Monday, April 22, 2013

Witness


This weekend we saw some good stuff. We've been getting a lot of lukewarm investigators here, so that had been frustrating. We were trying our best to work with the ones we had and keep on finding new ones, and we've seen a lot of success. This weekend, we were able to drop several who weren't elect, and find and teach several others who are willing to progress. One in particular was a man named Jose. We went with, Alex, one of our priests to teach a new investigator we found. That investigator was not home, so after weighing our options, we decided to tract. After several unfavorable responses we met Jose. He invited us out to sit on his patio and brought out a big catholic bible that his recently passed brother had given him. His brother was a catholic priest. We shared a verse with him and than brought up the Book of Mormon. After teaching about it we had Alex bear his testimony about it. Jose agreed to read it and have us come back. On Sunday we went back to teach him, and he hadn't read the chapter we left with him, 2 Nephi 9. So, we decided to read part with him. After reading verses 1-13 and explaining the atonement, we asked how he felt about it. He said he felt good, and so we shared Moroni's promise with him, and he said he'd pray about it right there. After a little bit of coaching, he offered the prayer asking God if it were true. We all felt the spirit so strong. He received his witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon right there.

We went to visit the quarreling mother and daughter that I told you about last week. They didn't complete there reading assignment, neither of them were really willing to listen and accept that they needed to change, so we had to drop them for now.

We've seen some progress with the branch too. We're going to plan a branch family evening to be held every 3 months for any members, investigators, and friends. It seems like a good opportunity to get everyone united.

We also asked about the branch mission plan and what we needed to do to help. Which naturally helps them see, "oh if the missionaries are going to do there part, we better do our part too."

We're going to see some really good stuff with that, I can tell.

On Friday, we had interviews and specialized training. Specialized training was awesome, we've been doing great with new investigators as a mission, now they want to talk about getting those new investigators to church. One Idea we are focussing on is church tours. It seems good, we did some role plays, and it seems that if you can get anyone to the chapel to feel the spirit there, then they'd want to come back every week.

Interviews were awesome. I believe it was my last interview with President Greer, though, which isn't so awesome. Takeaway being, I'm doing good with my service responsibilities, and I just need to keep it up, so that is the plan for now.

To answer Brian's question, I seem to have lost my camera battery charger during a transfer, so it's been out of service for a couple of weeks.

Well everybody, I wish you all a good week, and Happy Birthday to Dad and Heather!!!!

-Elder Partridge

 

 

 

Monday, April 15, 2013

110 oyms


It has been a wonderful week. My thoughts have been on a couple of different things. First off Vuelvo a repetir, I loved Conference. We've done great on a lot of things as far as lessons and new investigators go. We got 119 oyms this week. We're really trying to find those who will receive us, and as it says in Mosiah 7:18 It is an "effectual struggle."

We've seen some good stuff and miracles and hope to see continual progression.

We got a new elder in our District as I said we would last week. His name is Elder Cuas Lara, he is from Dominican Republic. He's brought a good energy to the branch. It's always fun having a Native Speaker. He is a convert of 8 years. He lived in New York City 3 years working at McDonalds to raise money for his mission, after which he returned home to finish preparing. He is very funny and I'm excited to go on an exchange with him soon.

We were teaching a mother and her daughter who were at odds with each other. We busted out a part from the proclamation

"Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

We taught about how no one is perfect therefore we're all prone to make mistakes. In families there needs to be repentance of these mistakes and forgiveness of these mistakes in order to achieve family happiness. They seemed to consider it. We assigned them to read the gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet together. Hopefully they will, that will help things a lot.

We also taught another guy who seemed quite secular. He did say he had interest in the church because of what he saw youth doing as missionaries. Though he didn't profess to be remotely religious, he did say he was open to learn more and read the Book of Mormon. It was cute because he had a daughter that was 4. An only child and I could just see why it would be a bad idea to just have 1 child. She was adorable but at the same time a hand full.

Well I'm about out of Email time; hope you all have a wonderful week!

-Elder Derek Partridge

 

Monday, April 8, 2013

Conference and Transfer Calls


-Hey everyone, it has been a wonderful week here in Yakima.

We got transfer calls, I'm staying to finish training Elder Hammond for another 6 weeks. Elder Diaz is going home, and Elder Hornberger, his "son", is getting a little "son" of his own! That is going to be exciting. No changes with the Zone Leaders, one of our Hermanas is going to train and open a new area in Hood River, while the other one is going to train here in a tripanionship with another Hermana, because we have an odd number of hermanas now.

Conference was awesome! There were a lot of take away's I got. I loved all of the talks. I liked Elder Callister's in priesthood a lot. "Don't die with your music still in you" that was really good. Elder Perry's was very powerful too. It was a very good conference.

We had a zone barbecue in between Sunday sessions at a member's house. That was a lot of fun.

We have a lot of new missionaries coming into our zone on Wednesday; it is always fun to see the work hasten first hand!

We've seen a lot of good things happen in our area. We've found several investigators and families with young men, so we're going to increase our efforts to get the young men out to lessons with us.