Week 17 - Chillin with the Beans

Hello my friends! This week has been a great one, just living at the sites giving tours and feeling the spirit! There was one cool experience that I thought I'd share. So I don't know if anyone has heard about the Bean family or seen the new movie about them, The Fighting Preacher, but they were a family who lived here in Palmyra for 25 years doing missionary work and establishing a better relationship between the church and the city. They lived in the frame house here at the Smith farm during that time, and this week we got to give a tour to one of their granddaughters! When we got to the frame house we all sat around the kitchen, and they played an audio recording of Rebecca Bean, the wife, telling some experiences that she had in that house. Rebecca had to take care for the missionaries, and with a young family that was really hard. But one day she even had a vision where the Savior appeared and thanked her for caring for the missionaries, his representatives on this earth. That was really cool to hear as a missionary, knowing that I truly am representing the Savior, and that he is aware of me and my efforts here. 

Old Stafford with the Frame home in the background

My favorite fun moment of the week: one night after a harder day I came home, made a bowl of queso, sat with my companion on my bed, and we ate two Popsicles and the whole bowl of queso and candy while watching Days of Harmony (a movie we show here). It was the best haha. 

This week I've changed my Book of Mormon study a bit and WOW THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. I literally love it with my entire heart, and I'm so grateful I get to share that with people a couple times a week at the Book of Mormon Publication site. I know that it has answers to all of life's questions, even if not directly, it brings the spirit so strongly into your life that you are in-tune to receiving revelation about your questions. I hope you all read it every single day and I promise that your life will change if you will allow it to!

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Potts

P.S. Pictures:  Soooo apparently I only took one picture this week, awkward (the one below). So included one from last week too (up above)!

Some sisters with the Turpins, a senior couple who is feeding us Brunch today #blessed

FUN FACTS:

1. While saving up for the Palmyra land, Father Smith and the older boys would hire out as day laborers on other farms haying, gardening, diggin wells, building fences, clearing land, etc.

2. When the Smiths purchased their 100 acre land, they had to make 5 annual payments of $100, the last being made in December of 1825. 

3. The Palmyra/Manchester line is in between the Smith property!  So if you read about the family's move to Manchester it was just a couple hundred yards down the street.

4. The log home is actually built a couple feet over from the 100 acres, and at first historians thought it was a mistake, but then they actually figured out that Hyrum Smith ended up buying 80 acres to the North of the Property where the home was built so it's on his land.

5. The Smith family land had about 100 trees/acre, so they had about 10,000 trees on their land!