Knitting

I guess everybody has had a busy week? Well we've had a good week here. The Romeros are on track to get baptized this Saturday. So we've been resolving any worries and getting the kids ready and all that. We had Stake Conference this week. So that was cool that I got a double dosage of it haha. This week we were helping out a member do piping for a sprinkler system in one of his pastures and he broke a water main with his tractor, so we helped him dig out the broken part. Other than that we've been working with a lot of less active and part member families. Its been getting really beautiful here with spring in full bloom as you can see in the pictures I've enclosed. Sister Hoffman, the lady we live with, taught us how to knit so after we come home from work and do our planning session, we'll sit down and knit with her. I've been working on a hat but I'd also like to make socks and a tie. It gives us something fun to do at night after we get home. By the way we've got to figure out Mothers day. Get it all set up, it'd be cool if we could get multiple computers on a skype video conference so that way I could see the whole family. So the assignment is to see if that is possible. I'm not very educated with skype. Well thats about it for this week. I'd love to hear from y'all
Love, Elder Partridge

Romero Family

So some big news this week, eh?! My sister is gettin' hitched! Que Bueno, que bueno, pues.
Dad-Glad you and mom got a double dosage of Conference. I'm pretty excited to get the Ensign so I can read through it again. There were a lot of good talks. How was everybody else's week? The family Emails been a bit quiet!

Well we had a pretty good week here in Boardman. A bit off, but still good. It was Off because Elder Richards got sick, so we had to spend all of Friday, and parts of Saturday and Sunday at home. So during those times, while he was out cold sleeping, I got some extra study in and watched some of our Missionary movies, like Prophet of the Restoration, and the testaments, etc.

For the most part though we had a good week, we got a lot of work done. The Romero Family, the ones who are getting baptized, are all doing well but we had to push the baptismal date back a week because they were going to be out of town. Our stake is also planning a Pioneer Trek for this summer so we went and visited some less active kids and they agreed to go, so that will be a good experience for them. We also got a chance to have a lesson with the Bakers at the Stake Presidents house. I figure you're pretty good if you've got the stake President fellowshipping your investigator. The Dad has a prosthetic leg and he coaches track, and he has 2 sons, one 19 and one 15. They're pretty cool. Before the lesson President Schnell was talking about how they were also friends with the Cook family. I was amused but thought it quite natural that the Cooks and the Bakers would be friends.

I heard from Elder Bao this week in a letter so that was cool. I had written him and gave him the update on Grandview so he was happy for that. Elder Richards will be finishing his mission and going to BYU this fall so that’s exciting. Especially because he had a bad GPA but a good ACT similar to how I did, and he got accepted so maybe there will be hope for me! We'll get to that when the time comes though. This week we had a bit of a better experience in Choir. We practiced the songs again, and we did a lot better on the Bass part, so that’s good. We performed hymn 8 in sacrament meeting and it turned out good!
Well that’s about it for this week, Take care everyone!!!!!!!
Elder Partridge

 "Cowabunga!" as Brother Walty, one of the high priests in the Boardman ward would say. Transfers have come! I'm currently writing to you from the Umatilla library. Between Boardman and Hermiston. Its a beautiful sunny P day with my New Companero Elder Richards. It’s been a pretty good week! Lets Flash back: The beginning of the week was spent saying goodbye to the Members and some investigators in Grandview, then Wednesday Morning we headed to the transfer site up at the Yakima Stake Center. From there we waited, and watched Glenn Beck's conversion story to pass the time waiting for the transfer car to get there. Side note, Glenn Beck is a crazy cracker. Haha. From there we rode down to the stake center by the Colombia River down in Tricities. From there our transfer group split up, everyone was staying in tri cities except for me. Elder Vance one of our Senior Missionaries came and picked me up and we made the trek down to Hermiston OR. I remember crossing the Columbia River, the natural border between Washington and Oregon and thinking "Wow this is it, the beginning of the Next chapter of my mission. For the past 4 months I'd been in the Yakima valley with occasional trips to Kennewick, but now I was breaking new ground. Fun fact, we passed the world’s largest Irrigated farm on the way. Apparently its owned by the church. Elder Vance told me a little bit about it. Well we arrived in Hermiston, and from there I met my New Companion Elder Richards. Elder Richards is a good guy, he is from Houston TX, he's an old man, (He has about 4 months left in his mission.) and he trained Elder Swenson, was companions with Elder Bao and they got along very well, and to top it off, My first night in the mission home he's the one that took me out to get a teaching experience. So I'd heard a lot about him haha. He's a really good missionary and I can tell we're going to have a fun transfer.

As for the Boardman area, it’s a small little farming town. The people in the ward are really nice, and we get tons of service opportunities working on peoples farms. There's a family of 3 who are on date to be baptized on the 21st of this month, so that'll be exciting! So we've been having fun. Saturday morning, the Walty's invited us over to have breakfast at the Senior Center, (all you can eat breakfast buffet for only 4.50 CHA CHING$) and after to come over to their house and trim the dead branches from their willow tree. So that was a lot of fun. There a really good couple and we enjoyed helping them out.
The ward is really fun. Sunday morning we had ward council at 8 in the morning, and they have a really good ward mission leader. I was really impressed because they seemed to be men of action. It wasn't just like "Okay we need to activate so and so's sons" It was that and then, "Okay how are we going to do it" and they all brain stormed and it was beautiful. The ward is a great help with missionary work, they're really good at giving referrals and fellowshipping, I feel like this will be a great place to serve. After Ward council we had Choir Practice, and it was pretty funny because we were the only men there. The choir director is from the Philippines and she just had a list of obscure songs I'd never heard before to have us sing, and we'd go through it with some difficulty trying to sing the Men’s part without any practice and after each song, she would turn to us and say "Elders, you're sounding kind of weak, you need to be better"
I'm convinced she's going to make me tougher by the end of my time here, hahaha. Well that’s about it for the week, love ya bunches, take care!

Boardman

Well this week was pretty great! General Conference was awesome! I loved every talk. I saw a lot of common themes. Priesthood session talked alot about not just being active priesthood holders, as in going to church every week. But being active priesthood holders as in being worthy and anxiously engaged and searching for opportunities to use your priesthood to serve others. It was a really good conference. I also enjoyed L. Tom Perry's talk. The story he started off with was great. Elder Uchtdorfs talk in priesthood and sunday morning were both good.

Other than that the big news for this week is Transfer calls! Now I had become pretty confident that Elder Swenson and I would stay another transfer in Grandview. We'd been working hard, we've had success, and found a lot of people to teach. But that just goes to show you can't predict these kinds of things. I've been called by the spirit of the lord to another place. This Wednesday I'll be leaving for Boardman! Boardman is about an hour and a half south of the Tricities, and it crosses over into oregon. So its like 30 minutes outside of Hermiston, OR. Its pretty exciting. I'm going to miss Grandview a bunch though. I love the area and the people in it. Its definitely like leaving home again. I figure by the end of my mission, I'll have several "homes" that I will have left behind. So today and tomorrow will be saying goodbye and then wednesday starting out in boardman. I hear I cover an English Ward with a Spanish group, and then 2 other English branches. So thats a lot of english, haha.One of those english branches is down in Fossil, OR. about an hour and a half away, and that branch has 6 members. Boardman is also teeney tiney. I'll let you know more about that next week!

Everyone have a good week!

-Elder Partridge