Best Week Thus Far

What an amazing week!

When I was in Cincinnati at the beginning of my mission, I had heard of two boys name Lamatrics and Lamaine Coleman. I could tell that the ward really loved them and cared about them by the way they talked about them. Members in Ward Council talked about how they weren't sure where the boys had ended up, but that they thought they had moved to Western Hills ward. I left the ward after 4 transfers and never head much about the Coleman's. I was lucky enough to go back to the Cincinnati ward training a new missionary. Ward Council still was talking about the Coleman's a few times every now and then. One day we were driving to meet the Highland Heights sisters for exchanges. We stopped at UDF to get ice cream, as we usually did. While we were ordering our ice cream, the boy scooping the ice cream said "Oh hey, I used to be Mormon". I looked up at him and read his name tag and it said "Lamatrics". I talked to him briefly about his love for the Blackwelder's in the Cincinnati ward. The next Sunday I told the ward council whereabouts the UDF was, and they were confused because it wasn't anywhere near Western Hills. They then gave my companion and me the assignment to go see his grandma Mamie Parker. We had limited miles and she was very far out of our area. We weren't ever able to get a member to drive us out there and we didn't ever end up fulfilling the assignment. My companion and I got transferred away from Cincinnati, and I ended up in the Eastgate ward a few transfers later. We got a call from the Cherry Grove Sisters to go see a member in our ward whose records aren't here. The members son in the Western Hills ward told them about her. We finally were able to go and see her a few weeks after they told us. Turns out... it was Mamie Parker along with Lamatrics and Lamaine Coleman!! I had finally found them month after I had heard about them in the Cincinnati ward. It's amazing how I am the only missionary other than my companion that would've known anything about them. I really have been wondering about them for months and have always wanted to meet them. The Lord led me to them in the last place I thought  would find them! Mamie and Lamaine both came to church on Sunday as well! I am so excited to help this family progress and to teach Mamie's grandson who isn't a member yet.

Another great thing that happened this week was Melissa. We found her in the potentials list, and she has had missionaries come every year for 16 years, and so she is taking it as a sign. We taught her the Restoration on Saturday and the spirit was so strong. She said she would study and pray, and she's already started praying about it. I can tell that she has real intent. She even came to church yesterday! She almost didn't. The member we had set to give her a ride got the flu, and to make it worse we forgot our phone when we went to ward council. We ran home after before church started, and we got home at 8:40 when church starts at 9:00. That's when we saw the text from the member. We started to panic because we weren't sure who to ask. We called Melissa and turns out the members husband just decided to give her a ride despite that he would be alone with her, he just had a video call with his wife to be safe. So she was able to come to church! It was so amazing. She stayed for all of it and was so involved. At the end she said she had a lot to think about and pray about, she also expressed that she felt so welcome. It was so amazing. I really can see her progressing in the gospel.

Here are a few pictures from last week! We had a district meeting, and made a Title of Liberty and then us at a less actives house :)

I love change!

The most exciting thing that happened this week was the missionary schedule and key indicator changes. They changed up our morning schedule so its more relaxed and we can decide ourselves what to do. The council decided to give us more agency in deciding how we want our mornings to go. It's been a lot of fun to have a different schedule! They also took us from 9 key indicators down to 4. They have identified what the most important things to conversion are, and that's all that we report. Missionary work is a lot less stressful now, which is great :)

We almost got sucked into a Bible Bashing this week. I got really nervous because I try my hardest to avoid those... which I didn't used to, haha. They seemed really nice at first but then they started asking probing questions trying to get us to say the wrong thing so they could prove us wrong. Luckily, and of course, they couldn't get us with anything. We stayed pretty calm and politely answered questions. We did leave them on good terms by letting him rant to us about Donald Trump and how it is related to God. It was interesting to hear his point of view, and mostly his wife just sat there and listened to him rant. Once we were finally able to get out of there we went and had a great dinner with the Allred family, some members in the ward, and it made it all better.

Well, that is all for this week. Love you all!

Sister Fultz

We are pro at catching mice!

Hello Friends and Family!

This week Sister Winterton got attacked by an old woman at the nursing home where we do service. It was hilarious! We were playing with a parachute flapping it up and down with balloons in the middle and I guess the lady didn't like her for whatever reason. She started hitting her pretty brutally and then she grabbed her shirt and hair and pulled her. I was sitting on the other side of the room and I couldn't get to her, so I just had to watch. The nurse turned around and yelled "Martha! Let her go!". Martha had a pretty tight grip on her so it took a second to get her off. As she was getting wheeled away in her wheelchair, she pointed her finger really angrily at Sister Winterton. Later when we walked out I saw her and she said "Don't give him anymore" while pointing her angry finger at me. Then on Sunday morning we caught a mouse in one of the sticky traps that a member gave us, and then another Sunday night. That makes 4 total that we have caught in our house since Christmas. We need a cat! I hope we don't have anymore, but I have a feeling we do. We live in a members house and all there is under it is a crawl space. Our house is coordinator is coming over today to check it out, so we might end up moving!

Chris is still MIA. The other Sisters tracted his street and couldn't find him.

One of our investigators ended up in the hospital this week for attempted suicide. She's home now, which probably isn't the best. Her grandma told us to keep going back to help her. She is such a sweet girl with just a skewed thought process. I am praying a lot for her and hope we can help her.

The weather this week was so nice! It's been warmer and we don't have any snow. It's prime missionary work weather! Although I do wish there was some snow... but I hear Utah has a lot! I'm not sure I would want to missionary in that much snow. The past two winters in Ohio have been so mild, I am blessed!

Sure love you all!

Sister Fultz

My first week in Eastgate

My first week in Eastgate was eventful!

My first full day we got a member referral for a man in the hospital where this member worked. We went and met him, his name is Chris. He took the lessons in California where he almost got baptized, but then he was attacked and stabbed (crazy, right?!). Then he lost contact with the missionaries. He since has moved to Ohio to be near the better hospitals to treat his lupus disease. We taught him the Restoration and gave him a new Book of Mormon. He remembers pretty much everything! It was so amazing to meet him. Since he has been discharged from the hospital, and we kind of lost him. He didn't give us his address, and he doesn't have his own phone. WE HAVE NO WAY OF CONTACTING THIS PREPARED AND ELECT MAN. We literally lost him. Oh my. I don't know what to do! He told us he lives on a street which is actually in Cherry Grove. I told the Sisters they just need to go tract that street so they can find him, haha. Pray that we find Chris!

The rest of the week was pretty slow. We are trying to find new people to teach. A lot of people will listen to us, but it's always a question of who will actually commit and do something about what we teach. Like this one guy, we shared the First Vision, and when we were done he said, "That's cool, can we wrap this up? I gotta go." I laughed right then and just didn't know what to say. Needless to say, we probably won't teach him much more.

We tried tracting this week. One of the doors we knocked on the guy looked at us and knew who we were. Once someone knows who you are, a rejection is coming. But there wasn't one! He wanted some "literature" to read. I guess we were amateurs and didn't have any on us. Awkward. He said he would talk to us more but he was....knitting. Priorities, right? We did manage to go by a few days later and give him a Book of Mormon. We are going to see him this week, so we will see what happens!

Today we went to a Jungle Jims with the Cherry Grove Sisters. It is pretty much the best store ever! They have all kinds of food from different places. It was so fun to just walk around and see the weird things they have.

Sister Fultz

Bye Cherry Grove!

I am getting moved to Eastgate, which is right next to Cherry Grove. I am still going to be in the Cincinnati East Stake, and in the same building :) Also I am not going to be a Sister Training Leader anymore, but Sister Lamb will be mine! I am excited to still be close to her. I am going to be with Sister Winterton who is from Salt Lake! She has been out for about 6 or 7 months now.

We had an interesting week... we were supposed to go and work Wilmington (Sister Malloys area) after district meeting on Wednesday. But... Sister Lamb locked the keys to the car in the trunk. So we were stranded at the church for a few hours. The office elders said they were going to come and give us the spare, then an hour later (when they said they would be there) they called and said we needed to get a member to give us a ride to get the key. So we got a member to give us a ride 45 minutes to Western Hills, and then 45 minutes back. Then after we got into our car we had to drive 45 minutes back to Western Hills to give back the spare and then ANOTHER 45 minutes back to our area. No work happened that day. We did manage to make it out to Wilmington on Friday.

This week we went to the farm and walked ponies! Literal ponies. They were so cute! We walked them in the snow, and so it was pretty freezing. It was fun anyway! The elders were there with us and we had a good photo shoot with them. I would send pictures, but Sister Lamb forgot her camera, haha.

I am about to go into my second to last transfer of my mission! It is crazy how fast time flies by. I am hoping that I can finish my mission in Eastgate, that would be the dream. I am sure I will! Eastgate has a lot of potential, and I am excited to be a tool in the Lord's hands to change the area. I love being the Lord's servant and the chance that I have to be changed by it.

Love you all!

Sister Fultz

Happy New Year!

This week was rather uneventful. With it being the holidays no one really wanted to talk to us. Oh well!

We were able to meet an amazing part member family. The nonmember is from the Philippines and she has been in the states for a few months now. The member is her husband and they met online. Sister Lamb has been trying to meet them for a long time now, and we finally did! She has been learning a lot from him about the church. Sadly he is hesitant to have us over to teach, but we talked him into letting us come over just once a week. He seems pretty controlling of her, but we can work with it. We had an appointment for yesterday, but with it being New Years day its no surprise that they cancelled.

A couple weeks ago we got a call from the Sister Missionaries in the Colorado mission. They gave us a referral for a members boyfriend that live in our area. We tried calling him and he didn't answer. But the sisters called us again yesterday and said that he is ready for the gospel! We are so excited to try to see him again this week. The Sisters said that he even bought his daughter a dress for church! :)

So this week we get to be in another trio. Sister Malloy is serving in Wilmington and her companion goes home this week. Everyone going home this transfer is going home a week early in the transfer for school. Sister Malloy will get to be with us until transfers and we will be going to Wilmington 2 days this week to work. It's going to be a crazy busy week!

Hope you all had a happy and safe new year!
Love you all!

Sister Fultz

Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas.

We did a lot of exchanges this week. I got to go back to one of my old areas, Little Miami! I also got to be with one of my old companions, Sister Johnson! Sadly I ended up being really sick and had to sleep all day. Sister Johnson was still able to get a lot done in the apartment while I slept. :) We were able to teach a lesson to an investigator named Carmelita. We committed her to being baptized in January, and she said yes! It was an amazing spirit filled lesson. I was grateful to be part of it. :)

We had a mission Christmas conference on Christmas eve. It was so fun! We did a funny talent show and a Christmas program. I sang in the Christmas program even! A bunch of other sisters and I sang "Mary did You Know". It was really stressful, needless to say! During the funny talent show our zone did "The 12 Days of Christmas". The zone leaders had different actions they did for each part and the rest of us did the singing. It was hilarious! There was a lot of beat boxing and rapping in the talent show. Afterwards we got these really cute knitted slippers! I sleep in them every night. It was an amazing conference followed by dinner at our Bishops house. They fed us an amazing dinner and we were able to sing songs with them. It was nice to feel part of their family when I'm so far from mine. They even gave us cute Ohio mugs and hot chocolate mix for Christmas! I really love them - and the whole Cherry Grove ward! I am so blessed to be here.

On Christmas we were ready to go to church, and we were already running late. But then... we couldn't find the keys! Sister Lamb is really good at losing them, her words not mine! ;) so we were late to church and we were supposed to be on the stand for the choir. It was a walk of shame to walk up there late. The Christmas program was so beautiful, it moved me to tears! I am so grateful for my Savior. The rest of  the day was spent at members, as we weren't allowed to go proselyte. We had an amazing lunch with our ward mission leader and his family. Then we went to one of our favorite members, the Radcliffe's. That is where we skyped our families! It was amazing to see  my family somewhat face to face. I wish there was as much snow here as there! To finish the night we went to another members and had cake and ice cream.

I love you all! Stay safe the rest of the holiday season!

Sister Fultz