WOW

It´s been an amaaaazing week here in the favorita!!!!!!!!

We´ve taught sooooooooooo much!!!

Just a couple of the highlights...

One lady that we taught has gone through tons of problems recently. Her son in law got into drugs and started selling things in their house, and there´s been a lot of fighting and tension in their house. She told us at the beginning that she´s catholic but doesn´t attend much. She also told us she would have to be very sure of another church to attend, but is very willing to listen. We had a great lesson 1, and at the end she asked us how somebody can attend church!!! She really felt the spirit and we will be teaching her entire family soon. We also met her son in law later that week and he was really open to listening to us. 

The Arredondo family is doing... awesome!!! They are an amazing family to work with. So humble and willing!!! They come to church, read the scriptures and pray. They only thing they are lacking is to stop smoking and drinking!!! Yesterday we did the tobaco tea with them. Where they drink a tea of the contents of cigarrettes so that it becomes disgusting to them. They drank plenty and the sister was about to throw up. It worked well. We´ll check in tonight to see how the effects have turned out. 

A brother in our ward brought his 17 year old friend to church. He´s way mature, graduated from high school already and so he came to gospel principles with us. He had tons of questions and talked a ton. The ex ward mission leader who used to be bishop as well was there. At one moment, the investigator, maxi, was talking and then the ex wml started talking and said, hey, i like the way you think, so you know what, I challenge you to listen to the 5 discussions that the missionaries are going to give you, then to get baptized, and then i´ll prepare you to go on a mission! WOOOOOWWWW!!!!!! And Maxi was like uhhhhh ok!!! So we will be passing by tonight or tomorrow to talk to him. He´s way cool!!!!! Miracle

So things are going awesome, it´s been raining a lot this past week wich is wayyy abnormal for mendoza but i´m loooving it!!! 

I love you all, 

Have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

The Gift

So it´s been another great week here in the Favorita!!!

 

The Arredondo family is doing awwwesome! They came to church again yesterday and are smoking less, little by little. We are really excited for them! It´s cool to see how much the Gospel blesses families!!! Astrid reminds and encourages her parents to stop smoking, the mom reads the Book of Mormon with Horacio and Horacio loves listening and participating in priesthood. He´s excited to be able to bless his family within a couple of months. They´re doing great and progressing well. 

 

One crazy story for the week happened last night. We were in the bus going home and we think the bus driver might have taken a bad turn and almost hit somebody because when we were waiting at the next stop light a guy on his longboard came flying to catch up to the bus and then used his longboard to bash in the front windows where the driver was sitting, then went running on his friends bike. We got off the bus and walked like 10 blocks to another bus stop. 

 

As most of you know, as fultime missionaries and members as well, we´re sharing ¨the Gift.¨ The gift is Christ, who was a gift given to us by our loving Heavenly Father so that we can be find peace, joy, strength and understanding in this life and so that one day we can return to live with Him one day. In this time of Christmas we often get all busy with presents, parties, and traditions, and although each of those things are good, we should all remember to focus more and more on the reason for Christmas, Christ!!! I´m so thankful for that perfect gift! http://www.mormon.org/christmas

 

Have a great week!!!

 

Love, 

 

Elder Fullmer

Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A short list of some of the things that i´m very grateful for--- The Savior, the family, the mission, the scriptures, friends, food. 

We ate tacos for thanksgiving. I was going to take a picture but when i finally remembered, they were pretty much gone. 

It´s been a great week in the favo. We´ve found quite a few people. We were able to teach a new family. We were outside the gate and the mom was outside the house working on some things, she said that we couldn´t be attended then but then elder castillo saw that they had a disc from some chilean group so he asked if they were from chile. They were and started talking about chile and then the lady let us in and we taught her and her kids the restoration. manso! We´ll be visiting them again tomorrow. 

We found a few other people and taught several lessons but the most progression that we´ve seen is in the arredondo family. The part member family that came last week. The mom wasn´t able to come to church yesterday due to work but the husband, oracio and their daughter astrid came all the same! Awesome! They had a great experience. Earlier on in the week, we were planning to go by and visit them and that day the mom called us to let us know that she had taken out like a date for them to get married!!! January 2nd!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!! And on saturday they accepted a baptismal date for the 3rd!!! WOOOO!!! So they are doing great. Law of chastity, check. Word of wisdom... we´ll be working on that! We taught it last night and will be making a plan with them this week. On saturday we did service for a different family. I got blisters that hatched right open and were kind of painful, considering how many hands we shake a day. When we visited the arredondo family last night they cut off a leaf of their aloe vera plant and put the gooey juice on my hand and gave me the leaf to take home. They also made a tea... hot water and a plant from outside their house for elder castillo because he had a cold. So they understand really well the good use of herbs, they just need to work a little to stop smoking. 

Yesterday morning we were running a little late getting to church. Elder Castillo mentioned how funny it would be if President and Sister Goates were there at church. We get to church a few minutes late. It hadn´t started yet but guess who was there... President and Sister Goates!!! Haha Elder Castillo has a gift for calling things like that! (not that we run late often). 

So it´s been an awesome week. Things are going well! Always looking for new people to teach!!! Getting excited for Christmas!

Hope you all have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

hola!!!

Hola!!!

It´s been a great week!!! Some really great things and a few hard moments. 

One of the ups was that last monday a lady in our ward presented us to a part member less active family. The member mom is living with a man and they were coming to church over two years ago but he couldn´t get baptized cause they weren´t married, and they weren´t married because he couldn´t get divorced from his last marriage but his previous wife passed away a little while back so we´ve started teaching them. They´re want there daughter who´s 8 to get baptized and the dad committed to baptism but we haven´t invited him to a specific date yet. The mom is going on wednesday morning to figure out what the situation will be on marriage there in the Favorita. It´s a way neat family. They came to church on sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They got along really well with the members and knew from beforehand a few of them.

A down for the week started thursday... we talked to a really cool elderly man in the street. He is lonely and a widower. He loved the idea of living with his wife for eternity. We taught him the plan of salvation on friday and it went great. The spirit was strong and he accepted a baptismal date for the 20th of december. He also committed to coming to church on sunday. On saturday night we called to confirm and he said he was going to the hospital at 6 in the morning with his daughter.... On sunday evening we passed by and he came to the door and told us sorry for letting us teach him and that he was out of his mind when he was listening to us because he´s actually catholic............. We were pretty bummed. 

Another up is that Oriana, the lady from Chile is doing well. We taught her the word of wisdom early in the week and she mas o menos committed to living it. When we went back she hadn´t really seen any progress. We talked to her a lot more seriously and made a specific plan of things that she will do to help stop. She committed to it but with a lot more intention this time. She usually smokes 10 a day but on friday had only taken 4! So she´s doing better. She was in chile for the weekend so we didn´t see her but should be seeing her tomorrow. 

One thing i´ve been studying this week is Christ´s ministry in the americas and working to apply it better to my ministry in the americas... argentina. I was looking for comparisons and things i could do better. and two that i found from chapter 11 were that he was wearing white. It reminded me to wash my shirts really well even though they are starting to look a little yellow after more than 21 months. The other one was that after presenting himself and testifying of the Godhead He let all of the people one by one have a very personal and special experience feeling His wounds. Although my investigators won´t have that very same experience I can help them to have a very personal and special experience with feeling the power of His atonement by living the gospel of Christ. I´m very grateful for the scriptures and what I was able to studay this week. I hope you all have great experiences reading and studying the scriptures.

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

a great week in favorita

It´s been awesome here in the favorita. We found 8 new people to teach this past week and taught lots of lessons considering we´re washing. The members here are amaaazing!!! Tonight a sister is going to take us to a reference of a part member family that is really interested in getting to know and coming back to church. 

It´s been great to be with Elder Castillo. Sometimes as older missionaries i feel like we fall into just routine mode but with a new elder it helps to go back to the basics, have a lot more excitment for the work and it´s great becuase he already takes a ton of iniciative. It honestly hardly feels like i´m training him which is nice!!! It´s been great to really focus on the specific needs of each and every investigator. There are tons of people in the favorita that need the gospel. We´ve been talking to tons of people as well. 

It was a little difficult on sunday morning when non of the investigators we had invited, including those that we talked to and said they were coming on sunday morning and those that we had gone to pick up made it to church... But another old investigador and a less active couple that we´re teaching showed up so we were really happy about that!!! At church yesterday morning i had a few unexpected stomach problems. I think my stomach is just about spent haha. 

One thing that really stuck out to me as I reviewed my notes from elder christofferson was that we are and always will be indebted to God. That as missionaries, when we finish the mission we have more debts than we did when we started. That´s one thing that I didn´t really understand a year ago but that I´m a witness of now. I love the mission and I´m soooooooooooooo thankful for the opportunity that I have to serve here in the Mendoza Mission!!!

Have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

[Lots of photos from Christian this week. Don't have a lot of details on all of them, but I'll include what he did offer.]

wasabi, etc. with the Kim family. 

Elder Castillo, Christian's trainee from Chile

Chilean hot dogs!

La FAVO

It´s been a great week!!! It was hard saying goodbye to Rivadavia but it´s been amazing getting to know and starting to train Elder Castillo from Chile!!! I´ll try to send some fotos.

The new area is wayyy cool! I love the favorita. The members are really really nice and willing to help us. And we´ve already found a few people to teach. The first lesson we had was with a lady that´s heard the missionaries on and off for several years. She is very receptive and actually comes from the same small town where Elder Castillo is from #besttwoyears. The spirit was very powerful and she accepted a baptismal date for the 29th of November. She feels like she hasn´t ever recieved an answer so we´re helping her to search with more diligence and faith to recieve one. She also committed to coming to church on sunday... but didn´t make it. A member went by but she was sleeping...

Saturday was awwwesome!!!

Elder Christofferson came to speak as well as Elder Gonzalez of the seventy. We all had to get there before 8:30. Our apartment got there at like 7:45. It was one of the most peaceful experiences i´ve had in a chapel recently. The missionaries that were already there were sitting down quietly studying the scriptures, and we were able to be there till about 9:30 listening to prelude, studying and pondering. Elder Christofferson spoke about how Christ always did things that pleased the Father. He really spoke very little and then left it up to questions. One of the questions was how his conversion went. He said that there wasn´t one specific moment but rather many different levels and experiences where he had gone growing in his faith and testimony. He spoke about how in a family trip where they participated in the palmyra pagent, he had gone alone to the sacred grove taken off his shoes as he entered and knelt down to pray for an hour to recieve an answer of whether the Church and everything was true. And what was his answer??? nothing!!! But two weeks later he was studying his scriptures and got an answer. 

He talked to us a lot about the Book of Mormon and about bring all of the doubts back to that keystone. He bore a powerful witness of it and invited us to all use it and study it and recieve revelation through it. It was amazing to hear him speak. When the time was about up he started talking more about his testimony of Christ. The spirit was so strong. I just wanted to stay there. 

I really felt the confirmation that he´s one of the Twelve Apostles and a special witness of Jesus Christ. 

I know that the Church is true, that the Book of Mormon is convincing evidence of that. 

I love you all!!!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

good bye Rivadavia, hello the Favorite

Hello everybody!

It´s been a great week here in Rivadavia!!! We´ve found lots of people and we´ve been teaching more and more with the members. 

One sister in our ward started talking to a lady at a bus stop last week and gave us the referral to visit the lady. We went and visited her and had a great lesson!

Last week a lady outside her house beckoned for us to go talk to her. We did and she had gone to the church with her sister in Chile who had been baptized several months ago. She had listened to the missionaries a lot there in Chile and is interested to listen to us. She came to a baptismal service on saturday in a different ward and to church on sunday!

We also started teaching two part member families!!! 

And I was pretty sure I´d be leaving the area to train but had no idea where!!! But last night we got transfers and I´ll be going back to the mendoza zone!!! I´ll be washing and training in an area called La Favorita. We´ll live in like downton mendoza and then take a 30 minute bus everyday to get to a, from what i hear, somewhat dangerous part which will be our area. I´m wayyy excited! I´ve been thinking these past couple weeks of things to do to start out well the whitewashing as well as train the new elder the best I can. 

Even though I knew I was leaving it is really hard to think about leaving Rivadavia. I´ve loved it hear! It will be an adjustment going to a new place. It´ll be different not being zone leader as well. A good different. More time to focus on the area and help my companion out. 

Also, this week, Elder Christofferson is coming to the mission!!!!!!! We´ll have a capacitation with him saturday morning! I´m way excited. 

I hope you all have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

Lost my plack!!!!

So on Saturday we were getting ready to leave the pench, and for the first time in 20 months... something happened for the first time, I couldn´t find my place [name tag]. I lost it. I looked through my desk, on my bed, on the counter, in the fridge, and i had no idea where it was! Then the idea came to me that I might not have taken it off of the shirt i had put in a bucket to soak the night before. I checked on the soaking shirt, and there it was!!! 

Although most of those that will read this don´t put a plack on every morning, I hope you all remember to be missionaries every day!!! Each one of you is called to serve and to help others know about the restored gospel.

It´s been a great week here. We´ve been going out to work a lot with the youth lately which has been way fun, but we didn´t see a huge increase in lessons with member. We really need to find some new people to teach!!!

One of the highlights of the week was doing an exchange with an elder half tongan and half mexican, elder apodaca!!! A few weeks ago i printed off the talk, ´the fourth missionary´ for him and in our exchange he said it changed his perspective on the mission and has helped him a ton! He´s a great missionary and it was way fun to serve with him for a day. 

Another highlight was giving a capacitation on teaching to the hometeachers and visiting teachers in the ward. 

Things are going well here, learning lots and loving it!!!

Have a great week!!!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

interviews

It´s been a great week!!! It was a really hard week for teaching lessons but this week will be wayyy better. We have a couple of lessons planned tonight and a family night with investigator planned as well. We are now using a weekly list where at church we invite the members to come out with us and then they put there name down for a few hours during the week when they can go out and work with us. We´re really excited to see how it goes this week!!!!! We got several of the young men to come out including enzo and german correa. 

Highlights of the week were interviews!!!!!!!!!! It was way good to see president, to talk about the zone, the elders and about persevering till the end. All of the zone leaders with just a couple of transfers left have been dropping to train so he pretty much told me I won´t be an exepcion to the norm. Which i´m wayyy excited about!!!!!!!!! 

Another highlight of the week was getting together with both of the stakes here in San Juan to do a big service project in the canyon picnic type area, cleaning up trash and planting trees. It was wayyy fun to do service and see lots of people from albardon and eat lunch with a group from here in rivadavia. I love this ward. 

Things to look forward to this week--- working a lot more with the members, capacitating the hometeachers and visiting teachers in the ward.

Things to look forward to in like three weeks Elder Christofferson is coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So things are going well, loving listening to the conference talks over and over again!!! Romans10:17, faith comes by hearing the word of God.

I love you all!!!

Elder Fullmer

conference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week has been wayyy good!!! We had mission counsel on tuesday which was awesome. We talked a lot about how to find new investigators. I mentioned sending an email to ask for referrals from the missionaries out serving from the ward we are in. (like the sisters in greenbluff did). I don´t have a whole lot of time to write today so i´ll sum up and then try to send some pictures too. 

So then thursday and friday we went out with a priest in our ward and it went really well. We taught an elderly lady that we found that really likes listening to us. In the zone we´ve been really focusing on teaching lessons with members and so in the zone meetingtomorrow, we´ll be talking a lot about that and making plans to teach a lot more with members. 

Conference was amazzzzing! I loved every minute of it. A high light was the first conference talk ever given in spanish by elder gavarret!!! It was a wayyy cool talk and we had 3 investigators at that session!!! I lightly nudged the dad of the family that came as Elder Gavarret spoke about keeping committments and following the example of Christ. Such a great conference. A down point of the conference was that between sessions on sunday when everybody was picnicing, a man from our stake fainted and died. I don´t know details at all but we all had to evacuate the building and we went to watch in the other stake center. Pretty crazy!!!

One thing that´s come to my mind recently is how the Lord really does bless us through trials. I know the Lord has blessed me with lots of gifts but to be able to develop and have those, there must be challenges. I´m thankful for the challenges of the mission and for the opportunities that I have to change every day!!!!!!!!!!!

I love you all!!!

Elder Fullmer

[A few photos from the week:]

With Elder Turcios

Early morning soccer

Some things are universal...

Service project--painting a school