14 July 2013

Last week, during the "hurricane" they canceled classes on Wednesday night.  It was raining.  Then on Thursday, we had a fiesta scheduled.  We showed up for work on Thursday and the director canceled the fiesta, even though the sun was shining.  I usually teach a class for investigator every Thursday  The full time missionaries bring their investigators, and I teach whatever I feel like teaching.  I love it.

Because of the hurricane, and the cancellation of so many things, I didn't know whether there was going to be a 'gator class.  I was teaching a Book of Mormon class at 5 and the 'gator class was originally scheduled to begin at 7:30.  Finally after my Book of Mormon class, I went to the Mission Office and found out I was still expected to teach the class.


I went down stairs to my office and said a prayer.  I had no idea what I was to teach within the hour. Then all of a sudden the Spirit touched my mind and told me what to teach about scriptures, how to teach it, and dictated exactly what I was to do. What a blessing to know that I am being used as His messenger to help the elders and sister convert their investigators.  The assistants told me the other day that they had two investigators who decided to be baptized after my class.  Thus they said that Elder Partridge had two baptisms.


New Subject:  I guess most of you know what Sister Partridge and I are doing with our grand children. When we have a grand child celebrating a birthday, we search for a young boy or girl who is the same age of our grand child, and who is having a birthday around the same time, same age.  It has been a joy, and we have another blog sharing that experience.

A couple of weeks ago, we did that in behalf of our second oldest grand child, Samuel, or Sam.  It was a joy.  We found a young man who was taking the lessons and was going to be baptized soon.  We presented him with a game, chocolate brownies, and took photos to send to Sam.















Then last Saturday morning, I received a phone call asking if I wanted to baptize this young man, the one we had visited and celebrated with in place of our grand child Sam.  Of course I said yes, and then had to borrow pants, white tie, and white socks.  I just never thought I would be baptizing on a CES mission.  But I did, and it was a joy to baptize Samuel Alfonso Padilla Hernandez.

One more thing, I am so proud of Sister Partridge.  She is doing so well, speaking in Sacrament Meeting today, teaching a Book of Mormon class to the Dominican young adults, and communicating with those we encounter throughout the day.

14 July 2013

This and that from Hermana P.

Last week in my BOM class I was teaching Jacob Chapter 2 about riches.  I asked my students what they would do with 200,000 pesos if they had to spend it in one day.  Their answers were very telling.  Keep in mind that this is about $5,000 American dollars.  A fortune in their minds.  They really have no frame of reference and have trouble comprehending that much money.  Baldwin (not in this picture) said he would save it for his education when he returned from his mission and then added, “maybe I’d buy some sneakers.”  Lillybeth (with pink scarf) said she would take her mother to Disneyland…something her mother has always dreamed about.  Daniel (back row right) said he would start a business and give people jobs.  Giselle (not pictured) said she would rent a jeep and buy some food for her friends and they would drive and drive and drive and see their country and of course, go to the beach. Carlos (white vest) said he would buy a house for his mother or fix her house because she has no floors, only dirt.  Junior (center back in pink shirt) said he would buy an orphanage for children in Haiti. 

So here I am getting ready to preach about the misuse of riches and how Jacob admonished his people to seek riches for the good of others and they taught me the lesson in 5 minutes!  These sweet humble kids.   They are so generous and giving and unselfish!   

There’s a little rest stop on the way to Santo Domingo called “Miguelina’s,” about half way which is perfect.  A few years ago a woman named Miguelina had an idea.  Knowing there were no decent rest stops between Santiago and Santo Domingo, a 2-hour drive, she invested in some property and built a little pastry shop with some bathrooms.  She advertised them as the”cleanest baños in the country.”  It has become famous and they have to keep remodeling and making it bigger.  They’ve grown into a restaurant now with a wonderful pastry shop and seriously THE CLEANEST bathrooms we have ever seen here.  I’m not kidding when I say, you go into the bathroom, there are two maids there with swabs and mops in hand.  You enter the private stall.  When you’re finished, you come out and they smile and go into the stall right after you and swab and mop if necessary.  There are 2 maids in the men’s bathroom too. J And they empty the waste baskets in the stall immediately because you can’t put toilet paper down the toilet in most places in this country.  I know…ew…but the plumbing just doesn’t handle paper.  (Now I know my sister is thinking, so why didn’t we stop there on our way to Santo Domingo? Yeah...too bad I didn't have my dire emergency there but had to wait until just outside Santo Domingo to make my mad dash into that awful sport’s bar, full of men gambling on cock fights…and yes, I could have used 4 maids that day.  But let’s just say it was a memorable experience…and don’t ask.)   So now Miguelina’s is a must stop for us now in our travels to the Capital. 

We spoke in a little branch today called La Cienega.  They meet in a big house converted to a meetinghouse.  Elder P. did so well.  I love listening to him speak in Spanish.  I read my talk but at least I pronounced most of the words correctly.  Things are looking up.  We love the children.  These boys must be twins!

Tropical storm Chantal pretty much missed us and petered out and became a tropical “depression.”  I wonder if there’s medication for that?  J  It rained a lot in the Capital (Santo Domingo) and they closed the Church Area Office and the Institute there and flights were cancelled.  So Breton decided to close our Institute here in Santiago, too ("for a precaution"…I think he really just wanted to go home and have “soap and chocolate.”  (He meant soup…but he always calls it soap and we can’t bring ourselves to correct him.)  Cute , huh? Reminds me of one of our favorite movie quotes “Eulalie, not another poop out of you"…….."I think he means peep.” J We had steady rain for 1 day but honestly it was never torrential here and no wind uprooting trees like we had on May 1^st .  Funny, nothing was closed then…it was considered “normal.”  We just laughed.   There were heavy rains around the country and people who live in the campo had mudslides and a lot of people were displaced.  I talked to Carlos about his mother and he said she had a lot of mud and flooding.  Bless her heart – having a house with a dirt floor in a big rain storm?  We’ve had some tent camping experiences like that.  But they just clean up and go on.  Just the chance of big rains and wind and all the media hype and buildup made everyone edgy.  They HATE the rain.  And it has rained pretty much every day at least a little bit since May 1!  

It does make for green mountains all around us.  I love driving away from the city and seeing all the green.  And I'll never tire of palm trees.  So beautiful!

It’s going to be hard to come back to the dessert.  But I promise I'll adjust! 

4 July 2013 Independence Day - Perry 5 K

The Fourth of July is just another day in the Dominican Republic.  We taught a class of Gospel Priniciples, I taught a class on the Book of Mormon, Sister Partridge taught a class on the Book of Mormon in English, I taught a group of investigators.  Just another day.  BUT:

We ran the Perry/Dominican Republic 5 K.  Came in about 150th.  It was fun knowing that Emily  was doing the same.  She beat us both, by the way.

We have a new couple, the Wegeners, working as PEF specialists so we invited them to run/walk with us in our 5k

Aren't the framboyanes fabulous!

Elder P. speed-walking.

Sister P. did way more walking than running but managed to run across the finish line!

We came in 2nd and 3rd in our age group in Perry!  Wahoo!

 We made it!  None-the-less for wear....

To make it an American Holiday, we ate a hamburger at McDonalds.  Then had a piece of American Apple Pie.  Then after classes in the night, we gathered with a few other American Missionaries (there are not too many of them) and sang, loudly, two or three Patriotic Hymns, finishing with the National Anthem. Happy Fourth of July!