Week 59

Happy 42nd Anniversary to us! :) On our anniversary we took a Haitian friend to Raleigh to take care of some residency/legal stuff. While we were in Raleigh, we went to see Jake and his family and Alyssa. We took Clara a way-over-due birthday present. We hadn't seen them in way too long and had a fun but short visit. While we were there Jake mentioned that his dad needed a haircut... so he got out his clippers and gave Dwight a haircut! I think we'll go to Jake's every time Dwight gets a little shaggy, so I don't have to ever play barber again!!!

Dwight's new haircut :)

We taught a 17-year-old girl and her two little sisters this week. We had a great lesson with them. We discovered that the 9-year-old girl can't read; so tomorrow when we go see them, we will teach them a gospel lesson. Then we will do some reading practice. I bought some of my favorite easy readers, and we're going to have some fun. All the girls came to church today and waved and smiled when they saw us. Little things like that make my heart swell!

We also taught Monica. She's our adorable 12-year-old friend. She set a baptismal date on Wednesday, but when we went to see her on Saturday, she told us her dad wants her to wait until she learns more. I'm good with that. I love spending time with her teaching her about Jesus Christ. We have also been teaching her and her step sister English.

D & S and Monica

Dwight took on another challenge... teaching Sandeline (Monica's stepsister) how to drive. I sat in the back seat. She did pretty well. I was only scared a couple of times. :)

We visited Jimmy and Penny Holmes this week. When our daughter Alyssa was a little, Penny would hold her during church. She'd give her gum. She constantly doted over her. When we moved to Utah, we gave Penny a framed picture of Alyssa. While we were at her house, Penny went and got that picture that is still on display. I showed Alyssa the picture I took of Penny (below) and she said, "I remember her. She gave me gum. I think it was Doublemint." It was! 

We love our young missionaries. We always talk about the Elders we work with, but we have some amazing sisters as well. We leave Otter Pops in our outside freezer for the Albertson sisters, so they can cool down whenever they want. They sometimes get Otter Pops and then sit at our picnic table in the shade. We're usually not home when they come by, but sometimes we catch them!

This is a picture from our district group chat. Sister Memea's face makes me laugh every time I look at it. The post said, "Your ward can't agree on what their ward boundaries are, so they give you a map."

I'm not sure if the red or the blue is
the official Albertson Ward boundary.

Speaking of Albertson... here is something I saw this week right outside our house. Ewwww. I had to look it up to see what it was. It's a red velvet ant (it's really a wasp) the females are wingless. The one in the picture was about an inch long. They are also called cow killers... not because they can kill a cow, but because the sting of one feels like it can kill a cow. The venom is not very dangerous. Wow! Aren't you glad, if you didn't already know, that you've learned something about a scary looking bug?

Also, I thought this was interesting to anyone that hasn't experienced NC backroads. Some of them are very skinny! We were following this hay hauler, and it was a little scary passing it.

With all the rain we've had, the Neuse River got pretty high. It's starting to come down some now. This picture was taken on Tuesday.

We had our last temple prep lesson with Judy. She'll be ready to go to the temple soon! We've visited the Lafortunes, the Pierre Louis', Alex, and so many others. Dwight helped put up closet bars and tried to put up some more blinds in one of our friend's houses. The wall were made out of block and he hit metal and a black widow came out of the wall. I'm sure the details of that are wrong, but when he was telling me about it, all I heard was black widow. Ewwww again!

A highlight this week was the baptism of James and Makendy. They are awesome young men!

Tonight we had our senior missionary devotional. My sister Karen invited her friends Elder Evan and Sister Cindy Schmutz. Elder Schmutz served a mission in North Carolina as a young missionary. He told a story from when he was a mission president in the Philippines about a family with several children and their conversion. He played a clip of the older daughters singing a primary song that I remember singing with my sisters. It was beautiful. I felt a love that I can't explain for this family I've never met. What I can try to explain is that as we serve others and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ through word and example our love grows for the people that we serve. And somehow our love grows for people we don't even know.

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Potter