Soeur Rogers: 5-29-17

Wow! What a crazy first week! It's incredible how much training is stressful and awesome at the same time. But we are having a blast!

On Tuesday after a full day complete with packing, last minute errands, thankfully no rdvs (after originally having scheduled 3!!) and lunch with one of my favorite families, the Wassmers, we took my suitcases to the gare to catch our train! Unfortunately, in packing really quickly, I put WAY too much weight in my big suitcase and practically nothing in the little one, which made bringing an overweight suitcase through all the metros and gares VERY interesting. Shoutout to Soeur Kitchen, who brought it all the way to the STL's apartment, where I was able to repack it. Good thing too, because getting to Nantes was CRAZY! We traveled in a group of 5 trainers and their blues, 4 of which were whitewashing in... that makes 9 sets of luggage between 10 people, in Gare Montparnesse... famous for its stairs. Another massive shoutout to those elders-- I never would have made it to Nantes without you guys!

So now the moment you've all been waiting for, the presentation of my bleue! I'd like you all to meet (drumroll please) Soeur Hacker! She's from Illinois the most recently, although she's lived all over, including Colorado, Utah, Mississippi, Texas, Nebraska, and Germany! She's a writer and she studied at BYUI for a year and a half before her mission. She's on the shy side, like me, and is still learning to contact (like me) but she's super relaxed and excited to learn French. I love having conversations with her by my side because every time she speaks, people stop and listen to what she has to say. Although she's shy to speak, she has a powerful testimony. I'm so excited to keep working with her!

We have had a super crazy week! We are basically re-opening an equipe here since the old soeurs left over a month ago to help with the temple open house, and the other soeurs picked up all the progressing amis. So we are left with an unorganized area book that hasn't been updated since January, a list of less active members, and no knowledge of the area. So hooray, let's go FINDING!

But I love Nantes already. It's so beautiful here, with cathedrals, castles, museums, and giant elephant statues to go visit :) We saw the Foch Cathédrale today! It's so beautiful! We got to hang out with the members every day since we got here, and we have a bunch of young adults in the ward-- thus a bunch of activities throughout the week for them. We have English class on Wednesdays, PPP (pancakes ping-ping pensee) on Fridays before institute, and Samedi Sports on Saturdays. We also got to meet a bunch of the older members during a party on Saturday night and at church on Sunday. They are super cool and I'm so excited to get to know them!!

I've been thinking a lot this week about the wise words of my second trainer, Soeur Tasso. She told me once, "You don't train when you're ready to train. You train when your bleue is ready for you." I know that Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for me, and I know that He has a perfect plan for Soeur Hacker. I know He put us together for a reason. We have different strengths and talents, and we are going to push each other in different ways. I know that she's going to teach me just as much I'm going to teach her, but just in different ways.

I don't have a lot of time to write this week, so I guess that's it! My new address is

Soeur Rachael Rogers

Les soeurs missionaries

21 Rue de la Haute Mitrie

44300 Nantes FRANCE

for any letters, postcards, care packages, surprises, coconuts, or anything else you can send in the mail ;)

Love you all! Have a great week!

Sœur Rogers

1. Goodbye to Clyde

2. Goodbye to George (he's grown so much!!)

3. Me and Soeur Hacker

4. Le Chateau des Dukes de Bretagne