Email address: lauren.fullmer@myldsmail.net

Sunday, April 26, 2015

April 26, 2015 - My mission


Hello all! Don't worry this week I didn't fall or anything. It's been
a fun week. We spent a lot of the week putting our areabook records
into the iPads. I felt like I've learned a lot more about our
investigators and members because I've read all of the their teaching
records. I had my first kokan (split). I got to spend 24 hours with
one of the training sister leaders. We went to the train station and
split up there and I left my companion and headed to Kobe for the day.
It's only like 30 minutes by train from Nishinomiya. I was paired with
sister Lawson. She is way good at Japanese. I can't even understand
what she says when she talks! She's half Japanese so she already knew
the language when she came out here. So we spent most of the day
contacting because I'm not very good at it. It was definitely
difficult. I can pretty much say hello and ask someone how there doing
then after that I kinda just freeze up. Sister Lawson taught me how to
fix this problem and how to just start conversations with people. We
got a couple of numbers and names ,so I think I that it went well.
After that we had a lesson with a woman named Lisa. She is a really
sweet lady. She's Chinese and she doesn't really like Japan. She hates
when people try to talk to her in Japanese. Her English is really
good. We talked to her for 2ish hours, the woman can talk! The next
day we had zone conference and it was way cool. We got a lot of iPad
training and then President Welch would put his spiritual thoughts in
there. It was like a reunion for all the old missionaries ,but then
there's the baby missionaries like me who just kinda sit there
thinking "I have no idea who any of these people are and I have no
idea what's going on."I met A LOT of new people (everyone except my
trainer and sister Smith from the MTC).

Story time:
So we have this huge bikes called a mamachadi. They are really heavy
and they have no springs so often times you get headaches when you ride
them. They are really hard to get up hills and just overall these are big
honking things. Guess who broke one. Yup.. I successfully destroyed my
monster of a bike. I was going up hill and I don't really know how it
happened but I broke the axel of my back tire. My trainer was leading
the way and I hollered at her, " I think something's wrong." We checked
out my bike and lo and behold the tire is just hanging there. We
walked the rest of the way home (with the bike). The next day the
elders let me borrow an extra bike that they have. The only problem is
I'm not too tall. The elders' extra bike is twice as heavy and a
raised bike for tall people. My legs couldn't reach the pedals. I felt
like a little baby in a high chair just dangling my feet. It's fine
now we figured out how to fix the metal monster.

Spiritual thought:
Moses 1:39
"For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the
immortality and eternal life of man."
- even though sometimes we don't know why somethings happen or why
they don't happen we can always trust that God has a plan.  If we just
look at everything around us we can see his hand and realize that He
has a purpose for us and that is for us to be happy and to be able to
live with him again.

I hope all of you have a wonderful week!

Love,
Fullmer shimai




Monday, April 20, 2015

April 20, 2015 - 2nd week in Japan


Hello all! It's been a fun 2nd week in Japan. It's been pretty rainy all week. Which is not the funniest ,but that's alright. Ok some of you know that I'm not exactly graceful... This week I've been especially less graceful. Sometimes I keep count of the things I run into, fall into, etc. This week there was 5 things I hit or fell into. 
1- I ran into a pole 
2- I fell into the gutter 
3- I fell down the stairs 
4- I ran into my companion and almost took her down with me 
5- I ran into another pole 
I keep count because I know that I'm probably going to do it again. I only have scratches and bruises ,so I'm fine. Sometimes I'm just a goof and I hit things. 

Story time: 
Sometimes we go housing which we call ping-pong(ing). Japanese people have little speaker boxes and sometimes cameras outside their house so instead of ringing adoor bell we ping pong. Usually we don't even see people and have whole conversations through the speakers. Anyways, ping ponging is usually a hit or a miss we either have really successful days or none. This particular day we weren't having any success and we were kinda getting a little discouraged. However, we decided to keep going because eventually someone had to listen to us. A girl with her dog ran by and we said hello and continued walking. We kinda watched her run down the street and the dog just sat in the road. No matter how hard she pulled and tugged he wouldn't budge. My companion and I decided that maybe we should go talk to her. So we did it turns out she is a college student at the college right next to our church. Her name is Nozomi and she's 21 years old and a devout Christian. We showed her the Book of Mormon and she seemed really excited about it. We gave it to her and told her that it was a gift. She gladly took and said she was going to read it. After we finished talking to her, her dog decided that it was good to go and started trying to get going.The whole experience was just so cool! 

This past Sunday I had to give a 5 minute talk in church. In Japanese. I don't think I'll ever complain about giving a talk ever again. I was so nervous and I could barely say anything. I'm also 90% sure that I said that, "Jesus is God's bean paste" when I really meant to say, "Jesus is God's son". Oh well it happens. 

Spiritual thought: 
John 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 
^ if we really have a deep love for God we will follow all of his commandments even though sometimes we don't understand them or want to follow them. Obedience is an act of love. 

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all! 

Love, 
Fullmer shimai 



Sunday, April 12, 2015

April 12, 2015 - I'm in Japan!


Well. I've been in Japan for about 4 days now. It's been quite the first week. We left the airport on Monday and got to Japan on Tuesday. The plane ride was extremely long. I sat next to the same elder for about 14 hours. Before the flight I hardly new the elder ,but after those 2ish days we became good friends. It was fun to get to meet someone new. We got to Japan at about 9:00 ,but we were late for our flight to Osaka and rushed to the flight. It took forever to get through customs. We kept trying to go through and one guy would say "no. Stop. Go back" (I think the only English he new was those few words). We had a guy kinda guiding us and we would tell us to go through and then the man wouldn't let us through. It went back and forth for about 10 minutes until the guy finally let us through. After we got through we ran to a shuttle. 2 of our elders where left in the airport and missed the flight. They had to stay in Tokyo for the night. It was so crazy. There was so much Japanese and all I knew was everyone was being polite. So I got to meet some of the members this week we have about 15-20ish active members our bishop. Something we have to focus on is the less actives. This week we visited the shibahads (80 year old couple who can barely move). We also visited katoaka shimai. She is recent convert ,but she doesn't want to come to church anymore because she thinks it's boring we are trying to think of ways to make church more interesting. We have to talk to here like she is 6 years old and it's kinda frustrating because a lot times she just does not want to listen to us. It's been rainy every day. It's not bad it just gets kinda cold when we bike really fast. My companion is Bean shimai. She is fantastic! I couldn't ask for a better companion! She's been out for about 8 months. She is very patient with me ,but she still tries to push me to learn more. I got to watch General conference twice which was super cool because I got to learn new things that I didn't know before.

Story time: 
We went to go visit some members with the elders and we Visited one sister and I learned that she served a mission in Osaka. She was very kind and very tiny. All the people here are so tiny! But anyways she said that she wanted to go visit here Friends and had us come along. We went over and met this 60 year old guy and his 2 daughters with their rowdy kids. They had us come inside and go into this tiny room. It smelled like incense and was kinda foggy. On one side of the room there was a picture of the man's wife and a small candle and some sticks. His wife had recently died and this is how they honor people after they die. We all had to honor the wife which meant we each lit a stick and placed it in another pot facing a certain way then we "prayed" to the wife (remember I don't speak very well and half the time I have. No idea what is going on) so we each did it. Japanese people kneel but when they kneel they sit on the feet we stayed and talked with them for like an hour and my legs went numb. When I went to stand up I almost fell over because both my legs were asleep the Daughters thought it was so funny!

Spiritual thought : 

Elder Neil Anderson shared this thought I'm General conference:

"Although the Lord reassures us again and again that we “need not fear,” keeping a clear perspective and seeing beyond this world is not always easy when we are in the midst of trials."
I really liked it because sometimes it is hard to look past now and see what is down the road...We do not always know what's ahead however he does. He knows what lies ahead and he won't give us anything that we can't handle .

あいしいます!
(I love you)

しんぴしないで!
(Don't worry)


Love 
フダマ 姉妹
(fullmer shimai)