Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Miracles!!

Dear everyone, 

I finally was able to send pictures! And a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So I'm good now? 

Sorry, that took a while. But this week was INCREDIBLE. As, actually, you should be able to piece together looking at the pictures. There were the three baptisms...
  1. Douglas. He's actually not even our investigator. But his friends are in our ward and he wanted to get baptized here, and the Zone Leaders are too sick to leave home and plan his baptism in Alphaville, sooo....they asked us to plan it. I love the picture I sent you--it's our entire district, except the Zone Leaders. And it's their baptism! I just think it's funny. So I'm sure Douglas has a great conversion story, but I'm not really sure what it is. I just planned his baptism...just kidding, I know a little more than that. But not the details, so maybe some other day I'll let you know!
  2. Tamires!! She's the daughter of a recent convert, that wasn't baptized when her mom was only because she wasn't married to her live in boyfriend at the time. But now they're separated! So we visited her this week, and were taken away by what a spiritual powerhouse she is. She was so ready to be baptized. So on Wednesday, we invited her to get baptizedSunday morning. And she was!!! She's incredible, and we love her!!! She also has thecutest little boy you've ever seen. I'll have to get a picture to send to you! 
  3. Eliane! I don't know if you remember me talking about her a while back...she's the one who was the live in girlfriend of a less active that S. Pereira and I taught! She had marked her wedding date, and on Saturday she was finally married. And Sunday, baptized! So awesome. She is so strong--I remember we were talking to her the day after she marked her wedding, and she was telling us about how Hugo didn't want to go. But she physically dragged him out of bed, made him get dressed, and said, "No! Today, we are goingto do this!!!!!" And they went. hahaha I love her! I was so grateful to be able to be there for the baptism!

We have just had quite a few miracles this week, and I'm so grateful. The Lord really does have people that are prepared--we just need to find them! (And He knows where they are, so our chances of finding them are pretty great. Handy, right?! haha)

Love you all!!!! Have a great week!!!

Sister Fuller


 Did I mention I bought a fruit dress? Also, this dog follows me around for hours at a time, various days a week. Like, he loooooves me. So I named him pretinho. 
 our zone, minus the zone leaders. They're ridiculously sick and not allowed to leave the house. But they're getting better now!










Sunday, April 20, 2014

April 14, 2014

Dear everyone, 

Hope you've had a great week! This week we moved houses. Surprise! Apparently our house wasn't very safe, so we got a call from the office the other day saying, "Hey, you guys are going to move. Can you pick up your keys tomorrow?" I love how smoothly these things are done...so fridge, stove, beds, the works all needed to be moved over to our new house. By ourselves. It was exciting...we enlisted the help of a recent convert and her friends, and a family from the ward, but it still took almost a full 2 days. Crazy! So once again, our numbers were a little low, and I was feeling a little stir crazy. (Lemme out! Lemme work!) Then we prayed a ton, and Heavenly Father blessed us. We found 16 new investigators in the last 3 days! MIRACLE!! It's humbling, especially because I know there's more we could be doing. But somehow the Lord blesses our small offering, and uses us to do His work. 

One of my favorite experiences from this week was with someone who doesn't actually live in our area. We were coming home from District Meeting on Tuesday, and the bus was ridiculously crowded. I was tired, my head was pounding, and the bus was hot and loud. I was carrying all of the materials we had received, and just trying to stay standing up right. The last thing I wanted to do--I, not as a missionary--was talk to someone. Then a man gave up his seat for Sister Mills to sit down, and I walked over to be next to her. I passed the stack of Book of Mormons for her to hold in her lap. On my side, there was a woman seated down. When I smiled at her, she smiled back a little and I had the thought, "I really should talk to her." But I just couldn't--or didn't want to yet. So I said a prayer, and asked for help, then opened my mouth! We started talking, and then about the church, and pretty soon the man next to her looked up too. He asked some questions, and I ended up teaching them both about the Restoration, and marking down their addresses to pass to the missionaries in their areas. Then they both got off, and I was able to sit down. (Woohoo!) Sister Mills passed the Book of Mormons back to me, and a man sat down at my side. Have I ever told you how it still kind of scares me to talk to men? Literally, every time I do a contact with a man, I have to talk my brain into it first. And this guy was not super approachable! He's a large, bald black man, wearing sunglasses (in the bus!), and had headphones in. If he had been the first one to sit next to me, I think I might have justified not talking to him. But...I was already in teaching mode. So I picked up one of the Book of Mormons and stuck it in front of him. 

"Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?" 
"No! What is it?" 

Complete change! All of the sudden he took his sunglasses off, pulled the headphones out, and turned to look at me. So we talked about the Book of Mormon, and what it was, and about the Church. And he was SO INTERESTED! Super, super, ridiculously interested. He literally begged me to give the Book of Mormon to him. Which is kind of funny, because I had to push down the thought of "we never have materials! The Sisters in his area can just give him one!" Oh, the natural man. Don't worry, that time I squashed it. :) "Of COURSE you can have it! But only if you're going to read it. And pray about it." He was almost insulted I included that. "Well yeah, that's why I want it!" Hahahaha. His name's Pedro. He's a young father, and a really good one. He was on his way to a job interview and just talked about how the new job would be so much better for his family. He really wants the best for them, and the gospel IS the best! So then I called the Sisters and told them to visit them ASAP! He said they'd all go to church on Sunday too. 

It was so great. It was especially a tender mercy because I know that Heavenly Father gave me the prompting to talk to the first woman so that I'd be prepared to talk to Pedro when the time came. Heavenly Father knows what He's doing. :)

This is crazy, because I didn't even say anything about our area, but I'm out of time! Sorry. But I love you all! Thanks for your prayers and love for me! 

Sister Fuller





Zone conference

Cristina's Baptism

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Finalmente Abril!!!!

Dear Family, 

Doesn't Abril just sound so much nicer than Março? I'm so excited. Which is hilarious, because normally April's only exciting because it's spring and flowers and warmer weather. Whereas, here it's finally cooling off! Let's be serious for a second--I actually kind of want a t-shirt that says "I Survived January 2014", and then something about Salto on it. HOT. But so much better. Lucky Sister Mills. 

Oh yeah! (haha) I have a new companion! Aaaaand...it's an American! (I think that's kind of my thing now. Out of my 7 companions, only 2 have been Brazilians. And that's only counting Sister Garner once!) She is also from Mesa, AZ, but she didn't know S. Garner. Wait, did I tell you all that S. Garner and I are in the same zone?? If not, we are. And it's the best thing ever! Ok, sorry pretty spazy today. But Sister Mills actually already graduated from ASU and wants to go back and study law after the mission. She entered the MTC the same day as S. Cristoffersen (but doesn't know her either), so served almost 9 months in the Billings Montana Mission. She's speaking really great portuguese already! It's pretty fun. She also has a blog that probably has letters that are a lot better than mine, which issistermills.blogspot.com

The new apartment in Povilho for Sister Pereira and her new companion Sister Armstrong (from Dallas, TX) wasn't ready yet, so they've been staying with us all week. They actually just moved out this morning. But it's been super fun, kind of like a big huge slumber party! Missionary style. :) But it's so fun to have our little foursome working in the same ward. We're just a little happy family....and we're going to be able to help so many more people now!! WOOOHOO! 

And that leads to our other exciting news!!! Cristina was baptized on Saturday! And she's incredible, and I love her. (But I left my camera at home, so pictures will have to wait, sorry!) And what's even better is that now her husband, Rogério, wants to get baptized too!! 

Well....I'm going to have to go. But I hope you all have a great week! Love you so much! 

Sister Fuller