Monday, March 25, 2013

Jose


We've been teaching a man name Jose, apparently he had met with the missionaries before and decided not to get baptized because his wife didn't want to do with the Church. We've met with him again; Estella's biggest concern is she doesn't want to read the "other book" just the bible. We're going to do our best to help her soften her heart. Jose read in Alma 7 and told us he believes its true, and believes it’s his second chance, so we're going to see what we can do this week. We met another family of 4 on Sunday afternoon, they were pretty nice, and were interested. They're moving to union gap next weekend, so they'll be in the Hermanas' area so that will be good. We've continued finding high amounts of investigators in our little Spanish district, and so it’s been cool. Everybody's teaching pools are getting built up and we're starting to see some miracles. The 4-ship had a baptism on Saturday, and I confirmed on Sunday. This was somebody Elder Diaz and I had started working with before the transfer, Iseah.(weird spelling of Isaiah) His mom is about 30 and she used to go to the branch when she was in young women's but her family fell away. After many many years of being off the map, she bumped in to sister Ibarra at fiesta foods and said she wanted to come to the church. Iseah is 9 and he was fun to work with. He's a bright kid, and he enjoys learning about the gospel and the scripture stories. I had the opportunity to interview him the Sunday before.

We hit a mile stone this week, Elder Hammond and I have now at least gone by to visit every family that we didn't know in our area. A lot of them had moved, so the next thing will be to call the phone numbers we have, or ask members to see if we can hunt some of them down. As district leader of the missionaries in our branch, I'm trying to think of ways we can get more organized and work together more. I could see it being a real blessing and a relief to the branch President.

Well I hope everybody has a good week!

Elder Derek Partridge

 

Monday, March 18, 2013


It’s been a good week, It's been pretty busy with meetings. We had DLC in Ellensburg on Tuesday (District Leaders in our zone with the zone leaders), Leadership training in Kennewick on Wednesday, (all district leaders and Zone Leaders on the east side of the mission) and zone meeting in Selah on Thursday, (all missionaries in our zone) we left these very enlightened. We're starting a challenge, but I'd prefer to call it a unified Book of Mormon study. Rather than reading the whole thing in a certain amount of time, we are studying several chapters on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, leading up to Easter and General Conference. It starts with 2 Nephi 2 and ends with Moroni 7, with authors ranging from Lehi, to Alma, to Jesus Christ. It’s been quite a revelatory experience.

I'll share my first take-away from the Book of Mormon reading. As I was going through it I decided to underline the opposites: bad things, (primarily barriers in our mortal state which separate us from god, trials, consequences of sin), with black; and good things (what helps us to return to live with our Heavenly Father, good consequences, blessings) with Red. It brought me into a realization. The need for opposition in all things isn't only because we couldn't have joy if we didn't have pain, but we couldn't be exalted if we didn't first go through trials. Just as one can't get from the top of a hill to the summit of a mountain without first hiking down the hill through the valley and up the mountain, Adam and Eve couldn't have gotten from Eden to the Celestial Kingdom without eating of the forbidden fruit and passing through the lone and dreary world. Thankfully because of Jesus Christ we not only have somebody to carry our pack or give us a hand during the hard times but somebody who can carry us "on Eagle's Wings" at the times where our strength and our efforts simply are not sufficient to go on our own. That's my take-away on the atonement for this week.

Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Partridge

 

Eagle's Wings


It’s been a good week, It's been pretty busy with meetings. We had DLC in Ellensburg on Tuesday (District Leaders in our zone with the zone leaders), Leadership training in Kennewick on Wednesday, (all district leaders and Zone Leaders on the east side of the mission) and zone meeting in Selah on Thursday, (all missionaries in our zone) we left these very enlightened. We're starting a challenge, but I'd prefer to call it a unified Book of Mormon study. Rather than reading the whole thing in a certain amount of time, we are studying several chapters on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, leading up to Easter and General Conference. It starts with 2 Nephi 2 and ends with Moroni 7, with authors ranging from Lehi, to Alma, to Jesus Christ. It’s been quite a revelatory experience.

I'll share my first take-away from the Book of Mormon reading. As I was going through it I decided to underline the opposites: bad things, (primarily barriers in our mortal state which separate us from god, trials, consequences of sin), with black; and good things (what helps us to return to live with our Heavenly Father, good consequences, blessings) with Red. It brought me into a realization. The need for opposition in all things isn't only because we couldn't have joy if we didn't have pain, but we couldn't be exalted if we didn't first go through trials. Just as one can't get from the top of a hill to the summit of a mountain without first hiking down the hill through the valley and up the mountain, Adam and Eve couldn't have gotten from Eden to the Celestial Kingdom without eating of the forbidden fruit and passing through the lone and dreary world. Thankfully because of Jesus Christ we not only have somebody to carry our pack or give us a hand during the hard times but somebody who can carry us "on Eagle's Wings" at the times where our strength and our efforts simply are not sufficient to go on our own. That's my take-away on the atonement for this week.

Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Partridge

 

Monday, March 11, 2013

Ammon


Well, this has been a sweet week. Elder Hammond and I have been working with a family the zone leaders were teaching before the area split. It’s a single mother with a 17 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. The son was out of the picture and hadn't ever really been in with the missionary lessons before. We kind of pulled him in one night and it’s done wonders. The daughter Joanna has been pretty reluctant to go to a different church and Irma didn't want to come alone so they'd kind of gotten stuck there. Fernando showed up and we started putting an increased focus on him. Getting him to pray, to feel the spirit. We had a good lesson and then came back to help them make carne asada on Saturday and were able to get Irma and Fernando to the third hour of church yesterday. It was really good. Irma loved relief society. It was really good for Fernando in young men’s too. Pienso que a El le va a encantar los 'boy scouts.'

We found just under 40 new investigators last week as a district, so we were all super excited for that. The branch is going to explode!

We had something awesome happen on Thursday afternoon. We went to try a lady named Josefina. She let us in and after we had sat down, before we had even gotten a chance to get started she said something to the effect of, "I have had a lot of questions, and I want to ask you: When Jesus was with his people in Israel and Jerusalem teaching them and all that, what were los mexicanos doing???"

and we were just like "WOW"

I've always had a goal to have an experience like Ammon, and Aaron on my mission where I'm swallowed up with joy and pass out. I was a little surprised it didn't happen there. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and we're going back tonight!

We've just been seeing all kinds of good things so we're excited. Have a good week everybody!

-Elder Derek Partridge

Monday, March 4, 2013

Elder Hammond


Transfer week is down, I'm now with Elder Dowuona-Hammond and we're doing great! He is from Akra, Ghana. His parents are converts but he grew up in the church. He's AWESOME! He went to UVU for a year and a half before coming on his mission, and he is 22 years old. I'm excited to have another opportunity to train. We've been working hard in our new area boundaries. Its been a bit of a shaky start trying to get settled in, but we're focusing hard on finding. One thing we've put a focus on is we've gone through the branch list and highlighted all 42 of the families that live in our area, and we're going to go out and meet each one and look for part member families that we can work with. So last night we were able to find one out in the west valley and we got their phone number to go by and teach them this week.

The district is doing great. Same deal, kind of working into the area split. all have been working very hard and I know within a week or 2 we'll be seeing things pick up a ton. I'm excited to serve with a district of such dedicated and hardworking elders and sisters. All serving in the same branch! Our Branch is so excited to have 8 missionaries. We had Fast and testimony meeting and had a ton of people get up and bear there testimony on missionary work.

Elder Hammond is progressing well, boy does he have a way with people. He has a strong testimony, he is humble and teachable. He is constantly looking for ways to improve. It’s exciting to be able to both work hard and see miracles happen as we follow the spirit.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Derek Partridge