Week 6 - Walmart is Heaven

Hey everyone! Same old same old here at the sites except it's picking up a LOT! We've also been preparing for the crazy summer season which is exciting. I'm still getting to help with some spanish tours which are super fun because the people are always so excited and honored to be there. My spanish isn't improving much though.

Highlight of the week: we can never leave Palmyra without special permission but we got permission to pick up a prescription so we got to go to WALMART! I have never loved Walmart so much in my life I almost cried it was amazing. 

Spiritual thought: I love how much the Sites and Joseph's story really testify of 1 Nephi 3:7 "for I know that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of man save he shall prepare a way for them, that they may accomplish the thing which he has commanded them." Joseph was commanded to keep the plates safe and that was NOT an easy task. He was attacked by mobs and people would break into his house,  etc. But even though it wasn't easy, through the Lord directing him it was possible.  It's the same for us! We've been given commandments and while we aren't promised that it will be easy, we are promised that it will be possible. 

Love, Sister Potts

Fun Facts:

1. The Hill Cumorah monument is based on the description Joseph gave us as to where the plates were found- North west side about 2/3 of the way up. 

2. The dedication of the Peter Whitmer farm took place on the 150th anniversary of the church because that's where the church was organized!

3. The anniversary fell on a conference weekend so they streamed between Salt Lake and President Kimball here!

4. On the way back from retrieving the plates Joseph was attacked 3 times and even dislocated his thumb!

5. Because they would find small errors with every copy of the Book of Mormon, each of the 5000 copies is unique in some way.

Me holding one of the first 5000 copies!!!!!

View of the temple from the Smith farm

Smith family log home

Cute comp pic

My comp makes us amazing Mexican food!

Week 5- ONE MONTH DOWN!

Well everybody, on Friday I reached my one month mark! It simultaneously feels like it's been a week and also a year--it's like I'm in a time warp. I can't believe I have only been in the field two weeks.  It feels like I've already learned the equivalent of a college semester. It can be easy to feel like i'm just doing the same things every day just plugging along but I am working on making it more exciting!

We're not quite to our busy season yet, so there's a decent amount of down time waiting for tours where we get a chance to study which I LOVE. I never thought i'd like spending so much time reading scriptures and church history but it's great. 

Sister Ramos and I with an awesome member Michael

One amazing thing I'd like to share with you is how much deeper of an appreciation I've gained of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. Telling all these crazy stories of how difficult the experiences Joseph Smith went through were or how time consuming the Book of Mormon publication process was just fills me with love for it and makes me treasure all the knowledge and peace that I've been given through it. We had a training all day yesterday about how to give tours as a story and we tried it for the first time today and it was AMAZING! Telling the story and doing it as they are standing exactly where it happened is fantastic and the spirit is so strong. I get to tell and testify of Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith in the VERY AIRSPACE that he appeared. And tell how Joseph Smith buried the plates under the bricks in a fireplace while touching those very same bricks. UGH I love it. I will never take the knowledge I have of the gospel for granted ever again! 

A beautiful tree at the Whitmer Farm :)

Another fun thing I have started doing this week is restarting personal progress! I did it once as a 13 yo and almost again before I turned 18 but I never really got as much out of it as I could have so I wanted to do it again. I've been learning SO MUCH about faith this week! And I've also gotten to relate it back to Joseph Smith. Joseph could have stopped where a lot of us do at reading James 1:5 and having faith that God really could speak to us. But he went further than that, and acted on that Faith, and THAT's where the miracle happened! It requires action and an act of agency on our part and then we are given so many blessings! I invite all of you to find something in your daily scripture study that invites you to action and then DO IT!

Have a great week and read the Book of Mormon! It's awesome!

Love, Sister Potts

FUN FACTS

1. While the Smith log home is a replica on the original foundation, the other home (The Frame Home) is 85% original! Like same doors and bricks and everything it's so awesome.

2. Mary Whitmer hosted Joseph and Oliver and later Emma at her home while they were finishing the translation and she already had 8 kids! So to thank her for the increased burden she was taking on Moroni actually appeared to her and showed her the plates!

3. Edward Partridge once went to the Smith Farm in Palmyra to meet them only to be told that they had already moved out. As he walked through, and saw all of their hard work and beautiful property they had given up, he knew that they wouldn't have left it all if the work they were doing wasn't true so he asked to be baptized as soon as he caught up with the family!

4. E.B. Grandin (the Book of Mormon publisher) was born within a few months of Joseph, died within a few months of Joseph, and had some other crazy similarities. They also both had devoted wives who outlived them by 30 years.

5. Joseph Smith received the golden plates from the Hill Cumorah on September 22 1927 and on the way back they were attacked twice and one attack even dislocated his thumb!

From my companion--this is our story right now:

 

Week 4 - Mother's Day!

From Shauna (Emily's Mom):  

This Mother's Day was so great to hear from Emily and get to find out where she had been assigned within her mission.  Even though she was called to serve primarily in the Visitors Centers, it is very likely she will be assigned to different locations within the mission as a full-time proselying missionary, too, depending on the time of year (things definitely slow down during the winter).  I hadn't heard anything from her since she left the Salt Lake airport, except for the email and picture her Mission President sent, so we have been waiting on pins and needles all week to see if she would get to stay at the visitor centers full time, part-time, or be assigned in a full-time proselyting area.  

The night before Mother's Day, one of the senior couples, Sister Neff,  posted a picture showing 5 of the 8 sisters from Emily's MTC district.  It said "We are so excited to have these new sisters here at the historic sites! We have just finished training and are so grateful for your daughters’ willingness to serve." I didn't know if this meant she would be staying on to serve at the sites or if she was just doing training before going somewhere else.  We were thrilled to speak to her and learn that she gets to spend at least the first 6 weeks FULL-TIME at the sites!  yay!

Emily and some of her MTC district in the Smith farm house during their training.

Same group with the sisters that would become their companions.

The Hill Cumorah Visitors Center--all the sisters after their training!

It sounds like they had an intensive couple of days training in each of the visitors centers, and Emily is thrilled she gets to start her mission there!  The schedule is pretty brutal, but very enjoyable.  Not the typical missionary schedule with individual study time, companionship study, and exercise each morning (which she had been looking forward to), but she gets a ride from the senior missionary couples to a different visitors center each day (they have them on a rotating schedule between the 4 sites--anywhere from 1 mile away to 45 minutes away!).  

Since they have to be to the sites by 9 am, they don't have time for a lot of their normal schedule before they go.  They have been given a boat-load of books to study (which they pray they will have time to study throughout the day if there is a lull), and they don't have any way to go home for meals, so they are still trying to figure out how to do lunch and dinner without an oven/stovetop--just a microwave and crockpot in a break room, and a very small grocery store to purchase supplies from.  It's hard to even have time to eat she said since people stop in sporadically all day long.  She and her companion were hoping to put together some crockpot meals on their next p-day since the very small grocery store doesn't have many quick or healthy options.  She was optimistic, though, and excited for the challenge!  They are at the sites until they close around 7 pm, and then they have training meetings or duties until about 9 pm. 

Emily with her companion, Sister Ramos.

I just have to say what a neat miracle it is that Emily was given the opportunity to have Sister Ramos as her first companion out in the mission field!  Not very many people know that Emily actually took a Spanish class at BYU her last semester before her mission.  She felt prompted that she needed to learn some Spanish, and the prompting was strong enough that she really thought she might be called Spanish speaking somewhere.  When this English-speaking call came to the Rochester mission, I think she felt a little disappointed because she had felt such a huge prompting to learn Spanish.  However, I don't think it's any coincidence that she was given a bilingual companion who leads the tours in Spanish!  They do quite a bit in English, too, but Emily has already had the opportunity to bear her testimony in Spanish a couple of times, and even though she says it has serious room for improvement, she is so excited to get to be a part of the Spanish tours that her companion leads, and she says she can understand most of it already.  She hopes to improve her Spanish-speaking abilities while she is there.  I guess that little $5 Spanish-English dictionary she asked me to purchase on Amazon before she left will come in handy (even though I questioned why she would need it at the time).  

Life is good!  I'm so proud of Emily for following promptings from the Lord, and I know she's being blessed.  Thanks for all your prayers!

Shauna

P.S.  Emily's P-days will rotate to different days each week depending on her assignments at the sites, so this week it was on Monday, and next week it is on Wednesday.  She doesn't have quite as much freedom to check emails and write as she did in the MTC, but she sure appreciates all your emails and support!  

Weeks 3/4 - I HAVE A HERMANA!

Well people this has been quite a week! We flew into Rochester on Tuesday last week and ever since it has been quite an adventure. We went straight from the airport to go street contacting with some established Sisters and mine was literally running around the streets and knocking on car windows--it was terrifying. We talked to this one cute girl who ended up being a Doctorate of Piano Performance major at Eastman (SOOO COOL) and we asked her what role religion has played in her life.  She said not much but that faith had. We were like OH REALLY and *cue Alma 32: 21* shared a scripture with her. She was really touched by it and I gave her a Book of Mormon! She also said she wants to learn more so that was exciting. 

The next morning we all got to go to the Sacred Grove! It was cold and I was overwhelmed but it was cool to envision it and feel the cool spirit there! Then we got our companions and areas. I am... drumroll please... a full site missionary (at least for this first 6 weeks)! Basically I spend every day at one of the 4 historical sites in the Palmyra New York area. There's the Grandin printing press where the Book of Mormon was first published, the Smith Farm/Sacred Grove, the Whitmer farm, and the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center. We are there basically from 9 am to 9 pm and study in our down time so sometimes that doesn't happen which is hard. But even though we are teaching a lot of members we are also helping a decent amount of nonmembers and less actives! The missionary purpose is to help others come unto Christ which we totally get to do here even in a visitor's center. Where else do you get to bear your testimony and teach hundreds of people every day? 

My companion is Hermana Ramos! She joined the church 4 years ago, is from California, and does the Spanish tours which is fun. Literally the first thing I said to her even before hello is "you have to teach me Spanish okay?". She's super sweet and loving. I can understand a decent amount of the Spanish she says when she takes tours, and I even get to bear my testimony in Spanish! We live in a restored 1820s house on the original Smith Property that Joseph Smith once walked in! It's ancient and kind of nasty but has a cool history.  

My companion, Sister Ramos!

Cool story, my VERY FIRST DAY we had this young couple from Cornell come in that aren't members and gave them a tour. Afterwards we sat down with them and they asked questions for like 2 hours about deep stuff like sealings and levels of the celestial kingdom. I taught a lot of it and the spirit was really cool and it was awesome. We even invited him to baptism and he said of course he would if he came to believe that it was true. THENNN of course he starts throwing out a couple scriptures in the Bible that seem to contradict us, and talks about the teachings of the Students of the Apostles and some philosophical stuff, and says the only way he could know the Book of Mormon was true was through historical proof and stuff like that. The Spirit left SO FAST. It was sad but a good reminder about agency and how the best you can do is to teach them and they have to make that choice to accept. 

The Hill Cumorah Visitors Center

My comp & I in front of the Sacred Grove!

It's been an emotional roller coaster, and I have been super overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated, overjoyed, and everything in between. I can tell this is going to be hard but I can already see that it will be worth it!

Love, Sister Potts

My High School friend who is in my mission--Sister Flinders!

P.S.  Since I literally spend hours a day learning church history, I'm going to start including 5 fun facts every week!

1. Joseph Smith first ordered 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon for $3,000 and they took 2 years to complete

2. The first copies of the Book of Mormon sold for $1.25 which was the equivalent of 2 days work in the day.

3. The Smith home is a replica but is built on the exact foundation so you are literally in the same airspace as the Angel Moroni!

4. President Hinckley was so insistent that they build the house on the same foundation that they literally moved an entire road so it wasn't too close. 

5. Have you every heard some people say the Smiths lived in Palmyra, and others say they lived in Manchester? Well that's because their property is technically in both cities and their two houses they lived in on their property were in different cities!

Week 3 - Arrived in New York Today!

NOTE FROM EMILY'S MOM:  Emily left the MTC about 4:15 this morning and called us on Google Hangouts for just a few minutes when she got to the airport and through security around 8 am.  I didn't realize the MTC no longer has shuttle vans or a bus to take the missionaries to the airport.  Emily got the grand adventure of juggling all her luggage and carry-ons by herself through a series of city bus, the Front Runner train, transferring to Trax, and then another bus to the airport and finally through multiple terminals to get to hers.  She went with a group of all 8 sisters from her District plus a lone Elder it appears, and they tried to help each other, but it sounds like it was quite the adventure.  Then they caught a flight around 9 am with a stop somewhere mid-country before arriving in Rochester around 5 pm.  We've been waiting on pins & needles hoping to hear more from her.  Because she was traveling and not on wifi much today, she didn't get a chance to upload any pictures to Google Photos.  I've been watching the mission blog closely, though, and was able to get a few photos from other moms who were lucky enough to get some.  Her mission president also sent a lovely letter to us about 8:30 this evening with a great photo and explanation of their schedule.  Yay!  I should hear from her again this Sunday for sure since it's Mother's Day :)  

The day before departure to the mission--ready to go to New York!

The crazy early morning trip to the Salt Lake Airport--waiting for the train.

Here's the email we received from Emily's Mission President on 5/7/19, 8:26 pm MST:

We wanted to let you know that your wonderful missionary has safely arrived in Rochester. They landed shortly after 5:00 pm. We took them to downtown Rochester where they had the opportunity to talk to people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They each did a great job and had neat experiences. We then brought them to the mission home, fed them dinner and put them to bed early. It has been a long travel day for them. Tomorrow they will arise at 6:30 and get ready for the day. We will have a short meeting at the Mission Office at 8:30 am to cover logistical matters and then we will take them to the Sacred Grove. What a great place to start your mission! After the experience in the grove we will head back to the Mission Office where they will meet their new companion and head to their area.  They will reach out to you on their preparation day - for the Sisters that can be Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday depending on their assignment. The Elders  have preparation day on Monday.  This is such a great group of missionaries. We are so impressed with each one of them. Sister Evans and I promise to do our best to care for them and help them to develop their faith and discipleship. We thank you for sending your wonderful daughter or son on a mission. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns. You can email, text or call.  We feel so blessed to have the privilege to serve with your child. 

With much appreciation,

President Zach Evans
New York Rochester Mission

President Zach Evans and his wife with the 8 new sisters and 1 elder who arrived today!
Emily is right in the middle (pale green dress).