I love this time of year because it gives us a chance to reflect on how blessed we are.

It was another great week here in Stansbury! My last Thanksgiving on the mission was awesome. Got to eat two dinners so that’s awesome. I don’t have too much to update on. I got a new companion named Elder Rebarchik. He is super cool and I already knew him from a previous area so I’m excited to serve with him. It was definitely a little sad to send Elder Smith home. He was a really good friend and I’m looking forward to staying in touch with him. I love this time of year because it gives us a chance to reflect on how blessed we are. I am thankful for soooooo much. I’m thankful for my amazing, supportive family. I’m thankful for all of the good friends I’ve made over the last 20 years. I’m thankful to live in this great country where we have the freedoms that we do. I’m thankful for the chance I’ve had to serve here in Utah for the last 16 months and I’m thankful for the next 8 months that i have ahead of me. But most of all I’m thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel that I get to try my best to live in my life. With the Christmas season some how upon us already we have the great chance to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Our Church is doing an awesome initiative of service with the #LightTheWorld campaign. I’m excited to do it again this year and will keep you updated on how it goes but I’d also like to challenge everyone else to participate in it as well. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and have a great week!

#LightTheWorld

Elder Potter

I received this text this week. I am so thankful for so many blessings and this wonderful time of year.

He suffered everything that we will ever have to go through.

My week was pretty good. My current companion is going home a week from tomorrow so this week will be very weird. We won’t get as much time proselytizing as we usually do. He has interviews with our mission president on Wednesday in West Valley and then “Trunky Temple Day” on Thursday so I’ll spend all day hanging around in West Valley. But it should still be a good week! Our baptism went really well on Saturday. Myles got baptized by Elder Smith and then I got to confirm him. It was kinda funny, I never realized how small he was until we took that picture. He looks like a 5 year old! But it was an awesome day. Our area is a lot slower right now work wise so hopefully this next few weeks it can really start to pick up. I’ve loved getting to serve with Elder Smith these last 12 weeks but I’m excited to get a new companion this next week as well. I should be staying in Stansbury one more transfer so I should be here for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s! But I’ll find out for sure on Saturday. I wanna share a scripture that really stood out to me this week in my studies. It says talking about Jesus Christ, “11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.” I love this scripture. Jesus Christ loves all of us so much He was willing to die and suffer for all of us. He suffered everything that we will ever have to go through. I love Jesus Christ so much and am so thankful for His sacrifice for me. Hope everyone has a great week!

Christ has helped me through so many trials in my life, often times without even realizing it.

Well I had a pretty good week. We got a couple of new people to teach so I’m excited to continue working with them. We have another baptism this week for a 9 year old kid named Myles we are teaching so that will be really awesome. Maybe it’s just because I have only had Facebook for a month but I feel like there have been so many crazy tragedies happen in the past few months. With all the hurricanes, earthquakes, shootings there is just so much evil in the world. This past week has been filled with lots of tragedies and I know at times it can seem like there isn’t a whole lot of hope in the world. But I know that when we go through hard times that as we turn to Jesus Christ, He can help us through the hard times. I have been studying a lot in the New Testament lately and I just love to read about how many people seek out Christ. People came from all over to listen to Him speak and to witness His miracles. Although Christ isn’t on the earth today it’s so easy to seek Him out. All we have to do is turn to scripture and prayer. If we all turned to Christ to help us through our trials this world would be such a better place. I know that’s true. Christ has helped me through so many trials in my life, often times without even realizing it. Always look to Christ!

Miracles happen around us all the time. We just have to notice them!

George got a very nice text and this picture from Mr. Russell over the weekend. He said that Colton said his mission is a challenge but a good challenge and that he is doing well. We have been very fortunate to have so many positive adults play a role in our children’s lives. 

I had a pretty good week. We had another zone conference this week and it went really well. It was really focused towards how we can better use technology to spread positive uplifting messages about Jesus Christ. It was a pretty cool meeting. In our world today we are always being bombarded with negative messages. There is so much good in the world it’s just often times hidden behind the media showing us all the evil and terrible things that are going on in the world. Something I want to start doing is sharing positive things on Facebook every day. I probably won’t accomplish it because I forget a lot but I’m going to try! I got to catch lunch and catch up with Mr. Russell which was really cool. It’s always good to see a familiar face from home and he was easily one of my favorite teachers. We had a good teaching week as well. We started teaching a new family! It’s a single mom with two sons, one who is 13 and one who is 10. It’s really fun to teach them. So hopefully it continues to go well. Bella is going to be having her baptism this week so we have been busy trying to get that organized but we are really excited and so is she! It should be another great week. Something that has been on my mind recently is how miracles still exist today. God is never changing and I still believe that miracles exist. Maybe they aren’t as noticeable as when Moses parted the Red Sea but they are still there. When we show our faith in the Lord, He will reward us. Faith is so important and is something that is easy to have when things are going well but much harder when things aren’t going the way we want. But it is so important we continue to have faith when trials come. Our faith will be rewarded and we will be able to see just how much God loves us. Miracles happen around us all the time. We just have to notice them! I hope everyone has a good week and notice all the miracles around us!

I’ve noticed that the more I follow the will of the Lord rather than try to do my own thing the more successful I am and the more happy I am.

So I had a pretty crazy and very busy week. We had a lot of change go on this week. On Thursday, we had a meeting we had to go to with about 20 other missionaries where we got trained on how to use Facebook to help us with missionary work. So as of this past Thursday we have had Facebook and have been allowed to start using it to teach others about Jesus Christ. It’s been kind of interesting for sure. But I am really excited to see how the Lord uses Facebook to help us see some miracles. If you ever have any questions feel free to send me a message anytime and I’d love to answer them! Also on Thursday, we got a smartphone. That was really weird to. For the past 15 months I’ve been using a crappy slide phone that hardly works half the time but now we have a Samsung Galaxy J3 so that’s been nice. I’m really excited to use these different to help with the work. Besides that we had a really good teaching week! Bella is progressing very quickly and should be ready to get baptized on the 28th. The Browns are still doing awesome as well. We have some really promising new people to teach this week as well so I’ll keep you updated with what comes from that! Lately I’ve been studying a lot about the importance of prayer. I’ve come to realize over the last 15 months how important prayer is. It really is the way we unlock the greatest blessings we can receive that God is just waiting for us to ask for so He can pour them out upon us. However it is very important that when we pray, we are praying seeking to figure out what God’s will for us to do is. I’ve noticed that the more I follow the will of the Lord rather than try to do my own thing the more successful I am and the more happy I am. Prayer is so powerful. I hope you all have a great week! 

It was pretty awesome to see just how much he wants to follow Jesus Christ.

We received this message this week❤️

My name is Kim Brown. I live in Sandy Utah. Today my in-laws were baptized due to your missionary sons! We/my family will be forever grateful! 

This week just flew by and so did this transfer! Elder Smith and I are both staying for this next transfer so I officially get to kill him off. I'm super excited to do that but it will be really sad to send a good friend home. This week was kind of crazy to be honest. We had a bunch of exchanges that happened this week, had to coordinate baptismal interviews, had to reschedule lessons because we accidentally double booked appointments. It just was kind of a nonstop go, go, go kind of a week. But as always, the Lord definitely showed His hand in the work this week and we saw some miracles. Bill and Christine got baptized on Saturday and it was awesome. Their family made the trip to watch them get baptized and it was a special day. We had our first lesson with Bella and it went really well. She is scheduled to get baptized at the end of the month so that was really exciting! There is another kid named Jordan who is 16 that has been taught by the missionaries for a long time and we still visit him every week. He really wants to get baptized but his mom won't let him and so he can't because he is only 16. Recently he found out he is getting emancipated because he is enlisting in the national guard or something like that. So he is going to be able to get baptized in a few weeks! He was so excited to tell us and it was pretty awesome to see just how much he wants to follow Jesus Christ. That's really all I have to share for this week except one funny story! So on Sunday Bill and Christine got confirmed in church. To start the confirmation prayer you state the person's full name. So the guy Bill asked to do it was his neighbor who also baptized him. Bill's full name is William Donald Brown and so the neighbor goes to say the prayer and accidentally says "William Donald Trump" instead of Brown. It was right in the microphone at church and it was so funny. So people came up to us and said congratulations on baptizing Donald Trump. It was hilarious. Well here is to another week! Love and miss y'all!

With all the recent natural disasters and with the shootings and terrorist attacks going on all around us it is so important we fight the evil in the world with love.

It was just a pretty normal Pday. We went golfing this morning and then hung out at a member's house while we did some laundry. About to go get some dinner because our dinner cancelled for tonight. I'm really sad about the shootings as well. We were watching it a little bit at the members house. It is just so evil and messed up. 

So believe it or not it is the last week of the transfer. We will get transfer calls on Saturday. In interviews this past week with our mission president he told Elder Smith and I that we will probably be staying together which was exciting. If so it would be my first time "killing off" a companion, meaning I would be his last companion before he goes home. This week we had my third of four General Conferences on the mission. I always love General Conference and I always learn so much. There were a lot of really great messages shared but I think a lot really were geared towards how important it is to love everyone and to serve those around you, especially the less fortunate. GENERAL CONFERENCE MESSAGES

With all the recent natural disasters and with the shootings and terrorist attacks going on all around us it is so important we fight the evil in the world with love. It will make a difference. I got to attend the Saturday Afternoon session of conference with Bill and Christine, an older married couple we are teaching. They are going to get baptized this Saturday so we are looking forward to that! So about a month ago I found out that our mission is now going to be what is called a "social media mission." What that means is starting in two weeks I will have Facebook and twitter and will be able to use those tools to help share the gospel. However, I won't be able to use it like I did at home. I'll only be able to use it to help share messages about Jesus Christ. I don't know too many details yet but once I found out more I'll let y'all know. But I'm excited to try different methods of helping people learn more about Jesus Christ. The weather is starting to turn here. Some days it's nice and other days it is way too cold but that's the way it goes. I'm now down to less than 10 months left on my mission which is pretty unreal. It doesn't really seem like I've been gone for that long at times. I love Jesus Christ and I love teaching others about Him. I hope everyone has a great week! I love and miss you all!