9-18-17

 Post-porting selfie :)

Hello all! This week went by so quickly, it's crazy! We did a lot of work with members which was kind of crazy but we finally got to settle down to plan and find near the end of the week. 

                                                Soeur Marechal

On Tuesday we went to visit a member who is recovering from heart surgery. We sang hymns with her for over an hour! We also spent a lot of time in the gare because of work strikes but were finally able to make it to our rdv that evening with the Rivière family. We met Soeur Rivière's daughter, who is less active, and her three children. They were sooo cute!

So in our zone we've been doing a focus on service and referrals. On Wednesday we came early to a mangez-vous to do service for this member. I organized a closet of party supplies and then pruned and watered the flowers in her windowboxes. Soeur Erichsen learned how to iron and ironed a bunch of clothes for her. We then had a beautiful dinner with them. This family loves cheese, and, quelle coinkidink, we do too!! (see pics)

The cheese plate the Nivard family made us-- with 9 types of cheese!

Friday we had the opportunity to work with a member, Soeur Paullion, to go visit our recent convert Gregory and a new ami Claude. It was a busy and stressful day, but having Soeur Paullion with us just helped me to calm down so much. Gregory made us lunch and was super excited to show us what he had prepared for his very first talk on Sunday! When he gave it yesterday I just felt like a proud momma, he did such a good job and testified so powerfully! He is one of the coolest members ever, and he's trying to be prepared to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood before stake conference in 4 weeks. We are so excited for him!

We finished out the week with a second district P-day!! This time we came to Amiens and were able to see the biggest cathedral in Europe. Unfortunately we weren't able to go up to the top because it was raining, but we did get to see the inside. We also got poutine (hooray!!) and went shopping. Soeur Pischer was so excited to buy a big blanket scarf and tried on nearly every scarf in the store. The elders sort of just followed us around, but they were good sports about it :) we had a great time. I love small districts, we all feel like we're best friends.

In my personal studies this week I was really struck by a poem that I've read before, but haven't taken a lot of time to ponder. Thought I'd share:

“‘Father, where shall I work today?’

And my love flowed warm and free.

Then he pointed out a tiny spot

And said, ‘Tend that for me.’

I answered quickly, ‘Oh no, not that!

Why, no one would ever see,

No matter how well my work was done.

Not that little place for me.’

And the word he spoke, it was not stern;

He answered me tenderly:

‘Ah, little one, search that heart of thine;

Art thou working for them or for me?

‘Nazareth was a little place,

And so was Galilee.’”

I know that wherever we are called to serve, we are doing the Lord's work. Whether it be in a big city or a little one, in France or America, as a full-time missionary or serving in another capacity, as we serve the people around us we are serving the Lord. I know that this gospel is true and that we will be blessed for our efforts, big and small. I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Soeur Rogers

                      We visited the Amiens cathedral for district P-day! 

9-11-17

Hello all! 

This week has been prematurely cold, and it rained every day, at some point during the day. I believe it was also sunny every day, at some point during the day. Weird. If you mention it to the members (or if they mention it to you) they'll just smile and say, "C'est le nord!" Of course we took advantage of the cold weather to have the first raclette of the season. Longtime readers may remember raclette- boiled potatoes with grilled slices of ham and sausage and melted cheese poured over the top. The perfect remedy for a cold and rainy afternoon :)

We had exchanges with our STLs in Villeneuve D'asq this week. Honestly one of the best exchanges I've ever had :) We didn't have any lesson scheduled, so instead Soeur Buchanan and I went contacting the entire time, and we had a blast!! We talked to a lot of really cool people and had some really good healing conversations between us as well. Most of our time was spent in calmer city neighborhoods, with people out on the streets but not too many, and we definitely relied a lot on the Spirit to help us be able to meet people. 

One such Spirit-led contact was with a woman named Sandrine. We felt prompted to turn down a street that appeared to be deserted, until a woman turned the corner further down the street and started walking in our direction. We started talking to her and discovered that she just recently got out of the hospital, and is having a really hard time physically and emotionally. She told us that just moments before she had sat down to pray, and then got up, continued walking, and met us!! We testified of the reality of God's love for us all. Sandrine is one of those wonderful people who has a very strong testimony that God is there for her. We were able to share personal experiences, and then prayed together. The Spirit was so strong, and Sandrine knew that God had sent us to her. We felt the same thing. She was so excited to be able to see us again!! 

The rest of exchanges were wonderful. I lost Soeur Buchanan on the metro. We had accidentally ended up in a really full section of the metro when the rest was pretty empty, so we decided to get off at the next stop and run further down. So at the next stop and I got off, ran down a couple doors, and got back on... and realized as the doors were closing that my companion was nowhere in sight! That was a nerve-wracking 50 seconds to the next stop until I could get off and see Soeur Buchanan get off the other end of the metro! We were both so used to having other people follow us that we just ran off in 2 different directions and didn't notice :) we had a good laugh about that one.

We've been doing a focus on finding in our mission, and our zone has been specifically working on finding through service opportunities and referrals. So this week we got our service pants on (literally, like we were wearing jeans and some of the members mildly freaked out) and we helped clean the chapel. After a ward meal the previous Sunday, it was kind of a mess! We vacuumed and mopped the entire building, cleaned the chalkboards, cleaned the bathrooms, washed the dishes... it's a good thing French chapels are small! 

I think that's about everything for this week! I have been studying grace a lot this week. I wish I could quote all of "His Grace is Sufficient" to you but this email is long enough already. I know that the Savior's grace is the strength that He gives us to continue on the path of life. It's an enabling power that has been giving me more strength, more courage, more love and more patience than I could possibly have on my own. The enabling power of Christ's Atonement is what helps me get through my hardest moments. I know God loves me and I know He loves you!!

Have a wonderful week!

Soeur Rogers

 Exchanges with Soeur Buchanan and Soeur Robertson! These soeurs are in my group and are going home with me. I love them so much!!!!

 We went to get pâtisseries today at a super fancy place and I found a Paris-Brest!! What the heck we are in the north!! But it was sooooo good :)

9-4-17

Hi all!

We had a really cool and busy week this week, which of course means I don't have time to tell you about it all! So I'll give you a just couple cool tidbits from this week.

We had another lesson with Oliver, a returning member, and Ofili, his friend. It was super weird to teach the Restoration in English. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to really teaching in English haha :)

We also taught a convert of about a year and his wife, who's not a member. We struggled to decide on what to teach them and finally decided to talk about prayer. When we got there, the member said, "Let me tell you something sisters. Last night I was praying to God, and I was having trouble praying like I want to. I asked God what I should do, and He said, ask the sister missionaries" We said, "Well, that's wonderful, because today we prepared a lesson on prayer"

Our recent convert Gregory received the Aaronic Priesthood at church yesterday! We had a lesson with him the day before where we talked about the priesthood and were able to answer a lot of his questions and concerns. We also ended up talking about stake conference (where he can be sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood) and general conference. We also explained patriarchal blessings to him. It is so cool to be a part of the after-baptism process for him. We can see him becoming more and more integrated with the ward and firm in his testimony. It seems like he's been a member for years already, instead of just 2 months!

We also had an incredible first lesson. It was actually pretty funny, we were porting on Tuesday morning and we we talked to this man named Daniel for a long time. We talked for a while and set up another rdv for Thursday morning when his wife would be home (he had mentioned that she was more religious than he was). When we showed up on Thursday his wife answered the door and we introduced ourselves. She said, "oh yes, my husband told me you would be coming... about 10 seconds before he walked out the door"
So Daniel fruged our rdv, but instead we shared an incredible lesson with his wife, Anne Laure. She was really receptive to our message and excited to read the Book of Mormon. It was such an incredible testimony to me that God knows His children and will help us to find the people that are prepared to listen to us... one way or another.

We wrapped up this with a super fun district P day today! We were finally able to see some of the more touristy site in Arras- the beffroi (which has been featured in previous weeklies, we discovered that we can hear it from our apartment if it's quiet outside), the Boves (underground tunnels from the middle ages) and the Carrière Wellington (underground tunnels from WWI). We had a blast just being together as a district. Being the only companionship in a ville can be fun, but being together with the district (or "sistrict" in our case) is totally worth it.

Bonne semaine à tous et a toute!
Soeur Rogers 

 The Porte de Valenciennes in Douai

 The old tunnels under city center

 We had to wear these dorky helmets to go in the tunnels, I felt like a Rebel fighter!

 The new tunnels south of the gare that were used in WWI. This pic is one of the exits they used when mounting the surprise attack

 This city is so beautiful. Also, we could see our apartment building from the top of the beffroi, it was dope.