June 23, 2014

The worst part of last week was that our AC was out for 4 days and it was miserably hot but the good news far out shadowed that. Jerrard and Tiffany were baptized on Saturday!!!  Satan worked really hard to keep it from happening but they persevered.  They were confirmed on Sunday in a very spiritual meeting.  Besides the confirmations we had such a good speaker.

 LeRoy Skeen has been paralyzed from the neck down for over 30 years and has lost the ability to speak clearly enough for anyone but family to understand him.  He does have a computer of some kind that he can talk through so dictated his talk to his daughter and she gave it for him.  I wish I could just send out a copy of his talk.  He has been a missionary even in his trials. After he was first baptized and could still speak he used to have some feeling in his fingers and could move his wheelchair up to the street corner where he would sit and talk to people and pass out Books of Mormon.  He was baptized after he was paralyzed which is a miracle in itself, has been to the temple and his wife and daughter bring him to church at least every other Sunday.  They are both saints as well because he is a large man and it can't be easy dressing him. His daughter had wheeled him up to the front of our little chapel so we could all see him and the expressions on his face truly showed his spirit and his love for the gospel.  

We had a busy week last week with appointments with the Elders, service helping a family get their house ready to sell, District Meeting which is always so uplifting and putting lots of miles on our car.  We took our only Young Woman with us and the Elders one day to meet our contacts and she was excited about missionary work (except for the wearing the skirt part) even though we didn't get into many doors.  She comes from a less active part member family and is trying hard to be active.  She did baptisms for the dead on Saturday and loved the whole experience.  We are going to try and set up a time that we can take her and Tiffany to the temple to do baptisms.

We have had a couple of small rainstorms which only make it more humid.  Our little garden is growing rapidly.  Hopefully we will get tomatoes soon.  

Below are the pictures of the other flood wall in our neighboring town which is just about 4 miles away.  They aren't as professional as the others but are still impressive.

Our love to all

Elder and Sister Fullmer

Mom and Dad

Grandpa and Grandma

Evan and Trudy

 

I guess I just assumed everyone would know what the flood wall was but I realized I didn't until we moved here so--the flood wall is that tall wall with a few openings where they can actually put in concrete closures to hold back the water.  The dates with the lines are the years and the water level so you can see that 1937 was a very bad year for flooding.   The wall extends for a good part of the river in both Tell City and the neighboring town of Cannelton.  The Ohio River is only maybe 30 feet or so from the wall.  The pictures below are of the river after one of our really big storms.  I will take pictures of the section of wall in Cannelton and send later.

 

 

June 16, 2014

We had the usual ups and downs of missionary work this week.  Our good friend Anna who reads the Book of Mormon, asks really good and feels the spirit when she is taught just about dropped us this past week.  She was feeling too much pressure to leave her home and go to church so asked us not to bring it up anymore.  We are still welcome to visit and teach but no pressure so it will take her gaining a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel to overcome her fears of leaving home.  That was the downer.  The upper is that Jerrad and Tiffany are being baptized on Saturday the 21st.  Of course we will worry this week that Satan will work extra hard on them to keep it from happening but Tiffany is one tough little cookie and won't let anything stop her.

We got to go spend one day at Girl's Camp as chaperons.  It wasn't really camping because we were at the Lincoln State Park in cabins with electricity and flush toilets and showers but we really enjoyed it.  Their theme was "There's no Place like home" and was all based around the Wizard of Oz characters with of course the theme of going back home to our Heavenly Father.  We got to be there for the testimony meeting and I was amazed at some of the testimonies.  At first when these young girls were talking about their trials I thought, sure what trials could you really have at your young age but then when some went into more detail I realized they really do have some serious ones.  One girl is the only member in her family and joined at 15 and so wants her family to be an eternal family.  It was such a good experience to get to be a part of that.  Even sleeping in a musty cabin because of all the rain wasn't bad and I got the t-shirt to show I was there.

We had one of our investigator couples to church on Sunday.  Sonny and Sue are in there late 70's.  They have been quite receptive to our message and came for Sacrament Meeting.  He has a really bad back so can't sit long enough for three meetings but they liked the padded chairs.  Our two newest members who are both 8 gave the prayers in Sacrament Meeting and Sue was so impressed with the spirit they brought to the meeting.  We meet with them again this evening so we will see how it all really went for them.

Below are some pictures of the flood wall here in Tell City.  We have been here nearly 4 months and I had never seen these but we happened to drive down there yesterday and saw them.     The first picture is the Girls Camp t-shirt.  #2 is a magnolia tree but doesn't show how beautiful they really are. The flowers are the size of a dinner plate. #3 & 4 are The Flood wall.  #,5,6,7,8 show the different panels up close.  #9 Elders at the wall. Notice year 1937.  #10 is us at the wall.

Love to all

Mom and Dad etc

 

 

June 2 & 9, 2014

Dear one and all

This is a catch up email as well as the current one.  Last week I was a little discouraged and also trying to get ready for our trip and just couldn't find it in myself to write.  I know I shouldn't get discouraged when we are dropped by someone but when you have felt the spirit with them and you know how much better their lives would be with the gospel it is hard to lose people.  The two people we had such good experiences with the week before both dropped us.  The Elders had gotten a text from Jessica Z saying they didn’t want any more contact with us that they just believed in the Bible and they also just didn’t have time.  It really sounds like another case of the mother getting to them and even though she isn’t active in any church she was raised a Baptist.  It is sad because they are letting someone else control their lives.  We really feel bad because they were so excited to begin with.  Oh well, it usually takes 9 or 10 times before someone is ready to listen to the message.  Later the Elders came over and told us that Saundra  had also dropped them.  Another one who seemed so ready to listen but quit.  They will still try and do service for her when she works on her porch and I will still try to get Jessica to let me help her learn to make bread but no lessons right now.  Brother Voyles had also told them that Bill Powers doesn’t want us to come back anymore.

We went with the Elders for a first lesson to Anna B.  She is a very nice lady who lives in Golden Years.  When they said we were going there I expected to see the same dirty apartment, smoke filled and with dogs that we usually see when we go to that building.  We have to walk through the gauntlet of smokers sitting outside the front door so I was more than pleasantly surprised when she opened her door and her place was clean, no dogs and no smoking.  It was hard to believe that such a nice home could even be in these apartments.  The elders taught her the first lesson and she was very receptive but when they ask her about being baptized she said she seldom leaves her apartment and didn’t know if that would be possible.  I truly believe she will come to the point that this gospel will mean so much to her that she will come.  She asked if we did all that rolling around on the floor like the last church she went to and it was nice to reassure her that nothing like that happened in our meetings.  We have been back two other times to teach her and she says that it all just makes sense to her.  Now if we can just get her from being so afraid to leave her apartment.

We went to our first Baptist funeral.  It was for the mother of one of our convert members Mike.  I was surprised at how meaningless it seemed.  I thought being the cryer that I am I would shed a few tears but there was no spirit there that I could even feel.  The pastor said the prayer (of sorts), gave the eulogy, sang two songs, gave the sermon and another prayer. It was certainly a different experience. 

We left Tuesday for out trip to Falls Church VA to meet up with our daughter Kellie and her family.  It is about a 12 hour drive through some beautiful country but there were so many trees that the scenery actually became very monotonous.  We certainly had a good time seeing the kids especially that new baby girl and loving on the others.  We played some games, they all spent time in the pool which gave Kellie and I time to visit, we ate at some very good places and we went into DC to see the Washington and Lincoln Memorials.  Coming home we took the southern route which is even prettier.  We came through the Shenandoah Valley which is so gorgeous.  It is hard to imagine a war taking place in that peaceful serene area.  Although we loved getting to see the kids it was good to get back home and into the swing of things.

Love to you all

Mom and Dad etc.

 Below are some things we saw on our trip. No nearly as many pictures as I took but a sampling.