Week 73

It seems like I have been sick forever, but as this week went on I felt better and better. The best medicine was seeing grandkids on Friday and Saturday. I should have done that two weeks ago! :)

We took quite a few pictures this week, so mostly I'll let the pictures do the talking. The only things we did that we don't have pictures of are a few visits and service activities. Monday we took our super cute and fun friend, Charlemise to work for orientation. Dwight had to go in to translate for her. Her blood pressure is still a little high, so on Tuesday we took her to the doctor before work. We're going to get her taken care of. Charlemise is here in the United States pretty much alone. She is our friend, Alin's wife's (who is in Haiti) cousin, but she doesn't have any close family here. She went to church last week for the first time. It was stake conference. She told us on Monday that every talk it felt like God was speaking directly to her. It's funny, because I felt the same way.

We also don't have pictures of our visit with Clifton Stanley of the Woodington Ward, our Ruritan Club meeting, or of Dwight helping Alin buy a car and trying to get insurance. There are some problems with the title because the buyer before him didn't know what he was doing. Trying to explain all that to someone from a different country with different laws who has never owned a car... let's just say it's an ongoing process. Alin also needs to get a NC driver's license before he can get his car licensed. I guess our next activity will be helping him study the driver's handbook. :)

We visited with sweet Monica. We taught her a lesson. Then I gave her a piano lesson. That was awesome! She really wants to learn! Another senior missionary is going to give her lessons every week. She is so excited.

Goldsboro Zone at our 3-Zone Zone Conference.
I love all these people!

Me and my companion
at Zone Conference!
I love him, too! :)

We stopped by to say hi to the Faison kids.
We hadn't seen them in a long time because we're
always in Mt. Olive.

Elder Bates and Christmonor... I love
watching Christmonor learn!

Saturday, we weren't here, but our cute friend
Ruthnael was baptized. She was confirmed
today. She is a super smart, fun girl. She is
helping her mom learn English and the Gospel.

Friday and Saturday we went to Beaufort to spend some time with Jacob and Alyssa's families. This weekend was the Beaufort Pirate Invasion. There is a house in Beaufort in which the pirate Blackbeard is said to have been a guest in 1709. The house still stands. Beaufort recently won the title of "Coolest Small Town in the USA" according to a travel magazine. It really is a cool little town.

Clara, Von, Sullivan, Elayna, and some pirates.

A sneaky little pirate :)

The cute pirates in front of their ship.

Dwight and me at the pirate show

Von with mini sand legs :)

Alyssa and Jacob making dinner... we trained
them right! :)

Thank you Jacob for these beautiful photos.

This weekend was perfect for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I was so thankful for time spent with family (the healing time spent with family). I was also thankful to see some of the beautiful world our Heavenly Father has given us. It reminds me of a song I learned in Primary.

For the Beaty of the Earth, by Folliott S. Pierpoint

For the beauty of the earth,

For the beauty of the skies,

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour

Of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale, and tree and flow’r,

Sun and moon, and stars of light,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,

Brother, sister, parent, child,

Friends on earth, and friends above,

For all gentle thoughts and mild,

Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise.

We are thankful for our Savior Jesus Christ. We are so thankful to all of you for your love and support. We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Potter

Week 72 - Dwight

 Today we had a special stake conference in Goldsboro.  Yesterday, Elder Gary E. Stevenson, one of the modern-day 12 apostles, visited our area, held leadership meetings and spoke to about 700 youth last night.  Today Elder Massimo De Feo of the Seventy presided over our stake conference.  We had about 30 of our Haitian members and friends in attendance.  Just before the conference started, Elder De Feo and our stake president, President Jones, stepped into the Primary Room, where the Haitians were seated for translation purposes.  They took a few minutes to say "hi" to everyone.  It was way cool!

The session last night with Elder Stevenson, was just for the youth and stake presidents from 5 stakes.  Monica (a new member of the Church) and Ruthnael (a soon-to-be member) were able to go.

Monica and Ruthnael going  in to meet an apostle!

We probably overate this week!  Last night, Patricia and Mark Pate (Mark was my best teenage buddy growing up, and after) invited us to their house for dinner. (Spare ribs, pork chops, butter beans, home made creamed corn, cheesy potatoes, coleslaw, an amazing broccoli salad, garlic bread and pumpkin pie).  We hung out and chatted about almost everything and had a great time.  Wednesday night, our neighbor and land lady and friend, Sandra invited us to her house for a fish fry with her family.  (Fried trout, coleslaw, hushpuppies, French fires, fried shrimp and apple pie and ice cream).  Was great to catch up with friends we haven't seen for a while and the food was amazing!  Tuesday, my friend JR cooked some fish we caught at the coast late last week and had his uncle and uncle's friend over.  So good!  Our diet restarts tomorrow!

With the young missionaries, we visited with our friend Christmonor and his brother Jean Edrice twice this week.  Christmonor was not really comfortable with what he has to wear to church, So Susan bought him a suit and we took it over to make sure it fit.  It did and he loved it!

Christmonor and his new church duds

I'm a succor for a full moon, beautiful sunrise or sunset or just beautiful view, because I love seeing the beauty of God's creations.  Here are a couple of shots from this week that just inspired me.  The camera doesn't do it justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

Full moon over Food Lion

Venus over forest sunset

Let me tell you about Charlemise.  Charlemise is the cousin of the wife of one of our new members, Alin.  Charlemise is 32.  She left Haiti over a year ago under very difficult circumstance's.  She lived in Mexico, really by herself, just surviving for 7 months.  She came to the US and hasn't been able to find work.  Recently, she shared a room with 3 other people she didn't know and she did not feel safe or comfortable.  The last year has been really hard for her trying to make it.  Alin helped her get into a house with another lady.  She now has her own room.  She said that she worries about her situation and cries every day, but through it all, she prays to thank God and asks for His help.  We've been waiting to hear from Butterball about a job for her that was taking a long time.  Finally, she got the call this week to come in.  We took her to Butterball to meet with our recruiting friend Luz.  Everything was going fine.  She got a good job offer.  Everything was great in her pre-employment physical, until they took her blood pressure.  It was off the chart!  I hadn't seen it, but the nurse told me that many Haitians have been having blood pressure problems.  Charlemise is suppose to start work Monday, tomorrow.  They won't let her start with her blood pressure that high.  We took her to the doctor and she got a prescription to lower the BP.  She's been taking it faithfully for a couple of days and it's starting to go down.  We're so glad she found this problem so that now she can start working on it.  She asked us to start teaching her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we taught her about the Plan of Salvation yesterday.  She loved it! Tomorrow she'll go in to complete her pre-employment physical and start orientation for her new job.  Brighter days are in store for Charlemise as she improves her health, changes her living situation, starts a new job and starts to learn about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Like all of us, God is so aware of her and is blessing her in significant ways.

This was a great week!  God loves each of us, personally and individually.  We see that in the way He's helping Charlemise.  The God of the universe knows me, loves me, understands me, listens to my prayers and responds.  I am His child and so are you.  It's almost unbelievable, but it is true!

Love you,

Elder Dwight and Sister Susan Potter

Week 71

We started out this week with all kinds of plans. We made visits and taught almost like before we got sick. By Wednesday, I was exhausted. Dwight was still ready to go, go, go! Thursday I tried to keep up. Friday, Dwight did "service" on his own so I could rest. Here are some highlights.

We visited Monica and talked to her about family history. She's going to call her mom in Haiti and try to get some information about her grandparents and great-grandparents. She seemed excited about that. We also talked to her about the Sacrament. She seems to really understand the Savior's love for her. We also told her about a special youth meeting next Saturday with Elder Stevenson, an Apostle. I hope she gets to go. I love this sweet girl.

Susan, Monica, Dwight

We visited Alin and taught his wife in Haiti on WhatsApp. The young missionaries taught her in Creole, Dwight talked to her in French, and I told her I loved her in English. The love and truth of the Gospel is felt through the Spirit in any language! I am so impressed with our young missionaries. They did NOT go through the MTC (Missionary Training Center) to learn Creole. They were called to learn the language while serving in Mt. Olive. They are doing so well communicating with all of our friends.

Alin (holding the phone with his wife Anseline),
Elders Smithson and Bates

Dwight, Alin, Anseline, Susan

We also got to visit two of our favorite people--brothers, Jean Edrice and Chrismonor. They are so much fun and love to study the Gospel. We read in the Book of Mormon and New Testament and had a nice discussion. We also measured Chrismonor for a suit. He's excited to dress up to go to church.

Paul Edrice and Chrismonor

Dwight actually had two days of service. Friday he took his friend that needed to get out of the house fishing. They attracted the attention of a cute little girl who wanted to see their fish. :)

Saturday, several people in our ward, including Dwight, went to help clean out the house of a lady who moved into assisted living. One of our Haitian sisters was the beneficiary of a piano. Luckily we have a professional piano tuner in our ward that made moving the piano much easier than it would have been without him. The sister that received the piano is so excited. She really wants to learn how to play! She thanks everyone she sees.

The donated piano

At church today we had a large Haitian second hour class. It was taught by a Haitian brother. It's wonderful to see the people growing in the Gospel and helping each other. It was Ward Conference today, so after church we had lunch altogether. Always fun!

Second hour class

Visiting after lunch

I found this on my phone today. It's Caroline singing I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus with a friend. It brought tears to my eyes. With all the craziness in the world, if we could all try just a little more to be like Jesus....  We love you all! Sister and Elder Potter

Susan Richardson Potter · N 1200 E St (1)

Week 70 - Dwight

When life is good and everything is going well and challenges are minimal, it's easy to take all that we have for granted.  My friend has had 3 operations on his feet in the last 2 years and there's a risk that he may lose one or both of his feet.  He's not taking his foot health for granted.  Anytime I lose the function of any small body part, I realize how much I have taken pretty much everything I have for granted.  But, I'm quickly reminded that we're dependent on God for everything, and everything we have, from Him, is pretty amazing!  We continued to both be sick this week.  We've stayed home most of the week and missed very much being able to get out and visit people that we love.  Finally, towards the end of the week, we started to feel better and were able to get out some.  We're not taking our health for granted.  We're so thankful for everything that we have and to feel good again.  We'll approach this week a little more humble, a little more thankful, and a little more determined to accomplish what God sent us here to do - and happy that we can get back to work!

Bella at her baptism

Bella in Utah

On Saturday, our granddaughter Bella was baptized in Cedar City, Utah by her dad.  We were sorry we couldn't be there in person, but we were able to attend via Zoom and we loved it!  Susan was even able to give a talk on The Holy Ghost.  We were surprised to see Susan's brother, sister, and mom in attendance.  It was amazing to attend this baptism, see and talk to everyone and feel the spirit, even over Zoom!

Saturday was also the Stew Fest in Albertson, across the street from where we live (Remember, we live down town!)  There is a stew contest and booths set up to sell food, local wares, and other items.  We were invited to set up a booth and teach people about family history.

Susan, Dwight and Greg at Stew Fest

Family History poster at Stew Fest

At the Stew Fest, we talked to several people and helped a few set up the Family Tree App and link to their family.  The Church's family tree is basically an attempt to create and populate one family tree for everyone who every lived on the earth.  It's an amazing undertaking and everyone is invited to participate.  One of the best experiences I had was talking to a woman and helping her link to her family tree.  We discovered that her great-grandfather was Benjamin Franklin Grady.  The grade school that I attended and that all my brothers and sisters attended and probably even my dad, was B.F. Grady and was named after Benjamin Franklin Grady.  For the people of Albertson, B. F. Grady is a pretty famous name.  She had no idea that the local school was named after her great-grandfather.  She was delighted!

While we didn't get out much this week, we did continue to support the work on phone calls and by working on some things to help our Haitian friends from home.  On Friday, I was feeling a lot better and Susan needed another day to recover.  So, for a few hours I took my friend, that's been cooped up in his home for weeks, fishing at the beach.  We had a fun day, caught a few fish and just enjoyed being outside on a beautiful day.

Sunset at Topsail Island

One of the things I love most about Utah is the mountains and being able to see them from a long ways away, the amazing sunsets and being able to see everything from the top of the mountains and the stars you can see in the mountains at night.  I think that's why I love the beach in NC, because you can see so far and so much of God's creations.  It reminds me of the scripture in the Book of Mormon Alma 30:44 "...all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." Everything we have comes from God and we have a lot!  We are so grateful for this earth, for our family, for our bodies and good health.  We're also grateful for you and the love we feel from you at home and you here that we get to be with regularly.  We love you and feel God's love for you everyday.

Elder Dwight and Sister Susan Potter