Sept 12, 2016

Hello all! Another fabulous week in the wonderful ville of Rennes!

This week was consecration week for the entire mission. We were asked to set apart finding days in every one of our villes, dedicated to contacting and finding people to teach. We got to have all the missionaries in our district together for our finding day in Rennes on Thursday, in Vannes on Friday, and in St. Brieuc on Saturday. It was such a bizarre experience to go do contacting in other villes! The other two cities in our district are a lot smaller than Rennes, so there are less people out on the streets and less good places to go contacting. It just makes me so grateful to be here in Rennes! It's a bigger city, but not massive like Paris. You could probably get across the city in about an hour by bus or car, but there are plenty of good places to go contacting and the people are generally more open-minded and really nice!

Because of all the finding days this week, we didn't really get to see our amis, so there's nothing new to report there. Being the new équipe in the area, we still don't have very many solid amis, so it was good to be able to go contacting with all the other missionaries as well instead of just by ourselves :) This entire week has been such a miracle for me. My confidence and ability to do contacting has increased so much! A huge part of that has definitely been because of my trust in my companion and in the Lord, that they are there to help me succeed. When we ask the Lord for help in overcoming our weaknesses, we can overcome them- but only if we do our part!

So, our part- this is where our district leader comes in! In order to help us to really dedicate our week to the work, he asked us to do two things. 

1) Pray every hour, on the hour, to have the Spirit guide us in our finding efforts and also to specifically pray for one companionship every day. That was such an amazing experience. On Tuesday, Sœur Liard and I had all the missionaries in our district praying for our success, and we definitely saw a difference. We had so much courage, so much confidence, and we met so many cool people! We were walking around contacting in the hot sun for hours, and we didn't get tired. We just had so much energy all day- the power of prayer! 

2) Choose 7 things that are preventing us from giving our all to missionary work, and commit to  stop doing those things for the rest of the week. This was such a hard thing for me, but it was definitely inspired! The things I chose to stop doing were things that I have known for a while were not necessarily bad things, but they were habits that were not helping me to progress or to give my all to the work. Some of them were things in the apartment, some were things during contacting, but all were things I needed to take that opportunity to improve. We assigned letters to each thing, and then reported the letters of the things we weren't able to that week to our companion, to our district leader, and to the Lord in our personal prayers. The accountability aspect was such a blessing for me. Every time I wanted to do one of those things that was holding me back, I thought about how I would feel that night having to report that letter, and it was enough for me to make the difficult but the right choice. This principle applied to my seven things, but it can also help us to keep the commandments in difficult moments. When we make decisions ahead of time, it becomes so much easier to choose the right in the moment, because we already know what the right choice is!

Not much else to report for this week! We saw some great success during our contacting days! Normally we have only about 10 lessons in a week, but this week we had 24! PUISSANT! But sad news- it's the end of the transfer, and Sœur Liard is moving to Tours! My new companion will be Sœur Tasso. I've never really met her before, but I'm hearing only good things about my future stepmother, so I'm super sad and super excited at the same time. Ugh, transfers are hard! So now we all get to change sœur books and write sappy adorable message to each other (and captions for all the random pictures we took).

Okay, tout la monde! C'est ça pour cette semaine! Je vous aime tous et j'adore recevoir les emails! Dont hesitate to write, even if you don't have a lot to say (although of course I adore long emails, I really just want to know what's going on with you guys!) Bisous à tous!

Sœur Rogers

I put a Book of Mormon in one of the mini libraries

Vannes

Sept 5 2016

Hello everyone! I have now passed my one month mark in France! It's crazy to try to think about time here, so I just try to take things a little bit at a time! Yes, I always have moments of difficulty and frustration, but I'm still impressed by how quickly the language is coming and how much I'm able to understand. Its also amazing to me how much I can really express when I have the Spirit with me! In moments of teaching and testifying I am truly the best with the language because the Holy Ghost is there helping me to express the feelings of my heart. The gift of tongues is real, guys! I don't have a ton of time to write this week, so I'll just share a couple thoughts and miracles from this week!

We had zone conference this week! All the missionaries from Bretagne (about 40 in total) met together on Tuesday to have some training and to share some spiritual thoughts. I was able to understand just about everything, which was awesome! The things I took away from zone conference were mostly about improving the relationship you have with your companion. By practicing humility, communicating well together, and helping each other feel the Spirit, you can be not just companions, but friends! A good relationship means that you have confidence in each other, and can turn to each other in hard times. One of the things that really struck me was that when you pray together with your companion, you are at that time united in purpose and in your faith. When you pray, you invite God to be a part of your companionship! Isn't that such a marvelous blessing to have?

My companion and I definitely had to have a lot of unity and confidence in each other with all the contacting we did this week! We live and breathe contacting here in Rennes. I'm slowly getting better and more confident at doing it, and I definitely saw a lot of progress in myself this week! We had a really rough day of contacting on Wednesday. We had 3 hours to do contacting, were in a bad mood all afternoon, and didn't teach a single lesson. After that day, we made some new goals and applied ourselves even more, and it got better every day since then! We had more confidence in ourselves and in each other, we were more determined, and we were happier the entire time we were contacting. We even contacted for 6 full hours on Saturday, in the heat, and were in a good humour and spirit the entire time!

That change was definitely a small miracle for me. Contacting has been the biggest struggle for me since the beginning of my mission here in France. I have really been trying to apply the principle found in Ether 12:27 "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I know that God gives us weaknesses and challenges in this life for a reason. We need to struggle and fail sometimes if we want to learn and grow. I have definitely seen that as we give our weaknesses to the Lord and ask for help, and then do our part to push the limits, we have have divine help in overcoming that obstacle. The Atonement isn't just for our sins. The purpose is to help us to become more like God, and that includes helping us overcome our weaknesses. I know that it's real, it works, and it's there for everyone!

Okay, quick update on our amis! We got to see Soroya at church last week! She seemed so happy to be there, super engaged and interested, and asked so many questions the entire time about church organization, missionary work, etc. The thing that really stood out to me was how prepared she was to learn. She had brought her Book of Mormon with all the pamphlets and papers we had given her, and had added another piece of paper so she could take notes during the meetings! She wrote several things down during amis class and also during Relief Society. I was so impressed! We also had the elders give her a blessing of comfort for the beginning of the school year and for her move to Angers. She definitely felt the Spirit, and was smiling a lot afterwards. Soroya is so prepared and willing to learn all the time, and has progressed so much. She told us during our last rendez-vous with her that she has seen a difference in her life since she began praying and reading the scriptures all the time. It's the smallest things that really are the most important!

I also wanted to tell you about our ami Alice. Meeting her was a bit of a miracle in itself. Our STL's (sister training leaders) had challenged us to talk to someone every time we took the bus to go somewhere. We decided to take it as an opportunity to improve our bus contacting, and started riding the bus with no particular destination in mind, which is how we met Alice! She was a little suspicious of us at first because she thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses (Témoin Jehovah or TJ in French), and she had been taught by them before. Apparently it did not go over well with her. We talked with her on the bus for a while, and then right before it was her stop she invited us to come over to her apartment to drink some water and pray with her! We didn't have a ton of time, so we scheduled a time to come back this week and have a lesson with her.

We came into the lesson with the intention of just doing a little bit of how to begin teaching  (missionary lingo for introducing ourselves, our purpose as missionaries, and the importance of our message) and presenting the Book of Mormon. We were a little nervous for that last part- Alice is a rambler, and every time she talked, she would tell us about how the TJ's tried to give her their version of the Bible. She would always say something along the lines of "if it's in the Bible, it's true because the Bible is the word of God, and if it's not in the Bible it's not true, and don't try to tell me that it is!" So naturally when we presented the Book of Mormon we were super nervous how she would take it! We presented it very carefully, very clearly, and when we finished she held it in her hands for a little while, looking at it. She then looked directly at us and said, "This book is the word of God? Well, I don't have to believe you. But if you say it's the word of God, then I'm going to read it and see!" It was so much easier than we expected, and we were able to tell her that if she reads the Book of Mormon and prays about it, she can know for herself that it's true. Such a cool experience!

Well, I think that's about it for this week! I guess the letter wasn't as short as I thought it would be ;) pas grave. Thanks to all you guys for your support and love! I'm having a fantastic time in France- it's really hard, but it's worth it. À bientôt!

Sœur Rogers

Helping the Elders make Lasagna for Zone Conference