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!