February 23, 2015

Believe it or not we hit our year mark tomorrow.  It doesn’t seem possible but it is true.  We are so thankful we didn’t decide to just serve for a year.  There is still so much we want to try and accomplish.  We haven’t given up on any of the less actives we have been working with.

One of the men we have been working with for several months who had been excommunicated but was trying to come back passed away suddenly on Saturday.    We were really hoping that his family would mend their fences and come together to make the decisions of what to do but it has just become another battle with no winner.  It is so sad to see a family so torn apart over the wrongs they felt were done to them by the other members of the family. 

Our district is facing a major upheaval.  Three of our missionaries finish their missions next week and one area is being shut down because of the drop in number of missionaries.  We also learned that our mission is losing 13 cars because of the falling numbers.  We know it is because of the evening out since the age change but just losing one set of missionaries makes our district seem so small.  We are anxious to meet our new missionaries though and new blood is always good for any area.  I am continually amazed at the caliber of missionaries we have in our zone.  They truly love the Lord and serving Him.  I am stressed for this week’s district meeting as we have been asked to do the training on how we can lead our less actives to the temple( our mission vision is “Leading God’s children to the temple).  We are also to teach on how to get the members to be a part of it all.  We can do everything in our power but if the people don’t feel the love from the branch members we don’t know how successful we will be.  We continually try to include the branch members in our visits and sometimes are successful.  I have learned just how essential we as active members are to the missionary work.  It is just as important to help those who have fallen away to remember the spirit they felt when they first gained their testimony as it is to teach new investigators.  I don’t know about all missions but we have six things we strive to do as missionaries every day.  That is find, teach, baptize, retain, activate and serve and do all six every day.  If we work on each of these every day we will bring souls to Christ and help them get to the temple.  It is not always easy and as a senior couple we focus more on the retention, activation and service than the others as we try to find and help the 100 members of our branch who are currently lost from the fold.  We are each so necessary in this work.

We love each of you and pray you will each catch the vision of hastening the work in your wards or branches, homes, work or wherever you may go.

Love

Elder and Sister Fullmer

Mom and Dad  etc.

Congratulations Sister Hawkins and Elder and Sister Yearsley in finishing your missions and “returning with honor.”

February 9 and 16, 2015

Feb 9& 16

I started this letter a week ago but got distracted and didn’t finish so here is a double dose.

 

We had an experience we didn’t imagine we would have on our mission this past week.  The only young family we have in our branch asked us if we could possibly babysit for them so they could go to the temple.  We have told them since we got here that we would but they haven’t asked us to until now.  We have no young men or women in our branch so they don’t know any girls they could get to babysit.  We spent 8 hours with 4 boys ages 9, 7, 3 and 2 and it was mostly fun.  The weather was so beautiful that Evan cut wood and the boys stacked it.  They thought it was great fun and after stacking two small stacks they thought they “had enough wood for two winters”.  

  

There has been a lot of sickness going through our branch again so lots of cancelled appointments.  One of the Elders was also sick for four days and we sure missed him.  Thank heavens I had plenty of genealogy research people have asked me to do so I got to spend time doing that.  I have cleaned up some of the mistakes in the Burst family lines where there were lots of duplicates.

 

Evan confirmed Sydney in church last Sunday and gave her a beautiful blessing with it.   Sydney called later that evening and wanted to come over and talk.  She said she was disappointed about her confirmation because she didn’t feel the spirit like she did at her baptism.  We talked with her about feeling the spirit and how it was not always a grand big experience but sometimes a still voice.  We talked about how she seems to have been a member so long because she uses correct prayer language and just understands all she is taught.  She told us about sometimes when she is talking to her friends about the gospel that the answers just come to her and she doesn’t know where they come from.  It was so wonderful to teach her from the scriptures about the things she already knows.  She truly is just remembering what she has always known.

I read our good friend Wanda Yearsley’s blog and she had this story in it from their final Outgoing devotional.  They are serving in San Jose California and are just about to finish their mission.   I liked the story so well I wanted to share it. “(President Lemmon is a counselor in the mission presidency).  President Lemmon said that when he was 16, he had a great bishop…..his dad.  After a meeting one day, his dad asked him to meet with him in his office.  His dad then told him things that he wasn’t doing very well at and needed to improve on.  He was being a typical teenager, not looking at his dad and trying to just ignore him.  His dad could tell from his actions that he wasn’t happy with what was said.  Then he said to him, if an angel asked you to do these things, what would you do?  President Lemmon said he thought a minute, and thought of the angels that Laman and Lemuel had seen, and how they just ignored them, and thought to himself, I’m not going to be a Laman and a Lemuel.  Then his dad said, I am your angel now, representing the Lord.  So President Lemmon took the council from his dad to heart.  He said that the Lord’s hand can be seen in all things.  There are no coincidences in life.  We are not God’s Saturday afternoon hobby when He is bored.  We are His work and his glory.”  He surely did “liken the scriptures” to himself.  If we could each think of ourselves as being someone’s “angel” or thinking of those who have and are “angels” to us we would all strive to do as Nephi and “go and do”.

Feb 16

Winter has finally come to Indiana.  We had only had one small snow storm clear back in November which only lasted one day.  The predictions for this past weekend were for lots of snow and cold.  Saturday night at our Valentine’s social the branch President called (he wasn’t there because he had been in meetings with Elder Christofferson) and cancelled church because of the weather forecast.  When we got up Sunday and there was no snow and it was only -6 we wondered about the stamina of these people.  It worked out well though because it gave us the opportunity to go to Louisville and visit Sister Hinkle who had a brain tumor removed on Saturday.  She is fighting lung cancer and now this.  We also took the winding way home and found a less active we hadn’t found before and had a really good visit.  He is from the Sketo family who were so active at one point but now only one out of 10 children is active.

 

We woke up this morning to snow and it has continued to snow all day.  We probably have about 12 inches and it is still coming.  I had been missing the snow until I looked out the window and remembered that I really like summer better.  The missionaries were told not to leave their apartments until noon tomorrow because of the weather and to not drive their cars at all.  Our Elders called and got permission to walk to our place so they could do laundry.  We live about 10 blocks apart and they were pretty cold when they got here.  Evan is presently digging out the drive so we can take them home later but first we will have a rousing game of Racko.  We do have fun in this mission.

 

We had the opportunity on Saturday to have a mission conference with Elder Cristofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder Soares of the 70.  They and their wives each spoke to us.  I especially loved Sister Christofferson’s talk about this not being our home but we are all away from our heavenly home and have an innate longing to go back home.  Elder Christofferson had a Q&A at first and it was wonderful and inspiring to hear his counsel and to feel of his spirit as he taught us.

 

This has turned into a real epistle.  I just want everyone to know how grateful I am for this opportunity to serve here.  I love every meeting we go to because of the spirit I feel.  I love the Savior and all those who are teaching of Him.  I love to see the changes in not only the investigators but the missionaries as well as they truly become converted.  I highly recommend a mission to everyone who can possibly arrange it.  When we were talking to Elder Roderick who works out of the mission office he told us that there is a shortage of 156 couples right now.  Our branch doesn’t know how it would function without a Senior couple and some of the branches in our mission are now without a couple because of the shortage.  Don't miss out on the opportunity.

Enough for today.  We love you all.  We know the gospel is true.

Love

Elder and Sister Fullmer

February 2, 2015

This week was a week filled with genealogy for me which makes it super.  I was able to help three different people work on their genealogy and get names ready for the temple.  We also found that lots of the work has been done on one line of a non-member man who is married to one of our most devoted members.  She feels that this might help him come closer to being baptized but doesn’t want to get her hopes up.  He really wanted to see a fan chart for him like she has on her side.  I love genealogy work.  To me that would be the perfect mission.

We had District Meeting and so many times I come away with such a spiritual high.  This time as part of Elder Fleener’s training he told us of his best missionary experience.  He said he hadn’t been out very long but was having a really hard time with contacting people.  He was afraid to talk to people and was with a companion who liked to talk to everyone so he just let his companion take the lead.  One day they started to pass a young man and his companion just kind of pushed him to take the lead and so Elder Fleener asked the young man if they could say a prayer with him.  The young man later told them that he was just asking God to help him find the way.  He had been praying for quite some time to know what way he should go in life and they stopped him and talked to him.  He was baptized along with two of his best friends, a young couple he knew and his mother.  Another of his friends is now investigating the gospel.  All because he finally opened his mouth and didn’t let the opportunity pass by.  Elder Jensen than said to compare the joy Elder Fleener felt with the outcome of opening his mouth to what he would have felt to get to the next life and realize the opportunity he had missed and the sorrow he would have felt knowing he had passed this young man by.  We all need to open our mouths.

This Sunday we after church we had such a wonderful baptism for Sydney.  She said to me as she was going to get dressed that we would have to “surgically remove her smile today”.  She is so ready for this step in her life.  It is so wonderful to see someone going from not really believing in a God to where she is today.  She bore a powerful testimony after her baptism.  Evan will confirm her next week in Sacrament Meeting.    She now really knows what the spirit feels like.  Her mother was there to support her and when she asked her mom how she felt about church she said she felt she had been a member her whole life.  It will certainly be interesting to see where it goes from here with her.  She has had a couple of lessons with the Elders and seems very receptive.  We have been so thrilled to be a part of Sydney’s journey.

 

Elder Evans gave a really good talk on the Holy Ghost at the baptism.  He told of a friend of his from his ward that told an experience he had coming home from his mission a number of years ago.  He got off the airplane and a missionary’s worst nightmare happened.  There was no one there to meet him.  He saw a phone across the hall and went over to use it.  As he walked through the arched doorway he heard a sound like a whooshing and thought it might be a heater vent. He looked around but couldn’t see anything.   He called his mom and found that they had the wrong gate so he said he would come and meet them.   As he went through the arched doorway he again heard and felt this whooshing.  He looked around and again didn’t see anything but as he looked closer he realized that he had walked into a bar where the phone was.  He said it was so real to him that the sound he heard and what he felt was the Holy Ghost leaving.  The Holy Ghost can’t be with us when we are in such places.  Even though he was innocent in the experience it taught him a great lesson.  It is such a good lesson for us all to learn and practice.

As you can read we have had a very great week with some wonderful spiritual experiences.  We also were able to attend the temple last Saturday which is always such a great experience.  The session was so full that one of our sisters who had gone with us didn’t even get in.  She was upset at first but went and did initiatory and said after that it was just what she needed that day.  Another tender mercy of the Lord.

Have a wonderful week everyone.  Share the gospel every chance you get—even if you are afraid to open your mouth.

Love

Elder and Sister Fullmer

Mom and Dad

January 26, 2015

It seemed as if the week flew by and as I look back at my journal to see what to write I find that it has just been a typical week.  We did some service, visited less actives, visited the sick, helped plan a baptism, baked food to take to people, encouraged the down trodden(texting is great when they won’t answer their phone but will text), prepared lessons for Sunday, fed the Elders, drove to Louisville for transfer meeting which ends up being nearly 300 miles, made numerous trips to Bristow (45 miles round trip), stopped at the gas station a lot (thank heavens for cheaper gas), had weekly District Meeting and even babysat 4 little boys so their parents could have a date.  Our mission call is to help in the branch where ever needed and that about sums it up for the week.  Sometimes it doesn’t seem as if we have or are making a big difference but we just keep going.  Who knows what soil we are preparing or what seeds we are planting?  We did meet with a less active man who is just working here temporarily and he seems sincere in his desire to come back to church.  He was very active at one time but let things slip away when he got divorced.  We are so thrilled about the baptism coming up next week.  Every time Sydney learns something new she is so excited to implement it in her life.  She reads her scriptures any time she is feeling down or discouraged or faces some challenge.  She is truly an inspiration to this branch.  She went to primary with me yesterday to see what it was all about and bore her testimony to our boys about how much she already loves the scriptures and how blessed they are to have had them their whole lives.

We just passed our 11 month mark.  Time really does fly when you are having fun. We love the opportunity to share our testimonies of our Savior and His atonement.

Love

Elder and Sister Fullmer

Ps.  Kimber: thank you so much for the sharing time idea.  I used the punch cup thing in my lesson and of course the 5 boys loved it.

Kara:  Thanks for the long email.  It was so good to learn of what is happening in your family.

Joe, Josh, Cami and Jake:  Thanks for the phone calls.  It was good to visit.

Connie:  Thanks for always sending your notes.  We appreciate any communications we get even short ones.

Amy:  Congrats on the upcoming grandchild.  You will make a wonderful grandmother.

Gary and Wanda:  We have really enjoyed your blog.  You certainly don’t have time to get “trunky”.

Dale and Ivalue:  It sounds as if your busy schedule has started up again.  Keep up the good work.

Val:  We have enjoyed following your mission.  You certainly have served a little bit differently doing so much of it on your own.

Charlie:  Thanks for the information and the help.

January 19, 2015

Hello all from sunny Indiana.  Our weather has been so beautiful the last 4 days we are hoping it isn’t the calm before the storm.  It has been jacket weather which has sure been appreciated.

The best part of the last couple of weeks has been the decision of our friend Sydney to be baptized.  She is nineteen and really didn’t know anything about God when the Elders started teaching her.  She has come so far and is so excited.  We were with them last week when they taught about tithing and she just said “hurry and ask me the will you question”.  That is how each lesson ends.  Will you live the law of tithing or will you live the word of wisdom (she wasn’t sure about giving up an occasional glass of wine but did make the commitment.)  That is one way you can tell if someone is really understanding and changing their lives-if they answer the Will You questions and then keep the commitments.  We also watched the Mountain of the Lord video with her and she is so excited about going to do baptisms for the dead.  We looked and perhaps we can take her to the Indianapolis temple open house in April.  Sydney just announced at Family Home Evening that she has moved her baptism date up two weeks.  At one lesson she told us all that she didn’t think she was feeling the spirit like we all talk about feeling. She said that she hadn’t ever really felt a burning like the Elders had told her could happen and Elder Fullmer told her that it might be more a feeling of peace.  That made more sense to her and she said that even though her life is not perfect and she still has some problems she really has felt peace since she has learned about the gospel.  Our branch has really taken to her and are all fellowshipping her.  She said tonight that it would be hard to see “her missionaries” ever go but knows that is what happens.  She has especially bonded with our friend Carolyn because she is just the age Carolyn was when Carolyn joined the church so they have that in common.  Sydney was feeling a little down because she has told some of her friends about being baptized and they are giving her a hard time about it.  She is so excited for her baptism that she wants everyone to be happy with and for her.

I spent 4 hours one day going visiting teaching to two ladies.  About an hour and a half of that was travel time and then we just make long visits because we never take the time to visit on Sunday.  One of the ladies is in her 80’s and comes to church when she can but she needs to visit.  She has been really sick so hasn’t been to church for several weeks so we had a good time catching up.

We have to be in Owensboro by 6 a.m. tomorrow to take a set of Elders to transfer meeting.  We really did want to go to this particular transfer meeting because both Elder Davis and Elder Gerard finish their missions tomorrow.  They were the Elders here in Tell City when we arrived on our mission and we love them both.   It means for a very early morning and a rather long day but so worth it.  We love transfer meetings because of the enthusiasm of all the missionaries.  There is nothing like Greenie Fire.

WE love all of you and appreciate any texts, emails, phone calls or letters.  We both love the gospel and love being here with these good people.  We know we can all make a difference if we just let out light shine and not be afraid to share the truthfulness of the gospel.  Just remember that so many are seeking the truth but don’t know where to find it.

Love

Elder and Sister Fullmer

January 12, 2015

Dear One and All

Like our friends the Hatch’s serving in Nauvoo and my sister-in-law Sister Hawkins serving in Missouri we have had the bitter cold this past couple of weeks.  We haven’t had any snow and luckily didn’t get the freezing rain that was predicted but it is cold and that makes it hard to want to go out and visit anyone.  I am finally over my cough for the most part so didn’t need to stay in but we did still have the unpacking to do from the big move.  We finally got pictures hung and all unpacked and it feels like home.  It is hard to remember that we ever lived anywhere else.  Because we lived in a house where two other Senior Couples had lived there was quite a bit of stuff collected by both couples.  We tried to weed out anything we didn’t feel was necessary except beautiful pictures one couple had purchased which make our home look so much homier. 

 

Some of our grandson’s sent us little cards with jokes on them and we have had such a good time taking them with us and sharing.  Our friend Leroy who has been paralyzed from the neck down for about 30 years always tells us a joke when we go see him.  His speech is hard to understand but his family can with work, interpret for us.  We stopped one day and he was alone (his wife only leaves him for very short periods of time) and we told him one of the jokes.  The next day when we stopped to see them again the first thing his wife and one son told us was that when they got home Leroy told them the joke.  He has such a sense of humor.  Everyone tells us that he was so fun before his stroke and we can see that he would have been.  The joke we told him was “What do you call old snowmen?”  “Water”.  Thanks Justin and Hyrum for sending the jokes to us.  We still have several more to take to Leroy to add to his collection.

 

We had such a great experience of following the spirit last week.  On Tuesday we didn’t have any set appointments but needed to do a few things in the morning.  After lunch Evan said that he felt we should go visit our friend Carolyn.  I was kind of hesitant because we had an appointment to be there on Wednesday for a lesson and dinner with an investigator Sydney and I thought we should visit someone else.  He just said he really felt we should go there so we went out and when we got there Greg her husband met us at the door and said “I am so glad you came, Carolyn really needs you right now.”  He was getting ready to go to work so we only talked to him for a few minutes before he left and then we spent time with Carolyn.  She has been going through some really rough things and needed to talk to someone.  Evan was really in tune with the spirit.  It feels so good when you know you are in the right place at the right time.

Evan has some new responsibilities in the branch.  They can’t officially call him to them but because we are called to serve wherever the branch president needs us, Evan was asked to be the Young Men’s President as well as an assistant clerk.  Our clerk is moving to Utah this week and they are facing the yearly audit so needed help.  Because Evan has been a clerk before he knows what goes into that audit so can be of great help.  The branch had a Young Men’s President but because we didn’t have any boys coming he was never there for that last hour of church.  We now have a family coming that has 14 and 12 year old boys.  The 12 year old hasn’t been baptized but comes.  We also have a boy who comes every other week who is 12 and his mother says he can now choose to be baptized if he wants.  He has just been going in with the primary because he has a half-brother who comes all the time and there were no other boys.  Evan is trying to get the three boys and their fathers to come to Aaronic Priesthood.  This was the first Sunday since he was asked to do this and the boys didn’t come this week.  I have never seen Evan put so much time into preparing a lesson as he did the one for the boys.  He really wants to make a difference in the lives of these boys if he can as well as their less active fathers.

 

I was able to help in the Primary yesterday which I love.  We had our little William start primary and he was so good it was amazing.  He didn’t get off his chair the whole first hour.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to come back in after getting a drink and going to the bathroom but I told him we were going to talk about puppies and kitties and he came in.  I am going to be teaching a lesson in there each week.  Because of the size of our primary they haven’t really been giving them a lesson each week but just trying to keep 5 boys from 7-12 learning.  I talked to the older boys after primary and told them we would be gearing the lessons to Williams level part of the time and just be patient with us.  They all said it would be fine because they were still just kids too.  It was sweet of them. 

 

Time is flying by so quickly.  When we think that it is less than 8 months until we come home we feel such an urgency to work harder, be more in tune and find all those we haven’t yet found.  Now with Evans calling as the clerk we want even more to get the branch lists in order so the next Senior Couple won’t have such a challenge finding people.  We love this gospel and want to help those in this area especially in this branch feel of the love of our Savior and understand the Atonement. 

 

We love you all and want to hear from you. 

Love

Elder and Sister Fullmer

Mom and Dad

Grandpa and Grandma

December 29, 2014

Dear Loved ones

 

The time is once again flying by.  With trying to live out of two different houses, organizing the Christmas party, having the Mission Christmas party, taking a friend to the airport and preparing to speak in church has kept us on the go. 

 

Without a washer and dryer at our house we have had to go to the other place to do the laundry.  Not really having time to make the whole move has been a little frustrating but who wants to move during Christmas.  The move is planned for this Wednesday though so that is a good thing.  We have continually taken stuff over as we have gone to do laundry so the actual move shouldn’t be too bad (if any move can be an easy thing).

The Christmas party went off really well.  We had 8 nonmembers there which was great.  It was so fun to dress the kids up and see how much fun it was for them.  Wilson’s had brought 4 of their grandkids so we had a little girl to be Mary so didn’t need to use Hardman’s daughter and son-in-law.  The Osborn boys stole the show as the wise men.  William was so cute carrying the “gold”.  I had told them they could have some of the gold to eat if they were really good and no one could believe how good he was.  For him to hold still that long was a Christmas miracle.  We watched the Luke 2 video after doing the nativity and then closed with Silent night.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it.  I felt really good when President Hardman complimented me on a job well done.  He really did seem pleased and he is usually so grumpy that when he was smiling I felt like he really was pleased. 

 

On Monday we went to Crestwood for the Mission Christmas party.  It was really fun to have the whole mission together.  We had a nice program which showed off some of the talent in the mission.  Some of those people have voices that they could sing professionally if they desired.  We then had a very nice lunch with ham, baked potatoes, salad, green beans and pie.  After the dinner we moved all the tables and played some extreme games.  We divided into 4 teams, Comet, Dasher, Rudolph and Prancer.  We were on the Comet team and our team won most of the competition.  They started out with an Elder from each team and they had to put together a 48 piece puzzle and we won.  Then they had an Elder and Sister from each team throw an egg back and forth until there was only one team left with an egg and we won.  We also won the cow roping contest and the hula contest.  We missed on the ping pong ball throw, the orange peel and the marshmallow stuffing contest but they were split between other teams so we came out ahead.  We then put all the chairs into two circles with the Sisters in the center and the Elders around the outside.  We each had a scarf or tie and played a game where President Brough read a story and every time he said right we passed it right and every time he said left it would go left and when the story ended whatever scarf we had was the one we kept.  We had all brought scarves and ties for the game so everyone got one.  It was such a good experience to see all of the missionaries who have been in our district but are now in other areas.  Can I just say again that I love Mormon Missionaries.

 

 The Elders came to our house to make their phone calls (Facetime calls) on Christmas Day and then we went to the first dinner appointment.  We had a wonderful feast and then played the gift game where you have a number and choose a gift but someone with a higher number can swipe your gift.  It was really fun with so much of the Skeen family.  Evan ended up with a tie he swiped from one of the Elders who had swiped it from someone else and I got a small throw that I swiped and then gave the snowman pillow with it to one of our friends who collects snowmen but was gracious enough to not swipe it from me.

We then went and opened our gifts from the kids and then went to the next dinner appointment.  None of us were very hungry but made a good show of it.  I have lost some weight from being sick so long so am trying to not eat all the extra treats and gain the weight back.

 

Now it seems that Christmas was so long ago.  On Friday we were back into the usual routine of a District Meeting.  It is always good to feel the spirit at those meetings.

 

We have done something a little different this week though.  Our friends who went to Idaho for Christmas left us a key to their house and we have gone out and enjoyed the use of their hot tub on three different evenings.  That has really been a treat.  We are going to try and get in one more soak after FHE this evening.

 

Thank you to all who have sent cards and emails.  We feel of your love and support and appreciate it especially at this season.  I was just a little (ok maybe more than a little) homesick but hearing from you all helped.  We both have testimonies of our Savior and His atonement and are so grateful for the opportunity to share that with the good people in this area. 

 

We love you all

Elder and Sister Fullmer