Leaving Marion, training a new missionary

I am leaving Marion...so sad. But the exciting thing is... I will be training a new missionary! Woohoo! I am going to be a mom! President Porter called me this morning and asked me a few questions like if I woke up every morning at 6:30, started with a prayer, and a bunch of other obedience questions. Luckily for me, I am obedient ;) He told me that the Lord has called me to train a new missionary and that a trainer is the most trusted calling. I will change this Sister mission, and her life. The pressure is on! President then told me that he needs me to be loving, bold, and that I need to baptize... oh dang. I've only had one baptism my whole mission! I am pretty nervous, but the Lord's hand is in his work, and I am lucky to be a part of it.


Katie Barnes... dropped off the face of the Earth...and when we did see her, she was with her husband who is MIA. We stopped to talk to them and they didn't seem happy to see us. They made up an excuse and walked away. I guess they dropped us? We are really sad about it. When we talked to President Porter about it, he told us that she was discouraged because she wanted all her problems to go away all at once. Obviously that didn't happen, and so now she is angry and frustrated. Makes sense!


A few weeks ago we found the Johnson family. We couldn't really get in contact with them though:( We decided to stop by and set a time to come back. Luckily we caught them! They told us to come back that Saturday. When we got there, we woke them up, haha! But they did get up and we taught the Restoration. We invited them to church, and it was funny because they were making it sound like they wouldn't be able to make it. So of course we asked what we could do to help them come. Tavarius, the boyfriend, then said "Okay y'all, bottom line is they want us to come to church. Now are we gonna go?" PREACH MAN. He was so inspirtational that they all said they could come. Woohoo! So Sunday comes, and we are in Sacrament, and they aren't there! We even went that morning to wake them up! Oi vey. But wait... while we are singing the closing hymn...they all walk in in a line, and there are the perfect amount of seats for them to sit in. It was hilarious. When we said the prayer and everyone got up, they were really confused. They thought they were walking into the beginning of the second service....they thought we had more than one service! Hahaha. No... we do not. We had even told them that morning. But hey! They came and stayed for classes and they loved it! Miracles.


Sister Fultz


OH. This week is my hump day. I am halfway done with my mission :(

Mike is MIA

Waddup


Katie Barnes is doing so well! Her husband, Mike, on the other hand... not so much. He left one day and never came back. Which is scary because he is on parole, and is supposed to be home every night by 10, and has to call every morning to find out if they are going to do a drug screening. Then on top of all of that, he is diabetic! Ugh. Katie did find out that he is out and using meth... Katie just isn't worried about it anymore, she is just taking care of herself. I feel like that is what she should do at this point, personally. She is reading the Book of Mormon! She is on 1 Nephi 3. She can feel the peace when she reads it, and knows that it is true :) We helped her clean her house this week, its so much better now. I spent a lot of the time wiping down the walls. It smelled a lot better after ;) We helped her fold all of her clothes... so many! Most of them were actually left by other people. So, another thing that proves our love to Katie is we did some of her laundry. When she was...having a relapse...she tried to wash her clothes in the bathtub. It would have worked...except she didn't dry them. So they started to mold and smell all fishy. We told her we can't do all of her laundry, but we would save her failed attempt at washing her clothes. We got them all washed and they still smelled like fish. Oh well. We tried. She was able to come to church again this week :) she is committed to coming the rest of her life. Perfect!


Funny story... our neighbor, Ruth Ann, is such a funny little woman. She totally isn't all there mentally, but we have been trying to teach her. We mostly help her with her yard work. When we have taught lessons, we will ask a question and she will just stare at us and not answer. The other day we asked her if she was going to answer, she said no and that she was ignoring us. Ruth Ann! You're like 63 and have no manners! What the heck! Anyway. She is stuck on the whole idea of authority and how you need it to be baptized for real. She said that her pastors have it. When we asked where they got it from, she said she didn't know...imagine that. We asked if it was important to her to have the authority be from Jesus Christ...she said no. She won't come to church, but she did come to a party we had at the church on Saturday. We showed her around the church with a member, and she was so rude... I couldn't handle it. I couldn't help but laugh. We were talking to her in the front and she just walked out in the middle of Sister Mickelsen's testimony. She still wont come to church. But she is reading the Book of Mormon! We'll get her soon.


The end of the transfer is next week. I really hope I get to stay in Marion! Honestly I would be surprised if I did stay... I just have that feeling. But past experiences have shown that I'm never really right about transfers. Soooo if you have anything to send to me, continue to send it to the mission home to be safe, since I don't know where I could be living next week. Love ya all lots!


Sister Fultz

Another Week in Marion

Hello all! I hope you had a great Memorial day weekend. 

Miracle of the week: Katie and Mike Barnes! For so odd reason, President Porter had a meeting in Marion last Monday... of all places... Marion. Anyway. While we were out working, President texted us telling us to come to the church. When we got there he told us a young woman walking in looking for help. He then informed us she might be looking for money and/or high... oh President. We walk into the Relief Society room, and there is a girl sitting in there just an absolute mess. She was crying and just looked like she had a bad day. We talked to her and found out that her husband had been arrested for a car they bought from someone who had stolen it from someone else. To make matters worse, her cousin who was living with her had been putting rat poison in her and her husbands drinks. We talked to her and comforted her, and we walked her back to her apartment (across the street) and made sure she got to bed. We told her we would come back the next day, and she begged us to. She expressed to us a lot how she wanted to build positive relationships and to clean up her life. When we went back the next day, her husband was home! She actually took their truck and pawned it to bail him out. We were so happy to meet them. They are a dang cute couple. The next day we had a church tour with Katie and a member of the ward. Mike would have been there, but he was out looking for a job. Something we like to do during church tours is sing... which I can't. So I played the piano and Sister Mickelsen sang! It worked out well. Katie really felt the spirit and was so at peace in the chapel. It was an amazing experience. We showed her the baptismal font, and we extended June 18th for her to be baptized. She said yes!!! Woohoo! That Sunday she and Mike both came to church, and even stayed the whole time. Our ward just loved them. Katie and Mike are already calling it their church :') Makes a little missionary proud.

That's all for this week! Enjoy these pictures.

<3 Sister Fultz

Change of P-Day

Hello everyone! I know this is a weird day to email, I promise I'm not a jack missionary. Just wanted to let you all know that I will not be emailing on Monday, but I will on Tuesday! Because of memorial day, we are going to be out working all day Monday, and so President Porter has changed our P-Day to Tuesday. Talk to you all then! Woohoo

-Sister Fultz

We Love Bobby!

This week was full of stress as we are trying to get Bobby ready for baptism. It has been really hard due to some of his health issues. We have had to jump through a lot of hoops to get him ready. He has a bed sore that is going to be a big road block in his baptism. He is being interviewed by President Porter today, and so we are going to ask him what the best approach would be. Bobby is very excited for this Saturday!

My favorite miracle of the week is this: we met an investigator the other day, she was the daughter of a former (or who we thought was a former). She said that her mom moved a long time ago and missionaries kept coming back. We told we we would make a note of it, and asked if we could come back and visit with her. She wasn't interested at first due to some social anxiety. We talked to her a little bit longer until she became more comfortable with the idea of having us come back. We were able to go back the next day and teach her the restoration, and her dog even peed on us. Powerful lesson nonetheless. After we asked when we would come back, and she said she didn't know and to text her on Monday to set a time. Monday came and we texted her, and got no response. Then on Saturday while doing our work of salvation sheets we got a text from her. She apologized for not texting back sooner. She said that she wasn't sure if she wanted to meet with us again, but that she prayed a decided she did want to meet with us! We are seeing her Wednesday! Miracle.

All of you will be shocked to know that this week we sang to Bobby... it was hard for me as you all can imagine. We sang keep the commandments which was luckily in my range. But the most tender part was that Bobby sang it to us after. He really loves music and it makes my eyes sweat every time. Yesterday we sang "Master the Tempest is Raging". He said it describes his life well with his difficulty with sin and repentance.

That's all for now, folks! Love you all.

Sista Fultzy Fresh

Miracle Marion in May

Shalom all! 

This week was as killer week for Sister Mickelsen and I. Miracles to the max! Oh also a side note, today is my 8 month mark! Next month I will be half done with my mission! It has flown by so fast. 

This week was zone conference. AMAZING. We talked a lot about repentance and the sacrament. What I loved most about the repentance part is that its not just saying sorry. We had to accept that we have offended God with what we have done. Doesn't that sound freaky?? Admitting that you OFFENDED God? Oh man. Thinking of teaching that to people freaked me right out. But when you think about missionary work... that is what we do all day everyday. Its perfect actually because a few days after we had an investigator who really needed to hear that she was offending God. Follow Priesthood counsel! That wasn't even the best part of the meeting... later we went back to the chapel and President Porter went off on his rant, which is always amazing, all about the sacrament. Then after hearing all this crazy and pretty deep doctrine, we took the sacrament right then and there. It was so amazing! Being able to take the sacrament with my fellow servants of the Lord. It was something that I will never forget. It just testified to me even more how important the sacrament is to us. 

A fun part of zone conference was when we got to eat ice cream. The choices were strange... at one table you could have mint, at another you could have oreo, then at another you could have both. No one really thought anything of it, except Sister Mickelsen. She thought it was a test and was freaking out. After we all ate our ice cream, President stood up and said "Hear ye, hear ye, the parable of the ice cream!" I looked at Sister Mickelsen and she had the funniest look of "I knew it" on her face. President then went on to compare it to how we are getting a new mission president in July. He was saying that we need to take both of the things they have taught us and apply it to our work, and that we would be wise to do so. He wanted to remind us all that we are not "Porter missionaries", but we are both Porter and Welch missionaries. Then he told us a bit about President Welch, and we found out he is the one that makes all the accordion doors in the churches! Pretty cool. 

Bobby was able to come to church this week! He is still preparing the be baptized on the 28th. He is very excited. It was so great to be able to get him out of the nursing home and to church. He loved it and everyone was very welcoming. At the end you could tell he was a little stressed and wanted to go home. Which made sense since he doesn't get out much and he doesn't talk to many people. He has a very sad life. No one in his family talks to him. He tells us about how his parents abused him and his past with drugs. Such a sad past life, and he has been able to find happiness, peace and joy within the gospel. Melts my heart. 

This week we got a media referral for a woman named Regina. We went and contacted her with a member, and the member that was with us was inspired! They instantly clicked and Regina told us about how she wanted answers. We gave her a Book of Mormon and a Bible We went and saw her again yesterday, and we put her on date for baptism on June 4th! Miracles! We have been so blessed here in Marion. 

Love you all! 

Sister Fultz

I'm Leaving Montgomery

Sister Breeze and I are both leaving Montgomery tomorrow. SO CRAZY!! Just wanted to remind everyone to send letters to the mission address, which is on my blog http://makenziefultz.blogspot.com/ 

First cool story! A few weeks ago we offered this lady who was smoking a card. When we did she got really mean and snarky and asked if we wanted to smoke. Of course we said no and she said "Didn't think so" and kept walking. Well then!! On Thursday of this past week we were walking down the street with Brittany, the Elders recent convert. We stopped to talk to this lady sitting on her porch smoking, it was the same girl from a few weeks earlier! He started talking to her and I pointed out that we had met her a few weeks prior. She then apologized for being rude. We talked to her a little more, found out that she is Agnostic, and set a time to come back and visit her! Sadly she ended up canceling, but she want to reschedule! The spirit was really working with her and preparing her. :) 

We got a member referral, but were asked not to use her name in the contact. This referral, Anna, didn't have any members or anyone we knew around her. We weren't really sure what to do. Tr acting approach? We had no idea how to do that! We usually/never knock on a door without a name.  We knocked on the door, did probably one of the most horrible approaches ever, and she still said yes! God has been preparing her! The sad part is now I won't get to see how it goes, but the new sisters will be amazing!

This week we went to the dentist. It was kinda funny because one of the hygienists knows me there. We actually a lot of them know me because most of them are members and I served in their ward in Cincinnati. Haha. But this particular woman isn't a member, and I pretty much taught her the restoration with a numb mouth a few transfers ago. She was so excited to see me! It made me feel special.  Before we left we got her to request missionaries on Mormon.org! She is totally going to get baptized. 

Explanation of the pictures... a member in the ward got us these bubble shirts as a going away present, and so we had the elders try them on :) hahaha 

That's all for now, folks! 

Love you all! 

Sister Fultz