we met with him a couple more times and taught him the lessons and he has agreed to be baptized on June 9th! He's so awesome, I think what caught his attention was when we first met him, Elder Evans invited him to church and told him that it could change his life for the better. Sure enough he came to church! He's read up to Jacob in the Book of Mormon since last Sunday and we can tell he's really experiencing a change and he is serious about making his life better, so we are really excited for him. Its awesome what changes the gospel can bring to the lives of others.
Jorge has been a bit slower, he is supposed to be baptized on the 16th of June but he works a lot and works all night Saturday, so its been hard to meet with him and hard to get him to church. But we're going to invite him to Dinner with the Jones family on Thursday so that will be good.
There is also a part member family, the Dunn's, that we've been visiting. Its a single mom with 3 kids. The mom is a member and the youngest daughter is a member, they got baptized about a year ago, but the older 2 kids aren't. The cool thing is that the older 2 are coming on the Pioneer Trek in June, so we borrowed 17 miracles and watched it with them, and it was a really good experience.
In other news, we traded cars with the AP's. So now instead of a gold-colored 2009 Chevy Malibu, we have a Charcoal-colored 2009 Chevy Malibu. I guess they want to put more miles on ours so they can retire it. I like the charcoal color though so I'm not complaining!
On Thursday night we took one of the Priests out on an exchange. His name was Matthew, we visited Humberto with him and then a Less active lady, and then we had some extra time so we asked him if he had any friends we could go visit, and he said he did, so we went and visited a female friend of his who had questions about the church. We told her about the Book of Mormon and left her one and she said she'd read it so it went well. Later on we found out her parents don't want us ever to come back. (Her Dad is an inactive member and Mom is a catholic) but we planted a seed, and even though her father has chosen to leave the church for whatever reason, there will come a point when she can make her own choice about it and, have the chance to accept it.
It was also good because we gave a young man the opportunity to get involved in missionary work and have the chance to share his belief with a friend so that was cool. We're going to try to do an exchange with a priest once or twice every week.
Well thats about it, hope everyone has a good week!
Elder Derek Partridge
8656 w. Gage Blvd. Ste. 205
Kennewick, WA 99336

Elder Evans

Transfer 5 has begun! Elder Richards said his goodbyes and then Wednesday morning I went and dropped him off at the stake center, and than I drove Elder Olson, the other elder in our zone who was dropping off his companion, and we went to the Hermiston duplex to pick up Elder Evans! Things have been going good. We're still having trouble meeting consistently with Inez Romero, so that is what is inhibiting them from getting baptized. But with everyone else, we've been making the rounds and seeing lots of success. There is this guy we found a couple weeks ago, Jorge Tlamaco. We've been teaching him a bit and after teaching the Plan of Salvation with Elder Evans the other day, he accepted the commitment to be baptized on June 16! We're really excited for him, he is awesome. On Sunday, Cesar, who is in the teachers quorum brought his older brother, Umberto to church, and during the third hour we taught him the first lesson with one of our newly called ward missionaries and set up a return appointment. We started teaching a guy name Luis Lopez. He is 18, and he's going to Blue Mountain Community College. We taught him the 1st lesson and he really felt the spirit. He has several friends in the ward who are currently serving missions so it'll be really cool if he is baptized when they get back.
Elder Evans is super cool. He is from Orem, Utah and has been on his mission for about a year. He was the student body president at Orem High School and was on the wrestling team and was part of several theatrical productions. He did a year at BYU before leaving on his mission and is super cool and a very good missionary!
This week we had some fun Dinners. We got to eat with the kirkendalls, they kind of live out in the middle of nowhere... but they're a fun couple. Sis. Kirkendall is from the Phillippines, they met on LDS singles. They gave us like 5 referrals, and Bro. Kirkendall invited us to come help cut bulls, so that should be an interesting experience. We went and helped bro. Young dig trenches for his sprinklers. He brought out some old binders from his mission. There were a lot of cool missionary things in them, like comics, time lines about the apostasy, little stories and jokes. He let us borrow one. Its a lot of fun to look through. We ate at the Sorenson's. They have 2 peacocks on their property. They let us take some feathers, they had a lot in their house. Apparently you can sell them for about 2 dollars a piece.
We went to the stake presidents house to teach Dave Baker, but he didn't show up, so we just talked about how the work is going in Boardman. He said he's going to start this saturday, inviting the zone over for breakfast once a transfer, so that will be a lot of fun. They have a really nice house and it's right by hat rock.
Well that is about all of the news this week! Take care everybody!

Transfer Calls

Well It's been a good week, I enjoyed skyping Ma and Pa. I got a good video tour of the samoa mission office! It was enjoyable. We'll have to set up a conference call for Christmas, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.
Megan, I'm probably half kidding about you introducing your mancub to Pres. and Sis. Greer, but that might be because I'm pretty sure they were probably kidding when they suggested it. But if you feel inclined to do it, feel more than welcome too. I'll be sure to let them know when you're coming. More news from you would be welcome!
Heather, glad to hear from you, sounds like the kids are doing well, dirt on the head or no. Preferably no dirt on the head though if Nathan can't bathe.
Jordan, have you met any european or asian girls yet? What does being in the field involve? I'm excited to hear what calling they're thinking about for you. Glad to hear you're really getting involved with your ward down there, that is awesome. You should have some of your lady friends try the bubbleyum challenge. If they can do that, they're definitely a keeper.

Well as for me, this week was pretty good. I guess I'll handle the big news, TRANSFER CALLS. Well I wasn't too eager to see Richards go, he was a good companion, but it was what was most likely to happen. He will be transferred to Yakima, and I'll be getting my new companion Elder Evans this Wednesday. Elder Evans is actually already in the same zone as me, so I already see him for p day and zone stuff all the time, so I know he's a good missionary and we'll get along very well.
Mothers day was super cool, we had an awesome turn out at church so that was cool. And then we got to call home, we enjoyed that.
I started the week out by getting a cold. That was a bit of a damper, but we still got out and visited some people. We've got a lot of promising investigators, that we've got to prepare for baptism, not to mention the Romero's so hopefully we can buckle down and get that all done!
Well I hope everyone had a good week, take care!
Elder Derek Spencer Partridge
8656 W. Gage Blvd. Ste. 205
Kennewick, WA 99336

Solid New Investigator

It has been a great week! We've had interviews too! It was fun to talk to the AP's and President and Sister Greer. We talked about several things, they wanted to know how everybody in the family was doing, how Ma and Pa were doing in Samoa y todo eso. Sister Greer wanted to make sure I was exercising and we came up with an exercise plan. It was a good experience! Interviews and Zone Conferences and District meetings are all so rejuvenating. You just come out wanting to be an even better missionary!
Well unfortunately the Romero baptism got pushed back again. She's working night shifts at the potato factory and its hard to find her awake at home. Things were a lot easier when she just worked during the day. We will meet with them this week and try again. We might have to push it back 2 or 3 weeks so we can have enough time to get the interview done and all of that jazz. We fasted for them this week. We also fasted for another investigator. Krysten, she's been meeting with the missionaries for over a year. Her parents won't let her get baptized until they're convinced she's serious about it. She's going to seminary and everything though. So we're hoping her parents hearts we'll change.
While we were out tracting the other day we found a really solid new investigator. His name is Jorge, he let us in right away and was really nice and accepting. He seems like a really solid guy. We were surprised to find out he was 49. He looks really young. So he told us he doesn't smoke and doesn't drink and likes to stay active, so thats probably the main contributing factor. We're excited to keep teaching him and see how that goes.
Well in other news, The end of the transfer is near. I believe transfer calls will come this saturday and next wednesday the change happens. Elder Richards will probably get transferred. This is his second time in Boardman, he was actually trained here before. So since after this he has 2 transfers left, and he's spent a ton of time in Boardman, he will likely get transferred to his final area and stay there for 2 transfers. I'll miss him, he's a great missionary.
Well, I forgot to take pictures of my knitting, but I finished my first hat and am working on a second. I'll send pictures next week. I promise.
Thanks have a Great Week!
Elder Derek Partridge
8658 W. Gage Blvd. Ste. 205
Kennewick, WA 99336

Temple Trip

Well today was zone temple trip so P-day got moved to Tuesday this week. So it was fun to be able to go to the temple with our zone this morning. There's a member in the stake with a 15 passenger van so whenever the Hermiston zone has to make a mass exodus they usually charter it out to us, so this morning Sister Hoffman drove us in the van up to the tri-cities to the temple. It was cool because the Yakima zone did their temple day today too so we got to see them. It was fun to see Elder Swenson again and ask him how Grandview was doing. Apparently basically nothing has changed haha. But it was fun to see my old zone.

Well this week was a good one. We're finally set with the Romero's baptism. The problem was that we'd set up the date, go to follow up and she'd always be asleep because she works night shifts and we'd have to postpone it. So finally we got talking to her and set it all up this weekend. So it should work out because she doesn't have work or anything that day.
This week for service we weeded Sister Hoffman's yard one morning and the next Brother Browning brought his Rototiller over and we tilled it. My hat is coming along quite nicely. I'm using a pattern from a book Elder Richards has. I'll take a picture and send it next week. I think this will be a fun hobby even after the mission. Well that’s about all this week.
Sincerely,
Elder Derek Partridge
8656 W. Gage Blvd. Ste. 205
Kennewick, WA 99336

P.S. I've seen a Mormonad around that I really like. It shows a picture of a sad looking missionary opening up an empty mailbox and it says "Write Away"
So there's the address peoples!!! hahaha