Monday, January 28, 2013

4panionship

First Week in Yakima, was Awesome! I'm here with my companions, Elder Diaz, Elder Evans, and Elder Calder.
3/4 of us got here on Wednesday. So Elder Diaz and I were doubled in basically. One bonus we have that the 4panionship in the past hasn't had is that we have 2 cars. Before 2 elders would be dropped off in one part of town to walk around and get work done, and find their way back home while the others had the car. But our mission has received more cars, so Elder Diaz and I are blessed to have a brand new Chevy Cruze! Also, with the transfer I got called as District Leader. Our district is made up of us 4 and the Yakima 2nd ward Elders.


Well day 1 in Yakima was sweet, after a long drive, and getting settled in the apartment, Elder Evans gave us a list of former investigators, pmf's and, try backs to go visit. We went out to work, the results of day 1 was 5 new investigators, 3 of those with a baptismal date.

We had an awesome experience this night. We got to this apartment complex. We had no name, just an apartment number. We were walking there when Elder Diaz kicked something that went sliding across the icy ground. We picked it up to find it was a woman's wallet/purse. We opened it up to look for an address. The driver’s license had a wapato address on it, we kept looking and found a bill with the address to that apartment complex, to number a5. That was the apartment we were going to! We went there and delivered the wallet, to Concha, she was very grateful, we told her who we were and she invited us to come back the next day! That next day we taught her the Restoration, she was really excited to learn more and said she felt like we were sent from God, with the purse incident and all. We'd have to agree with that, we know the Lord provided us with that opportunity!

We've found some other interesting new investigators. Marcos and Isabel, who had been going to an English ward and loving it even though they couldn't understand anything.

Ricardo, a guy in his 20's who is going to college to study, engineering, computer programming, microbiology, and quantum physics and another couple who investigated the church in Idaho, who we found tracting. We've just seen a lot of great things happening. The branch is large, the largest in the mission, It very well could go ward, with a little bit more work. I unofficially received a call as primary pianist yesterday at church. They gave me a book and the song they needed me to play next week. 3 days a week, we wake up at 6 to go to the church and exercise, I guess I could take 5-10 minutes out of that to practice. But overall, it’s been an awesome week! The lord has just been opening doors left and right. We’re excited to get a great start to a successful transfer! I hope all have a good week!

-Elder Partridge

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Yakima

Hey everyone! With the news of last week, I believe I forgot to inform you that transfers were coming up. I'm going to Yakima tomorrow. We got the call on Saturday. As it always is, I'm not happy to be leaving vancouver, but always excited to get to know a new area, and take another step in my mission. I'll be serving with 3 other elders. Elder Diaz, my companion, and Elders Evans and Gray, the two zone leaders. I was companions with Evans in Boardman, and I was in Elder Gray's district back in Grandview, so that will be cool. It will also be very cool to serve in the Yakima branch. Its the biggest branch in our mission. I'm really excited to go and hit the ground running there.
I'm going to miss vancouver though. I've been here 7 months. This is home. I will definitely have to come back and visit, soon. I promised everyone I would. And have had several people offer me a room, should I return. This was a very good week. We put a big focus on getting investigators to progress. We've done a lot of finding, but it had been hard getting people to keep commitments. As we did this we saw a big success. Raul and Perla, whom we've been teaching for a couple of weeks now, had accepted everything and the book of mormon well and were even willing to be baptized, the only problem was, they wanted to come to church first and see how it was. That really wasn't the problem, the problem being, though they told us they wanted to come see the church, they never did. Every week they would end up not showing up. We'd call them and they wouldn't return our calls on sunday, and then they would recommit to coming to church. This week we just talked to them about how keeping the commitments are steps that build our faith and prepare for baptism and we got them to set a date, and commit to come to church, this sunday, and to our surprise and joy, they came! All three hours! and now they have a baptismal date for March. I'm very content, I can't wait to see there picture in the mission newsletter!
Well I hope everyone has a good week!
Elder Partridge

Saturday, January 19, 2013

jump and excel

Hey everybody,
Probably the highlight being interviews with President and Sister Greer. I went out of there feeling good. If for no other reason than just training the past 2 transfers had been a growing experience, at times I just shook my head and thought to myself that I wasn't doing good enough. Which isn't too far from the truth. When it all came down to it, here almost at the end of training, they said that they could see I'd done a good job. We also talked about transfers and the area, and spanish work in general here. In the next 2 transfers we'll receive about a total of 20 new spanish elders, and only 2 of our spanish elders are finishing the mission. We're definitely seeing the boost sooner than we thought. We're looking at 9 new areas by the end of February. Its marvellous to see what is happening. Also with where I'm at in my mission, Sister Greer emphasized that at 18 months its jump or dump time. Some missionaries, jump and excel for the rest of their missions, and others think they've done enough and dump for the final 6 months, she asked which one I would be. I said "Jump!" Man just to think that I'm almost at that point makes me sad, I just want to keep going. I don't want to stop! But it happens, so you've just got to make sure you do as much work as you can when you're in the service of the lord. I feel for Mom and Dad. I know they've put in there all though.
I'm greatful for the opportunity to serve as a missionary, I know that it is only by following the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and enduring to the end, can man be saved.
I hope you all have a great week.
-Elder Partridge