Week 4 DTF Jan 17 2017 The In-Between

We have been reassured we will get a photo soon. Daniel said he would be able to write next week. ...It's only a week...ya, right.

So here is a very nice letter we got from the Johannesburg Mission Pres and his wife:

Brother and Sister Fuller,

Just a quick note to let you know how grateful we have been for your son these past weeks at the MTC.   He has been a great Zone Leader for us.  He is an exemplary young man.  He is obedient, strong and yet humble. We love his happy nature.  It was fun to watch him throw a couple of standing back somersaults during sports time.  He is very well prepared and has a very strong Spirit about him and the Lord loves him and so do weJ.   He has told us that his brother is in Germany and his sister is in Spain now, too.  Are you happy empty nesters?

A fine young man like your son doesn’t happen by accident.  It is obvious that you are a wonderful parents and you have sent out “one of the very best.”  President Ashton (past mission president) and I have said many times, that he would have been a great leader in our previous mission.  We anticipate that he will be a great leader in the Kenya Nairobi mission as well.  We miss him already.

Warmly,

Sister and President Ashton  SAMTC

And Russ' response:

Thanks so much for your kind words, it's nice to hear how Daniel's doing from someone else's perspective.  Backflips - yep, that's Daniel.  

The empty nest thing is still sinking in, although our dogs immediately noticed the absence.  They're dealing with it now, and Lisa and I are feeling it more now that all the bustle of getting the three of them to their respective MTC's is past.  Rachel and Daniel both left on the same day within just a few hours of each other, so we had a long day at the airport!

We're grateful for you and your service to help our missionaries prepare for their time in the field and wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Rusty Fuller

Uploaded on Apr 25, 2011

This is a project that Rachel and her dad came up with for the YouTube/DiscoverHyundai musical shorts contest.

Daniel is playing DaVinci and his wife is Rachel who is pretty aggressive in her objection to his crazy idea about a car, an automobile, a traveling machine.  Well the evolution of cars flashes by the screen quickly but if you look closely, DaVinci is riding every one. Tho probably a few generations later for the flying car.

We cut it a bit too close and while it was completed and in the process of uploading, we didn't get it completely uploaded before the deadline, so we don't think it made the contest.

Ah well, such is life. We thought it was fun anyway, and we learned a lot, so enjoy!

Here is a video you can enjoy this week since Daniel will be flying to Kenya.  He said he wouldn't be able to write this week.  Oh me oh my

Week 3 DTF Jan 10 2017 Johannesburg MTC

SO we got to actually go out on thursday and go to the jo-berg Temple! it was like nothing i have ever seen before! it was like a perfectly maintained jungle of gorgeousness! it was such a cool experience. the spirit is so consistent as i am a missionary and i am learning a TON!

 the city of jo-berg is super shady and sketchy tho, and everyone is kinda racist... but OH WELL! the work goes onward!

all the african elders are awesome tho! they all speak crazy languages like Zulu, shawna, and xhosa (yes that is one of the clicking languages so dont ask) but none of them speak Swahili which is the one i need to learn!! but i will get plenty of that when i get out into the field next Tuesday! KENYA HERE I COME! i am so excited to get out and start serving. i wont be able to email next week because i will be on a flight to kenya! but the week after i will be able to write waaaay more and send pictures too. I love all of you!

I really hope Daniel got a pic of him in front of this temple.  He will not return here.  He has a camera so hopefully he took some while in Johannesburg.  When we hear from again, he will be in Kenya.  Of all 3, he is the one I am most concerned about because I have not actually seen his image, not hide nor hair at all since the airport on Dec 27!!

She didn't need to stand in a long line since a very nice security guard directed us to another security check and she went right in.  We wish we had more time for pictures.  Daniel definitely did since they had time to play Uno.

They were so jazzed up!!

Note: Please give me feedback if you are viewing this on your phone. Sometimes blogs and vids do not render well.  It is best to view on desktop or laptop, I think.

Week 3 RLF Jan 12 2017 Madrid MTC

"Don't get between Satan and his Bananas!", and "Life is better lived bald." (Life according to my Hermana's!)

So I have about 8 minutes this time so I'm gonna try and squeeze as much information as possible. 

HOLA from MADRID!

Can we just talk about how incredible it is being a missionary?  You're basically hanging out with Christ all day everyday and talking about him and it's just beautiful.

OH really quick for those of you that want to keep tabs on my brothers and see how my moms doing you can go to my moms blog rabendan.blogspot.com  

anyways! 

So we're inside constantly all day everyday, except for 1 hour where we play football (soccer*   

We usually get to play with the brazillians and portuguese which is, SO intense, they're so good,  but each day us whities get better.

it feels so good here and waking up to the Madrid temple every morning is something I am sure I'll miss.

I have about 4 weeks left at the CCM or MTC

the language is, whooooo! it's easy as far as voocab but when it comes to grammar I'm sure I sound like a 2 year old, esta bién  accent??? 

Today for Pday we finally get to see some of madrid, so we are going to the meuseum and I'm extremely excited!!  go check out my moms blog for picturees! I'll send just a couple here

Christ loves each and every one of you so much. 

This is the True church

the living savior stands at his Head

Oh my goodness momma! I´m so glad that you got that picture!!  It was one of the girls in the group and yeah my companion was taking the picture.  she doesn´t know studio C as much,  so she was fine with it. 

HA so we were all up at the top floor tenemus comida,  y, one of our teachers said that 5 of the studio C people were here, so we decided to go check the window, I checked and I saw Matt meese and Mallory and Stacy outside of the temple.  it was pretty cool, so i asked my companion and she was like, ehh...idk if its a good idea,  but we decided to go for it anyway,  it was fun to meet them all though i´m sure they weren´t to thrilled about having to deal with fans when they were visiting the temple, but that´s what you get for being famous.   SO, any who it was fun.

I have so much to tell you but so little time!  The language is coming very slowly, but surely, the gift of tongues is MUI NECESSARIO!   the grammar I think is the hardest thing, I can memorize words all day but it still takes me 10 years to conjugate verbs properly, but president says it will come with time, and I trust him with my life.  I have never felt so close to the spirit or been so humbled in my entire life. Every day God finds a new way for me to learn and to eat my own words.   I´m learning to not talk so much and to listen with love more than ever before. 

I never really understood what being converted to the Lord was until this past week when we saw this incredible talk by president Bednar, which quite literally changed my life.  It´s called Character of Christ and only missionaries get to see this specific version, but president Packer was kind enough to find somewhat of a replacement for me and I would love it if you could read it too,  it´s so incredible because it really clarified what it meant for me to be converted to the lord and not just have a testimony of El Evangelio. 

The Talk if you can find it is called "the Character of Christ"  >>Brigham Young University-Idaho Religion Symposium January 25th 2003  Elder David A Bednar. 

I cannot descirbe to you en palabras how incredible this talk is and how miraculous this week has been.   I am changed for good, my heart is sold the Greatest Convert on my mission will be me.
I have seen the atonement in other peoples lives and because of that I receive evidence of my faith. 

I´m learning to lose myself in other people, as Christ did, I´m learning to turn outward in my time of need.  If we Ignore our needs, and pay attention to others, the way Christ did,  and have faith the Lord will provide,  he will always provide. 

The Tomb is Empty

This is the True Church

The living savior stands at the head of this iglesia

I love you so much! thank you for your positivity your quotes and your incredible example to me in my life.
I will send you pictures along with mmy group email! I love you!! talk to you next P-day!

love,

Hermana Fuller

P.S.  if you want to send my advice or quotes, just send me snail mail that way I can save them and I don´t have to write them down

Week 9 BJF Jan 9 2017

Spent the majority of this week in the apartment and Frankfurt office
doing lots of paperwork/records. Did sort of a half-split with the
tech Elders so I got to see what they do all day. They're probably the
busiest missionaries in the mission. The get everyone's train tickets,
apartments, work with any phones/iPads, and deal with any problems the
missionaries have.

While I was there they needed to solve a dilemma with a pair of
sisters who broke their shower head off. Conveniently I've had a bit
of plumbing experience and I was able to give a quick solution for
them. I then sorted through a few hundred Books of Mormon and
discovered a few languages I didn't know existed.
Have any of you heard of Yoruba before? Apparently that's what the
speak in Nigeria. And we've got a BoM for that.
Earlier in he week we ran by an investigator from Romania. They speak
with us in sort of a mix between English and Deutsche. we're going to
try and set up a Skype lesson for his family with the Romanian
Missionaries, so we got to call Romania. That was cool and one of the
Elders on the other line was totally playing a Ukulele while we talked
with his companion.

Friday we met with our investigators Daniel and Nika. Daniel
understands a lot and basically teaches himself, while Nika says stuff
like she's been a member for ages. It all makes sense to her I don't
know why she doesn't have more interest. A few days prior I had found
a big stack of random books in the corner of the church and some were
in Russian. So after the lesson I asked Nika about them, she got
pretty excited but neither of us had any clue what the books were. We
asked bro and sis Schott (they had joined us for the lesson) they said
they were Jehovas witness books. I'm not saying the JWs are terrible,
but when we heard that we screamed a little.
(My scream might have been a bit higher pitched than hers)
Nika started asking why I would give those to her While I honestly had
no idea what the books were or why they were written in Russian just
sitting in the church haha.
That was the first time I've felt embarrassed while here in Germany,
won't be the last I'm sure.
While Elder Davis and I got rid of them, I looked through one and
they've got some freaky pictures in there, not just the depictions but
the artwork is pretty shoddy.
Okay sorry I'm done bashing on the JWs.

ANYWHO, one last story for this week.
Elder Davis and I have been trying to make home made ginger ale. It's
a process of building a particular bacteria or "bug" which builds
carbon-dioxide and creates a natural bubbly drink. We had done it
unsuccessful once but our second attempt was more effective....a bit
too effective. We had stored it in a glass bottle to let the pressure
build, over about a week we had build up more than we thought. As I
opened the bottle it literally exploded, covering the walls, me, and a
lot of the floor in ginger. We possibly scared the neighbors as it
sounded like a gunshot. We'll need to try again hopefully with less
surprising results.
So yeah, average stuff missionaries do with their free time.

Tschüss
Liebe- Elder Fuller

While I was working in the office I "borrowed" a BoM in Swahili cuz
that's what Dan is going to be learning. Now I gotta get a Spanish one
so I can Learn Rachel's new language as well.

Week 2 RLF Jan 5 2017 Madrid MTC

Temple Square March 2014

My dearest deary mommmy,

Thank you for sending me this awesome email.  Did you ever get the email I sent you on the flight from north carolina to london?

I am SO happy to finally be able to email you.  This has probably been the longest week of my life, it feels like I´ve been in the CCM (Centro De Capacitación Misional) for 30 years.  It´s starting to speed up a little though, and I really love it so much.
The first day we got here was crazy!  we played football which was AWESOME!  they have a gym, so usually Hermana Woods and I go there and she runs 3 miles on the treadmill and I teach yoga to the other Hermanas,  it´s very fun.  Today is our first P-day in 10 days!  and we get to go to the temple (so yeah the temple is on thursdays usually)  and then we get to go do residency T_T.  but next week we get more free time. 

No snow, it actually feels exactly like texas which helps a lot.  I get to take pictures for the first time today actually, cause we´re not allowed to take pictures during class time so I´ll take a picture of the CCM the Madrid Temple and the stake center which are all next to each other like a little mormon neighborhood, it´s incredible, I get to wake up everymorning and see this incredible house of the Lord. I feel so incredibly blessed.  I am so glad you have sister Farmer! Her kid is really sweet and reminds me a lot of Ben and daniel together, it´s pretty funny.
So the way it works here we have our campanions (mine is sister woods, she´s so funny and really cute, I love her)   Then we have our District which usually has two or three other companionships,  We have the zone leaders in ours, and they´re HILARIOUS I love them all so much and I feel so close to them already.
Hermana woods and I are in a room with 1 other companionship and then accross the hall there are 6 girls, and next door there are 3 russian sisters learning english so they can go to their various missions.  Then theres one portuguese girl, who is HILARIOUS, and such a sweet heart, and then we have 8 portuguese elders and they´re COMPLETELY incredible!  so so so funny, even though they don´t speak any english and their spirits are incredibly strong.
I´m so glad you got to see us sing!! that was in between the stake center and the temple, on the steps leading out to the street.  It was amazing and we sang so loud it echoeod off the buildings.  I´m really greatful to be at this MTC because it´s so small and we all get to be so close to  each othere, there are no cliques,  we just love and serve everyone,  it´s like a big family.  I miss you and dad and daniel and ben so much but I try not to dwell on it too much. 

learning spanish is CRAZY, we are hitting all the present tense stuff this week and next week we go straight into past tense...it´s not too bad but it´s defiinitely gonna be a while before I´m fluent.  I am so so so grateful for mine and dad´s walks I don´t feel like i would be able to do this if it weren´t for those.  It gives me so much more confidence and helps me feel okay when I make mistakes.  *inspired!!!!*  

>Being here has taught me how much the Lord works in our lives, I always knew, but it´s like he proves it to me every single day.  it´s incredible.

OH MY my.....SO there´s this thing call el parque.....dude....they literally send us out onto the metro, and we get to start contacting REAL PEOPLE!!  then we go to the park and walk around handing out book of mormons and basically teaching the first lesson.  It was my favorite part of last week.  I got to talk to people from columbia IN SPANISH (they took a book of mormon and wanted to know more) Then two muslims from morocco, they wanted to know more too, but they spoke to us in english, I bore my testimony to them with as much power as I could possibly muster...mustur, muster....?  Then we bore our testimony to a jewish guy and we found russians, and portuguese and french and GERMANS and of coarse spaniards.  It was...so so so so cool.   I love Spanish, I love this place, I am so happy to be here.  Although a couple days after I got here I was having a rough time,  My Companera had to call me to repentence because we were always a couple minutes late, but we talked about it and I made a huge effort to be 5 to 10 minutes early, now we´re always the first ones there.   sorry I´m trying to type fast, so my spelling is probably meh.
I love you guys so much and I´m so excited that you´re on this journey with us:)   You´ve got to tell me how daniel is doing!!  I want to read everyones emails but we only get an hour, they took our tablets, so I´m using a computer.  I´m so excited to go out into the field,  it´s AMAZING.

heres a new quote from my compañera, "If you haven´t tried it, you really should. These things are fun and fun is good." 

My favorite scripture right now that I read in 2nd nephi last night is 2nd nephi 7:4-11  and it basically says turn your cheek to those that smite you hide not your face from shame and spitting.  " for the Lord God will help me therefore shall I not be counfounded therfor I set my face like a flint and know that I shall not be ashamed for the lord is near and he justifieth me. Who will content with me? let us stand together who is mine adversary? let him come near me and I will smite him with the strength of my mouth."   

This is so so amazing, I just keep saying that over and over and over again. 

I wish I could write more! I love you so much and I can´t wait to hear from you more.  I hope I´m not missing anything. 

You´re amazing and I love you so much for going through this with us,  it means so much.  

I´ll talk to you next week and I hope we get to go to the temple together. 

Love,

Hermana Fuller

Rachel opening her call at the Dallas Temple August 2016

Rachel singing at CCM (Madrid MTC)

Week 8 BJF Jan 2 2017

Woche 8 mit Schnee

Inbox

x

           First email of 2017, it's weird thinking I'm going to spend this

entire year as a missionary, and most of 2018 when that finally rolls

around. Here in Deutschland New Years is called "Silvester" there are zero

laws on fireworks and alcohol. Inebriated Offenbachers with explosives

is certainly something to see. We would hear the occasional firework

throughout the day, of course the real party was at midnight. As the

day went on the sound of fireworks were getting more frequent but we

had yet to actually see any. We ended the day and went to sleep, next

thing I know I wake up at 12 and there are fireworks literally

everywhere. There were about ten sets of consistent fireworks that I

could see out our window with sounds of dozens of explosions every

second from all around. It was amazing, so I went back to bed.

Next day the streets are covered in empty cases of all kinds with

various burn marks and gun powder strewn about. It's honestly quite a

holiday. If you have the chance and don't fear accidentally getting

set on fire I recommend the German Silvester.

For missionary work Elder Davis and I recently got a list of about

30-40 inactive members we're trying to hunt down so we're traveling

more. Saturday before Silvester we walked about 10 Kilometers through

the town "Dietzenbach" to find some of these members to see if we

could help out somehow. We couldn't find any of them so maybe our

address book is wrong but we're going through the list to see which

addresses are correct and who we can bother.

Today for Pday, it snowed.

It's not a whole lot but now the landscape actually reflects how cold

it is haha. Since I never really get to see snow, I was walking around

with my tongue out trying to catch snowflakes.

Elder Davis was amused and all the Deutscheres were confused.

I'm told Frankfurt is a warmer area so I wasn't expecting any frozen

ice crystals from the sky.

So ist das Leben, It never goes as you expect it to.

We spent a lot of the day cleaning the apartment then walking around

in the woods.

So yeah, fun week I suppose.

Home y'all are having a wonderful year so far, I'd love to hear about it.

Til next week.

Liebe -Elder Füller

For pictures...

I finally got some gymnastics rings thanks to my lovely parents.

Hessen is the State where we are here in Germany. Germans like to copy

American cultural things, Straight outta Compton is one of those

things haha.

This big beautiful Hund totally ignored us and starred down the road

like he was looking for someone.

Dietzenbach Bahnhof from a Bridge crossing over the tracks.

Week 2 DTF Jan 3 2017 Johannesburg MTC

Daniel after he opened his call August 2016

OK

the flight was stupid long! as it turns out it is the longest flight delta airlines offers, they had to have 4 pilots to make it! so i arrived at the south Africa MTC about a week ago! life here is super legit! i have been here for almost a week and i have learned soo much already! the MTC president is such a funny guy, he is a straight up OG grandpa! its awesome! he made my companion and i MTC zone leaders! it is an awesome responsibility even tho its only in the MTC. my companion Elder Sibiya is originally from south africa and he is super african, BUT he was raised in Ireland so he has a thick irish accent! its so freakin funny! we get along EXTREMELY well. our whole MTC is only a group of about 25 so its small and everyone is from different countries (one from Taiwan and he speaks no english) but its got a chill family vibe! we havent stepped foot out of the MTC yet besides eating mcdonalds before going in so it doesnt quite feel like africa yet. 

so story time! before i got on the airplane to africa this guy came up and asked my  self and the other elders going on the plain why we were so well dressed, we got into it about religion and talked gospel until we had to get on the flight to Johannesburg! the crazy thing about it is that out of A TON of people i sat right next to him for a 15 hour flight just talking about god and life and serving people cool Jazz! i gave him info on how to find missionaries when he got back home! so i got my very first investigator before i got in the MTC haha. it was a cool time. i only have a very short time to email today and for the next  two weeks so i can only do a group on right now. I will be able to send pictures then too! love all you guys!