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 :)