June 27, 2011 Email

haha "oh my dear,"

You guys are just too funny. I love it!

We went to the Temple today and one of our Ward Mission Leaders took us to eat at a restaurant. After we email, we are going to the p-day activity. It should be fun. Our area just seemed to get a huge shot of pump-up juice. We got a bunch of referrals and some of them already want to be baptized. But ya, it's not too hot here, but it doesn't get too cold either. We watched fireworks that were in Taylorsville 2 nights ago from our apartment parking lot. It got me thinking about Disneyland and me and Elder Green talked about when we can go. He gets done in March-April next year so we could go then between semesters or on Spring Break or whatever.

Guess who I saw a couple hours ago at the Deseret Book downtown...Sandy Williams, who is no longer Williams because she's re-married. So you'll probably hear something from her.

Sounds like L has quite the story as always. I was impressed to hear about her speaking at Phoenix Children's. I wonder if that's what Virginia wanted me to do for my surgery; or something like unto it.? Oh well, props to her. I'm glad you're being cautious with her melanoma stuff. I'll keep praying for you!

Shout out to the whole Halm family! I love you! Congrats on ALL the great things that are happening in your family! BTW, how is Hudson doing? Tearing it up in Ghana, I assume...? Jackson and Talia really do need to make a trip up here and do a session in the Salt Lake Temple while I'm here so I can go with them! That would be so great!

I didn't know Landon got married, too. Congrats to him. It was weird, in all the sacrament meetings we went to yesterday, the common theme for everyone, it seemed, was marriage. Even the people who had different topics spent the majority of their talks speaking about marriage. Really!? ok!

I hope you told Christian I love him! But I hope you didn't give him a "good game" for me, that would be weird. I'm sure he did fantastic, he's such a stud!

That will be fun for L to take dance from Alex! I could only imagine how much fun they're going to have. Actually, no I can't.

Wow you saw a lot of people at the farewell!!! I'm glad they all remember me! It's been a little while. It doesn't seem that way, but it's true. But at the same time it doesn't seem like I've ever done anything in my life besides missionary work. I'll be way excited when I get home, too ( different mind you than excited to go home). I won't know what I'll do, but I know I'll be excited about whatever it is that I don't know what I'm doing!??

Haha Elder Green says he doesn't know what you're talking about with Alex L. Haha I love him! He helps everyone so much. Especially me.

Sounds like fun stuff for Kaitlyn. I am still not sure what I'm planning on doing for college as of where to go, but we'll see!

I'm assuming you're coming up for the 24th? We pretty much always do. It's funny, Elder Green and I both think that the 24th is a bigger holiday here than the 4th. We also are curious thinking back on last year how we were in the parade (which I started) and if Pres. Winn got any flack for it. If so, I'm pretty sure he'll tell us NO this year. Fun things!

Fun news for the Stone family, too! I will talk to Pres. Winn to see if I can call or email Dayne and get things set up for us to spend a day. We have Zone Conference on Friday so I'll be able to see him in person there, also Zone Leader Council this Wednesday so I could talk to him there. We'll see what happens!

Congrats to Austin on the mission call! Have fun speaking Espanol; I know I do!

Love you tons! Keep up the good work there...and I'll do the same. It's the best! We are seeing so many miracles all of a sudden. I'll have to tell you about them some time!

Love Elder Partridge!

June 13, 2011 Email

This might not be that big of a letter due to a 90 min. training we need to prepare for that we are giving tomorrow to the mission leadership in a huge meeting. haha

So Sara did get baptized. We finished helping her husband in the repentance process sufficiently enough to baptize her. It was a very smooth baptism, hardly a ripple. Haydn we found right after we dropped another investigator who wasn't progressing and Elder Ostrom remembered talking to her and didn't know why they didn't go back, so we went back and helped her find the Gospel. She got baptized at 6 on Saturday. It was planned for 3:30, but no one from the ward showed up, so we postponed it and worked our tails off so we could have it go through. We called the assistants and split up and blitzed people. It worked out. The other baptism this weekend was Trenton Nelson. We got a call last Sunday that he is ready to be baptized. We were talking to him about prayer and coming to know these things are true and Elder Green asked would you like to know if this is true? and Trent sat back, folded his arms, and said firmly "IT IS TRUE!" If there was any doubt it is clear now. That was such a strong testimony. It went great!

Love you,
Elder Partridge

June 8, 2011 Email

Being ZL is great! Both of these past 2 weeks have been ridiculous with everything, last week and this week, but I'm trying not to get stressed with everything. It would be really easy to do, but I'm with the best comp in the mission: Elder Green. He was born and raised in Mesa but came out from Thatcher. He just got done serving at the U of U, which is fantastic because we just picked up 2 Young Single Adult Wards. It's so great.

We got a call and someone wants to be baptized, so he's getting baptized this weekend. His name is Trent and he's 9. His cousin just got back from Mexico on his mission and is way solid. So cool! Anyway, Haydn should be getting baptized this weekend, too. Hopefully she is feeling well. Please pray for her.

That's cool that you got to meet Elder Wiehl, Mom! haha. "Goodeal baby, goodeal," is a phrase known around the mission from Elder Wiehl.

Sorry it's been awhile since I wrote. I'm not dead, just busy. Love you all tons I promise; even if I don't have a ton of time to email right now. The Lord lives and I am feeling His grace right now every day.

Love Elder P.

May 23, 2011 Email

Wassup?!

We had a couple of baptisms this past weekend, but one less than we planned. Jonathon and Destiny Bingham. Paradise decided to wait till after they move to a Mexico/AZ border town in a couple of weeks. Jonathon said he looked like a white ninja so we started ninja fighting. He's a fun kid. And Destiny was laughing the whole time. She started laughing at us and we said, "What Destiny do we look funny or something?" and she just kept chuckling. She was even laughing as she walked into the font.

So ya, we get about 10 investigators to church per week in the whole STAKE. So there are probably less coming to just our ward. And ya, Debbie was solid, then she got evicted the next day and moved up to Bountiful. Dang it!

A reminder about Abel, he was baptized May 14 and yesterday he passed the sacrament. That's so cool to see more steps like that after baptism so they stay strong and continue to progress. And Elder Ostrom and I blessed the sacrament yesterday in one of the wards. It's the first time in the field that I've blessed. I passed a bunch in Rose Park Stake.

That's sweet you are able to be a part of teaching Dawn. Definitely do the tea bag lesson with her. Get the Bigalow brand; it doesn't burn people. haha

Sweet that Gary Shaker's mom was baptized, too. I bet the missionaries in Arkansas were excited. I know I would be.

I want to go to Taylor's cabin!

We are at the Redwood Rec Center doing email, and every week there is a seminar going on while we email, so we get to learn how to do different basic things on the computer. So today it's all about people who hack into your e-mail or scam you in other various ways so they can get some moola from you. So are you really my mother typing me every week, or some person in Africa trying to smooth talk me so you can swindle me out of the big money I get every month as a missionary through fairshare? ha

We've got a baptism coming up this weekend for Sara Allen. She has been ready to get baptized for months now and we were just helping her husband get ready to be able to be the one who baptizes her. So we read "The Miracle of Forgiveness" with him and the bishop has given him the ok to be able to baptize her. So things are set for this next weekend.

I love ya'll and will be praying for you all the time.

Holla back.

Love,
Elder Partridge

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!

May 9, 2011 Email

Hola,

No mom, don't fret, I'm not homesick from Skyping you. With as much as I miss you, I'm still focused on the work. Pretty trippy that it was my last call home though.

It's hard writing in my journal every day because of business and what not, so in order to remember for later on, days I don't have time to write, I jot down the main points of miracles etc. so when I write them down later it will spark my memory. So maybe you can do that to start off with too, mom.

Good to hear about Elder Stanton Shields. He's great. How's the work going for him in Espania?

Ya, we have interviews coming up on the 19th, so I'll talk to Pres. about it and see if we can't figure something out with Dayne. It'll be sweet.

So probably the coolest thing, miracle of the week, was when we taught and added Eric Phibbs. We talked to him to see where to begin teaching and he shared how he just wanted so much to have peace, joy, and guidance in his life like he sees in the lives of his coworkers. So we brought the Spirit in as much as we could and he felt it strong. He said the closing prayer and hasn't prayed in years before that, and he said it felt "magical." Then he wasn't going to be able to make it to church with it being Mothers Day and what a surprise, he was at church and he is way excited about talking with us on Tuesday.

Anyway, love you tons. We are seeing tons of miracles and are expecting even more in this great month of May. April showers bring May flowers.

Love you all,
Elder Partridge

May 2, 2011 Email

Hey guys,

So with the car break-in mom, IDK why they picked our car? Probably because it was unlocked but that's not my fault because the car lock on my side doesn't work. But it was pretty cool how they looked in the glove compartment and took our gas card, but skipped right over my camera. I was lucky. I will need a new backpack so I will just buy that with my debit card. It was also cool because for the 3 days that we didn't have a tiwi card to log in, it just stayed logged in. Pretty cool. After we discovered the incident we called Pres. Winn and he said to call the police, so we did. Then we waited 2 hours for the police not to show up. Great.

We had 2 baptisms this weekend. One of a 9-yr-old kid named Bridger and the other an 84 year-old named Jess. For Jess's baptism, he just got over double pneumonia and could not walk, so his son-in-law, Elder Ostrom, and I carried this man down into the font and pretty much got baptized with him. In the confirmation his grandson blessed him that he had now fulfilled what he had to in this life and was to prepare for the coming weeks to continue to serve. Cool. We also had 3 baptisms back in Tooele. I wasn't able to go back to Tooele, but they got baptized, which is all that matters. Plus we'll be able to see them when we go to visit them as a family after the mission.

We were out last night at 8:50 trying to add 2 new investigators before the end of the week and we didn't find anyone new, but we did hear about Osama being killed.

We ended up getting 4 inches of snow here in Granger and it was all gone by the afternoon. I despise Utah weather. That was pretty much the assurance that it will flood this year. That will be interesting. Cool.

I'll be skyping some time in the evening between 6-9 pm UT time. It's gonna be cool.

So being a ZL..."we're definitely not in Kansas anymore." It's a lot more to do. Some of the things are very administrative and most people see it as boring. The paper work/behind the scenes work to make sure everything runs smooth and ya. So We are working just as hard, but the #'s are lower than in Tooele because we aren't working as much in our area. It's been frustrating this last week because we knew our weak area was going to be adding new investigators this week, so that was our focus all week, every free moment. But we only ended up adding one person. We tried every method possible. IDK what's going on.

I still think it's cool how you are a missionary the same time as me, mom. Cool.

Ya I know Elder Ahlstrom. He introduced himself to me at a mission lunch thing last transfer. He told me he was friends with all them and they said to look for me, so he looked for me and found me. He seems like a great Elder. It'll be fun to be around him for 5 more months.

I love Gary! I'll be praying for you daily. And yes I will definitely be hanging around and visiting when I get home.

I didn't know Ashlyn was already actually going to Jerusalem. That's sweet. Great for her.

I thought that there was no way L could have beat me after brain surgery, but looks like she's still proving me wrong. Isn't health insurance great?

Holy smokes!!! L is ridiculously intelligent. Let me just say...props from your big bro for juggling all that at once and doing so incredible on your ACT. "You da bomb."

By-the-way, I took an IQ test and I have an IQ of 132 which is in the top 2.2 of the entire world. I feel smart, too. And that's after 19 months not going to school. Heck ya.

Love you all,
Elder Partridge