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.

Thanksgiving Email Pictures

 Jesus

 Sunset

Sick Picture

Thanksgiving!

Hello all! I hope all of you had a better Thanksgiving than Sis Nielsen and I had! 

We got home Wednesday night, I just felt horrible. Around 10:00 I threw up everything I had eaten that day. After that I was throwing up all night every single hour. Sis N threw up about 3 times. She got the better end of the stick. We had to stay in our apartment all day. We just slept. It felt weird to stay inside sleeping all day. We did go out around 6, but we went to a members, Stef's, house and watched church movies about the temple. Stef got baptized back in September before I got here, and HE IS GOING TO THE TEMPLE THIS SATURDAY. He is going to do baptisms, and it's going to be so awesome! We get to go with him since he is our Recent Convert :) We are most likely going to go to the Louiseville temple with him. We also have 2 other RC's (the Elder's) Jeanie and Jamal (Mother and Son) that will be going as well. I am so beyond excited for that! When Stef was getting his bishop interview for his recommend, we waited outside the office so we could know if he "passed" or not :) Which he did so it was awesome.  Stef invited one of his nieces over for us to teach without telling us! Haha. But it was awesome because we got her as a new gator. She was kinda drunk when we taught her though... so we will see how much she remembers! 

One of our area's, Oakley, was full of surprises this week. A less active recent convert lives there. We went to go see her when we saw 2 teenage boys. We talked to them on got them as new gators and set a time to go see them the following week, all was grand. We went to talked to out LARC and then we went back to our car. When we were sitting in our car setting up the GPS to where we were going to go next, we heard a knock on the window. It was a lady. I rolled down the window. She asked if we recognized the two boys who we had just talked to an hour earlier. She told us that we scared them and that she and the other mother were very angry that we talked to them. She made us cross out their names and addresses and told us never to talk to them again. Well then! It was depressing. She was rather rude as well, but it's okay. Now we know not to talk to any kids in Oakley  (just a side note, we are allowed to teach children as long as they are 8 or older).

We had a zone meeting on Friday. Ralp Sr, one of the funniest members, made our whole zone breakfast at the church. It was awesome! He usually makes us breakfast every Friday morning anyway. This time he just did it for the whole zone. Also, Ralph has a deal with Kroger that he goes and takes all the bread and "baked goods" ,as Ralph Sr says, that they are going to throw out, and he gives them to the missionaries and the poorer people of the ward. We get a lot of doughnuts from him. Our zone meeting was super awesome! I loved it and took a lot of notes. Elder Bluth is one of my favorite zone leaders. He is so funny and you can tell that he really cares about our zone. Our zone used to be "Celestial Cincy" but now we changed it to "Cincinnati Command Center" or "CCC". Which is funny because Sister Porter (President Porter's wife) has 3 C's that we don't do in this mission (at least we aren't supposed to do them). They are Complain, Criticize, and Compare. She also added sarCasm, that's a hard one, especially for me. Anyway, the meeting was so spirit filled. Our leaders talked to us about Charity, Consecration, and Change (3 C's again!). It made me realize that I need to have more love for our gators. I love talking about consecration, but I also hate it. There is always something new I realize I need to work on. That's a good thing though! We as followers of Christ need to always be changing and becoming better. It's hard to admit when we need to change, but once we do, Christ is able to help us! We also set a goal to extend December 19th for baptism. Then our zone will have a huge baptism service that day, and then it'll be our "White Christmas"! 

Just so you all know, if you are ever in Madisonville, never shine red lasers. Sis N's mom send us some, and we were shining one on our gator (on his chest, not his eyes--don't worry mom). He FREAKED out! The reason why is because the people in M-Ville really dislike police... and police have red lasers to aim on their guns. So when they see the red light on them, they think they're about to get shot. He got very upset, and then asked us to leave. It was awkward. We were very embarrassed and felt super bad. So the reason we were shining it on him was because we wanted his daughter to see it. We were just trying to make her laugh. It ended up turning into something bad. So we left and Sis N felt stupid because she was the one that did it. I told her not to worry. Anthony (the gator) has been shot 6 times, so it's kinda like he has PTSD because of it. Now we know sort of his deeper need and how we can help him more. A few days later we took him cookies and he said all was well. Unfortunately we haven't been able to see them since. They say every time we stop by that they'll call us... I really really hope they do soon! 

Jo, a really solid gator, is falling through the cracks :( we extended Dec 26th to him, and he hasn't accepted it yet. His GF is a LA, and so she knows what needs to happen before he can be baptized--they need to get married or he needs to move out. Once we talked about that with the, is has been harder to get Jo to keep appointments. He came to church still, so that's a good sign! We're just going to keep trying to see him everyday and encourage him.

I gave a talk this week in Sacrament. I spoke about how to obtain a testimony, perfect for a missionary! Really how we can obtain a testimony is through prayer, study, and experience! We need to be praying and studying every day, and then experiences we have because of those 2 things will help is obtain and/or strengthen our testimony. 

I love you all!

Sister Fultz