TODAY I`M 21!!!!!

Carmen Raye Partridge was born 21 years ago today.  Happy Birthday Sweet Missionary! (OK, I'm her mother and have to say something here to celebrate this wonderful woman!) : )

So there is something wrong with my memory in my camera so no photos for a while. 

Anyway this past week we had changes on Wednesday and I got a new companion. Her name is Hermana Perez and she`s about 4`10 and she`s from Guatemala! She`s seriously the sweetest thing in the world but is so persistent with people. She has 3 more months in the mission.

This week was weird and I say that because on Thursday we were talking with a convert and a friend and this truck pulls up and out steps a women about 45 years old and she looks like a Gringa. She started to talk to our convert in English because our convert can speak English but her accent was super different. When I asked her where she was from she said she was from Switzerland and that she had married a Nicaraguenza. Our convert then asked her if she had heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and her whole demeanor changed. She then started to yell at me in English how Joseph Smith stole horses and how she`s been in our temple in Oregon and has seen that we marry more than one person and how people have done research and she went on and on and on for about a good 15 minutes of me just sitting their while this lady from Switzerland yelled at me in English in the country Nicaragua. Go figure.  She didn't stop for a breath until someone interrupted her and we were able to sneak away before she could say anything else. 

Friday, I tested to see if I had any parasites and thank heavens the results came back negative! Yesterday, however we witnessed a crash. A taxi hit a motocyclist and the man broke his leg and the bone was sticking out. The sad thing is as missionaries we can't go help him or get involved since there were so many people around. But the man seemed OK thank goodness.

So this week was pretty eventful.  A phrase that has been so profound for me is what President Hinckley's dad said to him. "Forget yourself and go to work!" I think that we can all apply this to every phase in our life. We need to forget ourselves and go to work helping others.

Again, my companion from the MTC has another profound message that I would like to share with you.

(I'm reminded of the words of a young boy, shouting up into the sky towards something much larger than himself, "You are who you choose to be!"  Who do you choose to be? Do you choose to be someone who never quite decides anything for yourself? Do you choose to be someone who chooses not to follow what is right in order to satisfy what is easier or fun?

Or do you choose to be someone who takes your fate in your own hands and does something with it? Someone who actively does what you know to be right because you know it, you have worked for that knowledge and you cannot deny it?

"Shake thyself from the dust..." (3 Nephi 20:37)

I think even people of faith so often deny what is true because it is so easy to do so. It is so easy to ignore the promptings of the spirit. It is so easy to convince yourself that it isn't a big deal. It is so easy to say that it doesn't matter that much. It is so easy to say it isn't true.

For "it is by grace that we are saved," We hear that a lot. So maybe it is okay. Whatever you're waiting on, whatever you're denying. Except there's a second part to the verse, because "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23)

"After all we can do." What have I done?

Christ as saved us. But if we are standing in a hole, trapped because of our condition, a condition of sin of imperfection of humanity, then Christ is the person standing at the top, having lowered down a ladder. Hallelujah there's a ladder! We are saved! Except what are you going to do now?

Believe it or not many of us just stand there, starring at the ladder, thinking, "oh how wonderful it is that my Savior has sent me a ladder!" But what are ladders even for? Climbing. You have to climb the ladder! Crazy thought itsn't it? Because the ladder itself cannot suffice. If you don't use it it's just a few slabs of wood glued together. But if you climb it, it is salvation! You can leave the darkness and enter into the light of the noonday sun, who is Christ.

But you have to choose. Choose who you're going to be. Are you someone who climbs the ladder? Or simply someone who stares at the ladder doing nothing with it? And perhaps even worse someone who cries out, who curses God, or who refuses to believe because you have not done your part to figure out what the ladder is for?

In reality this analogy doesn't really work. Because lowering a ladder down a dark whole to save someone is way to easy. What Christ did was literally impossible for anyone except Him. And even for Him it was much to bare. But for the sake of the ability of human comprehension I'm going to say a ladder will do for now. (Though a rope that Christ must hold from the top may even be better.)

"For behold, he surely must die that salvation may come..." (Helaman 14:15)

I promise you the ladder is there. And I can promise you if you climb it Christ will be there at the top. I'm not saying it'll be easy. And I'm not even saying your life will get any easier when you feel like you've climbed it. Because there are many battles to overcome, life is still life. But it will be worth it. You will find joy and you can have peace knowing that in the final days you will find rest with God.

I can also promise that if you do nothing you are giving Satan all the ammunition he needs to get at you. He'll use it. I know it. I've seen it. I have seen and heard of people's lives being racked with inexpressible horror because they didn't move forward. If you have to view it as running from Satan, do that. Give it all you've got.

Preferably, you can see it as walking towards God. It's not easy. It's probably a very long ladder and you get tired and feel like you can't go on, but you can it's possible, there will be help and love along the way. Your eternity starts now, it'll be worth it.)

Love you all,

Hermana Partridge