Lost Books and a Birthday!‏

Guess what, errybody!

I'm old!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes and the packages that are pending...since the mail is slow here and everything gets forwarded through the mission office, I haven't actually got them yet. BUT I have it on good sources that they are coming :)

So remember how I wanted a baptism on my birthday? Well, that didn't happen. Remember how Sister Ewell and I set a goal of giving out 21 copies of the Book of Mormon by my birthday? Well, that didn't happen either. BUT...we ended up with four investigators having a baptismal date, teaching 20 lessons again, and had a downright blast. Sometimes we set goals, and we tell Heavenly Father, and he recognizes our efforts...and then he blesses us in the way we didn't want to be blessed :) This was probably the most unorthodox birthday I've ever had, but I enjoyed it immensely :)

So, let me tell you about some awesome studies I had this morning. Yes, this morning! So I've been reading the Book of Mormon for something like a month now, and I'm moving at a snail's pace because I'm marking everything up and reading between the lines...so I'm on 1 Nephi 19, and I read verse 10 today, and got really confused. "Sister Rogers," I says to myself, "Who in the world is Zenock?? Who is Neum? Where is the book of Zenos?" So I check out the footnote for 10b, and it reads, "BD Lost Books" (btw this is referenced in 1 Nephi 13:23, I just didn't really get it the way I got it this morning).

Whut.

Anything lost is instantly 100 billion times more intriguing than anything else in my attention-deficit brain, so I flipped over to the Bible Dictionary and read about the Lost Books of the Bible (http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/lost-books?lang=eng&letter=l), and  if you go to that reference you'll see a list in the very first paragraph. So I start to read that list...and it goes on and on and on. Needless to say I was floored! What in the Whorld! More than 20 books that are missing from the Bible, and in them countless prophecies of Christ and miracles of the priesthood and who knows what else! So then my companion and I were talking about the books that Mormon hides in the hill Cumorah (Mormon 6:6) and how few of the records we have and I just kinda freaked out because I have a lot of reading to do when I get to heaven!

I am constantly overwhelmed by how exciting it is to be part of a gospel that will keep teaching me forever! How boring would it be to have a cap on how much intelligence we could gain?!

I have kind of painted this image in my head of this huge museum that Heavenly Father has up in spirit paradise, full of things like the Liahona and the original Gold Plates and the sword of Laban and the Ark of the Covenant and Moses' staff...maybe that's what our first day in Paradise is like - a personal tour :)

So there's some food for thought :)

Thanks so much for all the letters :) all y'all know my love language is words of affirmation haha my joy is full every time I get a letter :)

KEEP BEING GREAT, ERRYBODY! LOVE YOU
-- 
Sister Annika Rogers

Isaiah 49:16

LEAVES!

These are across the street from our house.

I love them.

piece of the Berlin Wall.
Historically Significant Piece of Gravel

 me in a cemetery.

This is me with some of the members in Iola - Gramma and Grampa Stoll (they requested us at dinner because I met them before and I love them - sweetest people ever!)

Pumpkins!