Elder Hundley

Well I guess I'll start out with the biggest news first, Transfer calls came on Saturday night, and I'm being transferred to Vancouver to work in the Spanish Branch there. This will be good. I'll miss Boardman a lot but Transfers are transfers. I'll be serving there with Elder Hundley, whom I went to High school with and we came out on our missions the same day. So that will be fun. In other news, Elder Bao got called to be a Zone Leader in Yakima, so I'm excited for him! He's an Awesome missionary and was an Awesome Trainer. They've made some big changes in the mission as far as Spanish missionaries go. There used to be 2 companionships of 4. One in Pasco and one in Yakima, but they made those both back into regular Zone leader Companionships. They're also opening a new Spanish area in Benton City. Also one of our Office couples, The Wilsons are going home. We're going to miss them, they've been great.
This week has been pretty good. We made progress with lots of our investigators. Our ward had its monthly Pot luck on thursday and they got a really good turn out. Bishop Rogers brought some of his neighbors and introduced them to us. They were really nice and said the missionaries could come by and talk to them. There is also a lady who teaches piano here in boardman to a lot of member families and she is interested to meet with the missionaries.
I've been studying the topic of conversion lately. Elder Hallstrom talked in conference how conversion to the church and conversion to the Gospel are 2 different things. though they're both important, conversion to the gospel is the weightier matter. One could be converted to the church and fulfill there calling and go every sunday, but its a shaky foundation if they aren't converted to the Gospel. As we become converted to the gospel by developing faith, repenting, renewing baptismal and other covenants, keeping the holy ghost, and enduring to the end, we are built on a firm foundation and we cannot be shaken or fall away.
I'm really grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and teach people about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and bring them knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. I know these things are true and can bring us more happiness than any other thing in life.
Well I wish a very Happy Birthday to Justin, and another Happy fathers day to Dad,
and a very very happy Birthday and Baptism to RACHEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
 Elder Partridge
8202 W. Quinault Ave. # D
Kennewick, WA 99336

Cody

Happy Fathers day! Glad to hear from everybody. Sounds like its been a good week. Things are going great in Boardman. Inez Romero is back working day shift, so we're meeting with them regularly again. On Tuesday, our zone leaders and District leaders and trainers all went to Kennewick for leadership training. So that left me working in Hermiston working with 2 other elders that day. Things are going good with Carolyn, our 80 year old investigator. Yesterday was her 2nd time coming to church, and she has the Gospel Principles manual and Relief Society manual to study from. She's a real nice lady, and she has lived in Boardman since 1947. We had the Young men do some service in the yard of one of our new investigators, Melissa. And we started teaching another new investigator through youth friendship in the ward. We've also set up an appointment to teach a friend of Bishop Rogers and he'll be joining us, so things are going great. On Saturday night we met with our Ward Missionary A-team and Sunday morning we started teaching our Preach my Gospel class to the Ward missionaries and prospective elders. So lots of exciting things are happening.
One cool experience in particular, is we were tracting through some apartments a week and a half ago and bumped into a guy named Cody. He said he goes to a christian Church in tricities. We talked to him a bit longer and he said we could come by that saturday afternoon. We went by then, but he wasn't home. We tried the next week and he answered and said he had to go somewhere that saturday but if we'd come the next one he'd be home all day and he even gave us his phone number to check back with him.  On Saturday we decided to leave the car home and get by with walking and getting rides, so we got a ride with Tory, one of the ward missionaries, over to our appointment with Cody, and found a note on the door that said "Mormons: I'm not interested, Thank you" So a bit disheartened, we left a note on the door that said "Thanks for the note, let us know if you ever need anything" with our phone number. That evening, we were walking, and we had 2 appointments cancel on us so we didn't know what to do. Elder Evans got the thought that we should go to Cody's, (He lived pretty close, and get some water) I wanted to just head back to the church and get ready for correlation. We decided to stop and pray about it, and we both felt like we should go to Cody's house. So we did and he let us in! We talked for a bit, had some water and, we'll probably end up being able to go back and teach him! I'm grateful the spirit directed us back there, and I know that something good we'll come out of it!
Well I'll close with a cool scripture I ran into the other day.
 1 Peter 3:15 But ^asanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give ^ban answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the ^chope that is in you with ^dmeekness and ^efear:

Have a great week everyone!
Elder Derek S. Partridge
8202 W. Quinault Ave. # D
Kennewick, WA 99336

referrals

Hey its been a really good week. The ward has been great, we've been getting all kinds of referrals and the members are awesome. We've been receiving a lot of referrals, Its actually become a challenge to keep up with contacting them all. We're hoping to be able to contact all the ones we haven't contacted yet within this coming week, and also to receive 10 more to replace those ones! For one reason or another we've been teaching the Plan of Salvation a lot this week. It seems like either friday or Saturday we ended up teaching it to 3 or 4 people in one day, and to top it off, Elder Evans gave a talk in Sacrament meeting about it yesterday. I see the reason behind it though, I personally love the Plan of Salvation. Although it is kind of lengthy to teach it is one of the most just, fair, and merciful doctrines. I enjoy teaching people about it. I don't think there is anyone who doesn't love the Plan of Salvation.
Well some exciting things have happened in Boardman this week. We're still visiting Humberto. He's still going strong and his Mother is starting to show more interest. We didn't find our 5 investigators last week but I believe we have the potential to get 10 this week, with the referrals and try backs we have lined up. We got a new Elders quorum President and 3 new Ward Missionaries, including a recent convert of a few months. I'm excited for him, I know it will strengthen him and might even motivate him to put in his papers and serve a Full time mission. The work is on fire here and I'm excited to see more miracles happen.
We've been teaching this Older Lady named Carolyn for about a week. She's been making good progress and came to church this Sunday. The Romeros are back on the map. The mom started working day shift again so she'll be less tired now.
Well Glad to hear from everyone Have a great week!

Sincerely Elder Derek Partridge