MARCH 27th

We went to the temple today! It was amazing! What a wonderful experience to be able to be in the House of the Lord and know that I am worthy to be there.

Lately I've been having many doubting thoughts concerning worthiness. I haven't done anything wrong, persay, just I don't feel like I've been living up to my potential as a daughter, sister, friend, missionary, neice, granddaughter, student, employee...what else am I? Oh, Shavonne. I feel like I have been really cheating myself by letting fear of failure get in the way of success. I allow myself to get really lazy because then I can't mess anything up. Well, it's really hard to be a lazy missionary so I haven't been doing that. But I do feel like there is tons more I can do. Starting with expanding my knowledge of my family roots. Would you mind sending me some cool stories of some of my ancestors? I know you are super busy right now with Conference but maybe when you get back home and settled. We are being encouraged to use family history as a tool for finding in missionary work. Think about it! The Spirit of Elijah is touching millions of people's hearts. That same spirit directs them to desire the message of the restored gospel! They find their family members. They get baptized. It's a win win situation! But if I'm going to start talking about my family, I gotta know more about them. Like the grave robber man who had a crazy French name...or Charles Wilkinson. I don't remember the stories too well anymore. I wish I did.

In other news, KRISTIAN WAS BAPTIZED LAST SATURDAY!!!!! It was the most spiritual baptism I have attended in quite a long time. He was so well prepared. He invited his family and friend to come, which they did. They loved the service so much! I had forgotten how wonderful it feels when an investigator makes that decision to be baptized. I felt like I could just sing my heart out! (I did. I was the chorister. :D) His decision has also motivated me to be a much better missionary and friend. How wonderful will it be to have all our dear friends learn and accept this glad message? I know that not all of them will...and I can accept that they have their agency. I will just be really really REALLY sad that they didn't choose the right.

Sister Shaver is amazing. Have I told you that? She's so fun to train. She reminds me a lot of how I was when I first started. Quiet, absorbing, but ready to do whatever my trainer told me to do. She is growing so much! She went on splits last week and invited a couple less-active members to set spiritual goals then to meet with us to help them achieve them. I congratulated her on following the spirit so well since we hadn't discussed that at all. She just shrugged then said, " I just did what I thought you would do." Wow! What a compliment! Sometimes I get so stuck on how much people have to notice the bad influences I put out sometimes but I don't notice that they also notice the good. In fact, they often notice our good before the bad can make itself manifest. So why not be confident? Why not pick ourselves up when we are down? And when we are too far gone for us to do anything, why not take our Savior's out reached hand and hang on for dear life? That's part of His role isn't it? I have grown so much from just watching her watch me! I love it!

 I am really looking forward to this General Conference. As everyone is reminding me, this will be my last one as a missionary. For some reason, that makes this one feel more special...except maybe the first one. I will be writing furiously and taking all kinds of notes on impressions I receive. This will be Kristian and Kimberly's first conference so I hope it will be a good experience for them. :) Mom, I am so happy I chose to serve a mission. There is no where else I would rather be at this moment. I love these people. I love this work. There is something really special about being an instrument in the hands of the Lord because you can't help but feel His love for these people as well. What a treasure! I hope I can feel this love all the time. I'm addicted to it!

Funny story, we've decided that I am no longer allowed to play sports. Last week, we played wiffle ball. I haven't really played since my shoulder incident so I thought I'd take a whack at it. (haha get it? Whack. Wiffle ball. Hahahaha) We played for a couple hours and I had a blast! I miss being active. I think I'm going to do intermural sports when I get back to BYU. Anywho, by the time Tuesday came around, I was sooooooo sore, I could barely walk. Every movement was torturous! I knew then that I should have taken it easy. Hindsight is always 20-20. But I was sure that it would wear off and by Wednesday I would be fine. Well, I woke up on Wednesday and I STILL hurt! What in the world? I hurt just as bad as I did on Tuesday. By the end of the day, I called Sister Bubert to ask if this was normal or if I had just broken me again. She just laughed and told me to take a nice hot bath and maybe a couple Advil to relieve the pain. I'm fine now but I have never been so sore in my life! Well then yesterday we were encouraging our investigator to participate in the ward FHE by playing human foosball with them. Well I am so graceful that I torqued my leg, fell on my rump, AAAAND managed to make the ball to the goalie all at the same time. Oh boy. I'm just a walking disaster. I thought you'd enjoy my clumsiness. Laugh away. That's it. Keep laughing. Or should I be saying this to Dad? I'm sure he's just rolling on the floor right now imagining his kind of out of control daughter running amuck on the cultural hall floor.

Well...those are my stories for the week.

Tell me how Conference goes. I'll look for you on the TV. I love you!!!


Love,

Sister Shavonne Fielding