Email address: lauren.fullmer@myldsmail.net

Monday, February 22, 2016

Feb 22, 2016 - Ikeman

Hello folks.

This week... Well I had 2 girls ask if they could marry my brother
Taylor. Literally all the people at see my family pictures want to
marry my brother because he is so "ikeman" (hunk). That was funny. One
of them named maki said "put in a good word and we can be sisters!"
Gosh I love people. These girls are members in the branch next to ours
they came to meeting that we had.

 This week was pretty good. We taught a less active member at the
church with another active member and the spirit was so strong. She
doesn't come to church right now because of health reasons but she is
so so sweet and has such a light in her.

Finding. Finding is something we do where we go out and try to talk to
people of the streets to see if we can teach them about the church. I
can say finding is interesting that is for sure. We met this one woman
who talked so fast we could barely get any words out, but boy she was
interesting. So typically we have a bunch of interesting encounters ,but
some of the coolest ones as well.

We met a woman named shiyori on the train the other day, she was a
ballet teacher. They always dance I swear,but she was amazing. She
kept saying how we should show love because we want to, not because we
feel like we have to. We gave her our number gosh I hope she calls.

Ah, something cool happened, we made a mistake going out to this one
area. We accidentally pasted our stop and got off there. We decided to
go finding there ,but no luck. However, on our way back we met this
young girl heading to work. She told us "ahh you guys are so pretty we
need to take a picture together" so we did. I'm glad the Japanese
people will always think we are pretty because we had biked a lot that
day in the rain,so we must have actually looked wet and sad, but
anyway. We talked with her for a bit and got her number and we have
an appointment next week. Yes!

Guess who came to church.... The American guy who's hilarious. Oh my
gosh he is like a teenager. We were in class with him, and the teacher
called on him to answer a question and he turned to us and said "what
did he say?"( then said I'm checking right now one sec in Japanese)
then he answered "okay checking is way important ,but I know this for
sure". He answered correctly and the teacher said "ya that's right".
He raised his hand in a fist saying "did I win the class? ". The whole
class was just so funny with random things. I don't do it justice ,but
gosh it was so funny. The teacher couldn't remember someone's name so
he called on the person like this " baby Rockwell-chan no otosan "
:baby rockwell's dad. Guy brother Solomon and his wife have been in
here for about a year and the teacher still didn't know their names...
Gosh so funny!

Here's a quote:

Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1926–2004)
once said that “sometimes with smudges on our cheeks, dirt on our
hands, and shoes untied, stammeringly but smilingly we present God
with a dandelion--as if it were an orchid or a rose! If for now the
dandelion is the best we have to offer, He receives it, knowing what
we may later place on the altar” (That Ye May Believe [1992], 100).

- so God will accept anything we give him if it be small or seems not
good enough. I don't know what everyone is facing in their life ,but I
promise you if you do your best he'll never say it's not good enough.
He knows us he knows what we can or cannot do ,and he will be happy if
we try. So I encourage you to trust God and do all that you can do
because we are like the dandelion small and maybe at times feel
insignificant ,but guess what to him we are amazing. We are worth so
much to him. Have a great week!

Love,
Fullmer shimmy



 


Feb. 22, 2016 - "Are you half?" Last weeks email... That didn't get sent out :(



Hello people's
So this week we met some pretty awesome people. Well first we got to
meet with our girls. 3 girls that had come to eikaiwa randomly out of
the blue came again. We meet after eikaiwa a little bit and just
talked some and then Kiku (one of the girls) told me that when she
stayed in America she lived with a Mormon family. Her host family was
Mormon! So she had gone to church and she even seminary( morning
Sunday school class). I showed her family pictures later and she told
me she even went to a temple! We set up a dinner with them the next
day, and that Wednesday we went to the best okonomiyaki place
ever. It was just a little hole in the wall ,but boy it was good. We
gave the girls book of Mormons and hiro was already reading through it
like crazy. We are so so excited to teach them because they have got
so much potential.

We met a woman on Friday named noriko. She's about 70 ish looks 60ish
wears bright pink and purple eyeshadow and just laughs at anything.
She actually approached the missionaries first. We asked her why she
wanted to meet us and she said because "I want to learn about Jesus,
I've heard of him ,but I want to learn about him" well for two
missionaries teaching about God and Jesus that's just the best news to
hear. So we talked with her for sometime about Jesus, we tried to give
her a Book of Mormon ,but she said not right now. She told us " I
think it will take me sometime to learn ,but I do want to learn". She
told us before we left that we were cute and then she said "she looks
American"(pointing to my companion) "you look Japanese... Are you
half?" She said that I had Japanese mannerisms too. I told her nope
and she didn't believe that I was American they never do. They always
think I am from Spain or Europe. It's the brown hair I think.

While we were talking to some people near our huge outdoor mall, we
talked to a woman about God and she said "ya we're all related because
of Adam and Eve right?" Japanese people don't know about Adam and Eve!
Turns out she likes to study Christianity... Crazy awesome. We also
were at a stoplight and a man approached asked us "which country? " in
English. He told him America and that we were church volunteers and I
was holding s Book of Mormon at the time and he said "you guys just
study the bible?" And I whipped it up and asked him if he's ever seen
it before. He said yup and pretty recently too, turns out he was
studying in marugame last summer with the elders there and then he
moved. Crazy! He's a little crazy though because he was telling us
about how to take pictures in the perfect light then he gave us
pictures of rainbows he took and some flower pictures and gave those
to us.

What do you do on Saturday nights? I participate in a 3 year old's
birthday party. We usually have game night every Saturday ,but an
American family in our ward son had a birthday last week and they
wanted to do a little bit of a party on that day. So that night the
elder, our mission leader, ourselves and our investigator kana went to the
birthday party.

Kana... She's a fun girl. She about 29 and she loves food and English.
She would ask brother Solomon if she could have more cake and every
time he would say "ya go for it" so she did. She is so funny.

So on Sunday kana came to church she's been a couple times, we've
talked about baptism with her a couple of times,but she still has some
worries that we are working through. This Sunday we went to class with
her ,but the teacher was sick so it was us and the elders. We asked
kana what she would want to learn. She picked repentance. So we taught
repentance with the elders. Gosh matsuhisua choro is such a good
little missionary. He had so many good symbolisms. Towards the end of
the lesson. One of the old members shuffled in the room. I thought he
was unaware of the lesson, but he sat down and cuffed his hand around
his ear so he could hear. We were about to finish up, then he jumped
up and said "if we didn't have Jesus we would be lost!" Or something
to like that in English. He made an elder hold out his hands and he
piled books on his hands and say "this is was sin does to us, it
weighs us down and we can't do anything" (lifts books up) "but he
takes the burden from us". He went on for a few minutes and it was
really good ,but I had no idea that he was even aware of the lesson.
Gosh I love people.

So Sunday was Valentine's Day, we got some chocolates from the church
members and someone made a cake. Kana had to go, so she couldn't stay
for afterwards for some cake, we told her we would save her a piece
and that she could get it later. We went home for lunch and she called
us saying "where is the cake??" We told her it was in fridge "I can't
find it I don't see it!" She said. We put it in the middle shelf in
the very middle, but for some reason it was hard to find. After a
couple minutes she said "yay. I found it thanks ,bye" and hung up.
Gosh she's a funny one.

D&C 18:10-13
10 Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;
11 For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh;
wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent
and come unto him.
12 And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men
unto him, on conditions of repentance.
13 And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!

Repent. All we need to do to be happy is to repent. There is nothing
more wonderful than being relieved a guilt from your shoulders and
receiving forgiveness. Jesus suffered on the cross for us. He suffered
all the sins of the world. All we have to do to be forgiven is to
repent. Repentance isn't just a confession type thing, it's changing
our heart and turning towards God. It's leaving the past in the past
and moving forward with a bright hope and faith for the future. So
friends I encourage you to repent and look to the future.



Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Feb 8, 2016 -Hello from the city of tall pine tree!

Hello friends and family,

Week two on the island. :) something I like about the island is all the interesting people that I get to meet. I've met my share of people out here, but this week was one of the funniest.

We teach an kids English class here and 3 kids come to that. They are the cutest craziest kids ,but we had a good time teaching them. We aren't allowed to hold kids as missionaries, but when we were sitting down to teach the kids and one of them hopped on my back. It's always the worst because they try and climb into our laps and we just have to push them off. (In a loving way). But the kids were so funny! I don't really know if they even learn that much English from us, but it's always fun.

This week we had English class. 3 college girls came to our class because they had got online and found the place.... What?! No one gets online from the English fliers. We were so excited, though because they are young and want to learn English! We had a pretty fun English class with them, and  One of them plays softball guess who might be playing ball this week... Gosh I hope.  

Last night was an interesting experience. We met probably one of my favorite less actives ever. So this guy, is the funniest person I have ever met. So right now his wife is in Canada finishing up college ,so he doesn't really have much going on. He's American ,but he didn't serve in Japan and his wife isn't Japanese. She's Canadian. He literally one day decided to just come to japan and teach English with his wife. He is the most interesting people I've ever met. So we ping ponged the door, and we heard scuffling and then a "hello?" Who's there?"... "The sister missionaries".. "Oh okay.. I don't need a weapon then" he asked the door and the first thing he said was "I'm sorry do I look like crap?" "So how's missionary-ing" we laughed and asked if he woke up and he said "no I was just kinda laying on my bed looking at the ceiling"...  So this man has a katana ,but he didn't bring it to Japan. (Japanese sword), but we went with him for a walk and he told us how when someone tried to break into his house, and he scared him off with the sword ,but he lied to the landlord and said it was a butcher knife because you weren't allowed to have a sword were he lived. 

Other funny things he said:

When asked how he met his wife: "we worked at the same website..you get to meet people at meetings and sometimes things come up and you drive 20 hours to go to a concert in Canada"

Pulled out candy of his pocket: "dangit I'm like a grandpa pulling candy out of my pocket. I'm 32 I look 45 ,but I'm actually 70"

Asked us if we had eaten at a hotdog stand near his house: "good don't it tastes like garbage anyway, they offended me with the thing they made called a hotdog"

When he had to leave: "so I don't know how to end a conversation, I'm just putting that out there." 

Gosh it was so funny! This guy is the funniest my email didn't do it justice. 

We now call elder Matsuhisua.. Elder pine tree because his first kanji means pine tree. We are working in a place called Takamatsu, which means tall pine tree... I love this place! So much awkwardness and weirdness it's awesome! 

So something we shared with the less active guy was one of my favorite scriptures.

Helaman 5:12
12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Well if we build upon the rock our savior Jesus Christ, nothing can hurt us. Nothing can ever drag us down. Though sometimes those storms and winds will come our way and I have no doubt that they will, if we are built upon the rock we will not fall. 

Loves,
Fullmer 姉妹




Jan. 31, 2016 -まもなく 四国 です。(presently/shortly Shikoku) banished to the island...

Hello folks. As you can guess I transferred. I am now in a wonderful
place called takamatsu on Shikoku (island). Once you go to the island
you never com back. Or so they say. They also say when you go to the
island you get fat,so there's that too. Yay. They changed transfers
from how they used to be. Now they are really different. Before we
would hear on Monday that we were leaving ,but now we just have to
wait until we get called sometime this week and pack really fast and
have no time to say good bye to people.

So I was called Tuesday night and found out that I was coming to the
island. Woo! No snow! Was my first thought, but I like it here.
Everyone is really fun and we've got a fun branch. Love it the people
here are awesome! I was sad to say good bye to Toyooka though I sure
had a lot of fun there. I am not training anymore, Cannon shimai
stayed in Toyooka and I came up to Takamatsu almost alone. That was
fun! But my new companion is awesome. Turns out that I was not social
in college because guess what she was in my ward at college and lived
above me! I knew some of her roommates and she knew some of mine ,but
we didn't know each other. We had gone to some of the same ward
activities ,but I guess we had never really met. Super weird. So her
name is sister Folkman. Folkman and Fullmer fun for 日本人Japanese people
to say. Just kidding it confuses them kinda. But yes, she is pretty
awesome. She is a 4th transfer so still young, but she's awesome! I'm
8th.. Im old. It kinda makes me sad. I'm so old, and I still have so
much to learn. I have about 6months left. Where did the time go?

This week we taught a couple of interesting people. We have met a few
really nice people, and met more weird ones. I like this area from
what I seen ,so far. Nice people, great companion, it's just a matter
of finding the people who are ready to hear our message.

Sorry it's short this week, I'm kinda tired.

Mormon 9:31
Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father,
because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him;
but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you
our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have
been.

I like this because no one is perfect, life's biggest test is becoming
like Jesus who was perfect. But we shouldn't let those little things
hold us back from becoming the best we can be. I feel like I become
aware everyday of my imperfections and what I need to do better and
what I should be doing better ,but it's good it pushes me to improve
on what I'm doing right now. Well folks I hope you work hard this
week, learn from mistakes, and share the love!
Love,
フルマ姉妹

Oh I forgot something really funny. When we where housing we met this
guy named Joe. In my defense,he is Filipino,but he answered saying
"hey how are you guys? " and he was wearing a ISU sweat shirt, but I
thought he was Japanese, and I said "wow your English is so good!"...
He's American. He grew up in Florida. Go Fullmer shimai. That was my
bad. But hilarious!