My Missionary

The very hardest thing to happen this month was saying goodbye to my sweet Cadence.

She is officially a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She was set apart as a missionary by Trek who is a member of the Stake Presidency here.  It isn't very often that a dad gets to set you apart as a missionary so that was a really neat experience for her.

After she got set apart, she had to say goodbye to her siblings which was a very sad moment in our house.  There were many tears & hugs.

Then Trek & I took her to the airport to put her on a plane to UT where she will be attending the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo to learn Mongolian, to take a class through BYU to get her certified to teach English as a 2nd language, & to learn the ins & outs of being a missionary.

That final hug & good-bye killed me.  I am going to miss her SO much, but I know she is going to do great things in Mongolia.

Luckily, my dad was there in UT to pick her up at the airport.  She got to stay with my parents for 2 days & then they officially dropped her off at the MTC.

Here is a video she sent us the day before she went into the MTC.

And now, we wait for Saturdays when she gets to make her weekly phone call.  Oh I count down the days until I get to talk to her.  I miss her so much.  I love hearing her voice & hearing all the amazing things she is doing.  It's definitely NOT easy, but she is doing great.

Each week she sends an email out with pictures, videos, & stories about what she's been up to.  I will be including them on this blog so you all can hear her amazing adventures as well.

Here was her first letter describing her first FULL WEEK as a missionary in the MTC.

And as for us. . . we eagerly await our once a week phone calls to hear all about it.

We love you Cadence!!!  Go & do GREAT things. . . 

Сайн уу! 

I hope you are all doing well! This is my first ever missionary email so I apologize in advance for all of my mistakes. And I apologize because it's a bit long. In the future, my emails will be much shorter and easier to read. 

Today is finally P-day so I'm excited to share my adventures with you all. I arrived at the MTC on Sunday evening just in time to meet my temporary district and go to my first devotional at the MTC, taught by President Porter and his wife. Because the rest of my Mongolian district is still doing at-home mtc training, I was assigned to be in a trio companionship with Sister Malouf and Sister Nelson of the Japan Tokyo South District. They are so wonderful and so sweet! They showed me the ins and outs of the MTC and I love their district so much.

While they attend their Japanese lessons, I attend my own district's lessons online via zoom. I love my Mongolian District so much as well. My companion, Sister Allen, is the sweetest person ever! And I love my Mongolian MTC teachers so much. Brother Wade and Sister McKinney both served in Mongolia recently. My last teacher, Sister Enkhtuvshin, served her mission in Mongolia and is a native Mongol. She is so informative about the Mongol people and what they believe, and it is really insightful. 

I have already learned and studied so much but I feel like there is never enough time to master everything. I am trying my best to learn how to balance all of my Mongolian studies, Preach my Gospel studies, and personal studies. On top of my MTC training, I have to take a course through BYU to become certified as an ESL (English as a second language) teacher because a majority of my mission will be teaching the Mongol people english. I am not allowed to proselyte in Mongolia so teaching English is one of the many ways the missionaries there are able to serve and reach out to Mongols. I am so thankful for this opportunity since this will be a very unique mission. It's very busy but I know that, through the Lord's help, I can manage all of my studies. I can testify that the Spirit is so strong here at the MTC. Everyone here glows with the Spirit of Christ and everyone is so compassionate and diligent. I am so thankful to be here!

I haven't learned a lot of Mongolian yet because the at-home MTC is focused on teaching missionaries how to be missionaries in English first. But I have been working with tutors and my goal for the end of this week is to be able to pray, explain that I am a missionary for the church, and memorize my missionary purpose in Mongolian. Next week, I will attach a video of me explaining my missionary purpose in Mongolian to my email. I already know how to introduce myself and carry a basic conversation, but it definitely takes me a minute to think of what to say. I know that with the Lord's help, I will be able to one day teach the people of Mongolia in their native tongue.

Today, my Japanese district and I went to the Provo temple to do baptisms and confirmations for the dead. I have never lived so close to a temple before and Mongolia doesn't have a temple so I am taking advantage of every temple visit here at the MTC. For those of you who want to feel more peace in your life, I recommend visiting the temple soon. It brings me so much peace and comfort when I am feeling overwhelmed by the world. 

I hope you are all doing well and I wanted to leave you with a scripture that really impacted me this week.

Jacob 4:13 - "Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old."

I love this verse because it teaches that the Holy Ghost will manifest the truth of all things unto us, no matter what messages we receive. The Holy Ghost will always help us know what is true and what is false if we earnestly seek answers and ask of God. If you are ever doubting anything, whether it be the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, the prophets, or anything else, the Holy Ghost will tell you that this gospel is true. I have felt the Spirit testify to me that this gospel is the true restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know, through personal revelation, that the Book of Mormon is true and that we have living prophets today who are appointed by God.

I would love to hear from you all! I wish you all the best this week and if you ever have any questions about the Church or are interested in learning more, don't hesitate to email me! I would love to answer all of your questions!

Sincerely,

Sister Potter

 

September 2022 Happenings

September just FLEW by this year.  We had so many things going on that it was over in the blink of an eye.  But here are some of the highlights.

We went to Disneyland over Labor Day weekend, but I already posted about that.  It was our last big

HOO-RAH

with Cadence before she left for her mission.

Lorien, Trek, & the rest of the youth council from church put together an AMAZING dance for the youth of our church group (about 100 kids showed up).  The theme was "Around the World" & they decorated with flags & the Eiffel Tower, & Trek made these really cool signs with arrows pointing to all the major cities of the world.  There was desserts from all over the world, & everyone dressed up in outfits from around the world too.  It was a blast.

Homecoming is coming up & Lorien did something very brave.  Usually Homecoming is a boys ask the girls dance.  But she knew in her group of friends that there were more girls than boys & she wanted to try to even that out, so she decided to ask her German friend who doesn't go to her school to be her date.  I love that my kids have friends that are local to this area.  It gives them some amazing cultural experiences, & we've met the best people in the world here.  Her German friend is also a senior this year & he has never experienced an "American Dance" before so he is very excited to have this experience.

She asked him in such a cute way too.  She gave him a puzzle that he had to put together.  Then in German she wrote that Homecoming wouldn't be "complete" without him.  Then once he had it put together & read, she rang his doorbell & was holding a sign asking him to go to homecoming with her.  She also made a cute bouquet of candy for him.  He's very excited to go with her.

The kids also had the chance to go to the Frankfurt temple to do baptisms for the dead this month.  Taya & Bladen were in the same group together & enjoyed some time with Trek at the temple.  We have such an amazing youth group here.

Cadence & I got our hair done this month.  Cadence got hers cut really short for her mission, & I got some red in mine.  Both were very different from what we're used to doing, but both were adventurous & fun.

Craiger & Canyon have had fun as Activity Days Boys started up again this month.  They love the 2 activities they get to do each month with their friends.  They loved minute to win it games.

And the older kids had a fun youth activity this month that involved water balloons filled with PAINT.  Needless to say, they were a complete mess, but they had a blast.

And that was our September.  It's all been full of adjusting to school, early morning seminary for Lorien, Taya, & myself. . . . . learning recorder for Canyon, learning French Horn for Craiger, & playing a LOT more percussion instruments for Bladen.

Cadence left on her mission to Mongolia which was very hard on all of us, but we are loving learning all about what she's up to & what she learns each week during her weekly phone call.

All is well in the Potter house as we gear up for the BEST month of the year

OCTOBER!!!

 

Disneyland Paris - Day 2

Day 2 of Disneyland was amazing.  We had already been on all the rides we were excited about so day 2 was just about doing things we wanted to do again.  All the kids decided they wanted to see more characters the 2nd day which is my favorite part.  I was excited.

We showed up at 8:40 again so we could be first into the park like we were on day 1.  We did the same thing by running to Crush's Coaster & got on without even waiting in any line at all.  Then we made our way to Aladdin's Carpets to ride that.

We wandered around the Hollywood Studios Park a little bit & found Mike Wazowski,

And then of course we all wanted to ride Tower of Terror again because it's AWESOME.

Everybody wanted to ride Avengers Campus Flight Force again, but Taya hated it the day before so I decided to sit out with her & explore the park some more.  We wandered around & took some pictures around the Avenger area . . . 

and saw Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story area of the park.

Everybody else had a blast on Flight Force again.

While they were riding, Ant Man showed up so Taya & I got in the line to "meet" him.  Luckily, everyone else showed up just as we got in line.  It was probably the longest line we stood in the entire day (about 30 minutes which is SO NOT BAD).  The kids were VERY happy to meet Ant Man.

We shopped a little bit around the shops at Hollywood Studios, & then went out to have lunch at 5 Guys again.

My kids LOVE 5 Guys.

And then we headed back into Disneyland Park.

And we saw Tigger & Rabbit on our way back In.

We spent most of the afternoon binging the Tomorrowland rides that were our favorites.  Taya used to be obsessed with Wall-E so we loved this little statue of Wall-E & Eve.

We rode Star Tours 2 more times because the wait time was only 5 minutes, & then we rode Hyperspace Mountain again too when the line was only 30 minutes.

Then we headed over to Pirates to ride it a few more times as well.

At this point it was getting later in the day & our legs & feet hurt from walking & standing so much.  We knew that if we were going to make it to 11:00 to watch fireworks, we all needed a nap.  So we found our way to Adventure Isle (a playground by Pirates) & let the boys play while we each took turns taking power naps.

We also explored the pirate skull & the big ship.

I absolutely love these next 2 pictures.  Everybody's feet hurt.  Everybody was tired.  We were zoning out.  Some of us were actually sleeping, others just resting.  But we were tired & it was only 4 in the afternoon.

Then Taya starts screaming & pointing & we realized Jack Sparrow was hanging out next to the playground.  This playground is off the beaten path & isn't super easy to get to which made it even more bizarre that Jack Sparrow was there.  Nobody would ever find him there unless they had kids at the playground.  Now we were SUPER glad we took those power naps otherwise we never would have seen him.  He is Lorien's favorite character so she was over the moon excited to talk to him.

After hanging out with Jack Sparrow for a bit (there was no line & nobody was there waiting so he just talked to us for a while), we heard a parade happening on Main Street, so we went to check it out.  It had SO MANY CHARACTERS IN IT.  It was SUPER cool.

Then we went BACK to Tomorrowland & rode everything again.

After that we made our way back to Hollywood Studios so we could ride the Spiderman ride one more time for Canyon.  We played boys vs. girls & we TOTALLY killed them.  Not only did we get a much higher score than the boys did, but we made the highest score list for the entire park that day.  We came it at #4.  AWESOME.

Trek, Cadence, Lorien, & Bladen decided to ride Tower of Terror one more time, so I took Taya, Craiger, & Canyon to walk around Avengers Campus once more while they rode.  Right when we got there, we literally ran into Falcon.  He was playing red light green light with a bunch of kids, so Canyon joined in.

Craiger was more confused as to why Falcon had Captain America's shield.  ha ha ha.

After that, we saw Star Lord & Gamora walking so we followed them & got lucky to get a front row of their "dance battle" show.  It was hilarious.  Star Lord is the best.  I just love how funny he is.  He taught us all how to dance & the kids LOVED that.

At this point I was feeling pretty bad that Trek, Cadence, Lorien, & Bladen were missing out on all these characters.  I tried texting them to see how much longer they'd be.  I wanted them to get to see someone.

Falcon waved at us as we walked past.

We sat down for a minute, hoping the others would show up soon, when I noticed a pair of Asgardian horns walking around back stage.  NO WAY.  Everybody knows that Loki is my favorite Marvel character.  If it was Loki, I knew I was going to die of happiness.

IT WAS LOKI!!!

Thor was there too, but I only cared about Loki.  (jk)

They did a cute show with some kids & we just stood & watched.  We somehow managed to always be in the right place at the right time & got front row for all these shows.  It was SO exciting.

Craiger & Taya got high 5's from Thor as they left.  I was just SO happy I got to see my Loki.

Literally 3 minutes after they left, Trek & the kids showed up.  They missed them.  I was so sad.  I convinced them to stay around a little bit longer because Disney shows usually come in 2's.  If they are going to put people in costumes & make-up, they'll make sure they do at least 2 shows within a certain time frame to make it worth it for the cast members.  So we waited & sure enough, Star Lord & Gamora came out again for a 2nd Dance Battle Show.  We were right in the front again & this time Star Lord picked Taya to come out & dance battle with him.  She was adorable out there.

We said goodbye to Avengers Campus at about 9pm & headed outside the park to eat at McDonalds.  It was the biggest McDonald's I've ever seen.  And there was a LINE.  .  .  a bigger line than any we saw at Disneyland that day.  We waited for nearly 40 minutes in line to get dinner, but we got it & it fed us.  We got the kids some ice cream to hold them over to fireworks.  It was nice to rest our feet for a little bit.

Then at 10:30, we made our way back into Disneyland Park to watch fireworks.  It was PACKED with people.  We found a little area to sit & waited for the show to start.

The first 7 minutes was a really cool drone show celebrating Disney Paris' 30th anniversary.

Then right at 11:00 we watched the Disney Illuminations show on the castle which ended with fireworks at 11:30.  It was beautiful.

It was a wonderful wonderful day of magic, fun, & LOTS of characters.

We headed back to our hotel, went to bed, then woke up early Sunday morning & drove home.  It was one of the best family trips we've ever taken.  I'm SO glad we went.

It was truly MAGICAL.