Blood, sweat, and a buck twenty-five.

Helllooooooo errrybody!

Buckle your seatbelts, kids, cuz this week was totes cray. As of Wednesday, my companion and I are back on bikes! We've clocked in something like 15 miles biking/walking in the past five days, and we're doing even more today haha I feel great. My knees are definitely loving it :)

I've got some great stories to tell you! First we'll address the blood, because the buck twenty-five was actually a really spiritual experience.

So, last p-day we were playing volleyball. Let's be clear on something - I haven't played volleyball in something like 8 years. Something could've changed in that time - maybe I'm good at it. Maybe it doesn't hurt to play. I've also got so much energy built up that when the opportunity comes to do something strenuous that isn't just walking/biking, I'm all over that business. So I jump right into the game. AND I wasn't even that bad at it :) Until somebody sent the ball towards the back of the court. I go running after it, put it back up in the air before it can hit the ground, and greet the wooden paneling around the walls of the cultural center with the left side of my face (my GOOD side, for that matter). I stand back up like, oh yeah I'll just play it off. The Elders told me I wasn't bleeding, so it was all cool...until I was like..."That kind of hurt." So I grab another sister and run into the bathroom to find...BLOOD. Haha I have a scar from my mission. how cool is that??

Okay, enough silliness. The buck twenty-five. So, we're helping a less active named Shelby Bohn get back into church...it's going to be a long shot because she's not a huge fan of changing her current lifestyle. I mentioned her last week - she's the one that justifies. Yup. Her. So, we go planning to teach her the second lesson, and instead she talks about how she had to go buy another pack cuz it's hard when she's driving...and there were twenty in the pack she bought, but there are only four left, and pretty much all of them were smoked by her friends...and I just got this prompting. So I pull out my wallet and a book of mormon, and I say, "Shelby, how much did you pay for that pack of cigarettes?"

She looks all confused and stammers around a bit before saying it was about six dollars. I do some little math things on our phone's calculator, and figure that those four cigarettes are worth about a dollar twenty cents. So I pull out a dollar bill and dig a quarter out of my wallet, stick them in the Book of Mormon, and say, "I'm going to buy that pack of cigarettes from you."

Yup. Bought cigarettes on my mission.

 Afterwards, we talked about how she needs to believe that she can do it, because we do, and so does Heavenly Father, but it's up to her. We bore powerful testimony about the enabling power of the atonement and all that stuff, and then we left.

It's such a great but terrifying feeling to act on a prompting, because you know that thought wasn't your own, and that you're truly a tool in the Lord's hands. What a privelage! He doesn't need us to do this work. There are plenty of stories of people you find a copy of the Book of Mormon in the thrift store, read it, pray about it, and when the missionaries show up they say, "Oh yeah I've been waiting." He doesn't need us - but we need Him, and we are blessed to be His hands in these days.

Thanks so much for all the letters and support :) I love you all and pray for you all the time! Love ya!

-- 

Sister Annika Rogers

Isaiah 49:16

                          Guess who my new best friends are...

This is our less active - sister phillips. She and her husband are going through the temple December 7th!!! We were helping her clean her house

              That's me with a Madagascar hissing cockroach :)

                                               #yum

This is Gabe - he's 6 and we taught him a little bit. His grandma is a member but his parents aren't...we made a tower out of big legos because why not. We definitely got it like...eight feet tall.