February 24, 2011 Email

Hey guys,

Happy Post-Presidents Day. Crazy schedule differences this week! It's Thursday and we are emailing. I have very limited time today though due to interviews and a training I am giving. Love you tons though. I did finally get the Valentine's Day package! That was pretty awesome. I especially like the candy "poster." I can't tell you how happy I was when I saw the Mambas. They don't sell them anywhere in Salt Lake. It's such a shame. So thanks so much.

So Tory Sweet is getting baptized on March 5. It's so solid! We taught her twice this last week and watched the 20 min. Restoration DVD with her to help her get a visual of the things we taught. And about Salena, she is getting baptized in 2 days. It was the coolest thing. She wasn't learning much of anything because she gets distracted so easily. So Elder Aguilar and I prayed to know how we could help her learn and retain in remembrance the things we teach. And we got the inspiration to teach the most interactive way possible. So we've been doing everything with hands on analogies and it's stuck like glue. She remembers and understands the symbolism behind everything we've taught.

So in the Standard of Excellence it's
1-baptized and confirmed,
3-investigators with a baptismal date,
5-investigators to church,
12-lessons taught to investigators with a member present, and
3-new investigators.

Wow, a lot of people are thinking about me. I hope you tell them I'm doing good.

We finally got in to teach a kid who we have been trying to teach since before I came into the area ages ago. His name is Cameron Wall. He is the most sincere kid. He has such an awesome desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. He has Aspergers and just says everything the way it is. We are his new "best friends." He is going to be baptized March 26, on his birthday. I need to get a tape recorder to record all the hilarious things he says because I can't remember them all.

We got a miracle phone call last night from Sister Weeber who has been doing great missionary work with one of her friends. She invited her friend to church and she was excited to go, then she invited her to a Relief Society social and she was excited to go, now she invited her to meet with us and she can't wait for the appointment on Sunday. Her name is Kim Atkinson. She is from Holland. She is married to James Atkinson and they have 3 kids; a 9-yr.-old, a 4-yr.-old, 1-yr.-old. Sweet.

The Lord continues to provide for us. We have such great work right now. We are just trying to get more and more. It's fantastic.

Love you all, TTYL,
Love Elder Partridge.

February 7, 2011 Email

**I had heard that other missionaries had trouble with emails sent on the 7th, so I asked him about it and received this today, 2/24/11. Fun letter! Glad we finally got it!.

Hello everyone!

So yes, as you heard, we went on a trip to Rose Park this weekend to see a family Elder Aguilar taught last transfer get baptized. Then it was off to find a dinner. And where would I always go for food whenever dinner cancelled...Carlisle's. That was cool. And I also took the time to get Charles Tuigamala's phone number seeing as he will be going through the Temple next month most likely. Has it really been that long? Apparently.

I am doing well. Health is great. Elder Aguilar catches me when I fall. Literally. Nothing too new in Tooele. We had Stake Conference and it was awesome. The goal for the stake last year was to read through the Book of Mormon that year. And this year they're taking that to the next level...Giving one out! So we are stoked! President Atkinson of the Mission Presidency came and spoke in the adult session and had Elder Aguilar and myself stand and he introduced us as the cork and the bottle. (I wonder which one's the cork and which one's the bottle)?

I refuse to believe it! It's impossible! The ficus trees can't freeze! (At least not entirely). Bummer to hear it's so cold! I hope it warms up for you, and for me. Right now it is pretty nice, not gonna lie. 45 degrees on a sunny CLEAR day. I'm so glad when inversion leaves!

Christian is most definitely getting baptized next week! He is so solid. We last taught him about the Holy Ghost, and he had to build his own sundae using different ingredients-BLINDFOLDED!!! Elder Aguilar was the Holy Ghost and I was the "voices in the world that compete for our attention." He barely made it through. I thought I had him for a second though when he grabbed the pepper instead of the sprinkles.

I knew it! I thought once yesterday, "I bet they're having the super bowl party right now...well, off to teach more people." Tell aunt/cousin Allie not to beat herself up about it the year before I left. I can't wait for the next one though.

We contacted the Stewart's and they're a pretty nice family, and welcoming, but we'll have to see how it goes; the kids have autism and the eldest has epilepsy as well.

Ya, Elder Aguilar is the one who plays football. And yes, I got a car. I know, it sounded too good to be true to me too.

Wow! Sounds like you had quite the event for the YW thingy. I'm actually impressed! Not hard to do I know, but still.

I would strongly recommend for next year that L take English 101 and/or 102 if she hasn't gotten credit for college with AP stuff yet, but I did enjoy Critical Thinking and Writing. I loved AP Music Theory! I think that may have been because I did it with Caleb Allred and Christiaan Schmid and Camille Snyder, but it's a great class. Very enlightening. But yes, if you're not planning on going into music then it won't help much with your career.

Lucky! L gets voice lessons from Jenee Prince.

Good for Kayla and her job! Cool. Fun date, haha. I love being last minute date call.

I love you all so much! Te Amo! That means I love you.
Elder Partridge.

February 14, 2011 Email

Elder Partridge unto the most excellent family and friends sendeth greeting (see Acts 23:26),

We saw an absolute miracle and answer to prayers this last week. We of course went for the standard of excellence 1 3 5 8 3, especially since Christian got baptized. At a leadership meeting that happens quarterly with all the ZLs DLs and Trainers we received the assignment for our areas as the leaders of the mission to have 12 lessons with a member present instead of the standard of 8. So we had 1 3 5 12 3 as a goal now for this week on. So yesterday we were all there except we needed 2 more lessons and we needed to add someone for baptism. After our first sacrament meeting we got a call from a Ward Mission Leader that someone in their ward wants to be baptized. :) x10! We went to her ward and didn't know who she was. She got up to bear her testimony and after she was done Elder Aguilar and I looked at each other and said "That's gotta be her." It was. She's so solid. Her name is Tory Sweet. It's pretty SWEET!!! We went and added her as an investigator and put her on date to be baptized right after church. Her best friend lives next door and is a solid fellowshipper. Her mom is coming back to church and her dad is working every day. ie Yesterday was his first day off in 3 months. It's awesome though.

Christian totally got baptized on Saturday! It was crazy. We got there at 12:30 and to our utter horror no one was there. So we tried the door; it was locked. We called the bishop and told him and he just said, "Ohhhhhhh no. I'll be there in 5 min." So we waited outside for bishop to get there and Christian and his family got there; along with his extended family. So we all just stood outside and chatted till bishop got there. Then we darted to the font and lo and behold, it was empty. Luckily this font only takes an hour to fill to the brim. So we cranked it on and went to set things up. (FYI we called the baptismal coordinator twice and told him and the ward called once. He's just elderly and totally forgot.) So we changed (I got to baptize him because his cousin wasn't able to. Which is really cool that they decided to go forward with it anyway) and stalled a little bit. Took some pictures, a little of this a little of that, and finally the water was high enough. The thing is, at first the water was coming out nice and warm and after a while it got colder and colder, so it ended up being quite nippy. Poor Christian. But it was pretty amazing.

Then yesterday Christian got confirmed in sacrament meeting. But at least this time the chair didn't fall and slam on the ground after the confirmation like it did with Mason.

Anywho, stay classy and expect miracles to be wrought in your lives. Heavenly Father will answer your prayers. Pray as if everything depended upon Heavenly Father (because it ultimately does) and then do as if everything depended upon you.
Love you all!
Elder Partridge

P.S. Thanks for the update on L's mole situation, Mom. The pics made me laugh. Only you would take pics in the middle of a surgery. haha

A Few Pics

Zone Conference

New Year's Eve

Christmas Conference with Elder Hinckley

January Transfers

One to make you smile! ;)

*Thank you, Sister Winn!

February 7, 2011 Email...Short and Sweet

We are having some great experiences and are being given tremendous opportunities to share the gospel. I know Heavenly Father will provide a way to get things done. Thanks for everything. Love you!
Elder Partridge.

*Don't know why, but this is all we got this week. Better than nothing!

January 31, 2011 Email

What's happening,

So the baptism yesterday was absolutely fantabulous! A good way to describe it was Mason got shoved under the water and yanked...yes yanked back up off his feet by his uncle. And his dad came to the confirmation yesterday. It was up in the air if he would be coming, but I'm way glad he did. Salena's baptism had to get pushed back to the 12th of Feb. due to Stake Conference next weekend, but it's gonna happen. And Mason did a great job of making us nervous for the confirmation. He literally came at the last second. When Bishop got up to conduct and start the meeting is right when Mason got there.

We had a crazy Sunday yesterday. We spoke in 2 wards, back to back, and the second ward we were speaking in was the same time as Mason's confirmation. So we spoke with the Bishop and we did the confirmation first in all the items of ward business so we could take off. How sweet. When we got to the ward we were speaking at, they were administering the sacrament and so we waited until he excused the priesthood brethren to sit in the congregation. As we walked in at that moment, he saw us, and the whole Bishopric gave a huge sigh of relief. Even though we told them ahead of time what was going on. But I gave one of the best talks ever, probably because we weren't sitting on the stand to get nervous at all before we had to speak. The Bishopric took care of that for us. haha

We got a pretty legit referral yesterday at church. There's a family across the street from us (the Stewarts) that have made up their minds that they are coming to church every week from now on (and they were less-active). They have a son over baptismal age, so we're going to drop by and talk to them ASAP.

Anywho, enough chit chat. My new comp is Elder Aguilar...as in the same Elder Aguilar that came out the same time as me...and we were in the MTC together. I might have sent home some pics with him in them. He's the brown one. haha It's really cool to see how he's grown as a missionary and some experiences he's had while serving downtown. He's eaten dinner with Pres. Monson, gone teaching with Elder Holland and Elder Oaks, and given a talk in front of them, etc. He's also baptized a hecka ton of people! So I hope it follows him still and we get even more people to teach. There's never a dull moment with him. He loves me and jokes with me so much about all our inadequacies. And YES HE CAN DRIVE. I was scared at transfers though, because it said on the paper "bike area" on it. So we talked with Elder Chase (the car Czar) and to make a long story short, we got everything worked out, and we have a car. The district stayed a lot the same. Only Elder Orme, Elder Johnson, and Elder Evans left the district, but the feeling is pretty different with that little change. A bit more my personality. I don't really have more to do than normal from it though. Just the same stuff which keeps me busy enough.

I know that whatever is supposed to happen will. It's like they said in your Ward Conference, "Nothing happens by coincidence." I'm excited for the before and after pics of L. Those are always great.

Cool to hear Kayla was in Provo. An Elder just came into the district from Provo. He sent he papers in from Florida, but is from Provo. And I thought I got called close to home.

Anywho, that's about it. Love you guys. Pray for you always. Make life a blast! Live the Gospel and love every second of it! It's true!

Love Elder Partridge.

January 25, 2011 Email

Hey guys!

I'm doing pretty fantastic. The work is progressing and it isn't going to stop. Things are still on with Mason and Salena's baptism this weekend. It's going to be crazy cool. So Salena is pretty awesome. She is always embarrassed and shy when we come over and she just giggles a lot and it's hard for her to soak in what we're teaching. But she has such a desire to get baptized; it's amazing. We are going over every day this week to help her understand all she can before she's baptized. Not to just shove information at her, but to help her understand the covenant she wants to make so badly. It is a bummer that Christian's baptism got pushed back, but you're right, at least he's getting baptized, and it's gonna be so much more memorable for him to wait and have his cousin baptize him rather than just having one of the missionaries do it. I feel lucky he asked me to confirm him though. It's cool! We have met a couple of new people. We met a couple named the Dupree's and they are from the South-Mississippi. They're golden and ridiculously solid; they just haven't seen it yet themselves. Crazy! We also added a sister named Melinda who is Less-Active (so we thought) and were teaching before, but they cannot find her records no matter what they try looking it up under. So the process now is to find 2 witnesses that were at her baptism that are still alive and remember, or re-baptize her. So now we're teaching her. It's cool! The Lord keeps providing miracles for us!

Transfers are tomorrow. We just found out the information about it today. I'm staying in the area and Elder Orme is leaving, so I'm getting a new companion. (Hopefully one that won't lose his driving privileges within the first week of being here). That is assuming that they will have driving privileges to begin with. Keep your fingers crossed!

I don't think we are the only mission with the black box in the cars to monitor the missionaries driving, but we are definitely one of the few--for now. Word on the street is that the church will be implementing it into ALL the missions. Not exactly the direction I was hoping for, but I can't drive regardless, so ya.

We sure do get to speak a lot in Church! We did it again this last week! I took 25 minutes because of this cool thing Elder Orme was planning on doing. That's love for your companion; not everyone will take up that much of your companion's time for any reason. But I thought it was a good/powerful example. Standing there silent for 3 minutes looking into the audience (that's intense) then finally talking about how much anxiety is in the air. Then refer to how many people there are that have been anxious to hear the gospel their whole lives, but don't know where to find it. Then he added more, but normally you'd just say "...in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

So yesterday, as with all Mondays here in Tooele, the Library and Family History Library are closed. So until we can get something figured out, we just e-mail on Tuesdays.

Elder Reta is from Red Mountain. I didn't know him before the mission, but he lives over by McKellips and Greenfield (if I remember the street names correctly) over by the WalMart Super Center and stuff.

I love being a District Leader! It's changed a lot in the last couple months of how important and how much responsibility DLs have. So it's crazy how much there is and how inadequate I've felt at times, but I love being able to have this opportunity to grow and help others in the district to grow, too.

I'm getting kicked off.

Love u. bye.