It's hard to make changes in our life but when we make the decision to follow Christ it is always worth it.

So this week was a pretty hectic week. We had a lot of things going on and not so much time to get them done. But the week turned out pretty awesome. Both Dalton and Valentin got baptized on Saturday which was really special. Baptisms are seriously the most rewarding things ever. As a missionary, I spend a lot of time thinking about and praying for people to make the changes in their life to come unto Christ. We spend basically all day doing what we can to help people take those necessary steps and helping them anyway we can. At the end of the day I'm always dead tired and just mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. But when the time comes around for someone we have been working with to get baptized it makes it all worth it. And the same goes for the people we teach. They all have to make changes in their life to "take up the cross" and follow Christ. It's hard to make changes in our life but when we make the decision to follow Christ it is always worth it. It'll never be easy but it'll always be worth it. One of my favorite quotes is to "choose the harder right rather than the easier wrong." That is so true. It's always easier to do what is wrong. But doing what is right is always the most rewarding because it brings us true happiness. We are already coming up on the end of the transfer which is crazy. My very first companion, Elder Tyler, goes home at the end of this transfer which will be really weird. He will be my first companion I've had to go home which means I'm starting to get closer and closer to when I go home. This week should be another good one. We have a lot of temple Square lessons set up. It is always pretty refreshing to go downtown and just feel of the spirit that is present there. That's all I have for this week. I hope everyone has a great week. Love and miss you all!

Happy 20th Birthday Elder Potter!

Colton had the good fortune of his birthday falling on P-Day.  So he was able to fit in some golfing and taken to both lunch and dinner to celebrate.  But we didn't get an official update. He said it was a fantastic birthday.

I just can't stress enough to anyone the importance of trusting God. He truly loves you and wants what is best for you and it is so important we never forget that.

     
What a crazy, awesome week. First, we got transfer calls and Elder Greer and I will both be staying in the same area again so we are super excited about that. We have a lot of fun together and a lot of good work going right now. We also have birthdays the same week and will get to celebrate them as companions this transfer. We also got to celebrate our last birthday as companions so that doesn't happen very often. But this week was a great week. 
      On Tuesday, I got to go with one of my old companions, Elder Muse, to the temple with Amanda, someone we taught. It was such a special experience. She and her whole family had changed so much over the past 9 months since I started teaching her. On Friday we got to go to the temple with Ram to do baptisms for the dead and did the same thing on Saturday with Andrew. I'm sure that probably sounds a little weird so if you have questions about it, ask and I'll explain. What are baptisms for the dead?
     We also put our investigator from Chile on date for baptism for August 5 so that'll be exciting. He is a professional table tennis player and we got to play him before church yesterday and he absolutely destroyed us. He's a super cool guy. 
     Something that I learned this week has to do with God's Plan. Sometimes, we as God's children, think we know what's best for us and what our plan needs to be. We sometimes forget that God knows best. I know I've had some struggles in life where I looked to God and asked why he was putting me through that trial or if he was even there. Looking back on my life from where I am now it is so easy to see just how much He has been involved in my every day life and how He has used me to help fulfill His plan. I just can't stress enough to anyone the importance of trusting God. He truly loves you and wants what is best for you and it is so important we never forget that. That's all I have for the week. Hope you all have a great week!

I had probably the best week of my whole mission so far.

Elder Potter and his good friend Logan

He did get very sunburned at a baseball game last P-Day.

4th of July P-Day Fun

Watching the Bees

I had probably the best week of my whole mission so far. Seriously everything that seemed to happen was something good. Andrew and Ram were so prepared for their baptisms and their services were so awesome. The spirit was very strong there and you could tell Heavenly Father was happy with the choices they were making to follow Him. They got confirmed  (What is Confirmation?) on Sunday and Ram asked me to be the one to do that for him so that was a really cool experience. I also found out about a recently reactivated lady, Amanda, I taught a while ago is going to the temple for the first time tomorrow so I get to go with her and I'm so excited. She has come so far since I met her in November. On Saturday night we had a really great Temple Square lesson with a cool guy named Tre that we are teaching and his girlfriend. They really opened up to us and we have built a super good relationship with them and they want to start going to Temple Square with us weekly. So that'll be really fun. We ended the week by going to a recent convert/returning member devotional put on by some missionaries. Andrew was asked to speak at it and did an awesome job. It was pretty emotional. I was also asked to sing at it so that was pretty cool. It was a pretty awesome week. This is already the last week of the transfer so transfer calls are coming up. I'm not sure what will happen with me so we will have to see! Hope everyone has an awesome week!

No matter who we are, what we have done He will always love us.

I had an awesome week. We are still experiencing a lot of success finding more people to teach. We have tried doing a little more fun approaches to finding people to teach and it has worked so far. Both Elder Greer and I love sports so we have been playing basketball every Tuesday night, football every Saturday morning, and are going to start playing softball every Wednesday night. It's a lot of fun and we have built some good relationships with people who we want to start teaching. But one of the new people we started teaching this week is a guy named Valentin. He is a baller. He just moved here from Chile and is wanting to learn more. He was a professional table tennis player there and he only has one leg. Super cool dude. We had our first lesson with him this week and he had some really good questions. It's always so cool to see how talking to someone about Jesus Christ can change them. By the end of our lesson with him he had this huge smile on his face and was just so happy. It's amazing to help bring the light of Christ into the lives of others. We also had Zone Conference this week and Greer and I did our training on the name of Christ and it was so powerful. The whole meeting was powerful. We shared some personal experiences of the power of Christ's Atonement in our lives. I was really touched during it and may or not have started to cry a little bit. It was a pretty awesome meeting. Another one of the trainings was done on hope and that one in particular touched me. It's so important that we have hope. Hard times are going to come to us in life but if we have hope in Christ we can get through anything that can come our way. I love Jesus Christ. He lives and He loves us. No matter who we are, what we have done He will always love us. His Atonement is there for us to use in our lives so we can come back to Him when we have dug ourselves into a pit of despair. His arms outstretched waiting for each of us. The scripture I want to share this week says this, "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." That's all I have for this week. Love y'all! Have a good week! 

"After the trial of our faith comes the conversion."

These are the Memorial Day Shirts they picked up at Walmart.  Classic Colton. 

I had a super eventful week this week. Ram is doing really well. He is really progressing and accepting Jesus Christ and it is so cool to see the changes in him. He hasn't missed church since we started teaching with him and he is loving it. We are still in a long process of finding more people to teach but I know the Lord will bless us for our efforts. 
I got to try waffle love for the first time ever and it was so good. I had heard lots of good things about it and it truly lived up to the hype. 

But easily the craziest experience I've had on my mission happened this week and probably the coolest as well. I was on exchanges with Elder Quinnelly to do some baptismal interviews for him. We were headed to the first one and all of a sudden we saw a pretty big cloud of smoke go up in the air and we thought somebody had just burnt some leaves or something but as we kept driving it became pretty obvious it was a house fire. As we approached the street of the guy I was going to interview, Jake, we figured out the house was on the same street as Jake's. As we pulled up we could smell it and saw the house just up in flames. We were one of the first 10 people on the scene and so we parked and sprinted to the house. We saw people just hysterical. Screaming and crying and wailing. It was crazy. We ran up to them and asked if everyone was out of the house and they said yes which was good. Afterwards Elder Quinnelly and I talked and we were both prepared to run into that house to try and get someone out if we needed to. Luckily we didn't have to do that otherwise it may have been an even crazier story. The fire trucks got there probably 5 minutes after we did and so we got to watch the whole process which was pretty cool but the house was completely destroyed. About 15 minutes after we got there a lady motioned us over and asked to give one of the residents and her daughter a blessing and so we did. Before the blessings, they both were bawling uncontrollably but by the end of the blessings the tears had stopped and they were very calm. Super powerful moment for me. We found out it was the daughter's 14th birthday which was really sad. But what was sad was seeing this family with no hope. They kept saying we have lost everything. All they could see was the negative. And for good reasons too. They literally lost all of their belongings in the fire. Nothing was salvaged. But no one was even hurt. God protected their family. Why did their house have to burn down? I don't know but I do know that God can use it for their benefit in the long run. We got to explain that to them and just offer them comfort and counsel and it was a super cool moment. I love being able to be an instrument in the Lord's hands and bring hope into people's lives. Easily one of the best part's about being a missionary. The scripture I want to share this week says, "And after their temptations, and much tribulation, behold, I, the Lord, will feel after them, and if they harden not their hearts, and stiffen not their necks against me, they shall be converted, and I will heal them." For us to become truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ we must go through trials. After the trial of our faith comes the conversion. Christ lives and loves us and I know that to be true. I hope you all have a great week! Happy Memorial Day!

They went on a long hike in the mountains for Memorial Day. 

Teaching people to pray is one of the coolest things ever.

This week definitely had its ups and downs. We had two really cool people we have been teaching who decided they weren't ready to make the commitment to follow Christ yet and wanted a break from meeting with us. So that was really upsetting to hear this week. It's so weird to see how much love that I have for these random people we met all the time. They choose not to meet with us or not get baptized or whatever it is and it makes me so sad for them. Blessing and a curse of missionary work. But there are always way more ups than downs. 
We had another awesome lesson with Ram this week. Since he has no prior knowledge of who God is or who Jesus Christ is and so that is basically what we taught him and it was awesome. He is such a cool dude. At the end of the lesson we asked him to offer the closing prayer and it was so cool. It was the first time he ever prayed and wow the Spirit was so strong and he just gets it. I love teaching people like Ram who just want that direction that comes in life from living the gospel and coming unto Christ. Teaching people to pray is one of the coolest things ever. Ram came to church and loved it and wants to start meeting with us twice a week instead of just once. So that definitely made up for Anthony and Drew dropping us this week. 
Another cool thing that happened this week was the fact that yesterday was Mother's Day! It was really nice to skype home and talk to my family. Pretty crazy two out of my four skypes home are done.Time is really picking up. But something I have come to realize on my mission is how I definitely took my family for granted. I love my family so much and I am so excited to see them when I get home. Family is so important. The scripture I want to share this week has to do with family. The scripture is from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. It talks about love that should be within family. It says, "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." I love this scripture because it doesn't say love is only there when everything is perfect. Love has to endure and bear all things. No family is perfect. Everyone has their trials but it is how we overcome those trials and grow closer together because of the hard times. That is something that is so important in today's world. A lot of people when faced with trials just crumble and fall but what matters is how we can take the punches and keep going. That's all I have for this week! I hope everyone had a great week and all the mom's had a great Mother's Day! Have a great week!