Stirring Training

It has been yet another great week. On Tuesday we had a zone meeting with a stirring training from our Stake President, Hunsaker, on getting the members involved. He's pretty legit. He is a young guy, served a mission in Japan. He was called as bishop when he was 27 and is now a Stake President and he is in his late 30's to early 40's.He said whenever he goes to a regional meeting the questions asked are always. What stake are you from, how many grand kids do you have and what is your stake baptismal goal? He says it’s kind of intimidating because he doesn't have any grand-kids his wife is pregnant though. He was a really funny and exciting guy.

After Lunch at Cafe Rio we exchanged with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Davis in Wenatchee. We had a good day and were able to go teach a lot of people.

 
Things are going smooth with the Fournier's. They're 9 year old daughter Joann is going to be baptized this Sunday after church. She is a smart little girl and teaching her has been fun. She is adopted. I think she's Japanese but I'm not sure. Everything is going smooth there. They came out to church and our Ward Barbecue this weekend.

The Barbecue had a good turnout. We had a lot of members come we had a couple investigator and less active families come and we also had a lot of non members who were brought by friends from the young men. The youth have done a lot of missionary work here in the past. That is the best kind of mission prep. There is a young man named Kelly who is going to serve his mission in South Africa starting in November. He was invited to mutual by the Bishop’s son, and took the missionary lessons, started coming to church, and got baptized about a year ago. He is inviting friends to activities now.

I've been inspired lately by several accounts and stories involving desire, effort, diligence, and Priorities. One of those being from Elder Dallin H. Oaks' talk entitled desire. He tells the story of Aaron Ralston, a man who was hiking alone in Utah and whose arm became trapped under an 800 pound boulder. After 5 days of struggling to free himself from it, he was about ready to just give up. Then he saw a vision of a 3-year old boy running towards him and he scooped the boy up with his left arm. With this newly kindled flame of a vision, and a desire in him he decided living, and raising a family was more important than keeping his right arm and dying. And so he broke the bone, and cut off his arm with his pocket knife, and hiked the 5 miles back to his car and survived.

 I want to maintain righteous desires, a heightened vision, and willingness to put forth effort, diligence, and sacrifice in order to reach my goals, for the rest of my mission and my future.

Have a great week everyone I'll see you soon!

-Elder Partridge