July 14, 2010 Email

Dear Family and Everyone Else,
I love the packages soooooooo much! Thanks a ton for them! It felt so good to have some more socks and extremely good to have more food! It's funny because after I got off the computer last week I thought, “oh, I should have asked for fruit snacks,” and then you sent them. My parents love me.
That’s sweet that Rebecca’s going to Atlanta. It should be pretty awesome. Almost as cool as Salt Lake. :)
Thanks for the good news! No more MRI’s for 2 years!!!
That's just cool that you're in Orlando. Thanks for giving me the advice to read at least an hour a day, Dad. It's a good thing that I already do that every day so I can be an expert in pretty much any subject, only I think the scriptures outweigh anything else that could be read. That coupled with Preach My Gospel for while I’m on the mish.
Guess what? I spoke in 3 wards this last Sunday on 3 different topics, and they all went really well thanks to the help of the Spirit and the gifts that Heavenly Father has blessed me with.
So yesterday we added a guy named Fred Preston. Fred is displaced from hurricane Katrina and has been in SLC since then. Anywho, Fred is funny. He said how he really liked our church. He'd been going to the Baptist Church for a while and he got tired of hearing about that fire and brimstone over and over. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was really excited, so we committed him to read Mormon Chapter 9. Then we committed him for baptism and he said, "Well, I'll have to really think about that, I'm gonna talk to my friend who's Mormon and all, but I'm gonna seriously think about that!” It's funny because it's hard for me to understand him because he has such a thick southern accent.
We're also teaching a guy named Garret Nicholson. Garret is a former investigator and he used to play football for the Y, but now he is going to go to the U. We met with him a couple days ago and explained to him that we're not just going to teach him so that he can know things, because any church and religion out there can make a bad man good and a good man better, but we're going to teach him how he can return to live with God again. We talked about our purpose here on earth and it was pretty spiritual.
Last year Elder Jackson was over in this area and he worked around this guy Kyle because he was teaching George's wife and what not. Anywho, we saw Kyle on Saturday and it was pretty sweet. So Kyle has had a rougher past and is 25 and just got shot at the other week at the Samoan BBQ on Memorial Day. So we're teaching Kyle now because we really want to help him and in our lesson with him the other day we read with him in Alma Chapter 36 and the Spirit was so strong while we were reading through it with him. I learned so much that I'd never even thought about before. That's one way you can tell that the Spirit's there. Plus just the way you feel. Anyway Kyle was so bright and beaming when we left that day it was so cool! He's like, "So when are you gonna be back...What time...ALRIGHT!"
I know the trials I’ve been through have made me strong and I plan on staying strong, relying on the Lord to continue to overcome my challenges and progressing in all that I do! Love you tons! Thanks bunches for the packages. They really made my day/week.

Love,
Elder Partridge