May 9th

hey mom!

yes its been too long! :)

i forgot to update you on our investigators yesterday! they are amazing! our awesome ones are pretty new to us. we just dropped quite a few people we had been working with for a while. they just weren't progressing. anyways so the new ones...

we have been teaching this guy, Omar for a couple weeks. he is so awesome! it was kind of a fluke how we met him! we knocked on his neighbors door  which is like inches from his. and we heard a knock come from the inside of his door. and he goes "identify yourself!" and we considered running away but we were just like "uh, the missionaries" and he come out laughing saying he was just messing with us. anyways he said he would come to church. and he did! and we taught him the restoration which was great! he likes the "environment" at church (aka the spirit). he is really doing great and looking forward to his next lesson!

we got a text today from the zone leaders for a referral we get to teach! it basically said she wants to be baptized and sealed to her family in the temple! i am so stoked! this is what happens when you keep working hard through slow weeks! basically my dream come true!

we also got another referral for a man named Miguel who seems so cool! a member of the lake sawyer ward called to give it to us! and he remembered me! we get to teach him for the first time tonight!

we taught a 16 year old girl last night for the first time and she committed to be baptized! woot woot! her name is yoseli

ok. we have been trying forever to have a lesson with this girl tristan who was baptized when she was 13 and wasnt active for long at all and dosent remember anything about the church. she is 25 now with a family. we finally got to teach her this week. and just taught like she had never heard the gospel before. it was such a sweet lesson! she prayed with us and got choked up because it had been so long since she prayed. i love teaching people who already have the gift of the holy ghost :) it was really great! we are hoping to teach her husband too!

also there is an old lady named shirley who we are teaching who is convinced i look exactly like one of her ancestors and that we are family. no one else thinks i look like her but i am going to check family search!

before i forget to tell you, there was only one brand new sister who came out to the mission and i was talking to her at choir practice today and she was like "whats your name " and i told her and he got all excited cause i looked familiar and apparently she had read the whole blog you had been doing! hah! she loves it and says you're funny! im excited to see this blog someday!

i think thats about it! 

Love you so much!

May 3: Last Transfer

hello my favorite mom! 

you won your bet:) im staying federal way! sister northrup is staying too! mixed feelings about that. i love federal way and her but i was really hoping for some change. i figured out this morning that its only 42 days though. and i can do anything for that long:) i am really excited to sprint to the finish! im setting goals and making plans  to work my butt off this next 6 weeks! stoked!

i will answer you questions 1st:

i am good for whenever on mothers day. we will be out of church at 2 on sunday. would 4 work for you? i guess that would be 3 your time or should we try for earlier?let me know asap!!

as for summer plans i would really love to do anything that involves swimming:) alot of swimming is my hope for the summer!

libby got some help from people who set up her familysearch profile. but they didnt give it to her so we are working on retrieving tht and then maybe you can help!

um im not sure about china. there are pros and cons i guess. if i go the pros are that it would be way fun to do with em. and it would be a super cool adventure and look good on applications and things i think. cons are that church attendance might be difficultish. missing christmas and getting home tightly before school.

staying  and going to school would be good. concerns there are money( well i guess thats a concern either way. i dont know if im going to be able to get much of a job before china anyway) and missing the adventure.. but i really do miss school and it would be better transition mode to set me up for lifelong activity in the church i think. which is most important. that sounds dramatic but a lot of people fall off when the get back from their missions. and i just dont want an excuse to do that:)

im happy with either. what are your thoughts?

we made a lot of cookies this week too but not for any kind of benefit to us. i am sick! our young women were doing fund raiser for girls camp and selling cookie dough. turns out a bunch of members bought some to give it to us. so we have 5 huge rolls of cookie dough. we baked a whole roll of them yesterday and gave them to christinas family. also the other sisters in our zone's apartment is being fumigated because they got bedbugs so we all have been squish-living in our apartment since wednesday. they will be moving back today though. anyways since the have been living with us we have completely run out of food so all we have are the cookies. this is why im sick. i ate to salads yesterday just to try to start feeling better. thank goodness we get to go shopping today! only veggies for the whole transfer im thinking will fix me!

but it has been way fun to have the sisters with us! one of them, sister ketchum, and i have been friends for a long time and she just went home yesterday! that was sad! but sister baxter was companions with both of us anfd she is getting married in utah in june or july so we will get to see eachother there! :)

 im glad you miracle got my letter!  maybe just invite people to my talk who ask to come... :)

we taught this guy named omar who is a miracle and talked about family history cause thats something he is really into. he mentioned before we even brought up the temple that that is something he really wants to see! then he came to church and a big theme of sacrament meeting was temples so that was cool! we havent talked much since then but im excited to hear what he thought!

we got to teach monique who is amazing!

christinas kids and us all fasted for the dads heart to be softened so kuol could be baptized. it was thier first fast ever. they are so great! we told kuol about the temple. and he was way excited. we came back to teach his mom a couple days later. and she said kuol had asked if he could lie to us that he was 12. (he just turned 10) so he could go to the temple.ha! it cracks me up that he asked permission to lie. he such a good kid!

we found some awesome people this week! good things are happening.

i cant remember the other things. but i love ya!

LET ME KNOW ABOUT THE TIME OR WE WILL PLAN ON 3 YOUR TIME!

April 25th: Birthday :)

hey mom!!

yes i had a great birthday and a great week!

first to answer your questions. i am still of the opinion that no one should hear me give talks ever. good to know its on fathers day though! thanks for that information. Libby is still working on getting to the temple. she is unsure. hopefully we can get her birth moms info so she can take her name to the temple! i think that will help light a fire under her! Cheyenne finally had her baby on like Wednesday! and she comes home today! that girl has been in the hospital forever! apparently all is well and  the mom and baby are both healthy and happy! bree and tim came to church for the first time! yay! they could only stay for sacrament meeting which happened to be unusually boring... seriously. not good. but we are hoping the spirit filled in the gaps! also they finally read the scriptures! so many good things!

we visited sister callahan who is finally getting into a treatment center to help her overcome her addictions! she has been trying so diligently to get in and get straight! the finally accepted her! she just wants to be baptized so bad so this will be a great step! while we were there she wanted to make her son some dinner but he didn't want anything his mom was suggesting. he said he would make his own dinner. he got out mayo, jam, and white bread. he slathered both sides of three pieces of white bread with both the jam and mayo. stacked em up and at the whole thing. it was one of the nastiest things i have ever witnessed i think. but it was so funny to see how much he loved it and kept commenting on how it was his favorite food!

wood chipping at the cahans was fun! us and the elders hauled tons of branches and threw em in a wood chipper! we were covered in dirt afterwords. it was way fun! and a couple days later the called and said they had something for me. i was immediately suspecting dad! haha. so fun!

we met the litterally cutest baby ever. he is russian. his name is vadeshlav.

Saturday we had a service project at a park we got to clean out a bunch of blackberry bushes! twas fun! brother havili who we had dinner with on my birthday said he was going to bake me a cake. haha  i thought he was joking. but the next day we came and his wife brought out a desert after dinner. and he said wait i made sister orr a cake. and he is a big tongan dude that clearly dosent bake so we just laughed and then he told his son to go get it out of the garage fridge. and he had a huge giant cheesecake! so we had both deserts:) twas grand. they are so cute and funny!

we had a lesson with Christina's family this week. when we got there she was making"samoosas" which is like a meat and veggie mixtures stuffed into these tortilla triangles and fried. so we helped them make those cause the dad wouldn't be home for like 10 minutes. i am bomb it making african food it turns out. :)

we met some awesome new people to teach this week. one not awesome lesson ended with a lady convinced that our church wasn't true cause our choir dosent have robes. 

but we met an awesome lady named ariel and we had previously met her family but they weren't interested but she totally is! and way prepared to receive the gospel!

also we started teaching a lady named shirley last week and taught her about the book of mormon and she is sucked in! she loves it! so that is amazing and good news!

also a less active family we are working with decided to come back to church! which means kids being baptized and ordained with the preisthood! so many good things!

im probably forgetting things!

i DID get your package! it was way cute! im stoked for the laptop! and love the banana chips! also the decorations made the day!

sister northrup is a bomb companion to have on your bjrthday she made it so cute! she is taking me to a restraunt called saltys down at redondo beach so that will be fun!

all in all its been great!

this is the last week of the transfer so we will find out saturday if im staying or going for my last transfer!

sister eaton said to start aranging mothers day calls! any time in particular work for you? if i am still here our church gets out at 2. if im moving ..i dont know. 

I love ya mamma! have the best week!

17 months in and 21 years old on Sunday :)

Erin and Sister Northrup in Bishop and Sister Cahan's home

The birthday flowers were delivered there by her dad just shortly before - 
Erin's 21st birthday is on Sunday

hey mamma :)

this week was much better! we got to teach a bunch! i could definitely feel your prayers. 

one girl we taught this week is named Brittney. we met her right before we were going to go in for the night! late night miracles! she is athiest but interested in why people believe what they believe so she said we could come back the next day. we came and taught about the restoration and the spirit was so strong! she prayed for the first time ever and asked heavenly father what her next step should be! that was amazing. she is ysa age, so we are probably going to have to pass her off but hey it was cool!

I'm not sure if i ever told you but there is an apartment complex where apparently insanity is drawn to because we have the wackiest experiences there! i have tons of stories i could tell you about. but this place seriously is nuts. so for fun we decided to contact there one day this week. the first man we talked to would not let us leave forever! he kept telling us we had time for his story! he was telling us about how he just read a book by some "theologian"  about how the tree of knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve partook of was actually a marijuana plant. and that it gave them knowledge because they smoked it and it made them think. so.... i was pretty much just dying to get away from this person OR teach him the truth. but he never stopped talking. we would walk away a few steps and say we had to go and he would tell us that we cant just cut him off. i guessed we kind of asked for it by going to waterbury. i probably wont make that mistake again anytime soon!

we got to go to a luncheon at a horse track! it was for food bank volunteers so everyone in our zone went! that was fun. there was a raffle drawing and  basically everything was won by elders! ha! it was grand!

last night we went to the mission devotional with Christina and her family. we rode with them in their big family van. it felt like home! the devotional was amazing! one of the best i have seen! and the family loved it! milton even came! who is the 15 year old who never comes and he loved it too! i think i have told you but we have been trying so hard to talk to the dad because he is never home and he is the obstacle holding up the boys from being baptized. by a miracle we caught him home this week! and he said we can start teaching him! that will be way good! plus if he dodges us. his kid invited us to his birthday in a couple weeks which will be a big family dinner so we will definitely catch him there too!

the other day sister northrup left to a baptism for one of her investigators who lives forever away so libby came out to be my companion for a few hours! (libby is a recently baptized member) it was great! i love that lady so much! we found a bomb lady named Jo to teach and libby testified so powerfully! we talked about going to the temple to do baptisms. hopefully libby can go soon. she has her recommend and she has the info and wants to do the baptism for her mom. satan is just trying o keep libby away. can y'all keep her in your prayers?

good things are happening in federal way! i sure love this place!

we had fhe with a family this week who i love. they are less active. but love fhe and have really been making an effort to get to church lately! we had a great lesson with them! the fhe "treat" turned out to be a feast! chicken, pasta, salad, horchata, pie... it was like second dinner. so good! so much food at 8:30 at night!

cheyanne has been in active labor for like a week now. still no baby. that woman needs prayers!

i dont know if i have mentioned but this ward is tiny! very small! and we just found out that 2 pillar of the ward families are moving away. so thats less than good news! the stake president blessed our ward with growth though! so we are still working for that and counting on it!

have fun cutting bushes and buying refrigerators and all the good stuff! have a great week :)

LOOVE Erin

Looking on the bright side

Heya mom :)

This week has been a tough one! Our plans looked amazing but a lot of cancelled appointments and dropped investigators and such. But hey, next week looks great due to all the appointments rescheduled for then! And dropped investigators just means that they weren't ready yet and we get to spend more time on people who are. All good things! 

We did get to see Bree and Tim this week. They decided that it is way important to know if this is true and that they have not been giving it the time and attention it needs. They decided on their own to read the Book of Mormon everyday with prayer. So that was great! We got to meet Bree's daughter too!

We also had exchanges this week and I got to go with Sister Young who is super sweet and we had a lot of fun! We met a guy who is just like Stephan from the weekly update on SNL. Literally. And his name was Steven and he had the same catchphrase. It was grand.

Love Jared's cute pics! My favorite is the one on the swings!

Good luck on the sandwiches! What kinds are y'all making?

I'm jealous of your and dad's date! BBQ sounds so good right now! I have made some bomb BBQ chicken tacos lately! We are about to go get our weekly sub zero! Did I tell you that missionaries get free ice cream there! Luckily it's not in my area or we would be there everyday! But on Pday we can go anywhere in the zone :) 

Also I'm excited to hear about summer plans!

Well I love ya! Thanks for all you do!!

Erin

Conference and Sweet Teaching!

Hey Mamma!

Yes conference was so good!  We watched most the sessions at the church! Sunday morning we watched at the Cahans house with Christina's family! And the son, Kuol, who we are now teaching brought his friend to watch too! so good! so good! Bree and Tim were going to come too but her son was sick. Bummer! We are going over there tonight though cause she really wants us to meet her daughter.

We taught Bree and Tim about the plan of salvation this week and it was awesome! Bree got so excited and just looked at Tim so happy. hHe was flipping through the pamphlet we gave him and looked up at her and was like "huh?" and she was like "did you hear what they said?" and he was like "sorry i was reading." Hah, total guy! And she was like "Tim we can be married forever!" It was so cute and he became a lot more excited with her when he caught up to what we were talking about. They want to be baptized but are going to have some word of wisdom struggles so they are currently praying about when their baptism date should be/when they can be done with that stuff. The spirit is always so strong in those lessons! They are way prepared!

A MIRACLE happened this week. We had a super slow day. We couldn't find people to teach, no one was home, blah, blah, blah. But lo and behold we met a girl named Berra! And she was bomb! And we set an appointment to come back the next day! And we came and she wasn't home. Instead her sister answered the door and said we could come in and teach them while we waited for her. We walked in and a group was hanging in the living room. 

and as we taught about the restoration more and more people piled in, including Berra when she got home. Turns out this is a family of 10! They are so great! And very prepared and interested! They just moved to America from Rwanda a year ago. The kid's english is really good but the parents don't speak it at all. It was fun.  We would teach them a concept and then they would all discuss in their language and then the 15 year old who was apparently the designated spokesman would ask us a question in English.  We taught a bunch of them again yesterday and it was really great the kids are ages 19,18,17,16,15,12,7,and 5. We are so excited for this family! We are finding Swahili and their Rwandan language speakers to help us teach the parents.

Also we taught another BOMB family from Kenya this week. Seriously prepared.  I just love africans!

In was walking up towards a house this week and I looked down and there was a snake on my foot just sliding on across it! Sister Northrup just made fun of my reaction which was my normal short high squeak.

I also got called "sister whore" again when someone was praying for me this week...

Also we met a girl yesterday while we were going over to meet a potential investigator. Our person wasn't home but her friend, Ariana, was hanging out at her house and told us she wanted to hear the message. So we told her and then she told us her story. Poor girl has had one of the hardest lives I've ever heard of and she is only 26. When we taught her about the apostasy and what apostasy is, she told us that that's where she is at - separated from God. She felt that we were totally God-sent and we felt similarly! We are going to see her again tomorrow and she is going to get a priesthood blessing! This girl needs prayers. It was such a blessing to meet her!

I'm gonna have to see a pic of your  fancy cake! Good luck on the sandwiches! 

Thanks for the forecast! It has been so nice this week! Like completely the opposite side of the spectrum from the past few months! Thank goodness for spring!

Well I love ya. I think that's most of my news!

Have the best week!

Love Erin

Happy Easter!!

Sister Orr, Sister Hampton, Sister Northrup

hey mom!

yes the sun finally came out and its actually staying for a second which feels like a miracle. since it wasn't cloudy president said we could all go watch the sunrise on saturday cause that's one of his Easter traditions. our zone leaders told us to all meet up at redondo beach which we did but it turned out to be a lame place to watch the sunrise. it would be much better to watch the sunset over the water! either way, we saw a baby seal so i was pretty dang happy. 

 

and then later that day KATHY AND CHRISTINA GOT BAPTIZED. it was amazing. they were so happy and the spirit was great! everything went well. and then we had dinner and then we went to the general womens broadcast! which was way cool. im going to try to look up that "i was a stranger" thing when im done emailing.

 

don't worry i figured the fruit and veggies were my Easter package. seriously the best. a lady in the ward gave us Easter baskets each packed so full of chocolate and i just gave it all away. i could not handle it.

 

church yesterday was so good! first of all christina and kathy were confirmed. also we just had an amzazing sacrament meeting.  we got to teach gospel principles. the usual teacher just gave us a 30 minute dvd and asked us to play it in place of her lesson since she coulnt be there. but it turns out there is only 1 tv in this building and everybody needed it today. so we just taught on the fly and it turned out really good! the spirit was strong! so that was a tender mercy.

tell bob her braces look great!

sounds like yall had a fun easter weekend! 

 

not actually alot noteable happened this week! lots of laughing and fun and hard work!

sorry for the short letter. i keep getting distracted by elder hollands face2face. so dang good!

 

ok welp i love ya more than i love the sun! which is quite a bit at this point

 

lOVE eRIN