Christmas in Federal Way

Sister Orr and Sister Westover - Christmas 2015 - Federal Way Ward

Hey Mamma!

I don't think i thanked you profusely enough for the gifts! i seriously LOVE them! thanks for all the thought and love and such that went into that! i seriously wanted to send you all seahawks socks or something. because i fell like that is the most representative thing of this area of the world. but even socks are like $15 a pair. TOO expensive! any ways yes. oh and ill try to send you pics of outfits from christmas.

Happy 25th ANNIVERSARY! i cant believe our fam is 25 years old! we are like grown ups now. crazy. hope yall do something fun!

emily did ask me about china. and i would LOVE to! i will for sure have to pray about it! but i honestly would be so happy to go:)

tonight we are teaching a lady who has bailed on us a few times but when we do talk to her she seems really prepared. i guess actions speak louder than words though right/ anyways pray for linda brown. i think if we can teach her tonight she will be baptized in the next couple months!

i guess this letters going to be short cause i told you practically everything on chirstmas.

we tried to see todd again last night and we knocked on his door and he told us he was sleeping. so i think thats the end of todd. :( 

we found bomb potentials this week! i think thanks to dads specific prayer!:) we met a girl named bunjee and christina and antionette and ray and ken. and another kid who i can remember his name but it starts with a k. and they are all way solid! we get to teach them this week! they can be in your prayers too please :)

have fun with brittney! pull some pranks. play some games. :)

I'm glad that me and princess kate are on the same wavelength. she is pretty cool i think.  (this has to do with a conversation we had about her current haircut)

we also get to teach this girl jenny tonight that according to the elders is way prepared and she is a family of 5! so that is what we are looking for!

i love teaching people about the gospel its awesome.

the night before christmas eve we were tracting and it was the last house of the night before we were going home and we found these 2 sisters in their apartment setting up thier christmas tree and they let us come in and share with them the message of the restoration. and the spirit was way strong there! we invited them to be baptized and one said yes if she had truly studied and come to know it was true. she actually didn't live there she lives in california but she gave me her email. so we can keep in touch. she leaves new years so in the next couple days we will bring her a book of mormon:) and get her reffered to the missionaries where she lives.

have a grand old day!

LOVE you!

sister Erin Orr

The BEST kind of suprises (a.k.a. miracles)

The BEST thing ever happened this week! Sister Eaton texted to inform me that LESLIE OSBORN from Maple Valley was getting baptized and that I was supposed to give a talk on the Holy Ghost! I didn't stop thinking about it all week! Sister Baxter didn't get to teach her but since we found her together I made her come with me so our companions worked in Fed Way while we went up to Maple Valley :) It was such a sweet baptism! Leslie has a lot of medical problems and has a hard time moving around at all. So there were TWO men in the font with her which I had never seen before. One to baptize and one to assist. She had a hard time bending back but it all worked out and she was baptized and then confirmed the next day! My old investigator Andrew was there so that was good!  Usually a couple missionaries teach the restoration while the baptizee is getting dressed. But apparently they weren't expecting non-members to be there so they hadn't told any one to do that. But, since some showed up, right after the baptism a missionary asked me and Sister Baxter to do it. So we jumped up and did and then I had to get right back up and give a talk. So that was adrenaline. I still don't like talking in front of people. Do you remember 100 years ago when you taught us kids a lesson about how we would have to go to the jungle and live there for a year and if we survived we would get a million dollars or something like that but we would have the huge advantage of having a guide to help us? Well I used it in my talk. It was cool because I was having a hard time writing my talk and I was praying about what I needed to include or experiences I could tell and that lesson popped in to my mind and I had totally forgot about that thing! Twas a miracle I tell ya!

We had our ward Christmas party this week! That was fun! A LOT of people came. A lady named Gina that we did some service for earlier in the week came with her family and then we invited her to church and she came! woot woot!  We have a companionship goal to find a family of 5 to teach and baptize, so we are on the hunt and we are trying to do what it takes to see that kind of miracle. We went to dinner with a lady last night who was telling us about her friend who had come to the ward Christmas party with her and that she is way prepared! AND that she is married with 3 kids! So we are excited about that and she is inviting them to church and to meet with us this week! Pray for that! I sure as heck am! We have also been meeting a lot more families as we have been praying about this! It's awesome!

Last night we knocked on this guys door and he came out and talked to us forever. He is way cool and we tried to keep it gospel focused and that was a challenge.  But the only reason I bring this up is that I thought it was so funny. We just showed up on this guys porch and he tells us everything about himself. EVERYTHING. Like that he found out his dad wasn't his real dad at age 15 and that that was hard on him. How he and his wife met. That his sister is a recovering addict. That his wife's cousin gave her baby up for adoption and the kid is of age but hasn't contacted her yet. How he hates his job and the radio and loves Eminem. He told us about the neighborhood and that thieves are posing as vacuum salesmen and that Bobby Orr is pretty much the greatest person to ever live and why. He told us a lot about how much he loved his wife and daughters and how they annoy him so much. At the end of this like 2 hour conversation he finale told us that his name was Jesse. Anyways. That story had not a lot of point I just thought it was funny how much life detail someone would give to a couple girls who showed up on the porch :) So there you have a ton of information about a potential investigator.

Another kind of miracle. So Sister Westover's tooth has been killing and I happened to notice the sign for a dentist and recognized it as the guys name who worked on Sister Dolan's teeth for free. So we walked in and he said to come back the next day and he would fix it free of charge and he did! I got to watch. She had a giant cavity! So anyways, yeah, total miracle that I remembered the dentist's name from like months ago. He was way cool.

Let's see... a shirtless sophomore kid hugged me while I was testifying about prayer...I'm pretty sure he was not listening.... :)

So, on CHRISTMAS I will be at a family's house from 12 to 3 my time, so I think that's 1 to 4 your time. Is it cool if I just call you somewhere in there? Probably towards the end? And we can skype? It will probably actually be skype and not facetime this time. We can work it out:)

Welp, I love ya and I am way excited for Friday!  Talk to ya then! 

LOVE Sister Erin Orr

2 Weeks of Letters: service, the beach teaching, fish pie.... :)

December 6, 2015:

this week has been fun! 

so we have a nativity display deal going on at the church and missionaries got to help:) we spent like 4 hours tuesday morning steaming tablecloths. so that happened. i was pretty much born to dewrinklefy things.

you saw that we got to go to the beach! it was so fun! we found a ton of sanddollars and cool shells and brought them home. i didnt want the sanddollars to stink so i boiled them and tried to bleach them except we didnt actually have bleach so i sprayed them with TileX. so pretty much they look tiedyed and way cool! at the beach there were little creatures sticking out of the sand that we were messing with. it was so cool. i was trying to find a crab the whole time but i didnt see any. but i found a super cool shell and when i boiled it i found a cute tiny crab inside. the bad news is the crab was dead from being boiled. but it was still pretty cute.

i dont think i mentioned it last week! but our mission baptised 41 people in the month of november and confirmed 42! yay! destroyed that goal :)  we are trying to get 40 this month too!

on thursday morning we did service for this less active lady who i seriously want to be best friends with. she is so funny! and she has a huge insanely bouncy trampoline in her living room! you better believe i jumped on that thing. it was awesome.

 

we found some bomb potentials this week that we get to teach: LINDA! JANESS! SALOMI! SHUNDAY! LADONNA!  these ladies are bomb. seriously. major miracles are happening in the federal way ward!

here is another excerpt from my latter to president this week: This week we had a cool faith building experience. There is a 16 year old girl who is way prepared and we hadn't been able to get a hold of her for a WHILE. But we know she is willing to change and meet and such BUT our tries at drop-by's and texts and calls were uneventful. we decided that we would giver her one last shot, and we made it a good one! we prayed that events would transpire in her day that would leave her with nothing to do when we showed up. also we brought the Young Womens president along as fellowship. when we showed up Tara was home alone with nothing to do. We had an awesome lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ and extended the baptismal invitation! and the YW president was great! it was awesome!

I will search for pics from libbys baptism. i know they are out there somewhere.

there is a social media feed on christmas.mormon.org. that is how i can see ya. but couldn't find you :( ALSO there are music videos they put out one for each day of december. and alex boye  has a bomb little drummer boy song you should watch!!

if there is a food bank close by, for your service you can work there! i love that! i want to keep working in a foodbank when i get home! also as a zone we are going Christmas caroling in senior living facilities. 

GOOD LUCK with the decision making! have a great day! I LOVVEE you!

Sister Erin Orr :) :)

December 14, 2015

Good News!

im not getting transferred and neither is sister Westover! we are staying together for christmas! YAY!!

Libby was confirmed (finally!) on sunday/ it was awesome and she is an incredible person. we went to see her yesterday and she had bought us chips and spinach dip and reeses and cookies. which was a miricle for sister westover because the night before we went to a members house for dinner and they feed us brussel sprouts and mushrooms and spinach salad and fish pie. all of which i was quite stoked about. but as i mentioned before this girl does NOT do veggies. but she ate it all so i was crazy proud of her :) so the junk food was a tender mercy!

we started teaching this less active girl named kaylissa who i LOVE. man she is cool. she was watching parks and rec when we got there so that probably helped me realize her innate awesomeness. but yeah she just wants a stronger relationship with god and will do what it takes!

we also found this guy Todd this week who is AWESOME. serious miracle. so he was sitting by this way cool corvette and he had a walker and was struggling to get his groceries so we walked over and pretty much demanded that he let us help him and it turns out that he just retires from the military and has been in the middle east for the last 9 years so he is feeling proud to be a christian freely and is also looking for a church. he said he was really tired from having to get around to the store and stuff so he told us to come back later and we gave him our number and we took out his trash. since we have elders serving in our ward we had to give him to them. they went and knocked on his door but he didn't answer. then we got a voice mail from TODD! he said that the service that we did for him was so great and that he really wanted us to come share more with him about what we believe. so we gave the elders his number and sent them over again! this guy is awesome and im so glad we got to meet him! what stood out to me about this one is that the impression that we made on him was not what we taught but how we acted. we didn't do anything huge, but showing that you try to truly follow Christ by serving and helping and lifting when you can, stands out in this world. actions truly speak louder than words!

have i mentioned that me and sister westover found some martiallese(?) crowns in our apartment and we wear them 100% of the time we are at home. just a fun fact.

 

we had an exchange this week. i got to go with sister ketchum. and it turns out we are the same person so that was fun! i lost my tag at the food bank so i have been wearing hers. one time we were at a members house and he called on me for prayer by calling me sister orr. and then after the prayer he lokked at my tag and looked really confused and said "sorry i accidently called you sister orr." and i said "its ok. thats my name." and another time a guy said "sister ketchum will you say the prayer?" (i had just met him) and i just said "yes." 

also we found a softball in our apartment so we have been playing catch at lunch and such and so my palms hurt all the time:)

 

i think i will be having christmas at the cahans (sister tegerdines sister) but im not sure. i will find out and figure out a time for facetime:) when is best for yall?

 

tell dad to send me those vids quick!  im so excited to hear those girls sing!

i was getting excited about moving back to McKinney and getting jack back. BUT staying is good too especially if there are chickens involved! and we can still get jack back. Im glad everything is relieved and good!

Welp i LOVE ya! have a merry christmas! wish i could help with all the busyness!

LURV sister erin orr

Native American Thanksgiving and Libby's Baptism :)

P-Day Trip to the Beach

Hey mamma:)

I GOT YOUR PACKAGE! it was awesome! i have been doing bobs biggest loser workout this week! hah its great! and i quite loved the turkey! did you pinterest that?

on Tuesday night we got to go to the discovery center in bellevue.it was SO COOL! so much to learn! and it made me way grateful for all the family history work you and grandma and others have done! cause i got to see a bunch! there is one in salt lake! yall should definitely go! its just fun! we took libby and did research on her adopted family. her biological family is still a mystery!

we had a lesson with a Russian family who are insanely cute except for when you bring up the book of Mormon. then the cute stops and the insane yelling and crazy begins. it went on for a while until we said we didn't want to argue . then all of a sudden they were cute again because they dint want to come off as argumentative:) we asked if we could leave them with a prayer and they had mentioning their ability to speak in tongues the whole time so i really wanted to give the prayer but they insisted and for the first time in my life i heard a prayer "spoken in tongues". it was interesting. i hope they come to the nativity this weekend! they are really a cute family!

thanksgiving morning we had games with half the mission! we played basketball and volleyball and yoga and rummikub:) and clue and some of us girls had a danceparty to the Nashville tribute missionary cd, it was grand! there were only some minor injuries! then we went home and took a nap and planned for next week for 3 hours. then we went to thanksgiving which was definitelyintersting.it was native american. all of it! i liked the guacamole! i ate a WHOLE lot of guac. i filled up on that as much as i could:) afterwards we got to decorate their CHRISTMAS TREE! that made me so happy! and then we went to libbys baptismal interview which was fun!

the next day we had left over thanksgiving food at someone elses house. it was deep south thanksgiving. louisiana stuff. it was not normal but it was way good! most of it:) 

earlier in the week a few different ward members called us to say libby was having a very hard day and that we should go spend some time with her. we brought over those chocolate covered pretzels you sent and some crackers and snickers from halloweeen. and also the restoration movie and we had a gospel centered girls night. it was my favorite!

YESTERDAY libby got baptized. she is so awesome. she bore her testimony and it was so sincere!i have never been to a more spirit filled baptism. it was incredible.

when we were filling the font we had gone a third of the way up and hadnt even turbned on the cold water yet and we realized the water was freezing. apparently the water heater for the building had been shut off so we called bishop to turn it back on cause he had the key. luckily he was still in the building doing tithing settlement. SO ha came and fixed it and we poured hot water the rest of the time. libby said when she was baptised the top of the water was way hot and the botttom was absolutly freezing. ooops! 

welp! i love you so much! thanks for being my favorite mom! talk to you in 26 days!

LOVE sister Erin Orr

The Miracle of the Salmon

Happy thanksgiving:):)!!!

sounds like a crazy week! i hope thanksgiving is fun! what movie are you going to see? kids tell us about movies all the time. i feel quite up to date on whats out right now:)

so what i know about my thanksgiving thus far is that i will be having "native american" thanksgiving which involves rabbit stew so that should be interesting. but i'm excited! IN the field, missionaries all meet up thanksgiving morning and play basketball and volleyball and board games and such so im excited for that. i have had serious game playing withdrawls on my mission.

so libby is still on to be baptized this Saturday. she is incredible. do you remember i told you she is a martial artist. she showed us a video of her somersault kicking a girl in the face. haha! i think its on youtube as something like " girl vs. girl insane knockout kick" you should find it!

i got your package! it is WAY cute! i already ate all the minute muffins. they were So good and weird. and i super love the neclace! its my favorite part! and the journal!

we have been looking for service EVERYwhere this week. but people just keep calling us to get the elders number for service. i guess thats the struggle with having elders in the ward. a lady did let us throw away her pumpkins. so that happened. took about 14 seconds.

we had an awesome zone conference this week all about prayer here is part of my letter to president Eaton cause i dont super want to type it again:)

So one major thing I am trying to apply from zone conference is being specific in prayer. I know that by doing so I will increase my faith to see miracles and also allow God to grant us more blessings! In the bible dictionary definition of prayer, this is what has I think stuck with me most, is when it says "The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them." not asking specific questions is living beneath our privilege! this week i prayed for the discernment to know if the former we were about to see was ready to receive the Gospel and be baptized yet. as we were saying goodbye after an awesome interaction with her and after we had set up a return appointment, she hugged me and whispered "He knows I'm ready." i took that as a specific answer to my specific question and am grateful with the clarity of mind it gives me and my companion going forward about teaching this sister! 

this lady's name is Linda Brown and she is awesome! i am so excited to teach her.

another prayer miracle this week is yesterday we went to this ladys house and she made us salmon. and thats pretty much all she made us so i had no other option to fill up on. i prayed that i could eat it. and the first few bites were literally awful. (not her fault, its just salmon) but after those first few bites the salmon became bearable! i think Heavenly father wanted me to exercise the faith by taking those first few awful bites, that i knew He could help me. kind of like moses had to take those first few steps into the red sea before he was given the power to part it (my experience was a slightly smaller scale of miracle, but still one!). faith is a principle of action AND power.

k one chirstmas thing of which desire is the mini scriptures set. that would be awesome!

LOVE you!!

Sister Erin Orr

One Year In!!! And Happier Than Ever! :)

Hey dad! It as indeed been quite the year. I can NOT believe its been a whole year! Mission time is crazy. It's definitely true that days feel like a week. And weeks feel like a day. And I might add that apparently a year feels like 6 seconds.

At the mission devotional last night president eaton said something way cool that everyone needs to hear. I think a lot of people nowadays tailor Christ's teachings to however they want to live. Instead of tailoring themselves to fit Christ's teachings. President said it's like creating your own diet. No matter how much you want or say that brownies will make you lose weight, the fact is that they don't and that veggies and exercise are the way. Christ told us the way to live with our Father in Heaven and with our families perfectly happy forever. He provided the way. It's our job to follow him, not to change His way. In fact we cant. So don't try. Just submit to God's will and you will get where you want to be:)

I love that! Have a greaaat week! 

Love Sister Erin Orr

MOM:)

I love this new ward and companion! I am seriously stoked about these current circumstances! You wouldn't believe how perfect this all is! Sister Westover is bomb! She is from Midvale, Utah and we are just very similar and get along well. It's nice to have someone so like me. We have a lot of fun! The ward is cool! I have met some awesome people. I LOVE the Lopez's. They are seriously so funny and sarcastic and I just want to be best friends with them. (this is a family that Jared met on his mission and he's really close with them)

Also we are teaching an incredible lady named Libby. She is getting baptized on the 28th! She has NO religious background so she is just a sponge. But, she has always done a lot of meditating in the past and I think that has helped her become in tune with the spirit! She recognizes the feelings of the spirit so quickly and just knows and loves this gospel already! She gets so excited about new truths and things becoming clear to her. It is such a privilege to be a part in helping her get ready for baptism! We just talked about temples and family history. There is a family history discovery center at the church right behind the Seattle temple and president just told us we can now take investigators with a baptismal date there! So we are all going this week! I'm crazy excited! And we get to take Libby to walk on the temple grounds. She's gonna love it!

It has been downPOURING this week!!  So much rain! And because of that no one is outside, so we get to do a lot of tracting. Whoo! I don't even do my hair in the morning because its just going to be soaked all day anyways. Or makeup. One day we went tracting and it was raining so hard and no one was listening and it was so tempting to cut our finding hour a little bit short BUT we did not and at the very end as we were finding our way back to the car we met a girl named Jalleyah who is the bomb and is looking for the true church and wants us to introduce our message to her sister as well. Blessings!

The craziest thing happened Saturday night. So we were sleeping and we started hearing this banging sound and Sister Westover thought it was some one hammering upstairs but I thought it sounded like someone knocking on our bedroom door. It was 3:00 am. and it was loud and scary!  And it happened all night! We didn't sleep and we were scared as heck! I thought if I opened the door I would no doubt get stabbed. Well, a member of our ward is the apartment manager so we asked her if she knew anything about the banging. and she said that the lady who lives above us got locked out on her balcony at 10 pm and was stuck out there in the freezing rain until 6 am she was trying to get peoples attention all night! We felt SO bad! We brought the poor lady some brownies when we got home from church!

We stopped at a senior living center and visited a member lady who said that in our letters home this week we should mention that we visited the "crazy house". Haha, she is a hoot! She gave us the full tour and introduced us to almost every single person there.

It snowed for like 8 seconds so that was new. Everyone freaked out.

There is seriously a lake in front of our apartment complex that wasn't there before the rain came. It's left us about 6 inches of dry path so we can still get to our apartment, but it wont be long before we have to break out some kayaks or something to get home.

The only really progressing investigators we have are Libby and another named Corrina who is amazing. She just wants to get baptized so bad! Which is way exciting!  But other than them we don't have a super solid teaching pool so we will be building that up!

I'm excited for your package to come! Hopefully I will get it tomorrow! The nice thing about my last area was that the mission office was like 4 inches away from my house. So Sister Young would call me as soon as a package arrived to come pick it up. But now I have to wait till district meetings again. I guess thats a first world problem. There's a girl serving here from Papua New Guinea and it takes a YEAR to get a letter from home. So I guess I can't complain. :) 

I LOVE you. Hope the primary program goes swell. You should have emily critique for some quality constructive feedback. Primary programs are her specialty! :)

Have an amazing week! 

LOVE sister Erin Orr

Goodbye Maple Valley, Hello Federal Way

Hey!

So I was indeed right! I am being transferred to Federal Way:) My companion will be Sister Westover. Who I know I know but I'm not 100% sure who she is right now! Hah! I'm super sad to leave Maple Valley! I love this place! But I am also excited for the change! This will be one of the few times of my mission thus far that I will be in only one ward and not in YSA. So that will be new.

Hermana Peacock flew home yesterday so her companion is hanging out with us till transfers. Did I mention she sent me a pic of you and Sister Hotter last week? hah! That was fun! So you should be looking out for her! Anyways while her companion, Hermana Jorgenson was at our house this morning and she took a FALL on the indo board! So we were on the floor die-laughing for quite a while. It was SO funny! 

It's getting crazy dark now so we can't really just stop in places at like 8pm cause people don't like that. So when we don't have somewhere to go we have been calling the contacts in the phone who we don't know. And we found some BOMB potentials! People totally interested in learning! We need to expand our teaching pool and this was a great week for that!

Andrew brought his mom to church this week. She is not super interested but she likes the church and is grateful that Andrew chose a good one! :)

We were about to give up on Maggie cause she never answers her phone and she is never home and such. BUT we had some extra time while we were down in Auburn so we decided to give it one last shot and she was home! And told us she still wants to learn! Yay! She is way cool and I think she will let the gospel change her! I'm so excited to hear about that!

Daniel cam to a baptism with us this week. He LOVED it. My favorite part was watching him at the end walk up to the person who had been baptized and ask him how it felt and how he feels now. It showed his sincerity. I was grateful for that moment. It helped me see Daniel though Heavenly Father's eyes a little better. He loves to talk and tells a lot of stories and has a lot of obscure ideas, so it can be frustrating to teach him sometimes. But that was a simple moment that showed that he is growing in his understanding and faith.

One funny thing this week was some members took us to Panera and it was way good! But there is a sign on the table that says you can literally just sit down, get on the Panera website on your phone, order what you want, and people will bring it to your table. What the even heck! How much less human interaction can you get? People are crazy.

I LOVE ya!

Sister Erin Orr

Miracles and Baptisms!!

Hey MOM:)

Kaylynn is still on date for Saturday! For a couple days she wasn't responding to us which was kind of scary considering she was supposed to be baptized in August and then right before that, she freaked out and went AWOL and that is what leads to her now being baptized in October. Anyways so we have been trying to have some kind of contact with her everyday to avoid that kind of thing happening again. So we were scared after not hearing back from her for a few days. Apparently her phone wasn't letting her answer calls and such. We got back in touch last night so that was an answer to many peoples prayers! She is being interviewed by our district leader tonight! Yay!

I found out an incredible thing this week. You can make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with only: a can of pumpkin, boxed spice cake mix, and chocolate chips. so that changes the world. I tried them. They are almost just as delicious as the other ones we make. 

Some more miracles are happening! Heavenly Father is DROPPING prepared people into our laps!! One kid named G. texted us and told us that he is not active but he wants to stop smoking weed everyday and get on a mission! We have been in constant contact with him since! He has seriously one of the strongest testimonies I have ever seen! You can feel it so strongly around him. He got a blessing yesterday to help him quit smoking! He has smoked weed pretty much all day everyday since he was 14! And now he is 24. He hates how much it controls him and is excited to be free. He has relied so much on the Lord to get him where he is now and I am so excited for him to be a missionary!

He also had a guy call us and ask if he could come to church! I guess he works at Walmart and met a swarm of Elders on a p-day and thought he would check church out. Way cool! We met with him the night before and he came to church for the first 2 meetings!. We think he is developmentally delayed. Bishop said by watching him, he looks to mentally be about 12. I haven't really had experience teaching people like that, I don't really know what differences it will make at all in teaching. So if you have any tips, I would highly appreciate it. 

Leslie came to church again and so did Daniel! They both like it a lot and people are so great and welcoming!

So fun you got to talk to Chrissy!  Did I tell you my korean companion, Sister Lee's best friend from back home, trained Kenzie. I may have said that in a confusing way. So sorry! But I thought that was way cool!

Have you heard of Jamberry? It's a Mary Kay type of thing but for nail polish sticker things. Anyways we went to an old lady, Betty Jane's house to help her set up to have a "party" for one of her friends who is selling them. No one was arriving except the lady doing the selling, so we stayed for a little while. And eventually one other old lady showed up. And we asked her if she was going to get her nails done. And she said "No. I don't do my nails, I'm just here to support Betty." hah. Betty Jane didn't want to get her nails done either. So I think that party was a bust. It was kind of funny.

Mom, Maple Valley goes so hard for Halloween! Decorations are insane!  I have never seen them like this. One guys yard looks like full on Disneyland!  I will send pictures!

I'm glad your color flow class went good! I never actually tried that! You should teach it again when I'm home!

Please tell Addey and Bob to write or email me.  I haven't heard from them in forever!

lOvE yOu So MuCh!

Sister Erin Orr

A Week of Miracles

Hey Mamma Dear! 

Mom! This has been a week of miracles! I don't know if i told you about Kaylynn but she has been taught in a family ward in Auburn for a couple years and is ready to be baptized! AND we had a handoff lesson with the sisters in her ward so we get to teach her so she can be baptized in the YSA ward!  Sister Lee (my favorite Korean companion) was her missionary before so we got to teach together again! It was awesome! She is getting baptized halloween morning:) and is so excited! She is planning on serving a mission! I feel so lucky that we get to teach her! She came to church with us on Sunday.

Also we were driving back to Maple Valley from Ravensdale and we saw this guy walking down the road. As we drove away I thought about talking to him. Then I saw Sister Stewart turn her head to look at him as well and that let me know she was thinking the same thing I was. God was telling us the same thing. So we did a U-turn and hopped out of our car. It was clearly a weird thing to park on the side of a foresty road to talk to someone so I said "sorry if this is creepy but we saw you walking and we have an awesome message to share with you!" and he said "you came at the perfect time! I just lost my job and I'm wondering what is going to happen, and I was thinking about seeking some godly help!" It was sweet! We walked and talked with him for a while. He has some strange ideas about things, but every time we have met with him he seems to have more of a clear understanding of what we are saying! He came to church too! The YSAs are awesome fellowshippers! AWESOME! Probably because the are recent RMs and know what investigators need. It's incredible to watch and I'm learning about what I can be when I'm home by watching their examples!

Also we had a lesson with Phil, which he ditched. He does that periodically but his phone doesn't work out in the boonies where he lives so he cant tell us when he has to leave. Whats the point of having a phone? I don't know. Anyways, the next day we came and he was trying to haul a bunch of pipe up onto his roof to solar heat his hot tub. Again, not to sure about his logic, but he has a spinal chord injury and was trying to climb a ladder holding a whole bunch of pipe. We showed up expecting to teach a lesson, but instead got to help him out and help him feel safe doing his work. Don't worry we did not get on the roof. He knew we were totally God sent and said a prayer of thanks at the end! I think his heart is softening!

ALSO I don't know if I have told you about Leslie.  She is pretty old. We were actually in Black Diamond when we found her a while back, looking for YSAs when we came across her boyfriend and started to talking to him. He is a less active member. He introduced us to Leslie who told us that she actually lives in our Rock Creek ward boundaries and has had a bunch of exposure to the church and is interested in taking the lessons! We ran into her again last week after losing touch for a bit and did some service for her. She and her boyfriend came to church on Sunday and yesterday we had our first lesson! It was at Mcdonald's. Haha.  She prayed to know if our message was true and committed to be baptized November 28th! She made sure to write down the date so she wouldn't forget. :)

Also we got to teach Alyssa again finally after a month! woot woot! And honestly so many more good things happened. It's been incredible! And we are not planning on letting the miracles stop!

Yes, I'm driving everywhere! Our area covers 2 stakes! No wrecks yet. Also we have these black boxes in our cars that yell at us if we speed. So that is helpful and annoying.

Crystal took her mom's advice and decided not to waste our time. Super sad! But we are grateful to get to spend more time on those who are willing to make changes.

My friend Natalie Peacock, who knows the Kotters goes home in 3 weeks. Sad for me! But she said she's coming to visit you:)

We just started ponderizing as a mission! Our scrip for this week is 2 Nephi 2:8

Welp only 5 days till we get to email again! LoVE YOU!

Sister Erin Orr

Work and Miracles

Hey Mom:)

Sorry for the late letter. (referring to the fact that her letter didn't come til way late in the day) El comp made me go to choir. 

I GOT your PACKAGE! Thanks so much for the scale money!!!! And the Sobes and Ensigns! I forgot to tell Sister Baxter that you sent me those.  She would think its so funny because I LOVE reading the Ensign! I read it all the time and they are all over my desk and bed. haha. Also the chocolate. I don't think I'm going to get to trick or treat so that will do nicely :) The cute senior couple who work in the mission office have been calling me whenever I get packages so I haven't even had to wait till Tuesdays. They just have me come pick the packages up or bring them to me at the end of the night. Perks of living 2 inches away from the mission office!

I actually do eat breakfast nowadays. (Just answering a question in my letter because she was not a fan of breakfast before the mission) Either a smoothie with coconut/almond milk, a banana, kale, and spinach. or an egg with lots of veggies (mushrooms, onion, zucchini, tomatoes,peppers) to drown out the egg :)

Oh, did I mention I'm driving now? .....  (haha, I'm sure she mentioned that because she doesn't have the most stellar driving record.  #moretimeonmykneesnow)

Next week Elder Lawrence is coming so for some reason that means p-day has to be on Wednesday. So this is your official heads up on that.

We had a day this week that was completely awesome and completely didn't go as planned. One principle I have for sure learned is that sometimes Heavenly Father leads us to where we need to be, not always for the reasons we think we need to be there. This was especially evident as every person on Tuesday we had planned to see, canceled or wasn't home or wasn't available. However each of those times time we found a new person to teach or found someone close by who we had been looking for! One example happened at the very end of the night when we had like 15 minutes before 9:00 so we thought we would drop by Pia and sing her a song. :) Before we get out of the car to teach or talk to someone, we always pray. So as we were sitting in the car around the corner from Pia, my companion was praying, and I noticed someone get out of his car (as you know, I have never been great at keeping my eyes closed during prayers) and I knew that we had come to talk to him. By the time Sister Stewart said Amen he was right about to walk inside. I quickly said Amen and jumped out and yelled "Hey!" down the street. haha. The good news is he stopped even though I was an apparent creep! We had an awesome conversation with him and he told us that he sometimes wondered if there was a "right" church and if so, which one? We bore testimony of the restoration of the gospel and set up an appointment for this week! His name is Edgar and is a YSA! Woot Woot!  I'm so excited to teach him!

I got a cold this week and was like, miserable all day. so that night I pretty much overdosed on vitamin C and took Nyquil and Vicks vapor rub and I woke up feeling pretty good! I destroyed that cold!

We taught Crystal again. I was thinking that I might have dropped her too hastily so since she is back from Tacoma, we met up with her and her mom. For some reason we had our lesson at Denny's again. So we drank hot chocolate while we discussed. Crystal's mom is less active and she is awesome! She bears testimony to Crystal that taking this seriously and becoming an active part of this church will change her life for the exponentially better. What I would LOVE for her to do is to become active and be a living witness of that truth! We will see how things go!

We do have seasons! (answering my question) It POURED here a couple days ago. Man it was insane. So there are beautiful red and purple and yellow and orange leaves all over the ground!

I LOVE you quite a bit!

Love, Sister Erin Orr


Hey Dad!

I got the scarf! I love it! It's so great and very very warm! Thanks so much!

Guess what I made this week? Fried green tomatoes. They were pretty good! Someone gave them to me and I thought, why not? Did I mention I made lemon meringue pie a few weeks ago? I'm just cooking everything!

Remember my investigator, Jack? He was awesome and then he fell off the planet for a few weeks. No replying to calls or texts. No one answered the door. Nothing. So right before General Conference, we threw out a text reminding him about conference and what a great opportunity it would be. THEN he FINALLY replied. and said thanks for the reminder and that he had been out of town. We stopped by on Monday night to see if he was home and he answered the door! We asked if he had gotten to see any of conference and he said he had seen ALL of it! We had a bomb lesson right then. T'was a miracle.

I'm so excited to hear Bob and Addey's duet! 

LOVE you so much!

Sister Orr

The work rolls on in Rock Creek

Hey mom!

I don't have much time to write cause I accidentally used up a ton of time watching the all the addiction recovery videos in mormonchannel. Those things are seriously good! 

So transfers are this week and I am staying in Rock Creek! woot woot! Sister Baxter, on the other hand, is being transferred :( I'm about to have my 6th companion in 5 transfers in the same area!  I think my new companion is Sister Stewart, who I'm pretty sure is Sister Frischknechts companion right now. So that will be fun. I don't really know her at all yet.

I LOVED the Women's General Meeting! I thought there was a big focus in understanding our divine nature! Other people I have talked to saw a different main theme which I think is so cool! The Spirit knows what we need to hear! And I am so excited for conference! Our bishop in the YSA ward does a watching conference/eating party at his house for the Sunday sessions so we are trying to get investigators to that!

I saw the lunar eclipse! I was hoping we were both looking at it at the same time! #othersideofheavenflashback

So we have been talking to this family we keep seeing outside and I just love them! I haven't really met the dad. but its a couple and a 14 year old boy, Kelly. and two girls: Tori, who is 10 and Emily who is 7. The girls love us so much! Kelly was teling me that he is trying to find a new scout troop, since he moved and I told him about ours for our ward and he said he would look into it... then at school he became friends with a kid in our ward who invited him to come! And he did and he loves it! He went on a bike ride/campout this past weekend. We heard from our inside sources that we was really quiet the first day but the next day he opened up a lot and had a lot of fun! We haven't taught the family yet but we are hoping with all of the friends and connections this family is making with our ward, their hearts will be soft when the invitation comes from a member to take the lessons:)

Also, super sad news. We were supposed to have a lesson with Cameron this week but apparently his families opposition towards him taking lessons and joining the church and stuff has become a lot more vocal, and he decided to stop taking the lessons. He was really frustrated about it and it made me so sad, but at the same time his frustration showed me where his heart is and that he has the desire to do what is right. He said he will keep reading from the Book of Mormon and reviewing the pamphlets. Luckily I had felt prompted to bring the book "Our Search for Happiness" by Elder Ballard. He said he would read that too.  So anyways that was not fun! He will be in my prayers for a while!

We met this guy named Brandon the other day who is married with two daughters. We kept setting appointments and then things fell through and that happened a few times until Sunday night we were finally able to meet with him and his daughters. We brought a BOMB member who lives down the street too. We taught him about the restoration and he received it SO well! He said the closing prayer and it was VERY sincere. He wants to do what God wants him to do and whats best for his family. Brother Dyal invited him and his family to come over for general conference Sunday morning:) That will be so great!

Love you so so much! 

Have a great week! 

LOVE Sister Erin Orr :)

Happy Fall!!

Erin and other sister missionaries at a zone meeting

P-Day hike - Dewey Lake

P-Day hike "look at the mountain, ignore my hair"

P-Day hike to Mt. Rainer

Hey Mamma! Happy Fall!

I LOVE those quotes! (referring to some awesome quotes that I sent her from church this weekend) At one point a few months ago I found myself taking offense to a bunch of things and not being able to just brush them off which I'm normally pretty good at! I found the talk "And Nothing Shall Offend Them" by Elder Bednar and he brought it back to the Book of Mormon in Alma 60 where Captain Moroni writes a pretty not nice letter to Pahoran. Like super mean, and Pahoran was doing the right thing. Moroni just was not informed about why he was doing what he was doing. So Pahoran could totally be justified in back-lashing, but being the spiritual giant that he is, responded with serious charity and love and even appreciation for Moroni and his comments. He chose to respond as Christ would. That's now one of my favorite stories in the Book of Mormon. It is a huge lesson to me in self discipline, also that we have been given the gift of agency - and it is a spectacular gift! NO ONE can make us act or say or respond anyway we don't choose. Sometimes we don't give ourselves enough credit. Fact.

We got to go hiking today! We did the Naches peak loop. It was beautiful! Seriously! I think I might start going every week. We had a member take us. Sister Kropelniki from the Cedar River Ward is a mountain woman for real! She has hiked to the top of Mt. Rainer like 3 times. I will send more pictures!

Chelsea texted and said the missionaries in Arizona found her! And she is all set to go to church and keep learning! So happy! Her town is called Globe, AZ. I think its pretty small.

I need to see a picture of this Van Halen cake. I assume it is still intact so you can send me a pic?

I still dont know the whole story with Ed. We got to talk to him for approx. 8 seconds and we tried to ask questions that seemed normal but also might reveal to us who this guy actually is. But we didn't learn much. The mystery continues!

Well I have to be fast so we can shop before the end of P-day!  

LOVE you so dang much! 

Love Sister Erin Orr

10 months on Saturday :)

Hey Mom :)

I got the packages! They are GREAT! So many random and useful things! Twas perfect. Me and Sister Baxter especially loved to cookies:)

Our lesson yesterday in Relief Society was also about chastity. It was interesting for sure. The lady teaching served her mission in Italy where apparently billboards are super graphic. She described quite a few of them with quite a bit of detail. I still don't know why, haha, but I'm glad your lesson went well! 

We didn't end up going to Ranier today cause apparently it was supposed to be rainy and foggy there. So we are planning on next week! Pray for a nice day!

So there was some drama this week when we were teaching/helping Chelsea pack for Arizona. She had some stuff going on.  So, we said a prayer together that it would be clear in Chelsea's mind what she should do. We then left and I haven't heard yet what happened, I'm about to email her though. I mostly hope that she has met up with the missionaries there and that they get along and that she is still learning and loving the gospel! She told us before we left that her life has taken a turn in the right direction and she plans on keeping it that way:)

When we were working at the food bank this week, we got assigned to hang out with this girl Joyce and work on stuff together. She is super cool and YSA age! We aren't supposed to really share the gospel while we are working there but we slipped some things in and invited her to hike with us today! She was going to come and then we all ended up not going! I was stoked to teach her the gospel on a mountain! But that will still hopefully happen next week!

We found this guy last week named Ed and we just had a restoration lesson with him on the spot. He connected the dots really fast and cried and loved everything we were telling him. We talked about being baptized and he said when he learned more he would be! He talked about how when he was a baby he was baptized in a catholic church and asked if he needed to be baptized again. So we talked more about the priesthood power and how it needs to be done by the proper authority and such. It was an awesome lesson! He was going to be out of town for a while so we decided to meet up when he gets back.

... here is the weird part. We were looking at our ward roster and he is on there! Same address. Same name. Eveything. We talked to bishop who looked at his record and found out that not only is he baptized. He is an elder and has gone through the temple and is sealed to some lady.  So that was confusing as heck. Wish me luck figuring that out!

Bob's birthday sounds delicious! I'll send her a letter today! 

LOVE you so much! Thanks for being my favorite mom!

Love, Sister Erin Orr


Hey Dad! 

Looking forward to the Chicago popcorn :)

So I went to dinner at these peoples house this week and they have this thing. It doesn't have a name yet so I got to help name it. But its like a segway without handles. it was SO fun! I'm a stinkin' natural at it too. I think I gained some balance skills from that Indo board.  Basically I'm practicing so I can go with you and Addey paddle boarding when I get back! 

A less active kid that I have been working with forever came to church finally today! Yay! We just have to get his mom now! I just love them both so much! Pray for Kyle and Mary.

Did you know any Miner's when you served in Orlando? My ward mission leader grew up there and lived there I think while you were there. Just a random question.

Everyone went back to byui this past week so the ysa ward got quite a bit smaller but we still maintained enough for a considerable ward so thats good! We went to institute this week where apparently it was a "get to know the new people kind of" party.  We got people to come outside and play volleyball with us!  It was a grand old time.

Thanks for the scripture! I will for sure check it out:)

LOVE you!!

Love Sister Erin Orr

"Ask and Act"

Sister Orr, Sister Baxter, and one of the "twins with cameras" 

Hey mom! Happy Labor Day:)

Sounds like a fun weekend! Our labor day weekend was the same as all our other weekends. #missionlife :)

We did get to set up for a wedding reception this week as service which was fun! A girl in our ward just got married to one of Sister Halford's best friends! I loved that! Also yesterday we did service for this lady who had boxes of food storage all over the floor of this one room and asked us if we could organize it and just basically convert the bedroom into a food storage pantry. The only thing in the room was a big shelf across one wall so naturally we filled that up first. When we were all done she came in and said she wanted to put backpacks and stuff on that shelf. What the even heck? This lady is single and old. She does not even need a backpack. Much less several backpacks. So anyways we will have another day to get to go back and take the stuff off the shelf and find somewhere else for it.

We were seriously out of food this week. I have never had a more empty fridge. We had to get creative with food making. Someone gave us a few duck eggs just for fun  and I found some pancake mix so I decided to make pancakes with those.  We didn't have any milk but I did have some "peachy almond" Naked juice that expired in July. It didn't seem like it was really gone bad so I used it and added some cinnamon and nutmeg. They were pretty darn good but it was probably the weirdest mixture of foods I have ever eaten!

We had an awesome lesson with Jack this week. We texted Brother Russell to see if he could join us. He had come to our first lesson and was awesome,but he never texted back so we stopped by and invited Brother Santos and he agreed to come. So we were there with Brother Santos and then like halfway through the lesson, Brother Russell shows up! We thought it might overwhelm Jack to have such a crowd of people but he just rolled with it! He really likes both of them! We get to teach him again tonight so that will be good!

Addey is probably the most involved person ever. She is so cool. 

I can't believe Aubri is about to be driving. Are you KIDDING? There is a kid I want her to marry. His name is Mason Blue. I don't know if he is on facebook but y'all should try to find him. I love him so much!

I didnt get any packages yet but we have a zone meeting tomorrow so I will probably get them there:) Excited! 

We had a good lesson with Chelsea about the Plan of Salvation this week. It was actually kind of a 2-part lesson. She is really soaking everything up. She reads and tries to understand as much as she can. We told her we could hook her up with the missionaries in Arizona and she got so excited and relieved. She was worried she wouldn't be able to find them. Also she had her mom find an LDS church down there for her to go to :) 

Seahawks season is starting up again which means everyone around here loses their heads. Seriously the state of Washington is painted blue and green. EVERYWHERE!

Oh, if you go to twinswithcameras.com there may be a picture of me:)  (that's the one up top)

Love you so much! 

Sister Erin Orr


Hey Dad!

I love that em just explored San Francisco by herself! I feel like on the mission we have so many rules that I don't feel super independent a lot of the time. So hearing things like that are so impressive to me:)

For the record, I'm always interested in Chicago style popcorn!

Way to be a member missionary! I don't know if I have mentioned this before but that is exactly one of the ways we encourage members to be member missionaries! Be honest and don't shy away from giving God the glory! People have questions and comments that can a lot of the time be honestly answered with sharing a bit of the gospel. We sometimes get scared or like you mentioned, just not wanting to delve into it. But stretching ourselves that little bit brings us and whoever we are sharing with, closer to Christ!

We started talking to this guy this week who is seriously searching for the true church! He has been looking into it for a long time and knows that it all comes back to authority! He has a serious fatal flaw in his research though. He believes paying attention to our personal thoughts and feelings regarding what is right is whats has caused all the corruption in the churches, and that we can really only know what is right by looking at the facts and an outside authority. What he needs to know is you need both. You cant only pay attention to your thoughts and feelings without seeking out truth and facts and studying the Savior. And you cant receive the confirmation of the spirit of truth if you will only allow yourself to believe provable facts. ASK and ACT! It's the key to knowing!

Welp dad, have a quality week! :)

I love you!