Feriado

Sooo, yesterday we went to all of the cybers nearby and they were all closed. Why? feriado (holiday). celebrating what? nobody seems to know haha. So we have permission to write real quick this morning!

So it´s been a really interesting week. 

Monday-We were playing soccer at the chapel and then elder Lafleur went with one of the zone leaders to look for a ping pong ball. In their colectivo, the driver drove a redlight, and then 2 blocks later, an angry man that was at the interseccion cut off the colectivo and got out of his truck with a metal bar and started wacking in the windows and yelling wordy dirds. Elder Lafleur and Elder Valencia were in the back and are both perfectly fine. 

Thursday evening, we did exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Gomez. We really don´t have much going on in our area, but we started asking for referrals from everybody and quickly found a lot of really cool people that are ready to let us in and listen! So we´ve been applying that better and finding lots of people!

Sunday morning I went with elder Gomez to visit one of the most inactive people i´ve ever met. He was baptized several years ago, and since then, went inactive, started going to another church and is now in the process of creating his own church. So we went to visit him, and he was sitting out with another pastor friend chilling and they greeted us really well. They are both super nice. Sat down to talk, and asked if we could share something and start with a prayer, they said ´"oh yes a prayer would be great, you guys do the first one and then we´ll do the second when you leave, and nothing weird, just a normal prayer." So we did and then we asked a few questions to see their idea of authority and the gift of tongues. It was really interesting. We had very little time and they talked a lot so we weren´t able to share much, but to finish they wanted to give us a blessing, so we stood up with them, and the pastor friend held out his hands and told us to put our hands in his, close his eyes, and repeat the words he said. I looked at elder Gomez not knowing if we should. and then we did and what we repeated wasn´t weird but i don´t remember what he said, then he started talking a couple sentences in the gift of tongues and a couple sentences in spanish and was probably going on for about 5 minutes, then he let go of elder gomez´s hand and came over to me. Put a hand on my chest and a hand on my back and started pushing me forward and backward in a circle and kept saying stuff. Then he went over to Elder Gomez, put his hands on each side of his head and then blessed his legs. Then all of a sudden it was over and we were walking out. Way interesting. Elder Gomez pointed out that the things of God are simple and plain. It was a really interesting experience. When we got home for weekly planning, our companions each gave us blessings of strength. 

On Friday to saturday morning i did intercambios with elder Fernandez in ugarteche. It was good to go over and see how things are there. They are working well with the members. There are several returned sister missionaries that help to make sure they work hard haha. 

On saturday, we went to a peruvian barrio and went to contact a reference and the man there let us in. and they were just then starting a class of Catakeses (catholic sundayschool) with two ladies that had come from different parts of town. One of the ladies was really quiet and reserved and the other was really friendly, we started talking with them. The friendly was a profesor of music and had brought a tiny little electric piano with her to play. I asked her if i could see it and played a little bit of  beethovens pathetique which she liked. So we were conversing and getting to know the young couples that had come and the ladies that were there to teach and then the quiet lady started talking, and in a fairly respectful way told us she had seen a big lack of respect in mormons before and asking us why we come from other countries to disturb the culture that has been there so long. She didn´t even think we were Christians. So we had the opportunity to correct her mispercepcions, and then we shared a quick scripture with them thanked them for their time and hospitality and went on our way, as we were leaving the guy we talked to at first asked us to come back next saturday earlier. 

Last night we went back to the peruvian barrio and talked with toonnnnns of people and asked everybody for references. We found lots of people and had a lessons with a lady, Senora pancha that we met. She is way cool and we´ll be going back to teach her later this week. 

So it´s been a fairly crazy week, but great all the same. We are working, hoping and praying to be teaching a lot more this week. I love it here! Wow, and I´m so grateful to my parents and all of you for you´re prayers, love and support!

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

March 17

¡Hola!

Well this week has been great. Wayyyy hard but great all the same. 

On Wednesday we had a really sweet zone conference with President and Sister Avila, and the assistants. Sister Avila talked a lot about the importance of teaching through the scriptures, the sources of truth and about us focusing our studies on the lessons in chapter 3 of PMG. President talked about how we need to be teaching more lessons, teaching lessons to members, teaching members how the share the Gospel. The assistants talked about teaching very simply. Like we did a practice where they taught the restoration in 3 minutes switching back and forth every like 2 sentences. It was impressive. The zone leaders talked more about simplifying the work. It was a great zone conference and we all left excited to get back to work. President also left us with the challenge of reading the Book of Mormon in 66 days. why 66 days? cause Joseph Smith translated it in 66 days, so we better be able to read it that fast haha. I love it! I´m marking scriptures that help build my faith as I read really really fast. Also one thing i liked was a quote from Elder Ballard in english something like this "the missionary handbook isn´t full of rules, it´s full of instructions that we give to missionaries so that they can have success. 

The work this week has been really really hard. A couple of the days and evenings were used up with meetings and stuff and then the days we did get more work weren´t that fruitful. But we´ve kept our spirits up and are planning to have a much better week this week. We´ve also been talking to lots of people which always feels good. 

It´s amazing how fast the time is going by! President also talked about the urgency of the work and how we need to work with haste! but in control as well. That made me think about D&C 9 where oliver cowdery could have translated, but then it was too late. in spanish, ya fue. So do it! There isn´t time to do it later! 

I love this work and I love my Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. 

Love, 

Elder Fullmer

March 10

Hola, como estan todos???

First off, a shout of congradulations, good luck, and may God be with you to my little brother Peter who has been called to serve in St. Louis Missouri!!!

It´s been a really really really good week. My testimony has grown about several things. Such as inspired questions, people prepared by God, and the role of the spirit in guiding us. In some ways it´s been a really hard week, as they say here "it´s not all the color pink." And why is it so hard? because salvation is not a cheap experience as Elder Holland said. 

So I think this week i´ll just write down a few of the highlights. 

So on thursday we had a zone meeting and there are some really cool changes!!! Most of all in the daily schedule. Before Elder 

Lafleur and I would leave the apartment at 11 or 12 due to an extra hour of comp study and an hour of language, but now all of us leave at 9:30 no matter what, then we have lunch at about 1 and finish studies in the after noon when all of mendoza is sleeping the siesta!!! Way inspired! After the first morning, we absolutely loved it! We can be way more productive and efficient this way. We´re teaching a lot more lessons this way. 

This week we went by Norma to kind of figure a few things out. We came by with the conclusion that she isn´t really interested, she hasn´t been keeping committments and doesn´t usually have time to meet with us, so we´ve pretty much dropped her, but Yail seems way more interested, we seem to see him like every other day riding his bike and he asks us when we´re going to pass by, so we want to try to teach his parents as well cause he´s way golden. 

With Antonio and Sandra, we had planned several days to see them early on in the week and for one reason or another it didn´t happen. Then we were finally able to pass by on friday but he hadn´t gotten home from work and then later in the day on saturday and he hadn´t gotten back. He ended up switching jobs this week. And doesn´t seem to have a set schedule from what Sandra says. 

On wednesday we had lunch with a less active lady. She is one of the nicest ladies I know. Really really cool. She made us fried chicken and french fries, some french fries were circle ones. She considers all of us missionaries her kids. We had a really good discussion with her. After sharing a scripture and asking a couple of questions she really opened up. 

Last week we were walking, felt like we needed to knock a door, did it, and a young mother that got baptized in 1998 and hasn´t gone to church in over 14 years came to the door. We went to visit her with a brother from the ward this week. She has 3 fairly young kids and we are going to help her get back to church. When we asked her about her baptism she said something like ´wow, it was the purest and most peaceful feeling ever´ we asked her if she would like to feel like that again. 

We´ve been trying to contact a young peruvian man for several weeks now but we finally got to meet with his mom, fresia. She moved here to Peru about a month ago to be with her kids. She talked to missionaries a time or to in peru that left her with a good memory. After getting to know her and praying, we asked her why she was so nice to us to let us in and she started crying and told us it´s really hard to be a foreigner here and she wants to find more peace and happiness. We shared a quick and powerful lesson with her, left her with the restoration pamphlet, and she said she would read it and then teach it to her kids. 

On friday we went to contact a teenage kid we talked to a few weeks ago. He invited us into his house and we were getting to know him a little better and then his mom got there and we were inicially scared she was going to throw us out but then we told her we belive in Christ and she was like ok cool. We taught her the 1 minute version of the restoration before she had to go with her friend somewhere. We have another lesson with their family next week.

While looking for the house of that kid, agustin, we met his neighbor, and had a lesson on Saturday. He is really looking to get closer to God in his life along with his family. We have a lesson with him this week. 

So lots of new people awesome week! I love this work, I love God!!!

Elder Fullmer

¿¿¿Como estais vosotros???

It´s been a fairly good week here in Carrodilla. Monday and Tuesday we were with Elder Gomez cause Elder Villegaz finished the mission. It was way fun with Elder Gomez, he is a great missionary! On monday we went to a recent convert of Elder Gomez in their area and they´ve had a lot of financial struggles but have been paying tithing and everything and pretty much out of the blue he recieved a check for about 15 thousand dollars, from a company where he had been hurt in several years ago. When we exercise faith the Lord blesses us. Always. On tuesday we taught the Diaz family and it went really well. They accepted a baptismal date forMarch 22. The Spirit was strong. Then wednesday morning were transfers. We all went to the terminal to pick up Elder Valencia, ELder Gomez´s new companion. It was fun seeing a couple of people from my mtc district like Elder Conolly. 

On Thursday we went back to the Diaz family and Antonio had a LOT of doubts and questions. I believe there are lots of good reasons to set a baptismal date and one of those can be that they understand we aren´t there to hang out but they really want to get down to the matter to find out if these things are true. Most of his doubts were centered around "Where in the Bible does it talk about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith." We shared with him Ezequiel 37 as well as several verses in Efesians that talk about a restoration as well as prophets and apostles. But none of it clicked too much for him. We watched the testaments with them on Saturday night which really helped as well as we explained a little bit more of how the faith is essencial in recieving an answer. It rained a lot last week and so they werent able to come to church cause he had to work sunday cause it was good weather. 

So yeah it was a fairly good week. We have been working harder and harder to be with the Spirit all the time. The Spirit is so important. One of my friends emailed me last week and said in their district meeting they all thought about if they went on a trip and could bring 1 thing, spiritual or phisical, what would it be? Hands down the spirit. I´ve been studying more the Dormant Spirit by Elder Busche and have found several great counsels on how to activate the spirit in my life and mission. 

I´ve also been studying faith and action. This morning I was reading in 1 Nephi 17 about Nephi building the Boat. The Lord calls him to the mountain and he goes, the Lord tells him to build a ship and he asks where to find the ore and the Lord shows him and he goes to work. As missionaries we´ve all been called by the Lord to where we are. He has called us here to find, teach, baptize/feed His sheep/Build the kingdom/bring almas unto Him. And we´re here for two years no matter what (or 18 months), but we can choose to sit and stew and wonder what to do or we can exercise our faith by seeking revelation and acting. We don´t know where the ore or golden investigators are, but God does so we need to trust in Him. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a litttle, I´m learning more about the workings of the Spirit. I´m so thankful for the opportunity, privilege and blessing I have to be here on a mission.

I love you all!

Elder Fullmer

p.s. zone leaders came back from the mission leader councel and said lots of things will be changing this week. I think it´s facebook. I´ll let you know next week.