Miracles Come Only After A Trial Of Your Faith

This week was a slooooooooow week. Gators haven't been really committed, and we haven't been able to find any new. We started a competition with the AP's (Assistants to the President), to see who could get the most new. We did it so we would have more motivation to find some. The deal was that whoever found the most by the end of the week won, and the loser companionship had to buy greaters. We totally lost, because the AP's do this thing called poaching... they drive around until they see a family then jump out of the car and go talk to them. For real! I guess it works...haha. But anyway, we lost, but the AP's won't let us pay up on our deal...what gentlemen! Haha!


I have a confession... I have 7 cavities! Oh my goodness. We went to the dentist and when they told me I was so embarrassed!! No joke. I got 4 of them filled this morning, and I am getting the rest done tomorrow. My mouth is still numb.


It finally snowed! It's funny, I didn't even know it snowed until after our district leader texted us. We live in a cave, and I don't see the light of day until 10 or 10:30 when we leave to go work. It was so funny. It's really super cold here now! I feel so at home! :)


There is a gator named Bob Miller... he has been a gator since he was 17, and he is in his 60's now. He has had all the lessons and had read the entire Book of Mormon multiple of times. He even has a calling...assistant scout master, hahaha. But anyway, he originally couldn't get baptized because his wife wouldn't let him, but President Porter told him that he didn't need her permission, that was about 2 months ago. I guess he wanted her to approve it, so he still wouldn't commit. WEEEEEEELL... she finally gave him permission! He told Bishop Blackwelder that he was ready, and asked how fast he could get baptized. Woohoo! We are meeting with him on the 17th (that is the earliest he can meet with us--he is a busy man) to talk about what day. We as missionaries still have to go through all the lessons with him again, but that won't be hard since he has a testimony of it already. I hope that he gets baptized before the end of my transfer (Feb 2) because I really feel like I'm not going to be her much longer :( I really do not want to leave Cincinnati! I love it here. I can't imagine serving anywhere else... mostly because I haven't...hehe.


We rearranged our apartment, mostly our bedroom. It is a lot better now! It feels like a place that I can actually be lived in now. Our apartment... is too big, and too far away from our area. We are on the very edge of the ward boundaries... its really hard because all our people are about a ten minute drive. That doesn't seem like much, but when you can only drive 1,000 miles a month, it is a lot. Also, our apartment IS TOO BIG FOR MISSIONARIES. Like for real, it would be nice if we actually had furniture to make it less empty. We just have a lot of extra space and it's kind of awkward, but we can't move until the lease is up. Oh well! It's a nice apartment at least. I like it. It's one of the nicer apartments in the mission. I hate to kill those bragging rights, but the sisters really do need to move. It would make more sense.


That's really it for this week. Sorry no pictures, my camera died and I couldn't find the charger (don't worry Dad, I found it!).


"You are nurturing spiritual infants and sick children. Missionary work is a thankless ministry and remember it was only one leper who came back to thank Jesus for the healing but it doesn't mean that you aren't helping to heal and mend broken hearts. And Jesus still healed ALL ten. Never give up on the people who let you in. It is an HONOR and a PRIVILEDGE to be let in and to see the inner workings of an individual's life and that my missionary friends is truly sacred ground."


I know that Christ is our Savior, and I know that as we come to understand His Gospel that we will have a better understanding of His purpose for us.


Sister Fultz


P.S. Hey! My mouth isn't as numb Woohoo

Pretty Slow Week

First off, I had the best new years ever! You may ask, how can a missionary have a good new years when they aren't even allowed outside? Well, I will tell you how!

Once upon a time, in the Greatest Ohio Cincinnati Mission, Sister Fultz and Sister Lane were talking to their District Leader, Elder Holman. He was talking about how we have the stay in our apartments for about 36 hours. Sister Fultz and Sister Lane were so confused! They thought that we only had to stay in from New Years Eve at 6 to New Years Day at 12... but nope! They had to stay in from NYE at 6, to January 2nd at 12!! They thought to themselves, what are we going to do that whole time? They decided that their amazing mission president, President Porter, would have a great packet for them to study all day. When it came time to go inside, they opened the first letter given to them from PP, and it said to clean their apartment for 2 hours. Sister Fultz was happy about that! After cleaning their apartment, they read a short talk and then went to bed with instructions to open the 6th letter in the morning. The next morning they woke up, said their prayers, and opened the letter...there weren't any talks to study...just the simple instructions to... read the entire Book of Mormon in 16 hours (6:30 AM- 10:30 PM). HOLY COW. So, they started to read as fast as they could. In order to read all 531 pages, they would need to read 33 pages each hour...harder than it sounds. But nonetheless, they conquered it.

My eyes still hurt! But it was truly an amazing experience to spend my entire day reading the Book of Mormon and have the chance to increase my understanding of it. While I do not recommend you all read it in 16 hours, I do recommend that you, just once, read it as quickly as you can. It helps you get just the basic story line (for lack of a better term), and gives a good foundation for you to later go through and read it more deeply. I know that the Book of Mormon is true!!

Still no snow here in the Great Ohio! Only rain. Wonder how long that will last.

This week I tried Skyline for the first time. I got a cheese coney (chili cheese dog with mustard and onions). SO GOOD. I loved it.

Carla's (one of our gators) dad asked us to stop coming, and that Carla wasn't interested. We are sure how true that is, but there isn't much we can do! I'm very sad about it, I loved Carla very much. We are hoping that she will text or call us soon.

Jo is back on date of baptism! He fell off date due to his back surgery. He told us his back is better and he is ready for baptism! So we committed him to January 30th.

We were at our bishops house, and his daughter came in telling us she backed into our car...woops! Just a little scratch though, most of the damage was to their car. We still had to file an accident report. Oh well.

That's all for now, folks! It was a slow week, but I am excited to see what happens this week!

Love you all! This church is so true.

Sister Fultz

OCM Life

Hello everyone! I hope you all had an awesome Christmas! I loved being able to talk to my family.


This week involved a lot of walking... in the rain. It hasn't snowed yet in Ohio... just rained A TON. We are running low on miles (we can only drive 1,000 a month), so we walked two days in a row. I feel bad for all the Elders that have to walk all the time. I realized that I need to get rainboots super bad... my feet were soaked in my cheap Walmart boots...haha! It was fun walking in the rain though. It was a great workout!


Nothing terribly exciting happened this week. Besides the Mission Christmas Devotional. That was awesome! Story time... All the sisters in the stake were going to meet at the stake center to carpool. We met at 6:30 AM. When we got there, everyone was there except one... the hebron sisters. We kept calling them and they weren't answering. One car left to go to the meeting and not be late, then Sister Lane, Mickelson, and I went to their apartment to see if they were there...they weren't. At this point we really didn't know what to do. We called President Porter and told him and he said just to leave for the meeting. At this point it was about 8, and we needed to be there by 9, and it was an hour drive. We were having a mission picture and we were probably going to miss it. We managed to get there at 9:05, and President made them wait. When we walked into the gym everyone started clapping. It was epic to say the least. So we made it for the picture, and the Hebron sisters were there, they forgot their phone and went to the wrong building to meet for carpool. Woops.


The first part of the meeting was a "talent show". It was hilarious! Then we had the devotional, which was a lot of musical numbers. Then we had lunch, and after President and Sister Porter talked to us. It was a really spirit filled meeting!


Christmas was great! Got to open presents, skype family, and take a nap! An ideal day for sure.


Gators!


Amie- didn't come to church
Carla- didn't come to church
Heather- Carla's sis in law, didn't come to church. Had a really awesome Restoration lesson.
Jo- didn't come to church. His step daughter who is a less active did!


Hope everyone is doing well! I love you all.


Sister Fultz

 Brother and Sister Taylor's daughter in law with her baby

 Christmas Devotional

 Brother and Sister Taylor

Sister Lane drawing the Plan of Salvation on Amie's porch

Merry Christmas From The Buckeye State

Hello all!


I said see ya later to my "mom", Sister Nielsen. She is back in Idaho! My new Companion is Sister Lane, and she was actually the first Sister to serve in Cincinnati area a little over a year ago! Exciting. SO it's nice that she knows the area a little bit as well. It helps a lot! We have been able to reconnect with some of the gators she taught while she was here, and now we have a really solid teaching pool. Sister Lane is really awesome, I love her! It's funny too, she only has 2 transfers left, so I might be "killing" her as well just like I did with Sister Nielsen! If I kill 3 missionaries in a row, I'm a serial killer! Haha. One down, two to go ;) Nothing terribly exciting happened this week, so I'll give ya'll the run down of our gators:


Carla- she was going to come to church, but then glt sick. I WAS SO SAD. I was really excited when she texted us Saturday night saying that she was coming, and then that was ruined when she texted the next morning saying that she had been throwing up all night. Satan made her sick.
Amie- Sister Lane taught her when she was here a year ago. Other Sisters have tried teaching her, but she just wasn't ever as open. Now that Sister Lane is back, she is a lt moore receptive!
Althea- She is a good friend of a member named Angela. Angela has wanted us to teacher her for the longest time, but she wasn't ever hlme. Angela said that she was going over to give them a Christmas treat, so we went. We finally got her as a new gator!! I am so excited.


That's really it for gators right now! I am syper excited about them though. Especially since Althea is married with 3 kids-- eternal family!!!!


I am excited to skype with my family this week! Our ward mission leader is letting us go over to his house at 10:30 (8:30 in Utah), and Skype. I seriously love our WML. He really knows what he is doing and is motivated! This is ging to be an awesome transfer. This transfer is also a week longer, so 7 instead of 6. More time to get people dunked!


Christmas is a hard time for missionaries. No one really wants to talk to us (who wants to talk about Christ around Christmas time?). Hahahahaha. So we have been spending a lot of time with members and less actives, which is really good because it guves us a change to build trust with the ward. No snow here in the Great Ohio... only rain! Hopefully we will get at least one snow storm.


Remember to have charity for those around you this season. Christmas time is a happy time for some, and a really unhappy time for others. Give all that you can to others, and that doesn't always mean physical gifts. Even just smiling, saying hi, or stopping by for a quick visit. It is the small and simple things that great things can happen. I have seen that to be so true this passed week! A small thing can make a big difference.


I love you all! Merry Christmas!


Sister Fultz

Amie's daughter and friend reading to us "If You Give A Pig A Cupcake"!

My 3 Month Mission Pictures!

 A sunset in Northern Kentucky

 Bengals truck

 Elder Cromar (I forgot to zoom back out)

 An apartment building named Mackenzie! If only they spelled it right ;)

 The chalkboard at our last district meeting

 Madisonville bridge

 Sis Mickelson looking like a librarian reading Sis N the white handbook

 A weird tree in Madisonville

 Elder Rudd, our district leader

 A Bavarian garbage can (GERMAN)

The black thing on the street is...a weave

My 3 Month Mission Birthday

I'm not getting transferred! Yay! I will be getting a new comp tomorrow. I am very excited for that.

This week was full of ups and downs. People really didn't want to talk to us this week. We only got 4 new gators! Ouch. Oh well. People don't make time for Christ I guess ;)

Sis N had her departing interview with Pres Porter Saturday morning. The mission home is about 45 minutes away, so we had to leave at 6:30 in the morning to get there by 7:45. I just sat in the living room of the mission home and updated our area book, wrote in my journal, and read the Book of Mormon. Sis N said it was a really good interview with PP, so that's good for her! She was really nervous going into it.

Stef won't be able to find out about the spots on his lungs until after the new year when his insurance starts over. He is very at peace with it all. I admire him for that.

We had a "blitz" this week. A blitz is just when Sis N and I both go to the STL's area to work for the day. I don't really like it...I don't like leaving my area for the day. It's like leaving my baby! haha. It's all good though, it's for training and to help us to be better. It's nice to see how other missionaries work.

We had our first and last district meeting of the transfer! We have had so many meetings this transfers it's crazy. It was a super spiritual meeting! I learned a lot about how I can better love and help my gators.

We had our ward Christmas dinner on Friday. The food was delicious of course. Lots of potatoes and ham. The primary did a cute program (classic).

Jo, who was going to get dunked on the 26th, isn't anymore. He had to get surgery on his back...and he doesn't really want to marry his girlfriend or move out. That situation is going to take some time!!

We had the strangest experience. So on Sunday we saw Anthony while we were waking Stef up for church. We talked to him a bit and he said that he was walking home from the church across the railroad tracks. We said we would stop by later and say hi. When we did, we talked to Nae Nae. We told her that we saw Ant earlier that day walking home from church. We didn't talk long because they had to go have dinner, but Nae was acting really weird...On Tuesday while we were on our blitz, Ant calls us and asks if we told Nae that when we saw him that he was trying to break into cars...first off, no. Second off...we didn't even say anything that could sound like that! Nae was so insistent that we did. They ended up calling us 3 times, and we just told them the same story every time. Brandy, Ant's GF, was super confused why we were saying one thing and Nae was saying another...ugh. Nae seemed mad at us on Sunday and so I think she just wanted to get back at us...for what I have no idea. So we are just going to leave that situation alone...

Well...nothing terribly exciting this week! Other than transfers tomorrow!

I love you all! Merry Christmas!

Sister Fultz

Sister Nielsen is going home and Stef has lung cancer

Hello everyone!

Sister Nielsen goes home next week! So sad, I'm working her hard this week :)

Stef was going to go to the temple on Saturday, but he had to go to the hospital for breathing problems. They did an x-ray and found black spots on his lungs. He has to go to a specialist this week so they can do a biopsy and find out if he has cancer. He used to be a smoker, and also cancer runs in his family. He had two uncles die of lung cancer who weren't even smokers.

We had exchanges this week and I got to lead the area. Sister Mickelson was with me, and we did a lot of walking. Luckily it was a warmer day, thank goodness! We got to talk to a lot of people and set up appointments! I called Zac Efron "the Fron", and she thought that was the best thing ever, hahaha.

This week was interviews as well. I was really nervous to talk to President Porter. All we talked about was Stef and whether or not I'm doing everything I need to (waking up on time, doing studies, doing my 12 week training). I am doing all of those things :) I also found out that he told Sister Mickelson (she is a sister training leader by the way) that she needed to help prepare me to lead the area, so I guess it is safe to assume I won't be getting transferred next week :)

Even though Stef didn't go to the temple, we went (now we have to take time out of our pday....oh well). We got to see Jeanie (the Elder's recent convert) do baptisms for the dead. It was awesome! It was worth going, even though Stef wasn't there. When missionaries go to the temple, they can only go if one of their recent converts go. If they go anyway, they have to take the time that they were at the temple and take it out of their pday. So because it took 6 hours total, we have to take it out of our pday! But it's all good. It was an awesome experience! I've now been to the Louisville and Columbus temples.

Now to the peeps we are teaching!!
Anthony-- we are still giving him space, but we saw him on Saturday walking past Stef's house! We went by later, but we didn't get to talk to him.
Mike-- He won't text us back. Whenever we stop by he's asleep or not there.
Jo-- He is still on date for December 26th! He just needs to get married or move out of his girlfriend's house. That will be a tough one for sure!
Carla-- Sister Nielsen found her last month while on exchanges with Sister Witherspoon. I finally got to meet her! She is such a sweet girl. We taught the Restoration with Sister Taylor (our ward mission leaders wife) and it was amazing! Carla loves it. She said she has heard really great things about our church and wants to come! She didn't come this week sadly. Next week hopefully!
Veronica-- Stef's niece. She has been flakey, so we aren't really getting anywhere with her.

Well, that's my week! Don't forget about the true meaning of Christmas. So cliché, but it's true! I know that Christ was born, he lived, he died, and he was resurrected. All for us. I am forever grateful to Him for making it possible for me, and all of you, to be forgiven of our sins, be resurrected, and live with our Heavenly Father again.

Love you all!
Sister Fultz #OCM

P.s. Did you know that OCM is one of the most obedient missions? True story.