Elder Partridge's 21st Birthday Celebration

1~"Blowing" out birthday candles. With Wyoming wind, it's not easily done.. :) (Note: we didn't actually light the candles)
2~Airplaning down the waterslide into home base while playing flour baseball
3~Throwing a flour ball, we all got into a flour fight :)
4~Cinnamon challenge: Eat a spoonful of cinnamon as fast as you can. NOT RECOMMENDED!!!
5~Attempting to get the cinnamon out of their mouths, noses, throat, lungs, etc....
6~Opening birthday presents

Thank you, Madsen Family, for making it such a great birthday for him!!!

Saying Good Bye

This is a picture of Elder Hancock, Ryan, and Elder Partridge when they went to tell Ryan good bye. Transfers can be so hard!

*Thanks for the pic, Ryan!

August 22, 2011 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELDER PARTRIDGE!!!!!

Hey! Happy birthday to me! Thanks for the packages! I've opened one of them and am wearing the birthday pin! I'm opening the other one in a little while with the Madsen Fam! I will enjoy everything in the packages! I know everything is sent with love cuz I have the best family in the world! I thought the duck tape wrapping job by K was a fantastic ingenious idea! I haven't opened that one yet! We went to Taco Time for breakfast and we were playing with the ball catch stuff and the flarp. teehee and thanks for sending my cowboy boots out. I wasn't expecting those for sure. SALSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so stoked! So pretty much, we're spending the day with the Madsen family because they're pretty much the best ever! I know we are going to play baseball, and I don't know what else. Elder Hancock asked me if I felt any older this morning, too. I just looked at him as I was filling up a water balloon and chuckled. I don't feel any more mature for sure, and I still don't act like I'm 21; unless I'm in public, but getting old is no fun. So ya.

*I don't know about transfers yet. I guarantee I'm staying and Elder Hancock will be too if you've been praying for it! haha One of the kids here fasted for him to stay! Everyone is praying for us to stay here! but we'll see tomorrow morning.

I'm so excited for Dayne! He's a stellar missionary!

This past week was awesome! Benny, Dezy, and Kendall all got baptized on Tuesday and confirmed yesterday. When we were setting up the program we asked them who they wanted to baptize and confirm them and Kendall and Dezy both said they wanted Elder Hancock to baptize them and Benny said he wanted me to baptize him and they wanted to just switch it for the confirmation. So we said, "What if one of us baptizes all of you and than the other one confirms all of you? Would you guys like that?" "No!" So we did it just the way they wanted. We taught them throughout the week and every time they took us out and hog tied us, and we did bunny hops on their bikes. or in my case I just tried to ride the bike without falling over. haha and Benny was holding onto the back seat while I peddled like a parent does to there kid when they're first learning to ride.

We played the best prank on the Madsen family! This has been in the works for a month. We told them transfers were this last Wednesday, and we timed exchanges with the Kemmerer Elders so that Elder Wimber, who they've never met, went with me that night and we told them Elder Hancock got transferred. We played it up for half an hour and it was going great. then as we were about to go out the door, Elder Hancock knocked on the door and everyone slugged him and I just laughed! It was perfect!

Love you tons and will "talk to you next week!


*Found out that Elder Hancock is getting transferred. Sad days in Wyoming!

August 15, 2011 Email

Elders Stone and Partridge~Companions for a day, cousins forever!

Gooday,

It was a blessed Saturday having the opportunity to have Elder Stone out with us so I could watch and learn. We did some great service in the morning time and were able to teach Benny, Dezy, and Kendall about tithing. They are so ready to be baptized on Tuesday! We were going over the word of wisdom again and we asked, "so what are those things that we stay away from?" and Kendall yells, "Satan!" That's right! Then Dezy and Benny roped me and hog tied me with my rope after the lesson! It was some good fun! But I got em back; watch out Fiesta days rodeo- I'm getting pretty good at this ropin stuff! The other night Elder Hancock and I contacted a guy who does rodeoing with his fam and we team roped with them on their dummy, and Bro. Straton and I beat Kale and Elder Hancock. "City boy beats cowboy!!!"

Haha L showed up fashionably late for Sacrament Meeting to speak after Holden's homecoming! That's good! We did that in Tooele one time because we had a confirmation at the same time as one of the wards we were speaking at. Good job L...(if you made it to speak...)

Speaking of Tooele, one of the girls that was baptized not too long ago-Arian-is moving to Stansbury by Tooele to live with her dad so today we went with their family to Hoop Lake and went fishing...We did! And guess who caught a fish...Not me! I still haven't caught a fish in my whole lifetime! I can't believe I got my fishing merit badge! Pretty sure it's because all my leaders felt sorry for me cuz I can't even catch a fish! But Elder Hancock caught a nice little rainbow trout!

Love you tons and will talk to you later!

Love Elder Partridge!

**Photo compliments of the Stone Family

August 8, 2011 Email

Hola Mihijos!

Mom, I am very impressed you have done so well at not stalking me on my mission! You still have 2 months of no stalking, don't ruin your streak!

Here in Wyoming we have our own apartment and it's pretty nice. No dryer, but that's the only downfall I think. It's 2 stories tall, full kitchen, it's good!

We did exchanges with the Elders in Kemmerer this last Tuesday and we left on Monday night at 9:00 pm to go there. So Elder Hancock and I are driving and this car comes over the ridge, turns it's brights on and as it gets closer starts flashing it's lights at us. It was annoying since we didn't have our brights on, so when they got really close we flashed them on so they could clearly see that we didn't have our brights on. As we came up over the hill I told Elder Hancock to turn the brights on so we could spot antelope, because there are tons of antelope on the way to Kemmerer. As soon as he flipped the brights on we saw a dead antelope in the middle of the road and we both screamed. I guess you just had to be there. We took pictures!

The other night we were planning and it was getting towards being bed time and I was tired and there was a stupid horse fly buzzing around in our room. So I finally snapped and got a towel to kill it. It flew up in the light and I figured it was pretty trapped so I got a lint roller and put it up inside the light fixture and pinned it to the light, and than the screw broke and the light fell and shattered all over the desks and flew across the room. What a great day!

The best was on Wednesday though. We were way over on miles compared to where we should be because of the drive to Kemmerer and back twice, so we decided to walk. We clearly underestimated walking time. We planned it great so we would walk the shortest route and we'd stop by people we needed to on the way. But because it took so long to walk around we didn't even get the chance to visit anyone. I wish I could draw you a map, but if you could imagine a big circle about 6 miles in diameter, we walked around that whole thing! Live and learn! The funnest part was as soon as we got into the town of Lyman, it started raining on us. And as we kept going through town, it rained harder. Pretty soon it was like back home and Elder Hancock and I were loving it. It was the second time on my mission where it was so bad that it would have been the same effect if we'd jumped in the lake and got out soaked. Then the rain moved on and it was really cold. We didn't say much to each other after that, just a lot of Ahhhhhhhhh it's cold!!! That's another fun thing, we could yell like that because there was nothing around us but hay fields. But the crowning events came when dinner called us and cancelled as we got to the edge of their house, and then as we walked back there was a slight wind change and the big fat storm that hit us horseshoed around and hit us a second time! haha

We have done some great service this week, too. Some good manual labor and a lot of service by bringing people some comfort when they were struggling. We also helped a lady move this morning.

It was hard for us because everyone was in Evanston for stupid fair! But there was an amazing testimony builder for me that happened one night when we added a guy named Monny. He's a rancher over in Robertson and as we got to know him a bit and share our conversion stories with him he had similar experiences with both of us. Of course with Elder Hancock being a rancher, but he also had some problems with paralysis since he was young and he's doing great now and knows a little of what I went through with brain surgery. So that was the beginning realization for me that Our Heavenly Father has us in certain places for specific reasons at times. And then it got more specific. As we were talking, Elder Hancock shared an experience he had. When he was out here in the mission field for about 3 weeks last transfer, he got the feeling that they should go to Robertson. His last comp thought it was a stupid idea, that there's nothing in Robertson, it's been tracted out a bazillion times, and told him they weren't going. But Elder Hancock was driving, so they went. They walked around and only talked to one cowboy while they were there. They talked to him briefly and bore their testimonies and went along their way. The other Elder told him that was a bad decision and that he should think things through better next time. We just found out through talking to Monny that the cowboy they talked to was his dad, and that extended family had been trying to bring them the gospel for forever, and that Monny's dad was really pleased with how strong *they were in the gospel. *I assume the 2 Elders.

The Lord can use us to be an instrument in His hands even though we make so many mistakes. We just need to trust Him and look past our mistakes, because He does.

Love y'all!
Stay Classy

Elder Partridge

Thank you, Sister Winn!

August 1, 2011 Email

Hello!

Arian's baptism went fantastic!!! The lights over the baptismal font went out, but that was about it! She was so excited for it. When I first got here she'd already changed a lot and as we've taught her she shines more and more every time. Their family is amazing! It's fun; it's all jumbled up with different relationships of cousin, dad, uncle, step-mom, etc. and they all just call each other bro and sis and mom and dad. They are such a tight family! There was one lesson in particular that was a big factor in her decision to be baptized. We'd asked her to pray about it and seek Heavenly Father's will, and she prayed about it and didn't really recognize an answer. But she told us one day and she got way freaked out, so she said a prayer and felt so much better afterward. We just sat there and let her feel the spirit. She was worried what her dad would think of her getting baptized. So we gave her a blessing and it was one of the most powerful blessings I've felt. It was straight from God, and after it was given we sat there in more silence (there was a lot of silence) and eventually we just asked her what she felt God wanted her to do. She knew to baptzed, not because we said to, but because she felt she needed to. And she has been happier and happier ever since.

I was able to talk to Dayne (with permission from Pres. Winn). He's coming out with us to serve on August 13. Sweet!!!!!

We just went golfing in a brother's shed and played volleyball in the rain! We are going to be going to golf for morning exercise every day and get some free golf lessons from an older guy who's been golfing since high school. Just today he helped us a ton! I've got the body rotation down now in about 30 min of practicing. Watch out!!!

And ya Ryan did tell me about buying the boots for my birthday! (He does everything for us, he's way too nice). I don't know if I'll do it because I'm not really gonna use them when I get back home, so probably not. Thanks for the advice though.

I love you! Take care!

Love,
Elder Partridge!

*Dayne is his cousin in UT who will be leaving to serve his mission in Honduras the end of August, so Pres. Winn has given permission for them to serve together for a day so they can spend that time together and it won't be 4 years without seeing each other!

**I found out from his companions blog that they have received 32 referrals and are teaching 11 new people since they did the hide race for the 24th of July celebration! Wow!