Missions = Great Friendships

hey mamma:)

 

I'm so happy!!!! that yall got to meet hermana peacock this week! i so miss her! she is just a great person/ friend.  (one of Erin's past mission buddies came to see us this week and we had such a great visit!)

 

and yes that was sister cahan's house. (sister tegerdines sister)! her husband got called to be the bishop last week. i forgot to mention that! and they are way excited to be fellowship for everyone! they have already invited our investigator and us over for dinner next week. and had a less active family over to teach them how to make tortillas this past week. they are great people.

 

speaking of great people. we were talking to libby last night and she said she will move to utah in about a year when her lease is up. so me and her and sister westover can hang out all the time:) its so hard to teach her when i just want to talk about everything and be friends with her all the time! haha. she is honestly the coolest person probably ever. she has 6 black belts and has done pretty much everything people can do. she has starred in plays and camped in the mountains for months at a time and taught english in brazil and jim carey has thrown her in the pool twice.  she has SO many cool stories. we constantly have to be getting back on track in the lesson because like everything we say, she has an insane experience that relates.

 

poor bob! hasnt she had knee probs for a while? those stink! (speaking of Aubri's continual knee problems) we are running about a mile every morning. its cold as heck! but the best thing is getting to watch the sunrise against the silhouette of the huge pine trees. i love it!

 

we didnt get to do that everyday this week because sister westover got all sick. it was quite sad.we had to stay inside. she got an awesome blessing though. and the othere sisters (ketchum and baxter) took mercy on me and we split a couple times so i could go out and teach and serve and stuff. sister ketchum has torn up her ankle anyway so she stayed with sister westover and it was a good break for both of us!

 

i took pride in never getting sick until yesterday my nose got progressively more stuffy and my throat and ears got progressively more scratchy. and basically i didn't sleep last night so that was a bummer. im doing anything i can to get rid of this thing! vapor rub, essential oils, vitamin c, colloidal silver, i put hydrogen peroxide in my ears. that was weird.  anyways. this thing will NOT keep me inside anymore!

 

we did service for gina again this week and she came to church and brought her mom this time. she is way cool. she asked for a blessing. and both she and her mom got one. the spirit was way strong and she felt it!

 

also sister callahan came to an arp meeting and church this week! her son is a nutcase.  he is 5 her runs around and yells and screams and has no shame. he was up on the stand running around on the choir seats during the sacrament! his poor mom! but she stuck it out and people were way kind and loving toward her! she is an awesome lady! all she wants is to be baptized and have a forever family! we are working on it:)

 

ok i LOVE corrine! im so happy her and em are roommates! she is one of my favorite people!

 

we taught a girl on the street yesterday named Anastasia and she has the best questions! she is concerned with her ability to receive and recognize answers from god but what we said made a lot of sense to her. thanks to the spirit:) it was great!

 

i have been craving sushi forever. im glad it didnt kill you #anythingispossibleifyoujustbelieve 

 

welp. have a GREAT day!

 

I LOVE you!!

 

Sister Erin Orr

Awesome things happening in the Federal Way Ward! 1/4/2016

Sister Orr and Sister Westover - Winter 2015/216 - Federal Way Ward

hey mamma dear!

so that lady that i said we were going to teach and baptize committed to baptism! woot woot! for the 30th. she has been flakey like the whole time we have known her. so it might be a process getting her there. but we will!

our new years was also anti climatic. they sent us home to plan for 3 hours that night while everyone was out partying. hah! so we slept for new years...

we also started teaching the sister of a lady who was baptized about 4 years ago and she committed to be baptized the 30th too! she really likes the church already and her kids love it! she has a daughter who is nine who we are hoping to teach and baptize the same day too. Crazy prayers and fasts are happening for this family!!

i dont know if yall have read the talk "Lord I Believe" by elder Holland. but its way good. one of my new faves!

also we started teaching a part member family, the duponts. they are cool and have alot of questions. they agreeed to take the lessons and pray and act. they are looking for a church:)

also our bishop has been working with a lady named debbie for a long time. i wonder if jared ever met her. she is so funny! and has had alot of things happen in her life. but has an insane testimony and understanding of the gospel! so we are teaching her now too:) we get to see her tonight!

i had a couple cool prayer experiences this week!

one was monday night when i asked Heavenly Father about china. i was expecting to pray and fast for a while but my answer came clear as day right then and there: YES! 

i think that he didntwant me to take my mind off the work so much so he wanted to quickly make sure i KNEW, and i do. is there, do you think still a chance of me getting in? i would seriously love to!

another prayer experience was saturday night before bed. i had opened my fast right after dinner but i felt like i was dying of thirst. i wanted water so bad! so i decided to ask Heavenly Father if it was ok that i close my fast for now and open it back up in the morning so i could drink some water. i clearly got the impression to pray for strength. i did NOT want that to be the answer. and i debated taking that advice for what felt like 20 minutes but was probably 3. i finally decided that this was an opportunity to build trust in my Savior and in myself. so i prayed for strength. and i still wanted water so insanely bad but i had willpower. i didnt drink water. i had the ability to resist the urge. it was quite cool i must say.

this week we have been showing everyone the "look not behind thee" video on lds.org or mormonchannel. its way good! its about new years:)

i still cant believe yall have chickens. good luck unpacking! and leading the music! just wave your hand back and forth. thats what i do. no one has complained yet:)

welp thats all i have to say about that.

have a great week!!

i love , i love, i love you.

LOVe erin

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