Dear Mommy,

So, this is my very last time at an Italian internet point, and the last time that I'll write to you on my mission. there's really nothing uber special to report. The Bar (cafe would be the American equivalent) where we go get treats after English course had an electrical fire while we were there. That was quite an adventure. The lights were going on and off, and you could hear the same sound effects that happen in the movies of electricity, except this time it was real. Then smoke started pouring out of the door. We ran in to help. The guy that works there was running around frantically, and told us to call the cops. Then he ran upstairs. He came back down with a fire extinguisher and blasted the box that was producing the smoke. The fire department showed up a few minutes later. I just went back to eating my smoothie at the outside table. It was fun. We asked if there was anything more we could do to help. He said no, and so we just went home.

This week has been odd. I'm down to my last this, or my last that, and it all is just rolling together. I know that I need to focus on missionary work, and I'm trying to, but I'm also getting all of my stuff ready to go home, so it's like a double edged sword. Meh. Natural, I guess.

We had my last District meeting on Monday, my last Monday night family home evening with the coolest members here in town, saw some people for the almost last time, and all that jazz. Oh, I also did splits with the others here in Messina. With the younger missionary, we had a lovely adventure. We decided to look for some less active members. We went out searching for them, and ended up really far away from anything in a place where neither of us had been before. The address said Messina Complex number 2. We get to the general area, and see tons of buildings. We ask which is the Messina complex, and we're told that it's all of them. So, we go looking for number 2, and we find numbers like 17, and 32, all in no apparent order. Eventually the time comes that we have to leave the place to get to an appointment in church. It starts to rain. We didn't have umbrellas. So, walking in the rain, Anz.M checks in his bag, looks at me and says "hey, do you know what wouldn't be a good thing?"

"Don't say that."

"I could say something worse, actually. I could NOT say that I think something happened, and just say that it did..."

"Oh no. Just say it."

"Umm..."

"Did you forget the keys?"

"Yyyyyyyyyyeah. There. I said it."

"Hmm. Ok, well I think we have some time. Call the others."

"You don't have the phone?"

"I thought you did..."

A nice rainy moment of a dual epiphany that we had neither keys nor cell phone. Then we started laughing. There was nothing else to do. So we walked to the church in the rain, with surprisingly good spirits, and waited for our next appointment outside of the church. It was a fun an memorable night.


Then we made chicken noodle soup at home so we wouldn't get sick. It was my first time making egg noodles, and I didn't have a recipe, but I had the basic idea down. It was pretty tasty. The others made brownies that night, too. It was a good day all in all.

Well, I haven't finished my epistle of final testimony and stuff yet. I'm on the 6th of 8 questions, and hitting in at 24 pages so far. So, it should be a pretty good short story when it's finally done. I'll type it up Monday at the mission home, and send it off. Other than that, there's not much more to report. I've started packing my stuff, but not too much of it. I'm allowed 2 bags still. The airlines have changed their rules so now it just one bag, but since I entered the MTC with 2, the church will cover the expenses of my other one, as long as it's not overweight. So yeah. That's the situation. And that's that.

So, I'll see all y'alls in a couple of days. But no girls until they're huggable. Unless they really want to. Oh, and on the way home from the airport, I think we need to stop at Wendy's. That sounds really really good right now. But I can wait a couple of days. tee hee!

Well, much love to everyone, and very very much appreciation (more than I can adequately express) to all those who have supported me in my endeavors in this last little while that I've been sojourning in a foreign land. Much love and thanks to all of you.

May the Lord bless and keep you. Thank you.

Anziano Jason Kelly Fullmer

Dear Mommy,
So, this week I finally found my planner. However, as luck would have it, I got an ear infection. My right ear was killing me for days. I even had to talk to the missionary doctor in Germany. I was all on anti-biotics, and decongestants, and ibuprofen, and I hate pills. Life was not fun. It killed to move around, and I was going insane out of boredom just sitting around. And it also sucks that during the part when I want to be most productive, and finish well, I get all sick, and can't go out without experiencing pain. Eventually I got so sick of the house that we went to visit a member. The walk there and back weren't fun, but while I was there it wasn't so bad. I kept feeling like it wasn't fair. And I don't think that it was. Lousy mortal body. But, now I'm better (my left ear threatened to do the same thing, and wasn't feeling so great for a couple of days after, but I cursed the sickness into nonexistence. so I wouldn't have to deal with it. And it worked. That was fun.


So now, I'm just going through it all trying to not be dead, and still be alive as a missionary and such. I try to push the thoughts of home out of my head, and then two seconds later, someone will ask me "what's it like?" and then I have to think about it again. My English course class berated me with questions on the matter last night. Silly people. They're getting better, I must say. Good for them. Oh, and while I was sick, my jaw hurt, too, so I couldn't chew food. Those were three hungry days. meh.


So, I had my last zone conference on Monday. We have this tradition that when a missionary won't have another zone conference, they're paraded in front of the zone, and forced to say final words, and bear their last testimony to the group. Our zone is like 14 people. This zone conference, however, was for all of Sicily, which means that there were close to 50 people there. Made it nice and worse to have to speak in front of all those people. Which I'm used to, by now, but that's usually for teaching, or performing, and not for expressing all my feelings about the last two years of my life. President Taranto made me do it in Italian, too. I was walking up, thinking to do it in English because I did my first one two years ago in broken Italian. He read my mind, and whispered "in italiano" as I walked by. So I did it in Italian, and all was well.


On Sunday the gospel principles teacher didn't show up again, so we were left with no one to teach. The first counselor looked at me, and didn't say anything. "Yes, I'll do it." I said sighing to myself silently on the inside. So, I picked up the manual, and chose a lesson at random, because we haven't been following the numbered lessons for quite some time, now. So, we talked about developing our talents. All in all it turned out well. The teacher even showed up about half way through the class, and so did a less active guy that we've been working with. Then we had a lunch appointment with one of my favorite families here. I was finally able to eat again, too, so that was a plus. The pasta was rather plain, but still good, and the meat afterwards was delectable.


So, there's a member who's taking medicine to help her with some mental problems. When I first got here she asked me to offer he a blessing, which I did. I later learned that she had already been given one by my companion a couple of weeks before for the same thing. So, recently, she's been bugging us with phone calls asking for another one. We keep telling her to ask her husband, or at least her home teachers, or at the very least some member. She finally conceded, and on Sunday her home teachers gave her a blessing. Then Monday during zone conference, my phone rings. It was on silent, but it vibrated. I checked it, and it was her. It was right in the middle of everything, so I couldn't answer. It rang three more times in the following two hours. So did the other's phone from our city. After the conference we kind of drew lots to see who would call her. We won, so the others called. Sure enough, she wanted a blessing. Apparently, she didn't think that her home teachers were "inspired" enough to give one that was good enough for her. Sigh. She doesn't quite understand the nature of such things, I guess.


Oh, we did some more cleaning this week. All the mud and stuff was mostly dry, so we donned our work apparel, and off a cleaning we did go. While we were there, we saw our old investigator Anna. She's an amazing one that disappeared. She was giving a pedicure to the member whose house we were cleaning. So, we had a few words, and she said that she would be in church on Sunday. She wasn't. Sad. Her husband doesn't like that she has to be away from home on Sunday mornings. We tried to set up something to meet him, but it was shot down pretty quickly. So, now we're just back to square one. Kind of depressing. That's just the way things go sometimes.


As part of my going away preparations, President Taranto is having me write answers to a ton of questions, about my testimony and stuff. So far I've written out 11 pages long hand, and I'm not even through half the questions. I'll include a copy of the thesis next week, seeing as it will be the last time that I can. So that's all. [I asked him to write something similar, to share.]

Oh, chocolate milk from the BYU creamery. That's the best kind. And have some corn Chex or Reeses' puffs handy. I'll think about other things, and give you a comprehensive list next week. [I asked him what he'd like to have to eat when he gets home, so I can have it on hand.]


Much love from me to all of you for the second to last time.

Jason

Dear Mommy,

So, as you heard there was a really bad mudslide. Well, the mudslide and rain associated with it weren't all so terrible, but their effect on the houses here were. There are about 25 dead, and another 20 or so that are lost or otherwise unaccounted for. There have been clean up teams going out of the city all week. The lamest thing of it all, is that a lot of it wouldn't have happened if the buildings were built according to the legal codes here. But, to save some money, supplies were shorted. Because of this the houses couldn't stand up to one night of really heavy rain, and they crumbled and fell off the mountainside. Someone walked away with a heavier wallet, and now they've walked away with a much heavier conscience.

We spent most of Friday helping the first counselor in the branch presidency clean out his underground storage garage. About a foot and a half of water and mud didn't have enough room to go down the drain, so they just went everywhere. A bunch of their stuff got ruined, but they were pretty cheerful about it all. Luckily for them their house wasn't hit very hard at all. There was one man who lost his wife, son, father in law, and house. He was like 30 years old. Pretty sad. While we were cleaning, another little storm hit, and water started pouring through the underground drain. We directed it to another nearby drain, and all was well, but there was still about four inches of water. Man. Mother nature is definitely in charge. The great equalizer. In situations like that it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, big or small, or anything. Lives are in danger, and everyone is equally important. It seems to bring out the best of people afterwards, too. I wonder why that is? Why aren't people nicer to others before such a dramatic thing happens? Oh well.


Well, as far as other things go this week, I'm still drawing a blank. I still haven't found my planner. I think I'll just grab a new one for these last three weeks. Let's see what I remember...oh, last night for English course we had a little adventure. The church here is made up of two apartments that have been converted into meeting rooms. Our key to the main one is broken, so we can't get in. Usually we just wait for the others to show up, and their key works, so they would open it. However, they had forgotten the keys this time. So, we had no way of getting into the other part of the building. So, we moved around some stuff, and used the primary room. Here I was hoping that not too many students would show up. Bam! we had 11. That's about twice as many as have been coming recently. So, we had to steal chairs from the relief society room, because our class is made up of adults who didn't fit very well into the tiny primary chairs that there were to be found in the room. As funny as it was to see them try, it wasn't working. All of my lesson material was in the other room, too, so we had a pretty impromptu lesson going on. It turned out pretty well in the end.


Conference was fun, too. We spent a good chunk of time trying to get the satellite working. The dish was working, but that was about it. We were able to pick up a couple Arabic channels, and a Chinese one, too, but no conference. Eventually, we just used the computer in the Genealogy Center to listen to the audio in Italian, while the missionaries and members who understand English packed into the tiny presidency office to use the computer there to watch the sessions in English. The only session I didn't get to see was the Sunday afternoon session, because it was going to be live at 10pm Sunday night. Good stuff. Other stuff...Oh, we had a good lesson with an English course student. She liked the spiritual thought that we gave at the end of the lesson, and I invited her to learn more. We met with her after the next class. She's probably the most spiritual person I've met in this country. We would ask her a question, and she would really think about it before giving her answer to describe how she felt. A very good lesson.


So we've had the missionaries from Reggio Calabria (The city across the sea) over for conference, and then the zone leaders stayed to do splits. So last night sucked a lot. In the course of the day, I developed an earache. It hit in full force last night. I couldn't move my head at all without experiencing a bunch of pain. So lame. As a result, I lay there in bed for hours not sleeping. I think it was about 4 or 5 in the morning when sleep finally conquered. I slept until 10 or so. I still have the earache, too. I hope it doesn't get infected. If it does I'll be sad. And in more pain. Lame. But, I can't help but be an optimist and hope that all goes well. And when it does, I'll be happy. I've just got to get through all the other stuff to earn it, I guess.


Well, hope all is well with all y'alls. Have fun and everything, and I'll see you in three weeks. Get the starburst, doritos, and chocolate milk ready to be consumed, and the DMB, RHCP, and movies ready to be enjoyed. I need to keep myself busy when I get back, too. I need a job. If you know anyone, I'm quite hireable right now. I think I'll do some yard work in my spare time, too. This spring I want to plant a garden so that come fall I can make homemade Italian meals from home grown produce. There's something that's just so appealing about that to me. Well, that is all for now.

Ciao Ciao.
Jason

September 30, 2009

So, September is over. I've get the first three weeks and three days of October left, and I've been here two full years. Time is stupidly short today. We have to write our Weekly Reports to the Mission President via email now, so it pretty much just cuts into out time. Not too much to report on anyway this week. I've been sick. Saturday we didn't even leave the apartment. I haven't been able to sleep because of a stuffy nose and a cough. So lame. And I was keeping the others up, too, so eventually I just went into my study room to kill time so that the others could sleep.

Monday was a really good day, though. I was still a bit sick, but we had a full day planned, so out I went. We finally saw our crazy evangelist investigator again. He gave us a call saying that he was finally free to see us again, so we went to see him. Same old wine story. Otherwise I think he'd be baptized by now. Ah well. All the others are still off in some magical far off place where we can't contact them. But after that appointment we had district meeting, where I taught a pretty cool lesson n the holy ghost, and his attributes and stuff.

Then we saw Sorella Crupi, and Claudia came over! Yay! So we saw another investigator. Finally! After that we had a Family home evening with the Nostro family, together with the Ziino family, and then we had a planning session with the branch mission leader for a fireside that we're doing tonight (in half an hour) for the members on missionary work and preach my gospel. Good stuff. I haven't had a day THAT busy for a while. English course was a joke last night. The students never come on a regular basis, so they're never up to date, and I have to switch around the lessons for those who haven't been there for a while. But, one of the students was interested in the Book of Mormon after a spiritual thought that I gave, and I gave her a copy, and she was all happy. It was cool. Hopefully we can do a bit more with that. Then the dreaded student returned. This lady is 60something, and speaks with a voice lower than mine, and always speaks too slowly, and takes wayyyyyyyyy too much time to do/say anything. It's sooooooh hard to keep up the lesson with her in the class. Then there were two new students that felt like they were better than beginners, so they came to the advanced class. It was quite obvious that they couldn't keep up with the rest of the students. So, I suggested that they go to the beginning class, but they said "No, we can do it."

Sigh. One eventually left without saying anything, and went to the other class. The other just refused to talk in Italian, or English, and said that she would just listen. Grr. Well, other stuff happened this week, but I'm really short on time. If I get some free time tomorrow I ay give a fuller account of my actions, but for now I must go.
Much love to everyone.

Ciao ciao.
Jason

Letter from Jason September 22, 2009

Dear Mommy,

So, this email may be a little short, because I seem to have lost my planner, which holds the records of my daily doings. I didn't really lose it, I guess, I just left it at a member's house far far away on Wednesday, and I didn't get it back until Sunday, but then it got lost at the house, so I don't have much to look at to spark memories of this week. So, I'll just go with what I remember. ( Read more )

So I was going through some of the assignments from my writing classes, and I ran across this essay. Please note that this is not a polished piece, but just a first draft that was for an assignment.

Red Dress - Writing Exercise/Essay

Exercise S - “What If?”
Choose a fragment you have already written in your journal or remind yourself of an experience you described in Exercise D. Play “What If?” by changing the person the story happened to (imagine that you are someone else who had the same experience), the point of view from which the story is told (allow the teller to become a friend or parent or someone else involved), or the setting. Most importantly, play with reality. What would have happened if the experience were different?


My Fragment: Deciding who to marry – Kelly now, or wait and see what might happen after Rex got home from his mission.

Possible Scenario’s
What if I had married Rex instead of Kelly?
What if I would have waited to decide whether or not to marry Kelly until after Rex got back?
What if the story was told from Rex’s point of view?
What if the story was told from Kelly’s point of view?
What if my best friend Shari was telling the story?
What if the story is told using the red dress?


(So I ended up not even telling the story about who I decided who to marry, but instead writing about the symbolism of the red dress. . . interesting where the writing muse took me. It’s mostly a ramble of introspective free-writing.)


One Dress Three Men

Ever since I woke up this morning with the dream still in my head, I’ve been thinking about my maroon dress and how it spanned the time of Rex, until after Kelly.

There were two dresses – mine was deep maroon, and my mother’s was black. We found them on the clearance rack at Pamida, a huge discount store. One size fits all – the label proclaimed, and it was true – but while I occasionally wore the black dress, the red one claimed me.

Its jewel-tones accented the translucent whiteness of my skin, the contrast startling. The clingy folds outlined the lithesome body, firm breasts, softly rounded hips, the round neckline with its single decorative button echoed the curve of my face. The waistline, gently gathered emphasized my small waist and the skirt fell in classic lines just below the knee. I loved its silky softness, the way the fabric alternately flowed and clung, following my movements.

Wearing that dress, I felt every inch a woman – not a timid young girl. Looking in the mirror, drawn in by a wayward curl, archly perched in the middle of my forehead, I was startled to see a beautiful young woman gazing back at me, gray-blue eyes framed with dark lashes. Looking more carefully, I noted the cheekbones, somewhat somber lips, irregularly shaped nose, and the clear tone of fair skin.

Somehow, for a few moments in the looking glass, the ugly-duckling had become a swan. While the thought that I was beautiful didn’t remain with me, whenever I wore that dress confidence in myself, in my femininity flourished. It was Rex’s favorite dress. I wore it when he invited me to church, and again at his missionary farewell. I wore it for my senior pictures, complete with an errant curl in the middle of my forehead. It was the picture he chose to keep. I wore the same dress to a Christmas dance I went to with a fellow who wanted me to go to Alaska with him.

Kelly liked the dress too. It was his favorite. I wore it to the temple the day we were married. Pictures show Kelly smiling widely and me looking a little dazed, my hair mussed, and curls escaping, as I lean against him in my red dress.

Perhaps it wasn’t the dress at all – but the way I felt when I was wearing it, that was the attraction. The woman I became, the belief that I was beautiful shone forth. Before Kelly was laid to rest, I instinctively place in his hands, those still, motionless hands, a photo of me, his “cutestuff,” wearing the red dress.

Feelings – as I wrote about the red dress – warmth, sadness, deep stirring of memory, the realization that I truly loved both of those men. An awareness of my own nature - that I thought I was “ugly” as a young woman – was based on false self doubts. I remember looking through a photo album at my mother’s home. It had a dozen pictures of me, my Senior Pictures, the proofs, some in my red dress, some in a blue flannel shirt; a Christmas present from my father. My daughter was looking at it with me and said, “Oh, mother, you are so beautiful” – I looked more carefully and realized she was right. I wish I could have seen a bit of that then.

Dear Mommy,

So this week is gone. That means that I've only got 5 and a half more to go. That's one month, one week, and one day, and I'll be sitting at home. Crazy go nuts. In the meantime, I'm here, and I'm beginning my lasts. We have our planners that cover a period of 6 weeks. I finished one, so as per usual I grabbed a new one, and as I was filling in the dates it suddenly struck me that this was the last one. My mind pretty much exploded like a firework at that point. I'm on my last companion, and pretty soon I'll have my last zone conference (where they ALWAYS have the dying missionaries get up in front of everybody and bear their testimony, like an exhibition of some old famous animal that everybody knows and loves, and knows is going to die soon, so they go to see it one last time...) soon, and shortly my last everything. I usually try not to think about such things, for they are not exactly comforting. Even thoughts like "that's the last door slammed in my face" have grown to be endearing. I must be crazy. Odd still, though, that days can take decades to finish, yet weeks will pass after I blink three or four times. It hardly seems fair. In the mean time, carry on, carry forth, carry a tune, Carey Grant, I'll even Harry Carrey if you show me how (but I will not carry a gun). ( Read more )

Dear Mommy,
Another adventure packed week gone by, and I've only got 6 of them left. This is me officially wigging out. It's pretty nutzoid to think about it. So, stuff that I've been up to this week. Let's see. We started our English course. the first lesson only had two students present, and that was a bit depressing, not to mention embarrassing, but we planned to have a conversation class. Then yesterday happened, and we had like 12 students. A good mix of familiar faces and newbies. That was happy. We saw a less active member (well, she comes to church, but she's having a hard time right now, what with being a single mother of two little kids, and finding her own spirituality.) from Columbia...i think...somewhere in central to south America. She's really cool, and her little girls are abnormally cute. We usually teach her neighbor (the twelve year old that wants to be baptized but her mom won't let her) while we're over there, and I think we've been missing out on helping this member. So, we planned out a lesson on "personal revelation" from True to the Faith which seemed rather fitting for her needs and we taught it to both of them. She had kind of an AHA! moment during the lesson, and was like "I never understood that part before..." and was all happy afterward. Those are the good moments. ( Read more )

Dear Mommy,
One more adventurous week in my life. I've been all over. Seriously. In the last week I've covered about 80% of the Italy Catania mission. Last week we were in Palermo, which is on the Western part of Sicily. Then, we had another adventure, but I'll keep this in sequence so I don't get all confused. So, after getting back from Palermo, we had an appointment with the elders quorum president and his family. He's the kind of person that just makes me sigh on the inside. He goes around telling his neighbors that their religion is wrong, and that he can show them how, and that they have to speak with him about it. He's got a good heart and good intentions, but he's honestly doing much more damage than good. People like that of ANY religion bother me. ( Read more )

Letter from Jason – August 27, 2009 edited
Dear Mommy,
So, this week has been quite the adventure, as per usual. And they're only going to get better. So, we've been busy meeting with members, and less active members, and the occasional investigator (who are becoming more and more rare) and had some fun along the way. In important news, I've declared war on pigeons, and in that field, I found an old cd on the street, and it was successfully chucked at a nearby pigeon. I felt a bit better. In other news, this city stinks. At least by our house it does. I think the garbage men are on strike or something, because lately our entire neighborhood smells like a giant dumpster. Upon seeing a dirty part of town one evening, I made a comment to my companion about how dirty this staircase was. The next day, there was a new story about Messina being covered in trash, and they showed that same staircase where we were the day before. Yeah. Ironic, because funny just isn't the right word for it. ( Read more )