12-4-17

'Tis the season! I can't believe it's already December!

Tuesday was short but fun. We had district meeting in the morning and we talked about how we can share the message of Noël with everyone. We are currently working on 2 things at the same time, Venez et Voyez with the ward (Come and See, a special sacrament meeting where the members will invite their friends and neighbors to discover our church) and Eclairer le Monde with the church (see mormon.org). We are so excited for both events but it's sometimes really hard to juggle both of them! Make sure to check out the new video on mormon.org, it's so beautiful!

Wednesday I went to Paris to attend the temple! At the last minute Soeur Peterson wasn't able to come, so it was a bit of a bittersweet experience, but wonderful anyway. Because of a couple mixups and soeurs getting stranded and then delayed, we were almost late for the session- and it was the last session before the temple closes! Thankfully, with a little jogging in the rain, we made it barely on time. It was SO incredible to return to the temple after spending so much time outside of it, in the world. The Spirit was so strong. And in case you didn't know, the Paris temple is the most beautiful temple I've ever seen.

Thursday we had a conference with half the mission and Elder Sabin! It was really really good. One of my favorite things that he said is that our trials are sometimes like chocolate chip pancakes. We see these funny little black spots in our pancakes and we think we don't want them, but then we find out that they are sweet and wonderful and exactly what we wanted. I think my entire mission has been like that haha :) there have been so many experiences that I've lived that seemed terrifying or difficult before or during, but at the end I've realized that it just made the entire journey sweeter.

Because we were out of our sector so much, on Friday we had 4 lesson set up! Ultimately we taught Meredith and Chatou, then went on splits with the other soeurs. Two of us went to JA soirée with Godrich (a less active JA) and the other two went and had a meeting with our Relief Society president. On the way back Sœur Peterson delayed Sœur Daines on the tram (aka sat on her until the next stop) while Sœur Potter and I sprinted back to prepare a surprise for Sœur Daines' 9 month mark! We put a note on the bedroom door and hid balloons and a present in her bed, and then waited FOREVER for her to go to bed and find them! It was hilarious, she came home and didn't see a surprise and thought we hadn't actually prepared anything and were just pulling her leg :)

On Saturday I saw the biggest miracle! I had been thinking about Thierry (my ami from Mulhouse) a lot recently so I decided to add him on Facebook. He added me back instantly and we messaged back and forth for about 30 mins! He said he's been reading the Book of Mormon and that he wants to go to church but doesn't know where. I gave him the address of the church and the phone number of the missionaries. He said he's going to go next week! I'm so thrilled that he's once again progressing, and hopefully this time he'll make it all the way.

Sunday was beautiful. Fast Sunday was very Christ-centered and so spiritual. I love this Christmas season. One of the testimonies that I loved was by a young man who talked about how everyone says that Christmas is so commercial, etc. He said, "I don't really agree with that. I don't think I know anybody who, at the same time they're buying presents, isn't listening to Christmas carols or baking someone cookies or reading Luke 2 with their family. I think everyone comes closer to Christ during Christmastime."

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
Sœur Rogers

11-27-17

Hello everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I would like to begin with an excerpt from the weekly of my wonderfully creative and inspiring beautiful friend Sœur Potter:

"We have a crazy downstairs neighbor who told us not to shower before eight and not to do a lot of other things because of some 'rules' that don't really exist, and after a week or two of me being there she wrote us a note telling us we were not being respectful to her, so then we just started showering before eight because the neighbor below her told us that she was crazy and does that to everybody. Also our downstairs neighbor and her mom yell at each other all through the night, so who's really disrespecting who here...????¿¿¿¿ One time they were yelling at each other in the middle of the day, so I stomped my foot really hard on the ground and they stopped. Hahahahaha. We've never seen the woman. It's an interesting relationship. She yelled bad words at us on Sunday morning because we were getting ready for church and she threatemed to call the police. It was laughable."

Sunday morning? I was there. In the shower actually, it was terrifying. But the rest of our Sunday was great! We saw the Primary program (all the kids from 3-12 did a presentation) and it was ADORABLE! We have 4 languages represented in our Primary (French, English, Spanish, and Portugeuse) and all the kids did their little talks in their own language, it was adorable! And then when they sang songs they sometimes sang the last verse in Spanish or Portuguese. By far my favorite Primary. They were all pretty well behaved too which was cool, except for a couple times when they were all SUPER squished together on the bench and there was a little giggling with kids sitting in each other's laps :)

Also this week we hosted exchanges in Bruxelles! I went with Sœur Durant and we taught Tanya the 10 commandments, complete with cute little hand signs to help her remember them. She laughed so hard! We also had some deep conversations and went finding for about an hour. I don't think we talked to a single person in French during that entire hour, it was hilarious! They were all from Romania and spoke English. I think we must have been close to some sort of Romanian embassy, seriously! Probably they are all coworkers and came into the office the next morning going "these weird American girls tried to talk to me about God last night" and about 4 or 5 people go "me too!!!"

Finally, an update on Meredith. So as of last week she had decided to be married before her baptism, and it looked like that probably wasn't going to happen until March or April. Super sad, right? PSYCH!! 

So we asked her to pray about it, right? Meredith always prays about things. She's great. When she prayed about the Word of Wisdom, not only did she stop drinking tea on the spot, she stopped drinking energy drinks as well. Anyway so she prayed about her marriage and baptismal date, etc before going to bed. Then, in the middle of the night, she woke up. Michel Ange woke up at the same time too. They turned to each other and said, "we need to move up our marriage date" So now they are getting married ASAP, probably in December!!! I'm SO SO excited for them, and I'm so happy that Meredith can be baptized sooner as well! They are already planning their temple sealing in a year, and every time we see her, Meredith is just GLOWING!!!

I love this gospel. I love the opportunity I have to see other people change their lives and come unto Christ. Our new missionary purpose has been simplified: Teach Repentance, Baptize Converts. As we teach repentance and help others to come closer to the way Christ and Heavenly Father live, they will have more joy in our lives, and we will have joy in serving others. 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!! Have a beautiful week!!

♡Sœur Rogers

1. Exchanges with Sœur Durant! Sorry that it's Parc Cinquantenaire again...

2-3. More pics of pretty Alost

4. We finally took a picture with Meredith!!!

5-6. Grand Place at Christmastime

7-8. The Christmas Marché. We are going shopping next week when it's not raining and I'm PUMPED!!!

11-20-17

Scene: it's Monday morning. Sœur Rogers be chillin' and decides to try to write her weekly before 5pm this time. She then poses the age-old question: What did we even do this week??

Then she looked at area book planner, and remembered;

- we had a very stressful chat conversation/lesson thing with Yvannie. It was crazy becuase we had no idea what was going on but also chill because we could talk to each other in the middle of the lesson. We talked about the Book of Mormon, bore our testimonies of how we came to know it's true, and engaged her to read it every day and pray about it. It was so cool!

- ‎we also took a train out to visit Tanya (our lesson was incredible, as usual. We talked about living prophets and watched Pres. Monson's talk on the Book of Mormon). On the way back our train broke down so we had to sit in the train for 20 mins, then stand outside in the cold waiting for the new train to come pick us up for the next 25. It was a fun adventure.

- ‎we did service for Bernadette and helped her paint her shelves white. The entire time we worked, she was playing Christmas carols from her phone and we sang along to all of them. We are SO excited for Christmas!!

We also saw Meredith this week. We taught her about the 10 commandments and the law of chastity, which eventually turned into a lesson on eternal marriage and temples and why marriage is so important. Meredith is currently living with her fiancé, who is a member of the Church. They are keeping the law of chastity but because they are living together, Meredith can't be baptized. She told us that it would be too difficult for her, both emotionally and financially, for Michel Ange to move out for a couple months before they get married, so it looks like her baptism will probably get pushed back to spring. It was a very bittersweet lesson. We all felt like it was the right thing for her, but it was hard for all of us to know that Soeur Peterson and I won't be there for her baptism. However, while we were teaching her about temples on-the-fly, we showed her several pictures of temples (the random ones we had saved on our tablets or that were in the brochures) and she said "well maybe we'll come to America for our temple sealing!" 

Church was sooo crazy yesterday but sooo fun!! Right before sacrament meeting started, Mariza, the girl from last Sunday, showed up out of nowhere! She told us that Frère Adrienson, the family history consultant, had asked her to come to the chapel at 11:30 so he could help her with her family line. But sacrament meeting was literally starting in 2 minutes! So I asked her if she wanted to stay for sacrament meeting and she said yes! She came in and sat next to me (Sœur Peterson was playing the piano). It was SUCH a good sacrament meeting, and she LOVED it! When it was over, she was like, "wow, it's over already? It was so fast!" She really felt the Spirit. I got her started with Fr. Adrienson but I had to leave her there because we were teaching Primary, and that was a whole other adventure!

The lesson was on Le Dîme (tithing). I'm not entirely sure how much they ultimately learned about tithing. They enjoyed the chocolate coins though :) The highlight was when I asked the kids, "How do we give this money to God?" One of the kids responded, "I know! I know! You put it in an envelope in the middle of the floor, and then you put lots and lots of candles all around it, and then you pray really hard and send it to God! But you don't send it to Satan, that's evil" Not sure where this kid is getting his education, but it put a little spice into my Suday!

I am so excited for my second Thanksgiving in Europe! We are doing a Thanksgiving dinner as a district with the Christensens on Tuesday, and a little party as an apartment on Thursday. We are so excited! In the spirit of Thanksgiving, don't forget to eat loads of turkey, and tell your loved ones how grateful you are for them!!

I am grateful for all of you. Thanks for taking the time to read this email/blog entry. You're the best. Yeah, you. And remember, Heavenly Father loves you!!

♡Soeur Rogers

 Parc Cinquantenaire (again, haha! We live so close and it's so beautiful!)

 Doing service for Bernadette, we painted those shelves!

  Another pic of Alost. It is so beautiful!

  Comp selfie when we were stuck in Liederkirk 

 It was so cold but so beautiful!

11-13-17

Welcome welcome to a brand new transfer in the life of Soeur Rogers! This week we said goodbye to Sœur Biggs and Elder Hidalgo (Elder Eyring was long gone to Versailles) and we welcomed some old missionary friends, Sœur Potter and Elder Schultess, along with Elder Kiene, a blue!

On Thursday we got to live the VIP life and we went to the European Parliment to attend Women in Faith!! It was a really cool event. Jean Bingham spoke, as well as other members of the European Parliment and other distinguished speakers that are super cool. We weren't allowed to wear our missionary tags (because they didn't want people to think that we were going to proselyte) but there were several people that tagged us as missionaries anyway ;) it might have had something to do with my beat-up boots, hahaha. 

We were allowed to put our plaques back on for the little sandwiches afterwards, and we got to meet and talk with Jean Bingham for a moment and with Sharon Eubank for several minutes. It was so cool!! Sister Bingham's comments were really inspired. Many of the speakers took a more political or general view, but her talk was a lot more about how women of faith are strengthened in moments of trial. It was super inspiring and really cool to be there! More information about the event is on mormon newsroom, and if you look closely, you can see Soeur Peterson and I in one of the crowd shots :)

We taught Meredith several times this week. She continues to progress really well, and is on track to be baptized in December. We taught her more about the Atonement and about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have noticed that she really applies the things she learns. In the words of Boyd K. Packer, “True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior.”

Sunday was stake conference! Our mission president asked us to be there several hours early so we could have a mini-conference about the Venez et Voyez (come and see) sacrament meeting we'll be having on December 24. The stake president asked every man, woman, and child to invite someone to that special sacrament meeting. We're so excited to just keep encouraging the members to do missionary work! The missionaries are going to be very minimally involved in this effort, we will literally just be there to support the members.

However, Soeur Peterson and I actually heard about all of that secondhand. Just before the missionary conference started, a woman walked in the door asking about a family history center! Soeur Sorensen (the mission president's wife) immediately started talking to her, and then she turned to us and asked if we had a family history center. We were like, "um, we have a computer!" So we got Mariza set up with a FamilySearch account and showed her how to use FamilyTree to search the records of her ancestors. She was looking for the marriage record of her great-grandparents. Unfortunately we weren't able to find it, but we got her phone number, gave her the number of the family history consultant, and invited her to come back to church next week! Just as we waved her out the door, the other missionaries came out of the chapel, and we realized that we had missed the whole thing! Whoops!

Anyway, the rest of stake conference was super inspiring. Elder Sabin and Jean Bingham spoke, as well as their spouses. Afterwards, there was an event for all the women ages 12+ and Jean Bingham spoke to us again. 

Sooo it was a cool week! Be on the lookout for pics to come! I love you all, 

Sœur Rogers 

  The Basilica is sooo pretty!

 We visited this super cool cathedral! It's called the Petit Sablon and it has the most beautiful stained glass I've seen in my life. The rest of it was gorgeous too :)