7-17-17

Hello all! This week was a little slow, which is fine because next week is going to be crazy! We are still working hard to find new amis and practicing patience. In the meantime, we were thrilled to see our amie Sophie come back to church this week! She absolutely loves coming to church, and the members do a great job of coming up to her and meeting her. I love the opportunity I have on a mission to sit next to our amis and just marvel at the simplicity of the gospel. It really does make so much sense, and I love walking around in Sophie's shoes and learning about it all over again.

Saturday was our busiest day because we had a finding day in St. Nazaire. St. Nazaire is a teeny tiny beach town with NOBODY out on the streets- at least for the Saturday morning after a national holiday. I got to go out with a super cool member named Vaea. She's 22 and is already a great missionary, even if she hasn't served full-time yet. We were porting all day and managed to find lots of "not home"/"sleeping"/"nobody lives there"/"I don't believe in God, no thank you" in addition to one nice lady, several very handsome young men, and one guy and his dad who wanted us to come back and tell us more about our message. In all, not a bad day :) 

The entire day, I was super impressed and motivated by Vaea's attitude, because even though it was difficult to find anyone who was interested, she was so happy when people were polite instead of rude and when we found somebody home instead of nobody. I was reminded that tender mercies can be really easy to miss, and that Heavenly Father is always there ready to give us encouragement. And sometimes, we need to give ourselves encouragement :) cue the silly things we did this week, such as

- making snowballs from the ice we chipped out of our freezing and throwing them out our kitchen window 

- going to the grocery store in our pajamas to buy ice cream and lemon juice and dancing in the aisles

- making a timeline for Soeur Hacker's book and getting way too involved in the backstory 

- going to visit a less active member and doing nails together

- finding magic passageways while contacting

- walking halfway down the tram line when they were shut down for 14 juillet

- laughing our heads off and posing with silly statues at the art museum

I love spending time with my comp, she is the greatest :) She makes me laugh every day (which sounds like a line from a romance but it's true so whatever) 

I love you all, please always remember that life is beautiful and God loves you!

Soeur Rogers 

7-10-17

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great week! Here's just a quick look at mine:

This week's menu has been one for the books. Escargots (finally! They were so good!) on Monday, Roadside (American-style burgers) on the 4th, pizza after district meeting, kebabs after zone conference, milkshakes on Friday and a ward barbeque to finish out the week. A French barbeque, of course, which is different from an American one. We still made an apple pie :)

On Thursday we took the train to Rennes to meet our new mission president, President Sorensen, and his family. He has 5 kids, the oldest is 20 and is on a mission in Norway and the youngest is 9. They are so cute!! They chatted with us in the hallway before and afterwards, and managed to pay attention for almost the whole conference, I was so proud ;) President Sorensen encouraged us to base our studies and everything we do off of Preach My Gospel. It was a great reminder of the power of that book. Honestly, I would not have served a mission without that book. If you don't have a copy of PMG (electronic or physical), get one!

We have been trying really hard recently to go finding, and talk to people on the street. We have seen exactly zero success. It was really hard this week to get turned down time and time again, but the thing that I kept reminding myself was this quote from PMG: “You can feel certain that the Lord is pleased when you feel the Spirit working through you.”

Sunday was our biggest miracle because our ami Sophie was finally able to come to church! She lives too far from Nantes to take public transportation to church, so we had a member (Melanie, a convert of about a year) come pick her up before church. In ward council that morning we told everyone that she would be coming, and so there were several members that came up and met her right away. All 3 hours she was so engaged and listening really hard, and especially the Sunday School teacher was really good at including her. She made friends with several members and has been telling everyone that she's coming back next week! I was just so impressed by the ward's ability to make her feel welcome and happy. There really is power in a ward that works together to love others.

Last night it was crazy thundering and lightning, with heavy heavy rain that you could barely see through. It reminded me of Hurricane Irene. And Trek. It was glorious. It washed away all the heat of the last week and made it deliciously cool outside. We all put on old clothes and went outside to run in the rain. We were soaked in a matter of seconds and we just ran around in the field across the street in our bare feet and then laid in the soaked grass. SO WORTH IT. It was so liberating, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I love you all! Hope you have a great week! Send me moments from your week!

Soeur Rogers

7-3-17

Hello all! I don't have a lot of time, so I'll just share a couple adventures from this week!

-Tuesday was Soeur Empey's last day in France. We went to the boulangerie by our apartment and got her a final croissant and baguette. 

-Nantes is pretty close to an airport so every time we saw an airplane on Thursday we waved :)

-Soeur Ashton came to live with us! I met her in the MTC and she is super sweet.

-We were contacted by a man named Joshua on the tram back from a disappointing morning of finding. He said, "I heard you speaking in English, and I saw Jesus Christ on your tags, and it made me interested! I want to know more!"

-On Friday and Saturday we had exchanges with the STLs in Rennes. This time I got to go with Soeur Miguel and we had an INCREDIBLE time. We visited members, did some crazy finding in the rain, and made up a secret handshake ;) It was super fun to be able to go back to where it all started.

-We visited the Carré family, aka one of the coolest families in Nantes. We chatted in franglais (they lived in the United States for several years) and had cantaloupe, rice salad, flan, and ice cream. I forget how French the French are sometimes.

-On the way to and from the Carré family, Soeur Hacker and I got to talking about her book. We developed personalities, fighting/magic types, and backstories for about 7-8 characters, plotted out 2 major battles, and I came up with several headcanons that became reality. Oh, and there is now a second book. Sorry, Soeur Hacker. Love you ;)

-We saw an incredible imagination/fantasy/engineering world (les Machines de l'Ile). It was incredible- giant moving elephants, spiders, birds, ants, and caterpillars that will all be put into a giant tree (we're talking more than 100 feet in the air). I am currently planing my return trip to Nantes in 2022 to see it completed. Also, their workshop is incredible. Wow.

Love you all!

Soeur Rogers

6-26-17

They say that gratitude prayers can make even the hardest situation seem easier to manage. And with a year of my mission under my belt and 6 more months to go, there's a lot to be grateful for. So what am I grateful for this week?

I'm grateful for the wonderful people that I've been able to meet on my mission. Just in this last week, we have had the opportunity to hang out with so many members, missionaries, and amis. I'm grateful for the activities we do in Nantes- Samedi Sports, English class, etc. that gives me the opportunity to get to know these people even better. I even had the special opportunity to say hello to a lot of the JA from Rennes, who were in Nantes for the weekend. I'm so grateful for all the people I've met on my mission and for the influence they are in my life!

I am so grateful that I get to serve in one of the most beautiful missions in the world. I mean, what better place to celebrate a year on your mission than in Paris? On Wednesday night we took the train to Paris to sleep over before doing my second-year legality the next day. I got to stay with several of my old comps and favorite missionaries, and then see even more of them the next day as we headed out to the suburbs of Paris. We got legal, visited Consecration Hill, ate paninis and crepes, walked around in the blazing heat trying to find La Chapelle Notre Dame de la Medaille Miraculeuse, and finally saw the Eiffel Tower! (From a distance, of course). It was SO HOT- about 38° during the hottest part of the day (which was, of course, when we were outside) but it was totally worth it :) Paris is exhausting, but it's beautiful and I love it. 

I'm grateful for my loving companion, who is so patient and thoughtful with me when stress is getting me down. I'm grateful for her positive attitude and love for the gospel and for the Lord. I'm grateful for the other sisters in my apartment, who offer their support and ideas to both of us.

I am grateful for the love of my Savior that I can feel every day. I'm grateful for the power of His atoning sacrifice, and for His grace that gives me the strength and courage to face each new day. I'm grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve Him and to learn more about myself each and every day. And I'm so grateful to be in France. 

La vie est belle, quoi. Et je vous aime tous :) Bonne semaine,

Soeur Rogers

6-19-17

Hello all! This week has been super crazy, full of learning experiences for both me and Soeur Hacker. So I have just a couple funny experiences to share with you this week :)

On Friday, we went to go visit Ingrid, an active sister in our ward who is having some health difficulties. We had a wonderful conversation with her (Soeur Hacker was able to follow most of it) and then right at the end she mentioned that she was having some trouble with an order she had made through LDS Distribution- the pair of shoes she ordered was too small. Of course here aren't many French-speaking operators for a US-based company, so she asked us to make the call for her, in English. Funny how a fear of customer service phone calls disappears after learning a language- at least you get to speak in your native language! Ingrid understands just enough English to be able to understand phrases such as "So she has to pay to return it or exchange it?" "Well you can exchange it for free at any local distribution center!" "We're in FRANCE! The closest distribution center in Germany!" "Oh...well... then yes, you do have to pay for the return" Haha her expressions of surprise, confusion, anger, and despair were PRICELESS. And since it wasn't worth the cost of sending the package, she gave me the shoes ;)

A second funny: we got a phone call from a less active sister that I had never met. It started out pretty normal-- she didn't have the elders' number and wanted them to come over and help her with something. Then she asked if one can give a blessing to an animal... specifically a cat. Upon being informed that no, in fact, you cannot give a blessing to a cat, she abruptly told us to forget the whole thing and hung up. We shot a text to the elders to confirm that giving blessings to animals is a no-go and then laughed our heads off the rest of the day :)

One more spiritual experience to finish out this letter. We were on the tram when a cute Chinese girl sat across from me and I struck up a conversation. Her name is Daisy (a chosen name), and she is GOLDEN, and just started asking so many questions about religion, God, prayer, and all sorts of topics. We set up a rdv for the following day and had a beautiful first lesson with her. She's not very familiar with Christian religions and had a lot of questions about how to tell the difference between all the churches, and we got to teach her about the Holy Ghost and how to receive answers from God. We are thrilled to keep teaching her :)

We saw the château today! It was wicked hot and a little terrible to be wearing jeans, but super fun :) I'll include a couple pictures. I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Bisous, 

Soeur Rogers