4-24-17

Hello everyone!! Wow, what a crazy busy week!!! So many adventures and so many blessings, I don't even know where to begin!

First off, thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes!! I had a super fun birthday-- it's so weird to be 20! We hung out with the Mortz family (the patriarch and his wife, not their son the bishop or one of their daughters the Halm and Mortier families... we made a family tree it's okay) for lunch and then we hurried over to see our ami Edmond for a super awesome lesson. We talked together to resolve some of his concerns about joining the church and encouraged him to keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know that it's true. We also planned enough time to go out to eat in a fancy French restaurant, but after walking around centreville for a long time and not finding anything we wanted to eat (and also starting to get nervous about having enough time to get home) we decided to forego the fancy restaurant for another night and got birthday kebab (French/Arab fast food). We had a fun time running around town and enjoying the weather anyway ;)

Wednesday was a super crazy day!! We finally got our train tickets to go into Paris that evening, and were able to squeeze in district meeting and 2 rdvs before our train. We had a super awesome lesson with our ami Lina, who, thanks to her extra prayers and scripture reading since meeting with us, was able to get a really good internship in Paris!! We are so sad to be losing her but we are so happy for her and her new opportunities in Paris. We are also thrilled because it means she gets to go see the temple!! Woohoo!! 

We also saw a less active member named Millicent. She had a LOT to say, so it got really crazy at the end when we kept looking at our watches and trying to interrupt her but she just KEPT GOING! Finally Soeur Kitchen stood up, waved her arms around, and said, "MILLICENT! We have to go! We have to catch our train! We'll see you next week!" We practically sprinted out of there, but we made it to our train on time!! We got to pass through Dijon (which is not in our mission but it's not our fault!) and waited an hour outside the STLs apartment for them to get back from their rendez-vous. But it was all worth it because the next day...

WE GOT TO SEE THE TEMPLE!! Oh wow it was so incredible. Honestly there are not words for how beautiful it is and how strong the Spirit is in that holy place. One of my favorite parts (aside from the actual temple of course) was being able to see so many of my old companions and mission friends as they all came into the gardens one at a time. Honestly it was like the celestial kingdom, being able to see so many people that I love and miss so much, all coming in one at a time and being able to see them in person and give them a hug (well the sisters at least). I was so impressed by the amount of care they put into making the temple open house something that was open and understandable for everyone. All of the artwork and details in the temple, all of the exhibits in the visitors center, really show that we are disciples of Christ, and that the temple is a holy place where families can be sealed together forever. I loved seeing the temple, and I'm so excited for the consecration! There's only a month left my friends!!

Friday and Saturday we were back to regular missionary work. We got to help the Sautron family with service at their house again-- being the hands for the mother of a newborn while her baby was nursing and then moving dirt around in their backyard. It was satisfying work, and we had an awesome barbeque afterwards. We got to see several of our amis on Saturday that we haven't been able to see for a while--- Mireille, Marie Monnin, and Calista (with a member family)! They are all doing well although, they're all encountering some difficulties. Mireille is having health problems and Calista's parents are less than comfortable with the church. Marie has also been having some problems with her health recently and we don't know if she'll have to go to the hospital. But she is still on track for her baptism, and she is totally ready spiritually! We watched a general conference talk with her on Saturday, "Stand Up Inside and Be All In," and she loved it! (That catchy title is a lot longer in French-- "Se tenir debout intérieurement et être pleinement engagé") Prayers for our amis are much appreciated, they are definitely in need of heaven's help!

Sunday was crazy and long, but so worthwhile. Soeur Kitchen accidentally forgot her agenda at the apartment (mine was missing some essential rdvs) so we speedwalked/jogged back home to get it. We were then at the church from about 9:05 until about 5:30, with all 3 hours of church, a ward repas, DMP meeting, and a Skype rdv with our ami Elish and a Portuguese-speaking elder from the other side of the mission all squeezed in. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was so worth it!

This next week is going to be super crazy!! I'm so excited to see all of our amis progress and receive the answers they are seeking. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and your support. Love you all, and have a great week!

Bisous, 

Soeur Rogers!! 

PS Photos part 1!

1. Jesus loves you... yes you

2. Birthday photo! I was a little sad because I had to wear tights on my birthday (it got colder) but it was okay because we found cute butterfly trucs in Illzach

3. Birthday kebab!

4. Look at the flowers the members gave us! Most of the flowers are from Soeur Pitsch for both of us but the rose is a birthday rose from Sr Mortz

5. Us and Lina!! Wish her luck in Paris!

6. When you go to Dijon... whoops

7. The French countryside, from the train

More photos!

1. Actual proof that I went to Paris

2. District at the temple!

3. Rennes apartment pic-- at the temple!!

4. Zone at the temple!

5. The super-cool model of the temple in the visitor's center. This side is the side with the celestial room

6. More temple

7. Plaque pic with the temple! I love this one

8. Seeing old friends at the temple is so much fun!

4-17-17

Hello one and all! Did you have a good Easter? For those of you who don't celebrate Easter, did you have a good long weekend? We had a great time celebrating Easter in lovely Alsace! The Alsaciens have a tradition where they decide that they need more vacation, so Friday, Sunday, and Monday are all holidays- meaning a 4-day weekend where the buses don't run, the trams run rarely, and there's nobody on the streets to be found. Oh yeah, and the beautiful spring weather we've been having for the last couple weeks decided to turn into rainy spring weather. We are not discouraged! We had a great week and weekend anyway :)

Tuesday morning we were facing a day chock-full of nothing. I was in the shower when we got a phone call from the elders- would we like to come do service for one of the coolest member families in Mulhouse? Heck yeah! We love doing service! We exchanged our missionary clothes for jeans and headed out to beautiful Cernay to move some dirt around :) We finished with a barbecue and a great feeling of satisfaction. And, in the spirit of service, we also got to help some members with their spring cleaning- cleaning out their basement full of old clothes and trash and making space to move things in from their garage. 

We also had a chance this week to get to know some of the members that I haven't been able to meet yet. We visited the Dandoneau family and the Zorita family to share lunch and a spiritual thought. We ate tacos with homemade tortillas, which was awesome, and then paella (rice with seafood) which was........ Well. I normally like seafood. And Sœur Kitchen doesn't normally feel sick for 2 days afterwards. (Although that may have had something to do with all the chocolate they gave us). 

One more adventure from this week- we went to go try to pass by several less active members for whom we had pins on the map but no other information. After 2 dead ends we tried to find a woman named Millicent in her apartment building. She didn't respond to the first sonnette on the outside of the building, but we were able to get in to her building thanks to the postman, and were able to find her door by looking at the numbering system on the floor above. We tried to ring her doorbell, and she didn't answer, so we decided to knock and then leave if she didn't answer. So Soeur Kitchen raised her hand to knock on the door-- at the same moment that the lights in the hallway went out, the door right in front of her opened into a pitch black room and a voice echoed in the hallway, "Oui?" I was scared out of my wits!! But it turns out it was our less active, and we were so happy to be able to meet and speak with her!

We had such a great time this week sharing the new Easter video, Prince of Peace, as we approached this beautiful holiday. We see a lot of need for this message of peace, especially in France, which is a very troubled country at the moment. Did you all get a chance to see it? If not, it's still being featured on mormon.org. I would highly recommend it!! It's so beautiful :)

Well friends, that's about it for my last week as a teenager!! We finished up with a beautiful hike in the mountains by Thann with our entire district. It was so much fun!! We saw horses, massive steep drops, German and French hikers, and a beautiful little chapel up in the middle of nowhere! Hope you all have a great week and hope to hear from you soon! Bisous!

Soeur Rogers

Photos

1. The teeny tiny car that the Dandonneaus used to drive us through their teeny tiny town to arrive at their teeny tiny gare-- a car trip that was complete with 4 humans and 2 wet dogs

2. Easter chocolate!

3. A cute little path, just casually in a neighborhood by the church

4. When the sacrament bread is baguette :)

5. When you find the leftovers from someone else's romantic date...

6. Horses!

7-9. Our district at the teeny tiny chapel
10. I missed trees! Hooray for trees!

 

4-10-17

So many things to say, so little time!! Here are a couple highlights from my week!!

-We went to Paris for Soeur Kitchen's legality and met up with some of my favorite missionaries! We slept over with Soeurs Mattson, Marshall, Newell, Rajasooriar, Corneta, Romney, and Huston-- it was a packed apartment but it was a blast!! We also saw Soeur Larson and Soeur Peterson the next day at the legality office. We didn't have the time to go visit the temple, but it's okay-- we all get to go next week!! It's so close I can almost taste it!

-Speaking of the temple, there are new beautiful pictures of the temple up on lds.org and mormonnewsroom.org! They are so achingly beautiful, I'm so excited to see the temple for real!!

-We went to spend an afternoon with our ami Mireille in her garden, doing service. She is planting a garden near a center for disabled people so they can enjoy the nature, and she's going to plant vegetables to give away to make people healthier. She's so kind and so excited about this project!

-We contacted a lady named Madame Vanaux last week and met her again this week. We talked about how we can know that God is there, that He hears our prayers, and that the people we love aren't gone after they die. She wasn't ready to be taught, but she was touched by our testimonies and our prayers.

-We also went porting in a nicer neighborhood and were able to have some cool conversations. We talked with an atheist girl named Magali, and were able to pray with her and share the new Prince of Peace video. She was so touched by our testimonies as we talked about why we believe in God.

-We finished General Conference (the Sunday afternoon session) on Thursday morning. It was so awesome!! My missionary brain was a big fan of Elder Costa's talk about his conversion story, but my normal-person brain loved Elder Holland's talk. I love being able to start conference review immediately after conference with my tablet!! (I'm trying to be grateful for the technology I have-- last week's Internet crisis hasn't completely left my mind :) )

-Today we rode bikes!! It was a pain to figure out how to rent the bikes that are all over centreville, but we were finally able to do it and rode almost 5 km (3 miles for you Americans) from one end of the ville to the other. It wasn't a lot, but it was a ton of fun and I got nicely sunburned :)

-Transfer decisions came through!! I am staying in Mulhouse, and will be here for my 20th birthday!! You know what that means-- my address is the same! Any birthday surprises, cards, packages, coconuts, or whatever else you want to send in the mail can be sent directly to 

Soeur Rachael Rogers

Les soeurs missionnaires

18 Rue du Chataignier 

Kingersheim 68260

FRANCE

Okay, that's about everything!! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! Good luck to everyone who's moving villes!!

Bisous, 

Soeur Rogers

1. Beautiful neighborhood by the legality place

2. Legality soeurs!! 

3. Service selfie

4-6. The Paris temple is so beautiful!! I'm so excited to visit!

4-3-17

Hello everyone! Hoped you enjoyed General Conference this weekend! With times zones etc we weren't able to watch the Sunday afternoon session but hey it was probably amazing :) For those of you who watched, what did you think? (For those of you who didn't watch, check out lds.org!)

This week I have been learning a lot about being an instrument in the hand of God. It's crazy how many moments this week we had of recognizing that a small action that we did, like leaving the church at the right moment to meet an ami that we haven't seen in weeks, or calling a list of potential amis and fixing only one rendez-vous that was magical, were clearly inspired by God. In conference yesterday Elder Rasband said that if you act on the first prompting from the Spirit, you will get it right 9 times out of 10. This week felt more like 11 times out of 10, because there were moments when we didn't even realize it was inspiration, we just went with it and it was right!

One of these moments was on Friday morning when we decided at the last minute to go look for less actives in Kingersheim  (the little ville just north of us) on our way to pick up a package from the church. We didn't find any less actives, but we did find a wonderful woman named Nathalie who lives in the same building as one of these less active families! Nathalie has had a hard life- she is disabled, her husband died, and she has difficulty knowing that God is there. We were able to testify to this sweet woman how prayer can help us all know that God is there and feel His love. It was so amazing!

We also had an amazing bit of inspiration that came in multiple parts. We ultimately spent an hour making phone calls only to come up with one rendez-vous, and somehow set it up for the day that a recently more active sister wanted to teach with us. The pairing of Marie Marzullo and Marie-Therese Pitsch was not at all planned, but was completely inspired. Both women have had difficult experiences and times in their lives when they had to forgive others and use Christ's Atonement in a very specific way. It was so amazing to have her testimony there to back us up and to have a similarity in conversion story (Soeur Pitsch used to be very Catholic and Marie is currently Catholic). I'm so grateful for those tiny pieces of inspiration that lead us to wonderful tender mercies and really solid new amis :)

The last tender mercy and bit of inspiration we saw this week was when we were taking the tram into the center of the ville on Saturday morning. We had a rendez-vous and a couple errands to do before conference. Just a couple stops before ours someone got on and started talking to us in English-- turns out it was a less active member named Emmanuel! We invited him to come to conference, and he told us he would come for the Saturday afternoon session (to be broadcast in France at 2pm). I was praying so hard for him to be able to come, and about halfway through the second talk, he walked into the English room where all the missionaries were watching conference!! He had a great time and said "see you Sunday!" as he walked out of the room. 

Wow, there's barely enough time to talk about everything that's happening here!! We had exchanges with the STLs, who went HAM and got us about 7 new potential amis! We had a great time with them and I came away really spiritually encouraged from their example and excitement to do missionary work. I also loved being able to watch General Conference this week and be reminded of my love for the Savior and this gospel. I'm so grateful for our leaders and for the ability they have to direct us towards our Father in Heaven and encourage us to draw strength from Him.

Well friends, I think that's about it!! Thanks for all your support and love, à la prochaine!

Sœur Rogers

3-27-17

Hello friends!! This week has been fabulous as it has started to be wonderfully sunny outside and almost warm enough to not wear a coat!! France in the springtime is beautiful, even in this random little corner of nowhere. As I'm writing this email we are sitting outside on the grass outside the church and I'm not wearing a coat or shoes and there are daisies all over the grass and this tiny little breeze blowing... I'm basically in heaven (except for that it's too bright to see my screen!!) So voici some of our adventures from this week!!

We taught our ami Nadege for the second time on Saturday. We had set the rendez-vous for noon, but we weren't able to confirm with her and she didn't respond to her sonnerie (intercom system). Through a couple miraculous humans who happened to be coming and leaving at the right time to open various doors to us, we got into her building and were able to teach! We had taught the Restoration the last time we came, but she didn't really remember any of it- not surprising, given that it had been 4 weeks and she hadn't understood a lot the first time. So we reviewed it with her and she understood it so much better! She really felt the Spirit when we talked about Joseph Smith's vision, and she said right away that she knew it must be true. The Spirit was so strong and she is so excited to keep learning and to read the Book of Mormon! I also had a moment in this rendez-vous where I realized how much I have really grown in my teaching skills over the last 9 months of my mission. It was one of the best and most customized lessons on the Restoration that I have taught, and I could literally see her growing in understanding. What an amazing calling I have!! 

In addition to this big confidence booster, I had a learning opportunity this week. On Thursday morning we contacted a blind woman named Anne-Marie. She is from Brazil but speaks perfect French, and even though she can't read like normal people, she has an amazing knowledge of the Bible just from listening to the text-to-speech on her computer read it out. She was so happy to invite us to come to her apartment and talk about God, but ultimately she was not open to our message. She has such a wonderful knowledge of God and the Bible, but didn't think it was possible to have more prophets or scriptures, and was very closed to the things we tried to share with her. We left feeling very frustrated, but mostly just sad that this wonderful woman that we had only known for a day but had come to love didn't want to accept this wonderful message. We took a moment afterwards to talk about it, and I realized that although I was frustrated that the lesson didn't go like we wanted it to, and although I was sad that she didn't want to accept our message, mostly I just had this overwhelming feeling that Heavenly Father loves me and is proud of the work that I am doing. As a missionary, and especially as a missionary in France, there are a lot of people that don't want to listen to us. I have been learning to rejoice in the successes in life and to not allow the failures to get me down. 

Last thing!! The missionaries here in Mulhouse are so excited about our new project based on the tree of life in Lehi's vision (if you don't know what that is, check out 1 Nephi 8 and 11!). We've been working to inspire the members to share the fruit of the gospel with their friends and family members, so we created this tree in the hallway of the church. You can't really see it in the picture, but we wrote engagements on the fruit like "invite a recent convert to your family home evening" "read ___ conference talk about missionary work" or "bring a friend to church". We'll be adding more engagements later on, things like inviting friends to come to missionary activities or inviting them to take the missionary discussions. We had a little bit of a rocky start this week because we didn't have time to announce it in church and next week is general conference, but hopefully the week afterwards we'll be able to really get things rolling with the members!!

Our week this week has been pretty full, between meeting with our amazing amis and going porting in French Catholic neighborhoods (which involved a lot of us awkwardly standing at the gate and shouting at the nice people who then very quickly shut their doors). I'm loving my time here in Mulhouse, and I feel like I learn new things every day!! I'm so glad that I have this opportunity to share the things that are important to me with other people and grow my personal relationship with God. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!

Bisous, 

Soeur Rogers