Valentine's Day 2023

Happy Valentine's Day from the Potter House!

Trek was gone most of February so he missed out on our Valentine Day Celebrations, but we called him & wished him the happiest of Valentine's Days.

We had some friends over for piano lessons & they helped us decorate some Valentine's Day Cookies.  They were shaped like Mickey Mouse of course.

I also made some yummy pink cupcakes for Valentines because my kids LOVE cake.

I have the sweetest husband & kiddos.  Trek called Lorien & asked her to go buy me some chocolates & flowers for Valentine's Day so she went after school & picked some up for me without knowing.  She set it up after I went to bed that night so I'd wake up to beautiful flowers & yummy chocolates on Valentine's Morning.

For breakfast I made the kiddos heart shaped scrambled eggs, heart muffins, & strawberries.  I also wrote each of them a card & bought them their favorite candy.

For dinner I put together a very pink & red charcuterie board which the kids LOVED.

And we made heart shaped pasta, some salad, garlic bread, & heart shaped jello.

3 of Lorien's sweet friends stopped by with flowers & chocolates for her.  My kids truly have the best friends here.  They are the best of the best.

It was a very busy Valentine's Day, but we still managed to have a lot of fun together.  I love holidays!

 

February Happenings 2023

February just FLEW by this year.  With 2 big trips, Trek gone most of the month TDY, stake conference with our church (which is always time consuming for Trek being in the stake presidency), 3 birthdays, & more. . . I blinked & it was March.

Craiger got to go to the Frankfurt Temple for the first time in February.  His very best friend (who looks like his twin) was able to go with him.  They had a lot of fun.

Bladen got pink eye in February which was kind of sad.  He missed out on the temple trip, but he got to spend a few days at home with me.  We had a blast together playing games, watching movies, & just chatting.  I absolutely love those little moments of one on one time with my kids.

The kids at our church also got to have a fun Valentine activity the day Craiger went to the temple.  Canyon made a big valentine for me which was ADORABLE.

He also decorated heart shaped cookies, made a heart craft, & wrote a note to our bishop telling him how much we love him.  He serves our congregation so much!

After the activity, we walked to the mall next to the church to get a fun donut. He picked out an adorable Happy Hippo donut.

Then we came back home & made valentines for Canyon's class at school.  We had some Mario valentines left over from last year as well as some new Star Wars valentines, so we used both for his friends.

Something new for Bladen this month was learning how to bake bread.  He is a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood now & one of his responsibilities is to provide the bread for the sacrament once a month.  He wanted to make the bread from scratch to help him understand the importance of his office in the priesthood.  We woke up on Sunday morning at 6am to start the bread.  We baked 2 loaves & it took almost 5 hours to complete.  He was SO proud of his bread.

We took it to sacrament meeting & everybody loved it.  We ended up sharing the recipe with everyone.  Bladen gets to make the bread again in March so he's looking forward to getting faster the 2nd time he tries it.

Also this month, I was in charge of our church's book club event.  We read Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (my favorite author) so I put together a bunch of discussion questions as well as set out some snacks to represent the book.

Grey with white spot cookies to represent Raoden
& his Elantrian skin

Blondies to symbolize Princess Serene & her blond hair.

And red velvet cupcakes to represent Hrathen & his
red gyorn armor.

I also set out an "Elantrian Basket" which is what is given
to new Elantrians when the Shaod hits them & they are 
banished into the city.  It had bread, fruits, veggies, & cheese.

It was a fun book club & we enjoyed discussing together.

My favorite part of any day is snuggle time.  Occasionally, I'll get all my boys to climb up on my bed with me & talk while we snuggle up with each other.  I absolutely love that my 13 year old snuggles just as much as my 9 year old.  In fact, Bladen still asks me to walk with him to the bus stop every morning.  I ask him why & he says because he loves me & it makes him feel safe.  He always hugs me & tells me he loves me before he gets onto the bus.  I hope that lasts forever because I love it.

 

Winter Formal

Winter Formal at the High School happened the first weekend in February.  Lorien got asked by a friend from school, but both of them were actually two of the kids planning & decorating for the dance so their "date" & "getting ready for the dance" all took place in the school cafeteria so I didn't get any pictures.  She had a blast though & wore a beautiful long sleeved velvet green dress.

Taya went with her gal friends & they had fun dressing up & going together.  She wore one of the dresses from my "90's" collection (one of my old prom dresses), her white cloak, & some beautiful jewelry.  She felt like Cinderella & she looked beautiful.

Here friends are super cute girls.  I just love the "tribe" Taya has found here.  They build each other up & really look out for each other.  They are the definition of true friends.

It was a fun night for both Taya & Lorien.  I'm so glad they have these fun opportunities In school.

 

Cadence - Та баптисм хуртээх үү? x2 - February 20, 2023

 Сайн байцгаана уу!

This week was so busy and so free at the same time. Many people were preparing for Цагаан сар (one of Mongolia's largest holidays - think of a week long Christmas/Thanksgiving combined) which starts tomorrow! People come together to clean their houses and make thousands (yes not hundreds, thousands) of buuz for the event. So this past week, most of our investigators and members were too busy for us to visit but we had lots of opportunities to serve so many people this week! We cleaned so many houses I can't even count them all. But it was so fun! The highlight for me was vacuuming the carpeted walls of one sweet Эмээгийн гэр. We also cleaned both Old Darkhan and New Darkhan's church buildings which took a while because they were very very dirty haha. It's good to have them clean again.

Yesterday, our Bishop's family invited us over to help them prepare and make buuz, so I learned how to make them! It was very difficult at first because I've never made homemade dumplings before but Bishop was a very patient teacher and then I figured it out. Making buuz also consisted of cutting up a giant skinned sheep but I won't add those pictures to this email because it was pretty nasty. We basically cut up the sheep into thousands of tiny pieces, cut up onions and garlic, then kneaded the dough. Finally, we put it all together and got to enjoy some delicious buuz afterwards. Also, my Bishop owns two quails so they were just zooming around the house the whole time which made it so chaotic but so fun! My buuz looked so bad when they were finally done steaming but what made my day was Bishop's youngest son finding all the ugly buuz I made and exclaiming "I want to eat all of Potter's buuz!" I'll attach a picture of him enjoying the 'Potter buuz' haha. He's officially my favorite Mongolian now haha.

This week has been great for many of our investigators - they all take our lessons so seriously and have such strong spirits. We also invite two of them to be baptized! Please pray for Bolorsuvd and Minjinsor that they will continue to feel ready to progress towards baptism in the coming weeks. They are both so amazing and inspire me so much with their testimonies! It amazes me how much faith the people of Mongolia have considering that the Church here is barely 30 years old and they don't even have a temple. Yet they are willing to make the commitment to join the church because they have the faith to know that it is true. Despite the lack of the temple and the newness of the Church, it is true no matter what, and they are so devoted and willing to give it their lives. I love the people here so much!

Other fun things that happened this week:

- I bought a ukulele and the first Harry Potter book in Mongolian (for language study on pdays haha)

- Our Mission President came to Darkhan to give an amazing devotional on the importance of the Temple - the spirit was so strong that I could not stop crying

- I made banana bread this week!

- The Senior couple in our area invited us over for Tacos and salsa! In a place where there are no tortillas, salsa, or taco seasoning, this was a big deal

- I taught my English class about Valentine's Day this week and they all made me Valentines - I love my students so much!

This week, I had some amazing personal studies. While preparing for one investigator lesson, I came across these verses in D&C 18:

10 Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

11 For behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh: wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him.

12 And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance.

13 And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!

I love how verse 13 is exclaimed - Christ has so much joy when we repent and turn to Him because He loves each of us individually. He literally suffered and died for you - so that you could have the opportunity to repent. And the most wonderful part is that Heavenly Father and Christ give YOU the choice whether or not you are going to follow them. Christ loves you so much that He suffered and died for you despite the chance that you might not choose to follow Him. But He wanted you to have that chance. That is why He has so much joy when you repent and turn to Him - because He gave you the choice. I encourage you to give your thanks by following Christ. He already suffered for you. Please return your gratitude by accepting His love and His sacrifice. Heavenly Father and Christ know you BY NAME. You are their favorite person. You have infinite worth and a divine destiny as Heavenly Father's child. You can only reach that true potential, though, through Christ's Atonement. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Potter

Cadence - Zone Conference #2 - February 15, 2023

 Сайн Байцгаана уу!

This week was full of some of the best moments I've experienced on the mission! First off, we had a Zone Conference this week! It was so amazing to get together with everyone and learn a lot of great things! It felt extra special too because all the countryside missionaries are in a zone together and we don't get to see each other often since we are spread out so much. The closest missionaries to our area are about a 2-3 hour drive away. The furthest companionship is about 12 hours away haha. So it felt really homey getting together with all of them and meeting some of them for the first time. There's also only about 11 companionships in our Zone vs the last conference we had which had sooo many more missionaries, so it was super fun to have a small conference. I was informed at 10pm the night before that I would be playing the piano for it so that was rough. Also, I did a singing musical number with Sister Wells at the conference and it was so fun despite the fact that I literally don't know how to sing. Overall the conference was amazing and we gained so many wonderful insights from our trainers and Mission President about how to become more effective missionaries by showing love and effectively planning out our days. Our Mission President really stressed roleplays at the conference so we've been adding those to our daily To-Do list.

On top of an amazing Zone Conference, we also had the opportunity to do an exchange this past week since everyone was in Darkhan for a few days! We crammed all of the Sisters in our zone into our apartment and had a great time hanging out and learning from one another. Personal study and getting ready in the morning became a little chaotic with six girls but it was such a great experience. And then we did companion study together and the spirit was soooo amazing! We all stood together and recited our mission's purpose and it was the coolest thing I've experienced on the mission so far. Also, my amazing mother sent a package of food ingredients from home so I got to make every Apricot chicken for lunch and it was amazing! I haven't had american food in a while so it was a good taste of home. During the exchange, I mostly taught English the whole time. My companion, Sister Khongurzul, was so sweet and amazing and taught me how to always smile. From the time the Sisters got here to the time they left (3 days) I got a total of 8 hours of sleep haha. And it was so good to see Sister Vick from the MTC again. She and I didn't get any sleep because we were having so much fun catching up and laughing and talking about old MTC memories all night. It was great!

Yesterday, we helped a sweet Эмээ in our ward clean her house. I love doing service for the people in our ward because it gives us a chance to connect more with them. She talked our ears off the whole time and then made us some delicious soup and fried meat! It reminded me of German schnitzel. I later found out that it was sheep liver! It tasted so good so 100/10 recommend. 

Our investigators are all doing well. Please pray for our investigator Nominerdene because we haven't been able to meet with her in a while and she is very very busy. Hopefully this week, we will be able to meet with her and she will be able to feel the spirit again. Our investigators are honestly so golden and amazing and they keep all of their commitments and are just the best. They are also all my English students so they have an extra special place in my heart because they are all trying so hard to learn English and the gospel. It really inspires me to work harder to learn Mongolian and the gospel as well. We are so close to Bolorsuvd's baptism and she is so ready! Hopefully we can fit it in before transfers because we just found out transfers are a week earlier than we thought they would be! Time really goes by soooo fast on the mission! It's crazy how quickly it's gone by.

Other fun things that happened this week:

- My mom sent an awesome package with great games to play with my english class - she also sent reeses and peanut butter!!!

- We had another fun sports event with our ward and two new "friends of members" (soon to be investigators) came

- One of our investigators started going to seminary without us even telling her what seminary was - she is just so awesome!

- We had 5 young women at church on Sunday (2 being our investigators). When I first got here, not a single young woman ever came to church. It was pretty awesome to see them all together!

- I made an ad for our Mongolia Church Facebook Page and it got over 200,000 views at this point! Lots of missionary work is done through Facebook haha

All together it's been a great week! As I was reading in Luke 15, I came across these verses:

4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing

6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance

I love the comparison of Christ to a shepherd, yet I don't think it does Him justice. It is a shepherd's job to find his lost sheep; it is Christ's DESIRE to find His lost sheep. We are not a burden to Him. We are not a chore for Him to find. He loves us perfectly and unconditionally and He wants to help us get back home. We must let Him help us by desiring to have faith in Him. He cannot help us without our faith and desire to be helped by Him. I know that Christ loves each one of you and died so that He could help each one of you. Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Potter