July 10, 2016 - All fine!

Hello folks

Another week has come and gone and I don't believe how fast this
trasnfer went. So this week there will be some kind of change we dont
know what will happen until we get a surprise call. (I personally hate
the new system) I'm all for surprises and fun and games, but waiting
for the transfer call is the worst! But this transfer has been good,
lots of ups and of course downs, but it was a good one.

This past week, we tried to go visit a referral from the elders on
Monday, she wasn't home and it was sad, because she's golden. (We
visited her 5 times this week, but she wasn't home :(( ) anyways we
got to teach FHE (family home evening) I used this awesome example
with chopsticks to really get the kids involved. It was way fun!

We got to meet with one of our recent converts this week. She's so
awesome! She is just a hard working mama who loves her kids. I have so
much respect for people who live in a different country not there own
and raise kids in a different language because that is crazy hard. She
is from the Philippines and she has 3 kids. She was baptized a couple
months ago and we baptized her daughter jasmine last month. But man
she is so amazing! Everytime we teach her or her daughter I come to
realize how blessed I am and how wonderful they are. Rosalyn(mama)
always says "it doesn't matter if I have to work hard or that I have
hard things because I have God and he his enough". Her daughter is the
same way so much faith in God and his promises it makes me so happy!

I feel like we have a talent for finding old folks. We older women. We
went to an apartment to find new people to teach and the only person
who answered the door was this sweet old lady named Michiko. She
wasn't opposed to us coming back ,but she didn't say come back. The
rest of the people were either not there or they told us to go away.
We tried to visit morimotosan this week, but she said she was busy ,so
we headed back. As we were coming back to road became less and less
familiar. I have the gift of getting everyone lost ,so I figured that
is what it was. I remember Turning to my companion and asking "where
are we?!" She didn't know so we just kept going. I was praying we
would find our way back or some kind of good omen of some sort. I
think the lord has a sense of humor because we hiked past some houses
and there was huge building in the middle of these rice fields that
said "all fine". All fine.. Of course everything is all fine. We
laughed and snapped a picture and then we heard a woman's voice saying
"where are you from?(in Japanese)" we jumped and turned around a saw
another cute little old lady working in her garden. We told her about
our selves and about the church. She said that it was the first time
she was ever able to talk to gaijin (foreigner) who could talk back.
"Ahhh your Japanese is so good!""no no, it's through god's power I can
speak Japanese, because on my own I really can't!" We talked to her
about the church and invited her to come this week ,but she said maybe
if she had the opportunity... This is the opportunity! Anyways we said
goodbye and continued straight until we found our way out. We think we
were supposed to meet her because we were so so lost!

We always read the Book of Mormon with sister negai every Wednesday.
She's this cute little old lady who was baptized last year and I just
love her to pieces. Well she had gone to the dentist that morning so
she was on medicine and she had a lisp. It was so funny. I was so
surprised about how funny she is drugs. She was really hyper and more
energetic than usual. She asked me my name a couple of times because
she always seems to forget because I'm gaijin.  But it was so fun.
Gosh I love her!

We also teach the Brazilian twins in our branch English so we did that
this week too. I love teaching them English because one kinda wants to
learn and the other could care less. As soon as we finish, she just
leaves. They like us ,but they also think we are weird. :P sweet!

4 hour bus ride..... I hate the bus rides. I always get so car sick
and tired. We went to Okayama this week for zone meeting. We got to
Okayama and walked to the apartment and I collapsed on the floor in
exhaustion. All the other sister missionaries thought there was
something wrong with me because I was so tired. Na.. I just get really
worn out from traveling.

Ztm was really awesome. Normally training is done in English this week
they decided to do it in Japanese and so all our comments and
everything had to be in Japanese. It was so good! I liked it so much
more than the English meetings! weird huh? English is weird now.
Sometimes it's just easier to express myself in Japanese...

 We played basketball this week with members and less actives. One
less active took me out! But he came to church! Yes, I'll definitely
take a hit of they come to church. Sunday was good. They talked about
organization. Like organizing your life, I sat back thinking about how
much I need to change parts in my life and how I can change and keep
changing. I cleaned up my desk this morning :D...

We went and visited less actives on Sunday with a member. We visited
one lady and shared a message about God and how we knows our
circumstance and what we go through. She said she had a problem. She
didn't tell us the problem, but she said that the scripture and
everything we had said was the answer that she needed to hear. It was
amazing to be someone's answer to their prayer. :)

At the end of the night we had a pizza party scheduled with some
members and elders. It was so fun! We got to hear them play amazing
piano music and eat pizza and play this board game with them. I lost
,but brother sasaki called this morning and apologized to me because I
lost and said okay, next transfer we have to do a BBQ! I laughed and
said sure! Sounds good!

The thing that I hate the most about the end of my mission is that all
everyone ever asks me about now is "when are you getting married?"-_-
never. I'm just kidding ,but it's really annoying sometimes. That's
all anyone expects me to do. Of course it will happen someday ,but I
don't think so soon as everyone expects.  I am still wayyyy too young
and immature, and so I'd rather not think about that for a while. Ok
done with that rant.

"The Lord has given you control of your life by giving you a choice.
Let me repeat that. The Lord has given you control of your life. I�fm
not saying that nothing bad will ever happen to you. You will not
always be able to control what others may say or do, but you can
control how you will react to them. Temptation, illness, accidents,
and tragedy are part of this life. There will be some tough days in
your lives--very tough days. But when you follow God�fs plan, you can
know what to do, and that�fs when you are in control. You can decide
whether or not you are going to be happy by making choices that will
lead you close to your Heavenly Father and away from Satan. You can
decide what you will say and do." (I Will Follow God�fs Plan for Me)

I read this talk this week and I was just thinking about choices and
how our choices are purely own. Good or bad consequences will follow
,but if we follow god's plan for us the consequences will surely be
wonderful.

Nachan drew me!

July 4, 2016- Stars

Early one morning we biked over to the elders house and gave Madruga
choro medicine because he had whatever my comp had, and he sounds
awful.
We went housing around our house, we tried to house the apartments
that we pass all the time. Turns out all of them where Brazilian
houses, we didn't actually get to talk to any Brazilians today ,but
the name plates indicated Brazilian. Hmm. It rained a lot. We found
some frogs. We where supposed to have an appointment at the church at
3 with Barbra she's Brazilian. She's a member we were just going to
role play with her ,but she texted us and she said "I can't because
I'm getting my hair done how about next week?" So we were at the
church and brother oda came and asked us to wait while him and his
wife cleaned up the church because they don't have keys. So we waited
for about an hour. We made some calls and it was good. Then they said
alright we are done ,so we got up and left. We went and dropped off
some goodies at Madruga's house. He looked awful! He answered the door
in a sweat shirt and shorts and he just looked out of it. So dead. We
gave him the stuff and left. We went housing in this area not to far
and found Yuna. She said we could come back ,but I'm not sure if she's
actually interested or not, but she listened. We visited Yamane
shimai. She is so awesome! I love her we shared a short message on God
and talked about our identity and she told us she sometimes goes
posting and we were like freak ya! That's what we did today. She is
awesome! She wants to give us a referral ,but she said she's having a
hard time finding some one to refer to us, but she so wants to!

My comp is 20! Her birthday happened to fall on fast Sunday so I
couldn't make her breakfast or anything ,but I put up some signs and
decorated a little bit for her.

We went and visited one of my favorite members sister Tagawa. She's
like our grandma and she's just such a strong member it's always
really fun to visit her. Her husband isn't a member ,but he has no
interest. He's really old and in bad health. Anyway, we stopped by and she was
really happy! We heart attacked them and she said it had been about a
year since someone did that she was really happy and her husband liked
it to. We walked in and sat down and her husband was siting across
from us and started to read our name tags "イエスキリスト…ああ (Jesus Christ..
Oh) and put his down and didn't really look at us. He got up and went
to the other room and just laid down on the floor. "He's sick. He's
stubborn and won't go to the hospital, and he won't take medicine ,but
he can't eat!" Tagawa told us. We talked to her for awhile and we
shared some scriptures and talked about faith and Jesus Christ. Her
husband stood up in the other room and looked at us and said "
愛しています！" i love you! And we looked at her and she shook his head. And
just told us he's weird. He was wearing shorts and he put pants on
over his shorts and his wife looked at him and asked "are you going
some where?" "No I'm just cold.." He said he walked to the front door
and she ran over and told him "no you can't drive the car! No you
can't. " and she took the keys. He pouted and went out the back door
and around the front window and blew us a kiss and kept walking. She
told us "I'm sorry he's  not normal. He's pretty weird." We kept
laughing everytime she said it. We had to go and when my comp started
praying we heard the car start. Tagawa's eyes popped open, "ah he
found the spare key!" And she ran out the back door ,but he left. And
she came back, saying "he's so sneaky!"  We apologized for taking up
so much time that she couldn't watch her husband and she just said
"it's alright he didn't go far, he'll probably be back later."

This past week we found this really awesome woman named Morimoto San
she's way receptive to the message. We met her in the middle of a rice
field and we stopped her and talked to her about the church and God
and she seemed to really want to learn. When we talked to her she
pointed in the general direction where her house was and so we decided
we would go and find here house. Well we found a house with her Kanji
,but when we knocked on the door there was no one home so we left a
note. We went back the next day and it was her. I'm sad to admit I was
doubtful it was her house. But when we saw her face we were so
excited.  We talked to her and she invited us in she said she was so
happy to see us. We talked about God and how to pray  and asked her
when she could meet with again she said "I'll call you." We were on
cloud 9 as we walked away ,but we were so happy.

I found this quote recently

 "two men look out of prison bars, one sees mud the other sees the stars"

Despite our circumstances there is always good. We can always find the
good in every situation, in every person. There is a lot of bad in the
world ,but there is always so much good. I believe that everyone
despite who they are where they come from, has good in them. I know
they do. And we despite things we go through can choose to smile and
see the stars because believe me they are there. No matter how small
the little things are they can sometimes make all the difference.

I love you guys!

Love sister Fullmer

It rains all the time but that means we can catch frogs!

June 26, 2016 - Carrots and top gun

Hello family!

2 broken things this week my bike and my back.. Don't worry mom I'm okay.

We were really trying to find new investigators through less actives
and their families, this week so we visited them like crazy. Unlucky
for us a lot of them moved, the address is wrong, or they wouldn't
talk to us. However, we went and found this woman naked hinosan. We
knocked on this door and a cute 70+ lady answered the door, and said
"hello, how are you? Missionaries right? Come on in." At this point we
were thinking, okay yes she's going to get baptized! We sat down and
she looked at us and said "I'm not changing religions." That put a
damper on things and she told us that she is too old and she doesn't
really care all that much, but she really likes foreigners. Dangit. As
we were sitting down she touched my face saying "you are so pretty, ah
your teeth and nose! So pretty!" She trailed off and talked about her
desire to visit America one day. We brought her attention back to
church, turns out she used to take her kids to church and she even
remembered some of the songs. We sang I am a child of God to her, and
she softened up a little bit however she was stubborn in the fact that
she wasn't going to change. At the end of the all over the place
lesson she looked at us and said "will you eat carrots? Do you like
carrots?" And hopped up and went to her kitchen and came back with a
bag full of carrots she had picked from her garden that morning. We
tried to refuse ,but she insisted ,so we graciously took them. After
that we were headed up towards another less active when I heard a
cracking sound my  gears on my bike broke! I pulled over and attempted
to fix it ,but it didn't happen, so we walked 30 minutes to the
closest bike shop were they told me that they couldn't fix it....ahh.

We had a companion exchange this week, so we had to go catch an early
train and we live about 30 minutes away by bike.. We didn't have bikes
so we had to walk, we woke up at about 5:30 and walked/ quickly walked
to the train station. We got to the sisters apartment at about 12:45
exhausted and wet because it was pouring rain. I slept during lunch
and I was so tired I had a hard time eating. My comp was also still
pretty sick so.. Ya. After lunch I went with uchida and we went and
visited an investigator who is going to get baptized in two weeks
except for she has a smoking problem. I came up with this idea that we
could write scriptures on all her cigarettes ,so if she wants to smoke
she first has to read the scripture before she can smoke. Her eyes
were wide open when we explained the idea and she laughed and said
okay I'll try!

I never thought that seeing the movie "Top Gun" would help me as a
missionary ,but we were just talking to her about some other things
and she said it was her favorite movie and uchida shimai said she
never heard of it and I was like "I love that movie." And we had a
good talk about it. Uchida later told me it was really fun to watch me
talk and she had no idea what we were talking about ,but it looked
fun.

My feet are really tired and so is my body, I woke up with sharp pain
in my back and got my comp to give me a massage ,but I think my back
is just in knots! I was some what limping as I was walking because my
ached pretty bad. On Saturday night we saw the elders at game night
and I sat out because my back just hurt too bad, I held my back as I
walked and one of the elders mimicked me and told me it's because I'm
an old obachan(grandma) my back is bad. -_-

We were behind on lessons yesterday so we taught people like crazy! We
found one lady named Yamamorisan. She was walking her dog and and comp
felt prompted to stop her so we did, she has a bible and we talked
about God with her and she told us she wants to learn its just she
doesn't know when she has time because her husband is in the hospital,
we don't know where she lives ,but we have some kind of idea, so we
are going to go find her house this week!

This week we taught Sunday school. The subject was sacrifice.

[A rich young ruler asked the Savior, “What shall I do to inherit
eternal life?” Jesus answered, “Thou knowest the commandments, Do not
commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness,
Honour thy father and thy mother.” And the rich man said, “All these
have I kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, He said, “Yet
lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow
me.” When the young man heard this, he was sorrowful. He was very rich
and had his heart set on his riches. (See Luke 18:18–23; see also the
picture in this chapter.)
The young ruler was a good man. But when he was put to the test, he
was not willing to sacrifice his worldly possessions. On the other
hand, the Lord’s disciples Peter and Andrew were willing to sacrifice
everything for the sake of the kingdom of God. When Jesus said unto
them, “Follow me, … they straightway left their nets, and followed
him” (Matthew 4:19–20).]

I feel like in this life we have the greatest test of following the
savior or not. It's like the church it's either true or not. We either
follow Jesus Christ or we don't. If we follow Christ there will be no
gray spots or things that are mostly good except for one bad part. The
young man in the story did everything ,but he went through the motions
,in is heart he was still holding on to something. He had not set his
heart on the kingdom of God, thus he wasn't willing to sacrifice what
he had. But Peter and Andrew when asked "straightway" left their nets.
Immediately they gave up what they had and followed Christ. I wonder
if I have that kind of faith. To just give up everything and follow
Christ. Do we follow Christ? Or are we lacking something? Are we
holding on to something? An addiction? A sin? Bad habit? Even a little
thing that pokes at our spirit? If so, let's change. Let's Let go of
what it is so that we can give everything and follow Christ.

Bike problems

June 20, 2016 - Prison.. I mean our apartment

Hello all,
I'm sad to say this week wasn't too eventful, my companion was sick.
Really sick. I played nurse this week, she came down with something
right after English class on Tuesday. She woke up Wednesday morning
and was coughing so badly I knew it was painful. She lost her voice
and she could barely speak above a whisper. We had some appointments,
so we went.

Japanese drugs are nothing. Luckily our Brazilian elder happens to
have all kinds of amazing drugs from America and Brazil. The elders
brought us Medicine and food on Friday because we couldn't really
leave. I had elder madruga explain the drugs to me because they were
in Portuguese and although I can read it , I can't Understand, I had
to keep in track 5 different drugs and not overdose my companion.
Don't worry! I didn't overdose her! She's fine and the Brazilian
medicine is incredible! It helped her so much.

Every week we go visit a less active named sister negai. She's about
70+ cutest little hunched over grandma ever. She's probably not even
4feet tall anymore. She's so cute! We visit her and read the
scriptures with her and talk about they mean because she says she
doesn't really understand them the first time she reads it so she has
to read it at least 2 times or have us explain them for her. We do and
then she always says "ah! Okay that makes sense now! Thanks for
explaining. It's really hard to understand the scriptures!" But we
went this week and read with her, my poor companion barely over a
whisper did so well. It was kinda funny because she after she finished
reading her eyes were glazed over. She was just gone! Luckily sister
negai didn't really notice. Everytime we visit she tells us it's one
of her favorite times of the week. She loves it and she even came to
church 2 weeks ago!
After that we went to the hospital, and visited the member there and
talked with her about everything under the moon because I think she's
way bored. I learned so many new words like global warming and stuff.

Saturday there was an activity at the church and. My companion thought
it would be okay to go, she mustered up enough energy to hop on her
bike and make it to the church. Almost the whole ward was there it was
a married couples date night thing and all the kids where put into a
room and watched by the young women, and young men. We peeked in and
watched the couples, and their games they did. The women saw us and
laughed at us, shaking the fingers and then after the activity telling
us "someday you'll be married!" No thank you.

Most of the rest of the week we were in the apartment. I just made
calls and tried to proselyte that way. I hate the phone now and the
apartment. I've seen it all, it's 2 rooms ,but I know it pretty well
now. I was itching this morning to get out of the apartment because
I've been in it for 4 days. It was like prison. I think I called just
about any number he had with little or no success.

Being stuck in the apartment gave me a lot of time to think about a
lot of stuff, investigators, appointments, plans. Everything. I've
come to the conclusion that, I've never been organized with anything.
I love spontaneous moments. Like just deciding last minute to do
something. But that's not how it works out here. We plan everything,
everything, every minute is counted for. At first it was hard to
adjust to, sometimes it's still hard, but its taught me to appreciate
time and it's made me want to do more with my time, than I used to do
before. They say that you have only so many today's and many
tomorrow's. Time goes, time flies, and we can either have memories or
regrets.

Everyday is an opportunity to show someone kindness. Share the love.
Forgive someone, forgive yourself ,be better than yesterday. History
is created from the today's.

I found this quote by elder holland and I really liked it : �gHow do
you best respond when mental or emotional challenges confront you or
those you love? Above all, never lose faith in your Father in Heaven,
who loves you more than you can comprehend�c Never, ever doubt that,
and never harden your heart. Faithfully pursue devotional practices
that bring the Spirit - into your life...Take the sacrament every
week, and hold fast to the perfecting promises of the Atonement of
Jesus Christ. Believe in miracles. I have seen so many of them come
when every other indication would say that hope was lost. Hope is
never lost. If those miracles do not come soon or fully or seemingly
at all, remember the Savior�fs own anguished example: if the bitter
cup does not pass, drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days
ahead."

Love y'all!

Matching ties (our zone leaders)

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!