Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Fournier's

Hey family, where did July go?
Week 2 in Chelan has been splendid! I got lucky with the shuffle, and scored a second zone temple trip, so we went there on Tuesday o' course. Things are going good here, Bishop unveiled a plan to revamp the spanish membership. The goal is to make it a branch, we're going to start doing activities every week for los hispanos and giving them there own sacrament meeting in the relief society room again. So we're excited to see that happen. It's that kind of concerted effort that makes things happen.
We had the pleasure of meeting the Fournier's. Anyone meet any fournier's down in AZ? They moved from Mesa a while back. Bro. Fournier got baptized here a couple of months ago, and his wife and kids are joining him soon. They are a wonderful family. Their son is a prodigy pianist, actor and baseball player. One of those people that make you want to develop your talents more.
They're awesome though, Bro. Fournier works as a school teacher during the year, but during the summer, he's been working at blueberry hills, apparently a blue berry farm with a restaurant. Sounds like they have some good food. They gave us a tub of blueberries, some of them the size of grapes. They were delicious, and "full of anti-oxidants" :)
 
We also had a zone conference, in which they had me bare my final testimony, I shared a realization I had, the lord needs his missionaries a ton, but he needs his Returned missionaries just as much. I look at the great work Brian and Jordan have and are doing in there callings and see that.
 
We had our Pioneer breakfast at the church on saturday morning and had a good turnout.
All is well, all is well
Have a great week everyone
Elder Partridge

Monday, July 22, 2013

Augustine/ April Blog

Dear Family,
Glad to hear Ma and Pa are back in the coop. Sounds like a good scoop. We've had a good week here. I think the coolest thing that happened, was that my trainer, Elder Bao, or I should say Christian Bao, came back to visit the mission. He came to the baptism on Saturday. That was cool, he is doing well at BYU. He finished his first semester and is starting his second. I can tell his accent is fading. He hasn't been speaking Spanish very much, I imagine. He is doing good though. The other elders had a baptism, for a guy named Santos. His cousin, Leonardo was baptized a couple of years ago in Pasco. He moved to Utah and spent some time volunteering at the MTC. He recently moved back and brought Santos to church. They had been teaching him for a while and now he was ready so it was a cool experience. This week, we have been working really hard. We ended up tracting a ton. We saw fruit Sunday afternoon when Augustine, a 16 year old, we had been teaching, decided to be baptized. We're going to work with him to get him ready for may 18th, and hopefully get his grandmother more involved too. His father died several years ago and so he has been raised by his grandma. Its been really good!
A lot of our other friends are doing well too.
I've loved listening to conference again through the week. I see some common themes with maintaining the home as a refuge from the world, and member missionary work, ministering, and rescuing. It was truly a good conference.
Well I hope all have a great week!
-Elder Partridge

mission transition


So here's what’s up on the Chelan Front, Its way beautiful out here. Just picture a Blue lake in a valley with beautiful homes, and green orchards up the hills on either side. It’s ridiculous how scenic this place is. We cover a ward with a little Spanish group. It’s a nice area. I'm with Elder Berg; he is from Ogden, UT. He's a cool guy!

So we've been working with a Spanish family, they're son,Manny got baptized a couple weeks ago. He is 16 years old, so now we're working on getting the rest, his mother is pretty receptive. It should be good. He is reading the Book of Mormon a lot and getting in to it.

Our ward is very missionary minded. The main topic of ward council, Sacrament meeting, Gospel Doctrine, and Priesthood was Member Missionary work. I thought it was interesting how that worked out. I hope everyone is getting the message! 

The Spokane mission to Kennewick mission transition has been kind of bumpy, that’s why they sent us up here to see if we could smooth things out. At first among the elders in my district I felt like I was in enemy territory but things have gotten a lot better. It’s been hard to politely say, yes I know that’s how your old Mission President, AP, Zone Leader, District leader, did things, but we do things differently in this mission. It’s going take patience.

It’s a beautiful area though, one I didn't ever imagine going too, but I'm glad to be here, and glad to get some good work done here.

Apparently this is a hot spot for summer homes. So far I've heard that someone from the band stone temple pilots, and guns n roses have one up here. Apparently the stone temple pilots one drives a hummer around. I've seen a black hummer twice. I wonder if it was him...

We went to have dinner with and teach the future son in law of a family that is staying in a summer cabin up in the mountains to the east, they said the guy from stone temple pilots lives in their "neighborhood" Driving up there was like driving up the trail at camp Geronimo, it was just dirt with pine trees on either side.

It’s a very fun, interesting area. And I'm excited to see more of what it has in store.

Have a good week everyone,

Elder Partridge

Monday, July 15, 2013

Chelan


Things are going great in Connell. One thing we decided to try out is doing companionship study with the priests. We tried it out with Brent Rowley from Basin City on Wednesday night. It was awesome; we studied from Preach my Gospel, and practiced some teaching. It turned out well.

There is a girl named Dyoni that has been coming to church since November, we were able to go teach her and her cousin with Sister Hadley. It went really well and it was a very spiritual lesson.

So the big news for this week is I'm getting transferred. It’s more of a shuffle of the mission, not a full on transfer, since we're not getting new missionaries and none are going home. The purpose is to mix the missionaries in our new boundaries, and get ready for the 38 new missionaries we'll be receiving in August. It caught me by surprise. I'm getting transferred up to Chelan, WA tomorrow. I'll send pictures next week. I'll be sad to go, the members and people here are awesome. I think I'm going to see if I can come back to work in Bishop Hawkins Cherry orchards next summer, to make some money. That would be a fun excuse to come visit, and make money.

 Well not much to report because I just emailed you last Wednesday, but I’m doing good and am excited to see what Chelan has in store.

 



Have a great week everyone!

Elder Partridge

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Member Missionary Work


Dear Family, sorry I'm getting to you late. We have temple P-day today so we had an extended week. We've had a lot of good happen. We've been going around to our bishops and members sharing our message about the member missionary work. We continue to see a good response. We bore our testimonies in both of the wards on Sunday. We're basically just rallying support. It’s working though. Sister Hadley, whose husband is in the stake presidency got up and bore her testimony also, and then after the meeting asked us how she could help, so we set up a dinner appointment for the next day, where we extended our member missionary challenge. I think the members as a whole are impressed by the service and proselyting work we've done, and so they want to help. It continues to go well. We have another Idea; we decided to start doing companionship studies with Priests in the wards to teach them from preach my gospel. This is also going to be a very good thing. We're trying to do all we can to build the trust of the members. It’s going quite awesomely.

As far as service goes, we've done remodeling, weed spraying, and wood chopping in the past week. Which I imagine has also contributed to the success. We've got some appointments set up with new people to teach them so hopefully we'll be able to see more and more results!

We got to meet the Ware's on the 4th! They are awesome. I just think they're so wonderful; it takes away the pain of seeing the Greer's leave. They're from Draper Utah, and they have lived there awhile. President Ware is a very cheerful man; it’s going to be fun serving with him.

We talked to a really interesting guy while tracting out in the middle of nowhere. His name was Chris, and he has 6000 acres of farm. He let us right in and we had a talk with him. He's a widower in his 50's. He had a Smithsonian model of the Star ship Enterprise on his bookshelf. He was really nice, but not too interested. It’s a cool, interesting area here. Most people farm a couple hundred to a couple thousand acres; those guys that have any less are "hobby farmers." I think it'd be kind of nice to be a farmer.

Well I hope y'all have a good week! Thanks for the letters and love.

Elder Partridge

 

Monday, July 1, 2013

Cherry Harvest

It has been A good week! I've got some good pictures loaded up here for you to see! We had transfers 2 weeks back as you know. I got to see Elder Dowuona - Hammond there! He got transferred down to Umatilla. That is by Hermiston and Boardman, down  in Oregon. It was good to see him. I got a picture with him. There is also a picture of our District now, consisting of (Left to Right) Hermana Holladay, Hermana Robison, Elder Larsen and Me. 
Okay this week has been sweet!  Our efforts to work with the members continue to be fruitful. In the Connell branch council, they revised our mission plan. Its pretty good when the Spanish branch that has sacrament meeting in the relief society room gets on top of things. It is a great little branch, so we're excited to see growth. The Broadcast has got people talking. We're going to see good stuff happen.
We had a good fhe with the Brook family at the Davidson home, Brandon accepted the challenge to read the book of mormon. We'll continue to work with him.
The work was a bit slower because of the great cherry harvest, so we decided to take the opportunity to get a lot of service done. We helped a brother from Basin City 1st ward who gives us rides to pasco, get an old dresser out of his storage unit, we went with Sis. Rodriguez to help paint the house of one of her friends who is not a member of our church, we felled several small trees that were blocking the sun to a sisters garden, and we sync'd the same sisters wii controllers so her 2 year old grand daughter could play just dance.
It was a good week! We continue to see hearts change and miracles happen!
Well we've got good stuff coming up this week. President and sister Ware have officially stepped in, we're going to meet them as a zone on the 4th. We have some other good stuff happening too!
Have a great week everyone!
-Elder Partridge