Portland

Wow 23 new missionaries?? Thats NUTS Happy Birthday mom!!!!!

 

Well its been a good week here in Vancouver. October has started and still no rain. We had our temple trip this morning, thats why I'm emailing on Tuesday instead of Monday again. It was cool to have another opportunity to go to the portland temple. I really enjoy the drive through Portland, everything looks so interesting, I'd like to visit Portland in depth when I'm able, but as for now its out of the mission. Anyways this week has been pretty good. We've worked a lot with Odi this week and his roomate Pedro. Pedro is the brother of sister Morelli and is a big old goof ball. Its hard to get him to take things seriously. We did however have success with showing him some of the ol' book of mormon seminary videos. He seemed to get a lot out of them and enjoy them. Odi's still doing better step by step. We're teaching him gospel principles that we feel will aid in his efforts to quit smoking. We talked about the power of prayer, and read Enos with him. We watched the BoM Seminary video about agency, which by the way is phenomenal. I would recommend it to anyone. As long as we keep working with him and supporting him he'll be able to make that change in his life. Ismael is doing good also. We're having some problems with german, but we're still working with him.

We're pretty excited for conference coming up!!! I like to read the opening verses of Mosiah 2 and apply them to my preparation for General Conference. I like how king Benjamin opens his address by asking that they not "come up hither to ^btrifle with the words" which he spoke to them, "but that [they] should ^chearken unto [him], and open [their] ears that [they] may hear, and [their] ^dhearts that [they] may understand, and [their] ^eminds that the ^fmysteries of God may be unfolded to [their] view[s]."

This is the attitude that I would like to be able to take towards every general conference. I know that as we do that we will be blessed and receive "that portion that shall be meted unto every man."

 

Well thanks for the birthday wishes hope everyone has a great week!!!!

Love, Elder Derek Partridge