Weekly Update April 30th

Happy last day of April! I really can't believe another month is over.

I'm almost at my 13th month mark... Wait, no it's my 14th! I can't believe it! Also, I can't believe it's almost Mother's day. It seems like we just Skyped :) So my church is from 11-2, what time is yours at? If I remember correctly you probably have afternoon church right? We're planning to skype in the evening with a family in the ward so we'll get the details for next week and let you know exactly what time it'll be at. My companion is a Spanish Elder just so you know. Someone asked me.

Well this week has been a pretty good one, nothing really spectacular happened. (Then he wrote about something that happened in his zone) You probably remember the letter that I sent home during one of those hard weeks and it's helped me realize how much I've grown spiritually and emotionally... not really physically with all of the Cuban food... My perspective has changed completely and my understanding of the work has increased. I love this work and there is nothing I'd rather do. Thank you for sending me that quote by President Hinckley. Things will work out! They always do!

I'm glad to hear that President **** sent you a letter. Yeah, that was when I was on the exchange with Elder ********. He's an assistant and he's a great Elder! He really helped me see the joy again in the work and some areas that I need to focus on. Exchanges are great things to be able to learn new things and to get more energy for the work. It was actually at our investigator's house. (The man who just got baptized and his wife who we are teaching) 

On Saturday was the stake's Day of Service. We worked with a company called Rebuilding Together Miami. This is a company that works with many other sponsors to help others who live in rough conditions rebuild their homes. We worked on a home that was in really bad shape. We tore down the ceiling in the kitchen and but up drywall. Then we painted one of the rooms and also did other things outside. There were about 300 volunteers which worked on about 15 different homes. It was a great experience!

I'm glad that the member was able to come by with my stuff. I forgot about that! It was so long ago! Yeah, her mom is really hard to get a hold of since her phone doesn't work most of the time. She has a car so she has a ride. She came to church last week and loved it. There are members in the ward working with her. I've got a picture of my shoes, (He got a Christmas that didn't fit and were the wrong style) sorry I should have told you about it sooner. Thanks for putting up with me :)

We have the privilege of teaching this new family. Actually he is a member who served a mission a while ago who's gone in-active and she had been investigating the church for a long time. She's gone through six sets of missionaries but she's incredible. She worries so much about certain things but she has such a good heart. I feel she'll be getting baptized soon!

Well that's about all I've got to say this week! Thank you for all that you're doing for me. I hope you're all doing well! I pray for you always and know that the Lord is guiding you all and protecting you. I finished the Continuous Atonement and realized there is so much that I don't understand. My companion showed me something that I really like. He drew a small circle and said "here is what you know". Then he drew a bigger circle around the small circle saying, "here is what you know you don't know". Then he drew an even bigger circle around the two circles saying, "here is what you don't know that you don't know." Ha ha. Everyday we learn new things but there is always something more to learn. Everything will work out! I love you all so much! Talk to you soon :)

-Elder David B. Fullmer

P.S. Sam, CUT YOUR HAIR!!!

April 23rd, 2012 letter and pictures

Dear Fullmer Family,

Thank you for your letters and for your love that you've shown to me this week. It's been a great week for us down in Kendall. I'm pleased to announce that the investigator we have been teaching got baptized on Saturday. His wife wasn't quite ready yet but we're confident that she will be baptized soon. He is amazing. I talked about him a lot last week but he just keeps amazing me. We met him two weeks before his baptism and he probably could have been baptized even sooner than that if he was able to. He made significant changes in his life giving up coffee, tea, and alcohol in a moment. His mother, and siblings are all against him joining the church but he said He knows his promise that he makes with God with somehow, sometime, change their hearts. He said, "I need to be the example for them. They don't know what their missing but someday they will follow me. I'm going to bring them to the light." He's taught me so many amazing things in the short time I've known him and he will be a great leader in the church.

This just goes to show that the Lord prepares His people. I have been thinking about the goal to have a baptism in the home ward and how some people say not everyone will be baptized by that day. It's true, not everyone will be ready, but someone will. They can find a person like the one we just baptized in Utah. He's out there, just have the faith to find him.

My companion baptized him on Saturday and I confirmed him on Sunday... When we asked who should baptize him he couldn't choose so guess what we did? We flipped a coin! When we handed the coin to him, he closed his eyes, folded his arms and said a prayer. It was awesome! Not many people came to the baptism since it was a rainy Saturday morning but it was probably the most spiritual baptism I've had. It was wonderful.

On Sunday, since the gym floor is being refinished we weren't able to open up the overflow so people needed to sit on the stand. The person who was just baptized sat on the stand on the front row and I thought to myself, "He looks good on the stand. He's gunna be a Bishop someday." Haha.

I'm glad that you were able to get the letter from President ____. He's in the stake presidency in our stake here and he's an amazing guy. He's come to a few lessons with us to see the couple we taught and in the last one we had he shared his story as a convert. Both of his parents were against him getting baptized but he did it anyway. He knew it was true and he followed what he felt. Neither of us knew that story but it was one of those miracle lessons that helped strengthen his testimony. President ____'s son is waiting for a visa to go to Argentina. He's waiting in McCallin Texas. Is that where Elder Litton is?

Sorry about the Publix charge on the card. As we went to get groceries last week there was a problem with my mission card and wouldn't go through for some reason so I needed to use it. I've forgotten to pay the towing charge back to the mission so I need to take that money out this week... FYI.

Well that's about all I've got this week. Sorry it's a little short but yeah. Tomorrow I'll be going on an exchange with the Assistants Fun Fun! I can't believe they're already planning next transfer!

Time's flying. Well I love you lots! Keep me in your prayers! This work is true and I love it. Have a wonderful week!

-Elder David B. Fullmer

P.S. You should send me pictures. I love them!

Ya gotta love the black socks

Weekly Update (April 16th)

Thank you for all of your letters and hearing how everything is going in SLC! I love you all and I hope you're all doing well! I forgot to thank you last week but thank you so much for the Easter package. It was perfect! We used the egg dye kit with the sisters missionaries and we had a lot of fun dying eggs last  p day. I'm excited for some Subway as well! You are the bomb!

We had a tough week as a zone only having 12 gators at church together which was the lowest since I've been here so that was a bummer. The two that we had were, who else but the people who came last week! They are so incredible! Without a doubt the most amazing investigators that I have ever met. FYI most of my letter will be about them :) We had an appointment with them last Monday and when we knocked on the door no one was home... We gave them a call and they were so sorry because they weren't home. Where were they? They were at the store buying their CHURCH CLOTHES!!! Ha ha. How amazing is that? We went by on Tuesday where he showed off his new white shirt with cufflinks and his sweet tie! He didn't know how to tie it so for part of the lesson we taught him. So much fun! We taught them the Restoration lesson where we watched the DVD about Joseph Smith. They loved it! About 10 days before we taught the lesson, the man we are teaching had a terrible dream where he was surrounded in darkness and didn't know where to go. He was scared and then a white horse came and guided him out of the darkness. I don't know if you remember but in the video, Joseph's father carves a white horse out of wood and gives it to his son.  Our investigator loved that part and knew it was there for him. Also during the first vision he couldn't get over how incredible it was. When we finished the video The woman investigator was sharing a story about something and the male investigator got the DVD ready to give it back to us but we told him it was his. A HUGE smile came on his face and put the DVD back in the TV, changed the language and fast forwarded to the first vision, leaned forward in his chair and smiled. Words cannot describe how, much I love them!

The next day we went over to teach them and the male investigator had a really special experience at work. So while he was painting a house with one of his co workers, the other guy left for a while so he thought it would be a good time to pray. So he got down, knelt on the floor and prayed. As he described his feelings he said, "I felt something right here (pointing to his chest), I had never felt it before but it felt really good. What was it?" We described to him it was him feeling the Spirit for the first time. I have never had an investigator describe the Spirit for the first time. It was a special moment for me.

Then we got a call Saturday night saying they were talking to someone on the bus about us... which scared me at first that they were talking bad about the Mormons, but then he said, "We invited her to come to church with us tomorrow. Is there enough room in the car for her?" They are incredible! All three of them came to church and it turns out the friend was baptized into the church about 10 years ago but fell away and wants to come back! They are going to be great members! They are planning to be baptized on Saturday at 10AM. Please pray for them to be baptized. They are the strongest investigators I've ever taught but we fear there will be a lot of opposition this next week.

Last Monday, like I said, we dyed eggs with the other Sisters. They surprised us by making us Easter baskets and hiding them in the chapel. It was a lot of us and reminded me of home!

Wow~! Mindy's engaged?! That's crazy! I'm not really surprised about James or Brianna though but Mindy was a shocker! I'm happy for her though. Also, I got the taxes sent in last Monday Dad. Thanks for doing that for me!

This past week we were starting to leave the house when we realized it was a very cool day, a little cloudy and since we were low on miles we took the bikes out. Where we went was pretty far from the house but we went out anyways. As we were knocking doors in the area we planned on going it started to sprinkle. We didn't think anything of it because the storms usually come and go and nothing happens. But that time it was different... It started to POUR!!! We got on our bikes as fast as we could but the apartment was so far away that we. got. soaked! I hadn't gotten rained on in a while so it was fun! My Spanish triple got wet in my backpack though. It dried pretty well though. I thought my backpack was waterproof but apparently not... Oh well! The joys of riding bikes!

Well it's been a really fun week and also one that was filled with spiritual experiences! Thank you for all of your prayers and I know that the Lord is blessing us. I love the book, "The Continuous Atonement." I as well am about half way through.  If you haven't read it you should. I've learned a lot about grace and how we are saved by grace. I've realized that there is so much I do not understand.

Here is a quote that someone said in church yesterday while she spoke about reading the Book of Mormon. "God can't guide a parked car" I like it! Well that's all I've got for this week! It was a long letter... sorry... I love you all and I know that this is the work of the Lord! There is no greater joy than helping others realize their divine potential and the blessings that are waiting for them. Have a great week!

Con mucho amor,
-Elder David B. Fullmer

P.S. Non compromiso would be no pressure. Thanks Dad~!

Happy Easter (April 9th letter)

Dear Fullmer Family,

First off Happy Easter! It's been one of the best one's that I've had and I hope you all were able to have a great day as well. It was a great day because we were able to have eight investigators at church. The other missionaries in the ward (sister's) brought six, so in our ward we had 14investigators at church. This has never happened in the ward and the Bishop is loving us. He told us that before transfers he was praying so hard that all of us would stay. He said, "I prayed to stay!" He loves us and we love him. He's an incredible Bishop! Needless to say, I'm happy I'm still here. I would be just fine if I finished my mission here.

Anyways, Easter was great! We kinda forgot during the week that we were supposed to sing in church, since we were super busy, , so we sat down for a little while to figure out what we were going to do. We
came to the conclusion that we wanted to do "Come thou Fount" but a version that isn't very common. There is an arrangement on the video, "Reflections of Jesus Christ" if you haven't seen it I invite you to
do so. Dad you will love it! So a member in the ward had the video so we listened to the song and decided it was what we wanted to do. However, we didn't have sheet music. It's a good thing I have an amazing companion who listened to the song, found out the chords and memorized it. We did that Saturday morning and got it done! He played the piano and I sang a solo. It turned out really well and it was nice. We performed it Sunday at church as the closing song. As we were going back to see our investigators a member came up to us, Brother  __________aka coolest guy in the ward, and asked if we could come to
his house that night for Easter dinner with four of his non member friends and sing the song there... Apparently it sounded alright. Haha. Of course we accepted since we didn't have anyone to eat with on
Easter. But before we get to that point there is a lot that happened during the day...

I'm going to rewind a little bit and talk about what happened on Saturday. So probably at around the time you were all dying eggs, My companion and I were Harvesting trying to find people. We weren't having much success in one area and both of us realized we needed to go to another complex close by. We went there and after a while we knocked the door of a great couple. They immediately let us in and we left a blessing with them. They asked afterwards if someone told us to come there and we responded, "No. We pray every morning to know where we need to be and we came here." He shook his head and said, "I have no doubt that God lives." The woman had a pretty major surgery the other day and wasn't doing well. We invited them to come to church for Easter Sunday and He readily accepted. She said, "We have someone
coming over tomorrow..." Then he said, "I know that this is much more important! We'll be there!" Guess what? they came! They absolutely loved Sacrament meeting! They stayed for gospel principles which was on the Priesthood. I thought it was a strange topic for Easter but it turned out great because while the teacher was talking about baptism The man turned to my companion and said, "Neither of us have been
baptized..." My companion smiled and said, "We can help you with that." We went over later that day and set them with a baptismal date for April 21st! They are so cool! We talked about the Book of Mormon and
they accepted it immediately! And above all... THEY"RE MARRIED!!! Miracles still exist! It's been a great Easter!

Oh yeah, the dinner last night. So as we walked up to the door, it smelled incredible, not the door but.. you know... We walked in and he showed us what's for dinner. It was Cornish hens. So delicious! So we ate with his co-workers. He's a physical therapist and travels all over the world as a keynote speaker... Kinda like someone in our home ward. We then had a spiritual message where we watched "He Lives" from LDS.org and then we sang the song. We then bore our testimonies of Jesus Christ and said a prayer. Very powerful! I wish all members would do this. It was so non compromiso, I can't think of it in English... not anything like challenging but that's not the word, I hope you get what I'm trying to say. I hope we get to do that again soon.

Anyways, I love you all so much and I hope you had a wonderful Easter! I know that Jesus Christ did rise again and that He lives! He loves us and is guiding us. I love Him with all of my heart and it is the greatest
privilege in the world to represent Him. I pray that I will be able to be worthy of this calling and to serve with all the energy of my heart to share this truth with those who stand in need of it. I love this work! I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you!

-Elder David B. Fullmer

South Miami Zone pictures

His zone wearing a shirt that the YSA sisters made for each one. There is a symbol like a wave with an arrow going through it which is the symbol for baptism. So they say, "Baptize Miami" David says "They're pretty sweet. Enjoy!"

Elders in the Riverside District doing the Haka

Weekly Update (transfer week April 3rd)

Dear Family,

Well yesterday we got the calls about transfers and finally nothing is happening to me! It's been about 4 transfers that nothing has happened to me but I'm very glad that my companion and I get to stay together for another transfer. The zone that we are leading is doing better than it has ever done before. We ended the month with 15 baptisms and our goal was 14. The last record for the zone in mission history was 9. As a mission we hit our goal of 100 baptisms and hit 106. It was incredible to be a part of that and see how much the Lord has blessed us.

I absolutely loved General Conference as always. This year there was a big focus, I don't know if you noticed, you probably did, on familes and contention in the family. The quote from President Monson in his last talk about ending problems now kinda struck it home! Also there was a lot of talks centered on the Priesthood and unrighteous dominion... I wonder what's in our future... but it was an incredible conference. I would love to talk about the 26 pages of notes that I took but I just don't have much time today... :( That is incredible how you were able to track down Mom's stolen phone!

However, I'm not really surprized. You've got Mr. Computer as a son.

Haha. Technology is incredible!

I'm pretty short for time today, we have a lot of work to do for transfers but I want to share a story with you. I love stories. So yesterday since it was the end of the transfer, we got permission from President Anderson to have a Zone Event during the day. We all came together and we started with a testimony meeting talking about how the challenge, (which was to give your very best effort and ask the Lord every night "wilt thou accept my very best effort") affected them this transfer. It was such a powerful meeting hearing story after story of the missionaries giving their very best every day. It made me proud! I cant' wait for this next transfer, we've got some cool things in store!

After the meeting we had lunch. So the plan was to have a bbq because the church that we were having the meeting at has a bbq. However you know that after we buy the meat and all of the toppings and everything, the thing wouldn't start. It had gas but for some reason it wouldn't light, I even asked a lady on the street if she had a lighter because none of the stores around had matches. Even with that, it wouldn't start. So we were wondering what we were going to do because everyone was hungry and it wasn't working.

So we went into the kitchen because there is a range in there so we thought we'd cook them in a pan. We tried to turn it on and... it didn't work. We pulled it out and it was plugged in and everything. Not gunna lie, i was frustrated. So I had the thought to check the control panel or fuse box, whatever it's called, and the only one that wasn't one was the range. We were in business! haha. We finally got it to work and your other son, no not the computer genios, no not the new assemblies chair, but the chef make 20 hamburgers on the stove! Haha. It was funny! Frustrating but funny. Haha.

Well I love you all so much and I hope you all have a wonderful Easter. I think this one will be better than the MTC.. I hope! I know that the Savior lives. He lives. I know it. As we come to Him in His infinite love He relieves us from the pain that the world causes. I'm so grateful for His Atonement that He so lovingly gives us. I wish I could understand more about it but everyday my understanding grows because it is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we are able to do hard things. I love you all and have a great week!

-Elder David B. Fullmer