Week 21

Have you ever had a week that just flew by, but at the same time it seemed like an event that happened early in the week happened a month ago. That's how this week was for me. Monday we gave Claire her first "new member discussion." We gave her our magnetic white board and let her teach us the Plan of Salvation. She did a great job. After the lesson, Sister Sheila Ward (Claire's grandma) fed us a feast!

Claire's attempt at a selfie. Isn't she cute?

Sheila took this one.

Later in the week we visited and taught. One visit was with a friend in Albertson. It's always fun to go to Albertson. He had a couple of grandchildren drop by while we were there that added to the fun. 

I completed a goal on time this week. I wanted to finish all the Christmas presents for our kids and grandkids that live in Utah and get them mailed before Thanksgiving. On Wednesday we mailed them out. The picture is the wrapped up presents. After Christmas, I'll post a picture of what I made for everyone.

We had a call from the Mission President this week. He asked us to officially expand our work into the Mt. Olive Ward. Currently we are officially serving in the Woodington Ward and occasionally visit people in other wards in the stake. Now we will be officially serving in Mt. Olive, too. I'm not sure how that will work exactly, but we're excited about the new assignment.

For Thanksgiving we had a unique experience. I've always wanted to eat out for Thanksgiving... no cooking--no cleaning. This was the year. We went to Golden Corral in Greenville. It was pretty good... not as good as home cooking, but it was good. Next year? Cracker Barrell :)

We forgot to take a picture. You can't tell
that's photo shopped, can you?

On Friday, we had a Potter Family Thanksgiving. The food was amazing and the entertainment was priceless! There was a whipped cream eating contest that started years ago when my brothers brought a lot of extra whipped cream to our house for Thanksgiving. No one came close to Paul's (my brother) record.

The kids desperately wanted to have a "pie in the face" party, and their mom said they could as long as they did it outside and took a shower afterwards. That's my kind of mom! They had so much fun!

When it was time for Dwight and me to go home Von and Sully grabbed my legs and started chanting, "Don't go! Don't go!" I got a pretty good work out sliding the cuties along the wood floor.

Sully is master of the "sad eyes" face.

In our spare time this week, we travelled around London, Paris, and Brussels--virtually. Caroline has been there with a friend for the past 9 days or so. She has FaceTimed us to let us experience some of her travels with her. She took us to Buckingham Palace; and here we are at the Eiffel Tower in the morning and at night.

As we begin the Christmas season, I keep hearing in my head the quote from Russell M. Nelson, "My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When the focus of our lives is on God's plan of salvation, and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening--or not happening--in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy." (October 2016)

We truly are grateful for the joy we feel as we teach of, learn of, and try to be more like Jesus Christ.

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Potter

Week 20 - Dwight

 

Now that picture brings back a lot of memories!  It was 1991 when several of us took a road trip with David and Jean Whaley to the Washington, D.C. Temple.  Wow, was I ever really that young?  And Sister Potter, while a smidglet more mature is still as pretty as ever!  Thanks David and Jean for sending this photo this week to remind us of this historic event for your family.

Even though a lot of our appointments fell through this week, we still had a lot going on.  The young missionaries get the opportunity to go to the temple twice a year and this was the week for our zone to go.  It was a great session and while at the temple we saw several people we know from our distant past (including Sister Boney and Brother Pace).

Elder Vern P. Stanfill of the Seventy was in our mission this week.  Two zone conferences were held with half the mission in each.  Some of you may remember, Elder Stanfill's most recent General Conference talk, given this past April, was entitled "The imperfect Harvest."  Such a wonderful conference.  We feel armed to be even better missionaries after this experience.

Other than instructions from Elder and Sister Stanfill and President and Sister Stevens, we were impressed by two talks given by two recent converts.  Brother Brad Whitley, a former protestant minister, told us about feeling something was missing and finding what it was when he read the Book of Mormon.  Sister Katie Menard explained how a friend helped her to find the gospel.  She's now engaged to that friend!

Brad Whitley, us, Katie and River Menard

Wednesday night we took Jay and Decandis Faison to the Primary Activity Days at the church.  On the way home we told Jay (10 years old, baptized in September) that one of the apostles had died and that he would soon be replaced.  He said "Aww, I wish I was old enough to be an apostle!"  Jay was given an assignment to speak in Primary and he worked on the talk all by himself and gave it today and did a fantastic job.  The primary kids clapped when he was done!

I spent several hours this week with a good, long-time friend of mine, JR Rouse.  I call him Junior.  I hope we are being a blessing to each other.  He's teaching me some things and I'm attempting to teach him a few things too.  I met Junior when I was 5.  Now, 60 years later we have rekindled a friendship that will last forever.

JR Rouse and Kit Kat

My sister Linda Heath and her husband Donald are here visiting for the next few weeks.  We met them at The Peach House restaurant for lunch on Friday.  Our cousin Melissa Wiggins works there.  The food was really good, but not nearly as good as the dinner Linda made for us today at her daughter Kari's house!  Kari lives in the house our family moved into 63 years ago.  It's the first time I've been in that house for many years.  There were 10 in our family.  Still not sure how we all fit in that house!

Melissa, Kari, me, Linda, Donald

We visited hospitals three times this week to give blessings, administer the sacrament, and hopefully brighten someone's day.  Visiting with our friend Judy today, who's sister is in the ICU, we were reminded how precious family is and how unpredictable life can be.  We love our family, immediate and extended, so much. This mission is giving us a chance to get closer to some of them.  We're also finding that, all of us have a family connection through our Heavenly Father.  There are so many people that we love and feel a connection to that's hard to explain.  We feel we've known many for a lot longer than a few weeks or months, as if our relationship predates earth life.  Maybe it does, but in any case we're finding that the relationships we're developing and the love we feel is making this mission so worth any small effort we are making.  Love you all!

Week 19 - I've learned that Halloween candy is good for you... ;)

 

Almost two weeks ago on Halloween, the "Good Witch", aka Sister Potter, didn't eat ANY Halloween candy. I was going to be good. And Sam's Club didn't have the big bag of chocolate with Almond Joy that I usually get at home at Costco and pick out most of the Almond Joy before the trick-or-treaters come knocking... but I digress.  Anyway, fast forward a week, I get sick! Therefore, Halloween candy prevents sickness! I should have indulged and avoided days of pain. (If any of my grandkids are reading this, I hope you understand that I'm joking!)

It is true, however, that on Sunday I started to feel yucky. On Tuesday I got an antibiotic, and by Thursday I was doing much better. I lost my voice and was tired but I felt much better. The side effect of being sick is that my brain went on vacation, and I forgot to take pictures of most of our adventures.

One of our lessons was at JD's house.

Tuesday was awesome... I got a COVID test to make sure I was safe to be around people. That's always fun. Thursday we taught two lessons and had dinner with our good friends the Whaley's. We had so much fun catching up... and Jean made Olive Garden soup and salad better than Olive Garden and made a lemon cake that I want for my birthday next year. It was all amazing. 

David and Jean Whaley and us
(stolen from last week's blog)

Friday my brother, Ryan, came for a visit. Jake and his family, Alyssa, Elayna, and us all met at Pizza Inn in Selma. I cannot believe I didn't take a picture. We had a great time. The little kids love great-uncle Ryan. He kept handing out dollar bills so they could get quarters for the machines. 

On Friday night we went to Mark and Patricia Pate's house. Mark was Dwight's best friend in high school. They fed us an amazing Southern meal with some of my favorites... butter beans, potato salad, green beans with bacon, deviled eggs, and biscuits, and of course, pork chops! We are getting spoiled. As a bonus, Mark told us some great stories.

In between all this fun, we are doing lots of missionary work. Actually most of our fun is missionary work. It seems like everywhere we go we talk to people about family history. If you haven't downloaded the FamilySearch Tree App, you should. There are so many fun things to do on that app. When we help people download it, after about two minutes, they pretty much stop listening to us because they are lost in discovering so much information about themselves and their family.

Today was a very special day. Our sweet friend, Claire, was baptized. She invited her best friend and lots of family. Here are some pictures.

Claire and her family. She was baptized
by her great-grandfather!

Us with Claire and her best friend from school

Claire and her Grandma, Denise
(We are also teaching Denise.)

When we first got here we found my name as a street name. Last week we found Dwight's. I've taken pictures of four street signs since we've been here and they tell a little story: Dwight (Elder Potter) and Susan (Sister Potter) are missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some people call it the "Mormon Church." They are trying to help people get off the Sandy Foundation and build their houses upon the rock.

Jesus said, "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and floods came, and winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock." (Matthew 7:24-25)

It is not true that if you eat Halloween candy it will protect you from getting sick, but it is ABSOLUTELY true that if you listen to and follow Jesus Christ, you will be prepared for whatever comes. If you get sick, lose a job, or whatever other trial, you will be able to withstand it.

Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:13)

We know these things to be true! 

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Potter

Week 18 - Dwight

 

David & Jean Whaley at Albertson's Stew Fest

When I was a boy, growing up at Albertson, every February they had the annual Fox Hunt.  The main activity took place at the Ruritan Club building.  The building is a white block community building next to the post office.  I think there were a few people with dogs that actually hunted foxes, and occasionally, they actually got one.  I assume the Fox Hunt is still held every year, but I don't think it has a lot to do with hunting foxes.  I remember they always cooked fish stew in a large cast iron pot, over a fire.  When they were making the stew, they would crack raw eggs into the boiling stew and they would cook instantly!  Yesterday we attended the annual Stew Fest, which is also held in downtown Albertson.  Both events are fundraisers for local organizations.  We saw a bunch of people we know.  Above are David and Jean Whaley.  We reminisced about their trip to be sealed in the Washington DC temple.  We saw Jean's dad, Lewis Lee - sorry, no picture.  Below are my friend Junior Rouse's little sister Sandra and her husband.  

Linda Rouse (Ernie Rouse) of the famed "R Mart"

Kari & Richard Dupree (my niece)  Charlotte Dupree and Renee in the background

My sister Linda's best friend growing up - Nadine Byrd

It was a bit of a blast from the past seeing everyone, many that I haven't seen for 40 + years!

We had a pretty busy week.  Our friend Angie has set a date to be baptized on November 30!  We visited a friend from the time I was bishop in Mt Olive.  Alex is struggling because he lost his wife several weeks ago.  We had a good discussion on hope.  Claire is ready to get baptized this coming Sunday.  We're excited!  For Halloween, Susan dressed up as a good witch and I dressed up as a magician (vampire without fangs).  We participated in the truck or treat at the church and brought the Faison kids along.

Wednesday was a cool day (literally, it frosted that morning.)  I was able to give a blessing to Claire's grandpa who went in for surgery on Friday for some tendon repair to his arm.  Was able to also help him get the Family Tree app on his phone and load in his family.  He was excited to show his 90-year old dad!  That night we went to visit our long-time friends, Stanley and Frances Jones.  It was great to catch up with them.  We also loaded the Family Tree app on their phones and Stanley was amazed at how much family information is out there.

Here are a few pictures from a service project we participated in on Thursday with many of the other senior missionaries in Raleigh.  We made individual Christmas ornaments for all 250 missionaries in the mission.  We also made bags with treats for them.  It was a fun project and getting to know the other senior missionaries better was great.

Gas prices in NC are under $3.00!  Sorry Utah people.

One night this week on the way home, we saw this large harvest moon.  It was about 3/4 moon that was orange and just hanging there low on the horizon as it was rising.

It's kind of hard to see with all the lights and the moon is hard to capture with an iPhone, but you'll have to trust us - it was amazing.  It reminded us of how blessed we are to live on this earth that God created for us.  It orbits the sun at an angle to give us seasons.  It rotates every 24 hours to give us night and day.  It has a moon and stars to give us light at night.  It is wonderful to know that it was all created for us and our happiness and our progression.  We are so thankful for Heavenly Father's goodness as manifested by His plan for us, including the creation of this magnificent earth!  Love you all!