Bonjour tout le monde! It was a pretty packed week here! So I forgot to mention last week that our ward got split and then half became a new ward, combined with half the members from a neighboring ward. So, what that means for soeur Monson and me is that we are now working with 2 wards! It's super fun and we sure have plenty to do. It also means 6 hours of church...luckily both wards meet in our same building, one right after another. It was a really cool sabbath yesterday getting to feast on the spirit twice in a row! It's also fun because we have a lot of new members in the newly formed ward. So it's like being transferred while staying in your area. Pretty cool! Our elders in Annemasse also unexpectedly had to get emergency transferred yesterday, so we're taking the reigns solo over here. We've got our hands full and I love it! Being busy is such a fulfilling feeling. Having to split wards is such a great problem to have--because that means that the saints are just thriving here! Who thought France wasn't growing? Au contraire. Something I want to really just exclaim is my extreme gratitude for my home country. I love France, but as I've been away from America, I've come to appreciate the land of the free and the home of the brave like never before. I am so grateful for the heroes who fought with God on their side to make our country free. I'm also grateful for a Heavenly Father who has given us agency so we can be free from the captivity of the devil. I read Elder Hale's past conference talk this week called "Preserving Agency, Protecting Religious Freedom." I invite you all to read it before the 4th of July this weekend. I'd like to shed some light on it. So, we are promised by God that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." You can think of liberty in whatever sense you'd like--but I'd like to look at it from the perspective of being free agents. As I've said many times before, one of the biggest lessons I've learned on my mission is the power of free agency. We can choose to be like Christ or not. Think about this for a second--the difference between Christ's plan and satan's was that satan didn't want us to have free agency, or the ability to choose for ourselves. So, what is satan going to attack? Our choices. He wants to do anything he can to make us abuse our ability to choose. Now go back to the statement "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Ok, so looking at that from the flip side, where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is captivity. So, satan is going to try to make us lose our liberty by making our lives emptied of God's Spirit. How can he do that? Millions of ways. But one that I'd like to focus on, that Elder Hale's does as well, is the spirit of contention. Elder Hale's says, "As disciples of Jesus Christ, we have a responsibility to work together with like-minded believers, to raise our voices for what is right. We are all invited, in our capacity as citizens, to share our personal witness with love--'every man and woman according to his or her own mind.'" My dear family and friends, every human mind on this earth thinks differently in some degree, because we all have lived different experiences. But what we all can unite on, is the plain and infinite truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. While we all may have differing opinions and points of view, one thing that is not different or changing is the laws of God. His law is to love everyone. This is one of the reasons why missionary work is so important, so we can bring more people into the unity of faith, and therefore have less room for contention. The catch is that everyone is not of the same faith, and therefore we have to share our faith with love, gentleness, and meekness. Did you ever read in the scriptures about Christ proclaiming His beliefs by arguing, by heated debates, by rash Facebook posts, or by insulting those who didn't share His same beliefs? I've never read anything like that...and if I am His disciple (which we all are), I sure would like to go about sharing my beliefs in the manner that He did. He stated His beliefs calmly and with love. He claimed what He knew to be true with peace, but never let others shake His stance, because He could not deny what His Father had confirmed to Him to be true. At times He simply had to hold His tongue, when He knew that no matter what He said, His opposers just wanted to argue. He still loved and atoned for every single one of us, even those that completely disagreed with Him. I am convinced that Christ was able to lead a perfect life because He used His agency to never give into contention. Therefore He was entitled to always have the Spirit of God with Him. Please don't forfeit this precious gift of the Holy Ghost that we so desperately need to make the right choices by giving into one of satan's most easy of traps--contention. I'd like to leave you with some advice from several apostles and then Christ Himself. "Live your life to be a good example of what you believe--in word and deed. How we live our religion is far more important than what we may say about our religion." "Disagree, but don't be disagreeable." "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Spread His love! Have a wonderful 4th of July! 🇺🇸 Love always, Soeur Shields
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