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