June 13, 2016 - Sunday the Lord's day

This week was a good one. We have been really focusing on the less
actives here and trying to reactive them. Since I have been here with
my companion, we have seen 2 less actives come to church and recently
1 less active that calls us every night to read the scriptures came 2
weeks in a row! It's awesome to see people come back to the church.
People being baptized in the church is super special, but I think
something equally special to that is being able to see people come
back. It's always so amazing to see old friends Reunite. It's so cool
to see people's eyes light up when the less active member walks
through the door. I feel like when it happens the person is
immediately wrapped in love and I'm grateful to be apart of it.

Speaking of less actives. Gosh we have one guy named brother ishitobi.
He calls us every night to read the scriptures with us. It's so fun.
But sometimes we have no idea what he says even the Japanese members
don't know what he says sometimes. The new elder here is Japanese and
sometimes at church we look at him if we don't know what he says and
he just shrugs his shoulders and says "I don't know what he is
saying." In English. Anyways, he called us all this week to read and
after we read with him we would talk about the scriptures and teach
some doctrine from the scriptures. After we would finish he being a
little older would then go on some kind of rant usually involving food
or the potluck this week or us or something. He asked if he could
bring non alcoholic alcohol to the potluck this week on Sunday, I told
him no and he said" but it's okay because there is no alcohol.." I
told him that he shouldn't bring it and he said okay. The way he says
good bye is the best : choi- choi(Portuguese), bye-bye, I love you so
much, and recently something he learned German "i love you" but he
can't really say it so he says "he-bi-di-bi-di!" Gosh he's so funny.

Hospital visits :/... We have a member in the hospital right now and
we go and visit her. On Wednesday morning I felt like I should bring
some pictures with of Christ with me and give them to members that we
see or anyone because you can never go wrong with a picture of Christ.
Well, we went up to the hospital and we ran into some members going to
visit her too ,so we went together and talked with her. Apparently
this member really liked paintings and portraits and things like that.
The members had brought pictures of paintings and books on art. I
pulled out my small picture of Christ, and told her about my love for
the savior and his love that he has for her. I wish I could take away
her pain ,but I can't. I wish I could understand her trial better ,but
I can't. I wish i could help her more, but I can't. But it comforts me
to know that I can help her spiritually and pray for her and be her
friend when she needs one right now.

Gosh the hospital, I don't like going I've gone to it to visit members
and been there once myself here, and I hate it. There's so much good
in a hospital ,but there is also so much pain too.. It makes me want
to do more, something more to help those people who are there.

You know have you ever thought about how church is like a hospital for
our souls. We all need to go to the hospital sometimes, if it's for a
check up or for something major. If we broke a limb or something we go
straight to the hospital, likewise we go to make sure our bodies are
okay and working okay. Church is like that we need to hold on and stay
close to the church and its teachings especially when we go through
hard times. Our pain or spiritual heartache will not get better if we
don't stay close to the church. But unlike a hospital we should go
every week ,so our spirit and be uplifted and be ready for the next
week. People say "well the week starts on Monday, and Monday's are the
worst." I like to think that my week starts on Sunday right after I
get to partake of the sacrament. It's like a mini baptism and a time
for me to reflect on the week and figure out what I need to do the
next week to be better.

This Sunday was great. In the morning we had a meeting with all the
ward leaders at 8:30. I woke up not really wanting to go ,but on the
bike ride to the church I put a fake smile on my face and when we got
to the church I was smiling for real ready to go and ready to work
with the members. The meeting went well, and then we had class. It was
our turn to teach the class. The class was us the elders and my
favorite crazy grandma sister yamane, and brother ishitobi. We taught
about the sabbath ,but the two people in our class didn't really pay
attention. Sister yamane cut me off in the middle of my sentence and
pointed to ishitobi and Said " you see this guy, he's really good at
cooking, one time he cooked this one thing and it was so good." We
laughed because they just weren't getting anything we said. The elders
told us "great job! The lesson was great. Y'all are great!" All while
chuckling.

After church we had potluck which ishitobi brought his not alcoholic
alcohol to! Some other people took care of it and told him it was not
a good idea. We ate good Brazilian and Japanese food. I love Brazilian
food holy cow! After that we did a awesome thing with the members we
and the elders went on splits with a member and went and taught
lessons. We only had 2 hours with the member ,but we went and taught
like 4 lessons. It was awesome! And then to end the night we got to
teach our recent convert, and then teach the Brazilian twins in our
ward some English and have a great Brazilian dinner. It's a good thing
I didn't go to Brazil on my mission because I would have put a lot of
weight on!

Have a great week y'all!

Love always sister Fullmer

Find me! I was trying to scare the elders.. Didn't work they saw me!

June 6, 2016 - Como via voće?

Hey everyone. This week went pretty well. Actually it was transfer
week. Surprise! I'm still in Izumo! Yay! I'm glad I didn't transfer. I
like it here too much. So yes, no transfer, but it's a new transfer
and we are already seeing great things. I feel like when a new
transfer starts its like a new feel. Like when you finish a year of
schooling, freshmen year seems much different then sophomore even
though it's just right after. Obviously each transfer is only 6 weeks
,so it's not a whole year ,but I feel like it's long enough to be able
to see changes in yourself ,but not so much where it seems never
endless.

So we've had a fun week here in Brazil. I mean Izumo. We went down by
some apartments near a woman we have been trying to contact again, and
we happened to stumble into an area that was where just Brazilians and
one Japanese lady. I can't tell when people are Brazilian or Japanese
sometimes, so as we talk to people and they have a thick Brazilian
accent we immediately recognize "ah not Japanese.. "They probably
won't understand Japanese church words very well. Anyway we carry
Japanese and Portuguese Book of Mormon with us now because you never
know when you can give away a Portuguese Book of Mormon. As we were
housing we talked to Brazilian after Brazilian and they where all
really nice people. Excited when we talked to them about church or
Jesus Christ. Although there is a language barrier we can still manage
to share something with them. But my Portuguese has gotten better.
Como via voće? (How are you?) is my accomplishment this week. Anyways
we were housing and this young 16 girl answered the door and we
realized that she didn't know Japanese or English, but some how we
ended up giving her a Book of Mormon in Portuguese. It must have Been
funny for her to see to white people in japan attempting to talk to
her in her 3rd or second language. And then saying "Portuguese desu
yo!" She laughed us ,but she got that it was in Portuguese. No return
appointment ,but it was fun to make her smile and to try out my few
Portuguese phrases that I have picked up.

Update on our Brazilian investigator Gabriela, she came to church and
I was talking to her about church, she told me she loves God and Jesus
Christ . when we teach her it seems like she
just listens to listen not really interested in really learning, and
we don't speak her native tongue ,so we dropped her. She's what we
have termed an entern-agator (eternal investigator).

Sarah Yamato! So last transfer we had dropped her because we could
never meet her. we have to call her moms phone in order to get into
contact with her ,but the call would never go through and she was
never home. We thought something was wrong ,so we decided to drop her
for now.. We were looking for new investigators near her house, and I
said "sure lets drop by, we've visited 13/ 14 times who knows she
could be home this time" we knocked on the door, and  her mother
answered, my jaw dropped. We found out that the phone had broken and
they haven't gotten a new one yet, so they weren't ignoring us at all
just broke the phone. She said we could come back probably during the
evening and teach Sara, yes!

Lots of awesome things happened this week, but I don't have a whole
lot of time ,so I'm gonna go ,but I'll send lots of pictures.

Faith. Believing without seeing,but I feel like we forget the other
part of faith sometimes, acting. If you sit in a dark tunnel you won't
get any closer to the light at the end. God asks us to trust him, leap
of faith right? But he doesn't tell us what's going to happen in the
end. He trusts us enough to let us make our own decisions. So trust
God and I promise it will turn out okay!

Love y'all!

P-day on the train

May 30, 2016

Hello all,

It is transfer week. Again. It seems they go faster and faster every
time. I don't know what's happening I'll probably know tomorrow night.
I hope I stay here I don't want to leave. I love it here! It's a great
place with great people! So I'd rather not leave! Anyways,

It's been bit of a hard week to be honest. We've been trying to find
and teach more people ,but it just seems that this week was not our
luck. :( we did meet a couple of interesting people though. My
favorite was an 80 year old lady who looked 60 and was a sweet lady.
We stopped her while finding and had a good chat and she just said
that she was "too old to understand or change". She said "I've only
got a little bit more time life so... Not interested" (kinda that
feel, English translation is a bit different). We told her all about
God ,and she thought it was interesting ,but despite that she finally
gave us the "no I'm fine". And walked away. Dangit. Too bad though she
had great potential. We also met a lady who was walking her dog named
ichigo(strawberry). She hardcore rejected us after we brought up
church ,but she was nice up until then. :/

Soccer. We played soccer for sports night two investigators and 2
recent converts came! . One of the elders is from Brazil and he is a
professional soccer player, it was cool to watch him play because when
he did anything it was like he was dancing on the field. It was so
cool! I just kicked the ball this way and that and sometimes it went
in. When I kicked a goal the first time I made it ,but I slipped on my
other foot and fell. I'm fine just my pride was a bit bruised.

This week we had a culture party in the area next to ours. It was
Brazilian culture, American culture ,Japanese culture and Samoa
culture. So we dressed up In American colors, the Brazilian in plaid
because it's a thing. Samoa (one elder) in a lava lava actually half
of the elders in lava lavas because they wanted too, and some of the
Japanese in kimonos or other Japanese clothing. It was fun! We even
had one investigator come. She liked it. So the day of the party we
went over to a Brazilian family's house (the hatadas) and helped make
Brazilian candy and they made carrot cake. We made Rice Krispie treats
as well, but man finding marshmallows and something like Rice Krispie
cereal is really hard. We also made made do s'mores because it's
really American! The carrot cake burned so we didn't actually get to
eat it(until later that night). We all squeezed into the car and went
to the matsue church building and had a great time. We ate interesting
foods, and each country performed a dance. Guess who was in charge of
the American dance... Me! Apparently because I am from Texas I'm the
most American. My entire mission I've been known as sister Fullmer the
Texan by other missionaries. I can't tell you how many people think I
live on a ranch and ride horses. Some times I tell them I do and wait
for a reaction. Anyways, the elders in mastue asked me to come up with
something and teach everyone."bring out your inner Texan!" They said..
Good thing I went to dances as a youth and remember a couple line
dances. Other than that I'm not good a dancing what so ever, actually
I'm a terrible dancer. But line dancing is American and easy! Yay go
America! We did a line dance to footloose and it was really fun. I saw
the video and realized how awkward I am. I was not meant to dance ,but
it was so fun.

"He can make us whole no matter what is broken in us."
Elder Paul V. Johnson Of the Seventy
April 2016 general conference (Learning from Conference)

 Love you all!

May 23, 2016 - Elder Stevenson taikai! One of the 12!

Hello people!

This week we haven't really been in our area for the whole week, we
are still in Kobe now because we had a huge missionary meeting at
Kobe. 5 hour bus ride from my area. And then a couple of train rides.
This week was really cool though. We finally got to meet with Nery, one
of our investigators. She came to English class, actually a lot of new
faces came, it was really fun this week. And she invited us to come to
her birthday party.  She's so cool and she said she wanted to start
taking the lessons again! Yes! I'm so excited to teach her! And 2 of
our recent converts are bringing friends for us to teach sometime this
week! I'm so pumped!

Anyway, we left our area on Wednesday night and when to Okayama
because we had zone conference. It was really good! I got to translate
again. The zone leaders asked me the day before. I was like sure
sounds good. I forgot that the Assistants to the president were going
to give training, but they came and so did president and his wife. So
I know that experiences from earlier prepare me for things that are
going to come way. Elder Takaku gave training on over coming trials
and having faith and he used the story of Momotoro (peach boy). A
peach was floating down a river and an old couple grabbed it and from
it a boy was born. He grew up to be a great warrior, but his mission
in life was to go to the great mountain and defeat the monster orge.
It seemed hopeless ,but because of the help of his sidekicks (bird,
dog, one more animal I forgot it) and his determination he defied all
odds and won. This was really fun to translate, elder Takaku paused
when he said "oni" (orge) and looked over at me and said "okay?". I
know the word orge in Japanese because I travelled to orge island with
my zone last transfer. The lord works in mysterious ways. I was a bit
nervous to translate even though I'm older now, but that nervousness
never really goes away. I learned so much from the conference.
Something I really felt in my heart during the conference was that
failure is not the end. It's the beginning. It's the beginning to
success. There is a Japanese phrase that means failure is the origin
of success. It's true because often times we stop trying when we fail
when in fact we should use the failure as a motivation to move
forward. I feel like the people who have the most success or smile the
biggest are often times the people who failed the most and experienced
some pretty hard things.

This week we got to hear from an apostle... One of the 12 came...Elder
Stevenson came to our mission! Ah! He was the Nagoya Japan mission
president in 2008, and when he was a missionary he served in the
Fukuoka mission! So He has a great love for Japan and the people. He
spoke in English the whole session ,but occasionally he would break
out into random Japanese and talk, it was so cool! An apostle spoke
my mission language. It was really cool to hear him testify in
Japanese. I know he is truly an apostle of God. He told us that we
were sent here for a specific reason because although we make mistakes
the Lord does not. Maybe we are looking for people ,but there are
people out there looking for us. It was amazing. We got to shake his
hand and everything. Sadly we didn't get to talk to him for very long
because the entire mission was there, but from elder Stevenson and his
wife we could just feel so much love from them even though we didn't
get to talk to them. I got to see my trainee and all my past
companions minus (Bean and Chapman.. Finished their missions, but I
love those two). It was weird ,but really good to see everyone. So
weird to see everyone. I love all the missionaries here, we are all
just kids trying to do something bigger than us and somehow it works
out.  Somehow, I mean through the Lord. His work is larger than just
this mission or this side of the world, his word is spreading I know
it is. God loves us more than we can even imagine, he loves us so
much. I don't even understand all of it ,but I know that he will never
leave me by myself. He's near, he is always near to me.

May 16, 2016 - Locked out

Hey everyone,

It's been a good week in Izumo.  Sometimes I forget that there are so
many Brazilians here and I mistake them for Japanese people. We went
housing this week and we knocked on one door and started talking to
this lady, she looked Japanese spoke Japanese, but no she was
Brazilian. She wasn't interested in what we had to say ,but we let and
said cho cho and she smiled back. That's all the Portugeuse I know
,but I'm glad it made her happy!

So funny thing, on Monday we skyped our families on Monday, all during
that there was people at the church cleaning, like a cleaning company
,so we were moved from room to room and sat on some wet carpet from
time to time. It was good to see my family. Surreal, but good. After
that we went and grabbed some food for the week and headed back to the
church only to discover the church had been locked! Now, we have the
key ,but the funny thing about this church is there are two sets of
doors... -_- the inner doors were locked and all the sets of those
keys were locked inside the church. So we finished p-day outside of
the church. And cancelled family home evening. Come Tuesday, the doors
were still locked we teach English class every Tuesday night and
cannot cancel it, so we called everyone about the key situation and
the only other keys were in Okayama 4 hours away ,but they were in the
process of being sent over here, so we thought we had to cancel
English class. Well yamane kyodai thought different. (He's the English
class coordinator). He thought we could just do class in the cars
because it was raining... Yup. We taught it in his car. It was the
most interesting class I had ever taught.

This week we did a lot of finding. We talked to lots of people with
little success, too bad. Sometimes you have those long weeks or days,
it's just a part of life.
I gave a talk on Sunday. I found out that the mic was too low to hear
me... :( ya I'm bummed I worked pretty hard on it.

Recently I've been learning something on faith. Fear and doubt is the
opposite of faith. It's that simple. If you fear or doubt ,then faith
is dead. You cannot doubt that everything will work out how it's
supposed to and "have faith". 1 it will not because you don't believe
it will 2 it will be like empty faith. Empty faith. Every heard of
that? I often teach people to have faith, but I ask them what do you
have faith in? If you have faith in men, they will fail you, if you
have faith in things, they will fail you. The only thing you must have
absolute faith in is Jesus Christ because he will never fail you. He
will never leave you alone. He is always be with you wether you know
it or not, I promise he is there. Draw until him and he will draw unto
you, and somehow everything will turn out alright. I love my savior
and know he is there even when I it doesn't seem like it. He took
everything and knows how to succor our needs because he experienced it
all. He really did. For you and for me.

Love y'all! Have a great week!

Love sister Fullmer

May 9, 2016 - Hello!

This week has been quiet a week. I felt like we weren't in our area
for so long! I went to Okayama this week by bus. 5 hours by bus. I got
car sick. It's been so long since I've been in a car thus I get really
sick really easily. :( dangit. Anyways, I got to go on a companion
exchange with one of my past companions Uchida shimai. It was really
good, really weird. When I saw her, I talked to her and she said "your
Japanese got way good." Yay! We had zone training meeting. Too, right
after we went out to eat with the STLs Uchida and Nielsen and I left
my iPad at the place we ate at. Good thing we are in Japan and no one
will touch your things. Also the waitress picked it up and I picked it
up at the front. I'm kinda tired today, and also we got locked out of
our own church ,so this is going to be a short email, but I skyped my
family today. It was good, it was surreal though. It's weird when
everything turns into lasts. I've only got a few more lasts, but I'm
not looking forward to ending anytime soon. I love you guys here's
some pictures! ごめんなさい！
Job 27:3-6
3 All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;
4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.
5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove
mine integrity from me.
6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall
not reproach me so long as I live.
As I was reading job, I was hit by this. I've loved my mission so
much. And I know it doesn't really ever end. I can continue to follow
Christ and be a true disciple of Christ. While I am on this earth, I
will testify of Christ. I will always testify of Christ no matter
what. His atonement saves us from everything. I cannot ever fully
express the deep gratitude I have for the atonement and for everything
it has given to me. It gave me back my life. And it can give anyone
back their life.

Don't eat wasabi flavored stuff.. It's not good

May 2, 2016 - Jasmine :)

Hello all,
This week has been a good one, so last week, our investigator Jasmine
had a baptismal date, so yesterday she was baptized. She's the cutest
most mature spiritual 15 year old that I have ever met. So this week
we finished up teaching her the lessons and yesterday she came to
church and she was baptized!

The first time I met her, we went out with her mom and her for lunch.
Her moms name is Roslyn and she was baptized 4 weeks ago ,so after
that her daughter Jasmine said to the missionaries "I want to be
baptized" and so we had been working with her since then. Jasmine is
so amazing! She is half Japanese half Philipino, she speaks Japanese,
Tagalog,and English. She's fluent in all of them too. I asked her what
her favorite word was in English and she said "faith, because I always
want to be faithful to God". I was so touched by that.. It stuck with
me for a couple of days. It was such a simple answer and yet it was so
profound. I was studying one morning and came across a scripture that
was like a lightning bolt to my heart. As I read it, I just thought of
Jasmine.

We went and met her on a rainy day for her last meeting before her
baptism, and when we showed up, she looked at me and said "do you know
Bobby Marley?" "Ya, why? Do I look like him?" I said pointing to my
frizzy messy hair. "Ya...."then she burst out laughing so hard. We
laughed too. So on rainy days I look like bob Marley! Yay.
I shared the scripture with her her during her last meeting before and
she highlighted the word faithful.

Saturday night we saw her again for an activity with the ward.
Basketball. So like I said I'm in Brazil ,Brazilians are killer soccer
players. My team was me and elder Madruga(Brazilian elder), brother
Sidney (Brazilian), and Crystal (Brazilian). When we made the team,
they said "ya go Brazil!" Before the game started elder Madruga and
Sidney were playing with the basketball like a soccer ball, attempting
to shoot a basket. And they got it a couple of times. It was pretty
cool actually. Anyways we played the other team and they killed us,
but it was so fun to play. Sidney is the funniest guy ever! When elder
Griffitts guarded him, he picked up his dribble and seemed like he
wasn't going to go any where, but instead of giving up he bounced it
through Griffitts legs, to someone on our team, and he laughed and
said "I beat the big boy! I won!" He did it twice during the game and
at the end of the night said "I won two times tonight!" After the
basketball game we headed to the church and set up the font for Sunday
with the elders and a random Brazilian English class student. His name
is Sato and he looks Japanese, nope, full blooded Brazilian, anyways,
after actives are over he doesn't leave, he usually hangs around until
we leave, well he came to the church and helped us set up the font.
And we all invited him to come to the baptism on Sunday.

Sunday morning: most of you know I am not a morning person, goodness I
know it was through Gods help that I was able to get up at 5:30 am and
go with my companion to the church. We had to fill the font for the
baptism. We only had one hose. And it took about 3 hours to fill it
up. We had to restart the warm water every hour that's why we were
there so early. While the water was running. We slept on the floor. I
cannot tell you how stressful it was, but it was all worth it, to see
her baptized. During the service, her mother shared what her
daughter's favorite scripture was, Alma 38:2 the scripture that I
shared with her. The spirit touched my heart and I couldn't help but
tear up a bit.
She was baptized and it was so great! She kept saying "my special
day.. Not my birthday, but more important than my birthday.." I love
her so much!

Alma 38:2
2 And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because
of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have
commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope
that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is he
that endureth to the end.

Thus scripture is the definition of Jasmine. Steadfast faith in God
and Jesus Christ and a heart just full of love.

The font after the baptism