I think the mission has finally hit me. I feel the weight of my calling and I realize there is more to a mission than just teaching people.

A mission is about serving, loving, leading, and guiding. As a missionary, you are a special kind of friend to those who are down trodden and compelled to be humble. You buoy them up with your testimony and knowledge of the gospel. You can't get too close, however, or bad things can happen.

Becoming a missionary is a process. It's not something that happens as soon as you enter the MTC or even as soon as you leave it. You become a missionary as you do missionary things. You study. You ponder. You testify. You seek. You ask. You teach. No where in the job description do you worry or doubt. But, we are human. Most of us have not yet fully put off the natural man. The natural man, combined with the increased shouts of Satan, sometimes cause doubt and fear. We are not perfect, and sometimes we believe the lies of the adversary. But that is all they are, lies.

Did Dad ever get discouraged? How do you deal with it? At home, I would just turn away and say, "Forget this. It's not worth my time." But this is not my time. This is the Lord's time. How do I develop that ever elusive virtue of long-suffering?

Now I just sound ungrateful. This is a great area I'm working in. We almost always have tons of work to do and places to be. We are working on trying to get a major service project going here that both the church and the community can participate in. We just don't know where to go or what to do. The Lord will guide us.

Sister Coleman keeps asking me if I've noticed a family here that reminds me of mine. The truth is, I haven't. There definitely is a different culture here that I haven't quite pinned down and adopted in my own actions. Maybe that's why contacting people on the street is so difficult for me. I feel like I'm speaking like a total idiot or a completely different language. The humor here is different. I'm not sure how to take a lot of things people say...Oh well. I'll figure it out.

Sorry to send such a depressing letter. I really am enjoying what I'm doing here. I just had my first hard week I guess. I survived it though! This is a new week. New experiences and new outlook on the whole experience. Yay!

Something I learned in Conference was the importance of family. I love our family. I got letters from both Suzannah and Stephanie this week! Double yay! It is so important that we have a family who loves and supports us. It's so important that our family KNOWS that we love and support them. We need that security and love to do anything in life. If we don't know that we have a safe-haven waiting for us, we won't have the courage to step out of that safe-haven. I think that is why it is so hard to break out of our comfort zones. We don't know what will happen when we do. What if our comfort zone is gone when we leave it? Heavenly Father should be our comfort zone. He will never leave us. He wants the best for us. He wants us to stretch and grow. Sometimes growing requires pain. That's why we were taught about pain by a surgeon. (Was he a surgeon or just a physician? Either way, he's a doctor.) I loved that talk. I want to apply to someone's life so I can watch it with them. :D

I know our Savior lives. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in these days by a prophet, Joseph Smith. These are the latter-days prophesied of by prophets of old. God speaks today as He did thousands of years ago. We can know this truth for ourselves. We don't need to bank on anyone else's testimony to do that. All we need to do is ask.


Love,

Sister Shavonne Fielding