Bonjour! Happy December! 25 Days till Christmas! Wow, a 4 week transfer really is weird. Starting the last week of it now! Next Monday I could be emailing you from somewhere totally new! But at the rate I'm going, probably not. I might just serve my whole mission in Chambéry. Haha. I'd be totally fine with that though. I sure love this place! So, this week had some up's and down's. We got to teach one of our golden amis, Nathan, for the last time. He's moving to northern France tomorrow. And our other golden amis Stephanie is moving Wednesday. It's super bittersweet that we're losing our two amis with the most potential, but I know they will continue their pursuits to follow Jesus Christ wherever they go. That's what's most important. I'm glad that the Lord is giving me the opportunity to learn how to be humble and accept His will and timing, and to let go of my own personal desires and submit myself to His desires instead. We have been working really closely with an inactive couple, and we had a cool experience with them this week. They told us we wouldn't be able to come over this week...but, we went anyways. We knocked on their door and she was so overjoyed to see us. She sat us down and started pulling out the little things she could find to feed us (as usual here) and we started to just chat. Then their home-teacher, one of our super strong members, knocks on the door for a surprise visit as well. It was no coincidence we all showed up at the same time! Basically, we had a really big heart-to-heart with them and got it out of them why they haven't been coming to church. Their reason was really sad. It was because people at church had offended them, and they didn't agree with some of the leaders. So, we told them how Jesus Christ and His church are perfect, but its members are not. If you really understand what it is that Christ did for us, then you would want to follow Him with everything in you, and it wouldn't matter what others say or do. One of those ways in following Him comes through following the commandment of keeping the sabbath day holy and going to church and renewing those covenants we've made. They finally agreed with us, and by the end said they'd come to church. Please keep them in your prayers that they will! We also had District Meeting in Genève this past week, on Thanksgiving day. That was fun because we made a big lunch all together afterwards. It wasn't American-style, but it was so good! Raclette potatoes instead of mashed potatoes, baguette instead of rolls, and crépes instead of pie. I loved it! We found out something cool there as well about a Brazilian man Soeur Cherry and I had contacted over a month ago. He lives in Anncey (a neighboring ville to us, in our district) and after we had talked to him and got his number and everything, we gave his referral info to the Annecy missionaries. They told us that they've been teaching him and his family for a couple weeks now! They're really prepared...grew up next to the Sao Paulo temple apparently. It was just really cool to take part in that little miracle! And we got a little taste of what it's like for those South American missionaries ;) It's so much fun to work as one big team! We also had a really great lesson with the Hisenis this week. Adifete is just the cutest. Every time we go over there she takes my coat and finds the buttons that aren't sewn on tight enough and fixes them. She calls herself my "Albanian maman". Literally melts my heart! We got to watch the church's new video "He is the Gift" with them and they loved it! That video is INCREDIBLE! Please tell me you've watched it and SHARED it on your social media accounts! Use this opportunity that the Lord is giving us to hasten His work! Well, that's about all for this week. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a lot of fun teaching people about it here, and then talking about what we're grateful for. I spent a couple of my studies this week writing a list of everything I'm grateful for...and it was pages and pages long. It is quite incredible how many blessings we have when we stop to think about it. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the gospel of Jesus Christ every day and to tell people the good news...that they can change and become better! They can get rid of feelings of guilt and saddness. This is a gift free to all of us. Please use it! Love Always, Sœur Shields
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