Salut everyone! I have so much I want to tell you all! First of all it's weird to me how I can't remember how to type on an American keyboard anymore... I tried switching to that at first today since we're at a different internet café, and I quickly realized that I've completely adopted the French board now! Haha So...I hope you don't think that just since Conference is over that I'm done talking about it. Quite the contrary! I want to pose a question to you all: What have you decided to change about yourself after General Conference? If you can't think of anything, then you need to go back and watch/listen to it. Because that's the whole point of them speaking to us, so we can change and improve! So, what I've done is write out all my questions that I had before Conference. If you didnt do that before Conference, write out some questions you have now, and it will still work. Then go read through all the notes you took for each question. For example, one of my questions was how can I be a better teacher? So, I read through all of my notes, and took new notes on how I can be a better teacher, based off of my conference notes. I would write how I can actually apply it in my life, what I need to change, and what I need to improve. Be specific! I had 6 questions, so this means I read through my Conference notes 6 times. And every single time I gleaned something new out of it! If you didn't take notes, go read the talks. But I find taking notes and writing down spiritual impressions you have, not just what the speaker says, is more effective. Also, you will notice that you will probably write down a lot of the impressions more than once. Then you'll know that the Lord is really trying to tell you something, if you keep getting the same revelation through many different speakers. I know I did, and I know for sure now what the Lord needed me to get out of Conference, and I'm now working on making those improvements. So, let me tell you about our awesome week. Remember how I said that now since we've had a car we've been going to outer-villes, to places that have never seen missionaries before? Well, we've had some cool miracles out there. My comp and I were on the way to a member's house, and long story short, we got totally lost since our GPS stopped working. So, we decide to head back the way we came, and we pass this tiny little village. We decided to stop there. So, we do and we're going around for a while knocking on every door, seeing no succes. Then this lady comes walking down the street, literally the only person out. So we go talk to her. God prepares His children to hear the gospel, people! It's true! My comp and I had just role played that morning in comp study teaching the Restoration in under 2 minutes. So, we decided to try doing that on her. Well, I got to my part where I was going to tell her how after the death of Jesus Christ and His apostles, there was an apostasy on the earth. As I opened my mouth and said "after Jesus Christ's death..." (fully planning on saying the apostasy followed) the words "He was resurrected" came out instead. My comp and I both kind of looked at each other like "did I really just say that?" We never talk to people about resurrection on a street contact. But, the Spirit took over, and it came out. This lady's face lit up and she said "that's so wonderful! and you know what? I feel like if Jesus was resurrected, we should all be able to be as well." Boom. So prepared! So of course we testified to her that that's EXACTLY the case. She loved it, and we got her number and are going to fix a RDV with her soon. Listen to and follow the Spirit! God knows His children and what they need to hear! Another amazing thing. This week we had zone training in Geneva. Half way through, our zone leader said, "we would like to have all of the elders in the room to exercise their priesthood and go give each one of the sisters a blessing, and afterwards, give each other a blessing." We were all like what?! A little different for a zone training. So, we did it though. An elder, this meek little fella who has only been out for 3 weeks came to me. He then proceeded to give me one of the most touching blessings I've ever received. I've been struggling with a certain challenge in particular lately, and he said EXACTLY what I needed to hear. And when I say "he" said, I mean the Lord. This elder was just His mouthpiece. And my testimony of that, and the reality of the priesthood power was strengthened so much after that. It's incredible how perfectly the Lord knows us, how He answers prayers, and how when we're worthy and receptive, we can be His mouthpieces. He said words that were almost verbatim from my patriarchal blessing. It brought me so much comfort. When I opened my eyes, I saw elders all over the room blessing everyone. It was a beautiful sight. It made me think that's what it must have looked like when Christ and His angels were ministering amongst the Nephites when He came to them. The Spirit in the room afterwards was extremely powerful. So we had some great lessons with our amis this week. Our French amis and Albanian amis are progressing slowly but surely. Our African amis...one didn't show up to their appointment this week, and one was out of town all week. BUT. We had a miracle with them. We've been praying and praying to get into contact with the one who didn't show up. So, we were going on a train to Aix this week, and we ended up missing our train by 2 minutes. When we caught the next train, we were a bit frustrated, until we got off the train in Aix, and lo and behold, there is our amis right there on the platform. Had we not missed our train we wouldn't have seen him! Our conversation with him went something like this: "sisters! hello! i'm sorry i haven't seen you, but I found my brother and been taking him around Chambery all week. Oh, and I've been reading your Bible (BOM) and I made a whole list of questions I have, but I know it's true. And I want to bring my brother to be taught by you too. And when is the baptism?" Our jaws kind of dropped....so we were like "well, the baptism was actually today, but we wanted to talk to you about fixing a new date." He was super excited to do this. So, yesterday, him, his brother, and our amis who had been out of town, ALL showed up at church yesterday! My heart was just overwhelmed with joy! We are going to continue teaching them this week. But as if that wasn't enough of a miracle last week, after church this new African guy walks into the building and asks us "is church over?" And we told him it just finished. He said he just moved here and lives in an apartment behind the church, saw it, and is searching for somewhere to pray. We were like...HERE! You can pray here!! So we got his number and everything, and we will be teaching him this week as well! So awesome. France is such an interesting place. The aftermath of the apostasy is SO evident here, as literally every prophecy that you read about with the apostasy is still going on over here. So many people who could care less about God, don't think He exists, warp the ideas of Him, make up their own doctrine, condemn all who do believe in Him, worship false idols, turn their backs on Him because they think He's wronged them, putting everything else in the world before Him, etc. You name it, it's here. But, it is INCREDIBLE when you do find those few select people who are ready. We compared France to having a giant stone dome over it. The people here are tough to crack, after years and years of hardened hearts. But, each missionary is like a little chisel. And slowly but surely, we will make enough little cracks in this stone dome that it'll become so weak, that it will fall. Then France is going to be the next Brazil! Haha. But let me tell ya, the people who are members here, who DO accept God, are your strongest, most faithful members I've ever seen in my life. My love and respect for these people is out the roof. I love this wonderful place and these amazing people, and the opportunity to teach them about the person who loves them the most. This is truly the greatest thing I've ever done. I love you all! Thank you for your messages, I wish I had time to respond. I read every word and I'm so grateful for your support! Love always, Soeur Shields
|
map
Archives
November 2015
|