8-28-17

Hello all!! We have had such a wonderful week this week, so apologies for the long email!

But first, a quote: "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries! Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"

You'll find out why later ;)

Okay so story time! Picture this: two very tired soeur missionaries get home from a long day of service and decide that their free afternoon is the perfect time to finally go through all the shelves of extra materials, cards, papers, and random trucs left behind by generations of sister missionaries. They pull everything off the shelves and are sitting in the middle of the pile, still in their service clothes, sorting through the mess... when the phone rings. Soeur 1 quickly jumps up to answer it. Who is it? It's a member, informing said soeur missionaries that she was at the chapel waiting to pick them up for their rdv, and are they coming or what? Two (very confused) sister missionaries got dressed in Sunday clothes and out the door faster than you could believe, planning a quick pensée while throwing skirts on, and then proceeded to have a wonderful evening with this great member family.

Okay, back to the quote. On Wednesday we went to go do service for our DMP, who is English and lives on a farm out in the country. We met their 3 dogs (Jack, Minnie, and Mickey), their 6-8 geese, and their 20+ ducks, most of which were only a couple weeks old! Soeur Bond had to make 200 jars of elderberry jam that week, so we helped her by picking and stripping 6.5 kilos of elderberries! By the end of that lovely experience, my fingers were sticky and purple and smelled strongly of fermentation (some of those berries were a little overripe). Who woulda thunk that I would end up smelling like alcohol on my mission? I suppose you know that you had a good time when your hands smell like elderberry wine for 2 days straight :)

On the way back from the gare earlier in the week we ran into a less active member named Oliver, and he asked if we could set up a rdv to "shoot the breeze" so duh, we said yes!! We met him and his friend Ofili in centreville on Friday and sat on a bench by the gare to chat. He testified so powerfully of how much he was blessed after he was baptized, and he told us that he wanted to come back to church!

Then his friend Ofili spoke up and said, "I have a question..." (Soeur Rogers got excited because she loves questions) "...is there a big difference between the Mormon church and other Christian churches?" Soeur Rogers especially loves that question :) We were able to teach him about the Restoration and invite him to learn more, and he promised us that he would come to church on Sunday with Oliver! And true to their word, halfway through Gospel Principles class a member came in to tell us that we had 2 amis that just showed up! We had a fun multilingual class (Oliver speaks English and French, but Ofili only speaks English) and then they both stayed for sacrament meeting :)

On Sunday afternoon we had quite a bit of planning to do, but we took a part of our dinner hour to go "stumble into" the Fete de l'Andouillette. It was super cool! They had a live band, carnival rides and games, artisan vendors, and lots of sausage :) All the restaurants around the main square were working overtime, with extra seating on picnic tables on the main square, and everyone was enjoying some fine French wine. This may or may not have contributed to a group of people drunkenly singing. fun times, fun times. We got to try some free samples of Andouille sausage as well, and profitéd from the culture in our region :)

Okay, a spiritual thought to close us out!

This week we gave a church tour to our ami Thomas. The Spirit was really strong and he asked some wonderful questions. He asked about why there are no crosses on the wall, and we talked about how we can remember a living Christ who works in our lives, and that we can remember Him through our day-to-day actions. Later on in the tour, he mentioned that he loved that all the art in the chapel depicts a living Christ, during his life and after his resurrection, rather than Christ suffering on the cross or dead in the tomb. I had never really paid attention to that difference before, but it's true!! President Hinkley explained that "the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship"

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!
Soeur Rogers

                                                  The beffroi in Arras and Place des Héros

                                                                  A random man we ported into gave us juice boxes 🤣

                                                     Service at the Bonds!! We picked all those elderberries :)

                                                The Fête de l'Andouillette! It was massive and so cool!

                                                                   This beautiful bookstore we visited today :)

8-21-17

My new comp, Soeur Erichsen!

Hello all!

I hope you all had a wonderful week! This week was pretty crazy for me with transfers and everything going on. I always forget how emotionally stressful transfers can be, so it takes me by surprise sometimes. But I'm now mostly settled into my new sector, and I'm really optimistic for this new transfer!

My new area is Arras, a really adorable little city in the north of France. I got to see centreville today and it's so cute!! A lot of the houses and buildings in centreville are made of brick, and most of the historical buildings were reconstructed after WWI. Because it's so small, we do a lot of work outside the main city. A lot of the members live far outside the city in smaller villages and when we go finding, we do a lot of port-à-port. We also teach a lot more families than I ever have before, and we get a lot more member referrals, which is super exciting!! I got to meet the members on Sunday and they all seem to be really kind :)

My new companion is Soeur Erichsen. She's in the same group as Soeur Hacker so she's in her 3rd transfer now. She's from Tooele, Utah, and she is very very different from me, which makes for a weird and difficult transition. She is extroverted where I am introverted, and she loves to go contacting and hates to stay inside the apartment. She has doesn't have the best French and has quite the American accent but she speaks up anyway :) She is very kind and very sweet, and is much more of a people person than an organizational person. So together we make a good team, and I'm sure that ultimately we will compliment each other really well :) until then, we are learning! 

This week, however, we barely spent any time in our cute little ville!! On Thursday we took a train to Lillers, a small city in our area to meet a member who then drove us around to visit the members, less active, and amis in the area. Arras is made up of two old wards (Lens and Arras) that were combined, so all the members live pretty far apart. A lot of people were still gone on vacation but we were able to visit a single mother, Graziella, and her two children, and shared a spiritual thought. On Friday we took a train to Douai, another city in our area where we frequently visit members and amis. Because of train times, we were able to go see the famous clock tower and hear it chime before hurrying to our lesson :)

We also had a wonderful experience on Saturday when we went porting with a VERY enthusiastic member from Lille who came down for the day to work with us. She was a little crazy haha but she had a lot of energy and we were able to find a lot of really cool people. I think I will become converted to porting in beautiful Arras. We were able to talk with the sweetest old man named Jacques. He told us that he could see how believing helped other people in their lives, how to have good relationships and purpose in their lives and how to not be afraid of death, but he didn't believe. I asked him if he wanted to believe and he seemed surprised by the question! We shared with him Alma 32:27

27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

It was so incredible to see a change in his face as we shared with him the Plan of Salvation and the way that he can gain faith and understanding in his life. His face literally lifted from being sad and dejected to being curious and full of hope, and I know that he felt the Spirit.

I love being a missionary. I still feel like I'm messing up and learning new things every day, but I guess that's life and I should just start getting used to it :) learning is an important part of our Heavenly Father's plan, and I'm glad that I get to spend a year and a half learning to serve the Lord. I love this gospel and I know it's true, and I also know that we can trust Him to give us strength in all we do.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!! 

Soeur Rogers

PS My new (and possibly last!!) address is:

Soeur Rachael Rogers

Les soeurs missionnaires

Ville Contesse 21 Rue des Capucins

62000 Arras

FRANCE

A beautiful church made of brick by our apartment (although let's be real, everything is by our apartment!)

The beffroi in Douai

A massive cathedral

Some of the cool architecture in our neighborhood

8-7-14 and 8-14-17

Hello all! Welcome back to the wonderful adventures of Sœurs Rogers and Hacker!

On Tuesday we spent all day helping out some ward members move from their house in town to a massive beautiful house in the country. There were so many people there that it was honestly hard to actually help out, and we spent a lot of time trying to stay out of the way :) haha oh well. Soeur Hacker had wrapped up her wrist because of an injury at samedi sports, so everyone was freaking out every time she would lift something even vaguely heavy. She's strong for her size (5'1) so she had fun provoking an especially sexist guy after he made some rude comments. His face was pretty priceless when she lifted up a massive chest and navigated it easily-- with an injured wrist. Haha I love her :)

The middle of our week was pretty quiet, we spent some time finding and visiting members. And, as always, working on Sœur Hacker's book after 9:00. It's coming along super well :)

Saturday was a big day for us, as we had planned to go visit several less actives and old amis who lived on the other side of town, in an area that we didn't often visit. After identifying 9 pass-bys, we set out with high hopes and a bag of freshly baked American-style cookies! (French people go gaga for American chocolate chip cookies, I'm not entirely sure why). Ultimately we found that that 5 of the 9 no longer live at said addresses and that the other 4 were not at home. Bon. 

We finished the by picking up a new bookcase for our apartment at IKEA and carrying it most of the way home on the tram. It was SUPER heavy, but Heavenly Father was looking out for his filles :) We started walking from the tram stop closest to our apartment (which is still a good 10 mins walk away) and had to put it down after about 50 yards because we were SO TIRED. Right at that moment a lady comes up to us and says, "What are you doing? You came all the way from IKEA like that? My car is right here, can I take you home?" And so, tossing stranger danger to the wind, we said, "Why not?" She very kindly helped us put our bookcase in the back of her car and drove us the 2 minutes to our apartment. Tender mercies are real my friends :)

And, last but not least, we found a super cool new ami! Her name is Rhode and she met the sister missionaries about 4 years ago when she used to live closer to the church. The last 2 weeks she's showed up at church because she wants to help her 8 year old son learn more about God and religion. I was finally able to chat with her a little bit and we set up a time to teach her more about our message. I was reminded that God is taking care of his children, and He is preparing people to learn this gospel. Our job is to be prepared to help them when God sends them our way :)

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sœur Rogers

PS Sophie is out of the hospital! She's doing a lot better and was able to come to church this week. We hope to see her for a lesson in the next couple days.

Hello all, 

I don't really want to write a weekly this week, because leaving is hard. However, I care about you and I care about posterity. So what did we do this week?

-We prepared the sector for Soeur Hacker's new companion by going through the area book and getting rid of a lot of old useless papers. Our trash can was full of a lot of paper. 

-We had a lesson with our new/old ami Rhode. She told us that she came back because she decided that she needed to find out if this church is true, and the only way she was going to find
out was by reading the Book of Mormon and asking God about it. She has so many raisins.

-We also taught Sophie about the Plan of Salvation, and she loved it.

-We took a boat!! We discovered that one of the fastest (and most enjoyable) ways to get across the river is to take a boat from Gare Maritime to Trentemoult. So we enjoyed a little sea (river) breeze and got a little splashed, and then got to explore the most ADORABLE little neighborhood on the other side. There were teeny little alleyways and colorful houses and plants growing every which way-- it was magical. We tried to not look like tourists, but I think we failed :)

-We had a fun combined rendez-vous with a less active member and a struggling recent convert. They both testified so powerfully about seeing the hand of God in their lives. They have had so many trials in the last several months, but they are starting to come out of their difficulties and they both KNOW that our Heavenly Father is helping them out. I am so inspired by their faith and love for the gospel.

-On the way back from this lesson, we hit some serious traffic while in the bus. Turns out Nantes is playing Marseille in football. Who knew? Certainly not us innocent missionaries. So it took us a very very very long time to get home. 

-We had samedi sports! It had rained all day and there was a big football game going on, so we had low turnout. I think I've played more football in Nantes than in my entire life up until now.

-I said goodbye to some of these wonderful members at church on Sunday. We took some fun photos :)

It's a weird sensation when your entire life packs a little too easily in 2.5 suitcases, but I guess that's missionary life. I am going to miss this ville a lot, but mostly I'm going to miss my companion, Soeur Hacker. We have had so many fun crazy adventures and random conversations about silly things that happen in her stories and serious things that happen in our lives. I've found someone I can really trust and lean on, and I'm so sad to leave her behind. It's hard to describe a friendship, but I'd say that this one is golden.

I love you all. Have a great week, and to those who are traveling, travel safe.

Soeur Rogers

7-31-17

Hello all! This week Sœur Hacker got in a fight, we communicated with goats, and we relieved stress with yard work. In all, a pretty normal week.

In other news, Sophie is in the hospital this week. (Note to self: do not get sick in France. Hospitals are especially sketchy here). We're not entirely sure why, but hopefully she'll be out in the next couple of days. We were able to visit her several times and also brought the elders with us to give her a blessing. She definitely felt the Spirit during the blessing (even when a nurse barged in right in the middle... whoops) and was really grateful we came. She was sad to miss church but should be able to come next week. Prayers for her are appreciated :)

On Tuesday we went to a little town on the outside of Nantes called Vertou to try to contact a coordinée, do some porting, and find a less active member that we didn't know. What did we ultimately do? We didn't find the coordinée and didn't have any luck with porting, but instead found a pretty staircase, a scenic river, a random hike, some goats, and an old manor house. And a less active! She didn't have time to talk to us, but left us with a cucumber and the instructions, "You can share this with the other missionaries if you want, but not with the members, because I have problems with some of them. Not all of them, mind you, there are some that I like well enough, but others that I dislike, and a lot of them are new, so I don't want to give them my cucumbers. So just for the missionaries" hahaha people are weird sometimes ;)

We had the wonderful blessing of working with a lot of members this week! We spent all day Saturday working with the priesthood (sister missionary power!) doing service for a recent convert, Melanie. We helped out by sanding down the caulking they put in the screwholes to prep the wall for painting, and when Sœur Hacker was too short to reach any higher on the ceiling, we headed outside to rip dead wood out of a ditch to allow water to flow through. It was basically ripping trees out with our bare hands-- very satisfying and stress relieving. We finished the day off with the biggest turnout to Samedi Sports we've ever had- probably more than 2 dozen missionaries, amis, members, and random people from the sports ground by the end of the evening, playing basketball and football. It was a great time :)

Well, I think that's it for this week! Oh, you want to know how Sœur Hacker got in a fight? Um... that's classified. But she does currently have several scratches on her arms, a pretty deep wound on her foot, and an ace bandage on her wrist to protect her from doing silly things like trying to use it. Don't look at me, I didn't do nothin'.

Have a great week!
Sœur Rogers 

7-24-17

Hello all!

We have had the craziest week this week! We were in Rennes all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, for interviews and zone conference, and then were in Paris all day on Thursday for Sœur Hacker's legality. You'd think that with a grand total of 10 hours on trains and even more time in the gares, there would be no time to do missionary work, but the Lord always finds a way, so I saw miracles in 3 different cities this week!

On Wednesday afternoon I went porting with Soeur Newell in a teeny little village way outside the city. We talked to a girl who was super chill and interested, and another man who, after we chatted with him for a long time, agreed to let us come back! He has 3 kids, and said that he wanted us to be able to talk with them as well. We managed to finish the contact right before the last bus of the evening :)

On Thursday while all the blues went to go do OFII all the trainers went contacting in Paris. I went in a trio with Sœur Schaus and Sœur Larson We went to a little neighborhood (well, "little" for Paris, anyway) in the 13ème and were able to talk to a lot people who were interested and super nice. We finished off the afternoon with a photo shoot in several of the beautiful random parks we found scattered throughout the city.

My favorite miracle was coming home on Friday to an incredible lesson with our ami Sophie. We taught her about the Restoration of the gospel. She was so engaged in the lesson, especially when Sœur Hacker was teaching. When we taught her about Joseph Smith,  she kept repeating, "I didn't know that! Why did nobody tell me that before?" And when we explained to her that she could be rebaptized with the priesthood, she was just blown away. She came to church for the third time on Sunday and loved every second of it. She's started to make friends with the members and sat with different people during all 3 hours of church. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I've had to teach her, she is just incredible. 

Today we went to an island off the coast with a big group of members and missionaries. There's a 5km long path that leads to the mainland to the island, but you have to be careful to pay attention to the tides, otherwise you could end up walking back in water up to your waist. It was a super fun day and it was so incredible to see the ocean again.

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! Take advantage of the beautiful weather and spend some time outside this week (unless, you know, it's 40 degrees out, that's not really obligatory). 

Love, 

Sœur Rogers