May 16, 2011 Email

Malo e lelei,

Mom, I never got the lds.org video of Kayla and Lauren, can you send them to me again? Thanks. And ya it's funny cuz I feel the same way; this week has gone by way fast and it still feels like it's been forever since I talked with you guys. Only this time you won't have till December to talk to me again. haha Crazy.

Welcome to missionary work, mom. Lots of rescheduling.

Speaking of missionary work, we had some awesome miracles. Yesterday was crunch time-make or break for the week and pretty much make or break for May. This happened zone wide and everyone in the zone stepped up to the plate. There were exponential improvements from last week and tons of miracles. Us for example: to get the standard of excellence we needed to put some one on date for baptism and that was pretty much it. So we planned for everyone we could go by and put on date and that was our focus. Then the trial hit. Normally we have about 10 investigators who come to church on a regular weekly basis. But for whatever reason, everyone decided that they couldn't come b/c of a lot of sickness and some surgery and getting back home from various places in the middle of the morning, like Mexico or work. So long story short (too late) we only had 2 of those regulars come. So we were frantically rushing around rounding people into church. We had a Ward Mission Leader walk with a potential investigator named John to church and we added him. We added a potential investigator named Lisa at church before sacrament meeting, but she left before sacrament meeting, but came back to a later wards sacrament meeting which was a huge miracle, and to top it all off, a woman showed up at church named Debbie. Now Debbie's mother just passed away and she showed up to church and met with bishop and she talked to us and wants to be baptized. I'm so excited for the change that the gospel is going to make in the perspective she has on her mother's death. Anyway, for whatever dumb reason, we didn't add her as an investigator right there. Instead we set up a time to come by that night. Then she called and cancelled for any time today even with my companion practically pleading for any time to come by. But she had no time. So when all was said and done, when all the wards had met and we only had 4 investigators to sacrament meeting we were provided with another miracle. We were inspired to call Debbie and teach her over the phone. So we gave her a call and talked with her about prayer and how it will provide her with comfort until we meet on Tuesday. Then we had a prayer with her over the phone, and Debbie was so grateful. She's solid.

Abel was baptized, too. There was pretty much no one at his baptism besides the bishop, ward missionaries, us, his neighbor who played the piano, and his friend. But even though there weren't many people there, it was a glorious occasion for him. And yesterday he was confirmed and given the Aaronic Priesthood. It's sweet.

Next week, well I guess this week coming up, Paradise, Jonathon, and Destiny Bingham are being baptized. Please pray for them. Their life is very busy right now.

We also added a girl that's been coming to seminary for a month and loves it. She only took seminary b/c she didn't know what it was and was curious. And she's been telling her family all about it.

Heavenly Father is blessing us so much, but we are having to earn it all. There has been a long trial in the whole mission for the past 2 months and as we were talking about what we need to do or change to pass through the trial, yesterday happened and we saw the miracles flow. It's like Heavenly Father was answering our confusion and questioning by saying "Don't worry, Be happy." This is God's work and we are just the tools to make things happen, and whether we are in a trial or not, we can still make things happen.

Ofa Atu,
Elder Partridge

To see some cute pics of Elder Partridge, go here and here!
And to see the video of his sisters, go here and click on the small pics under Christ and the children!