Arriving in Ashland!

FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY!!!

I’M HERE NOW! Boy Am I all over the place! After we got in and put with our trainer we left Eugene at about 7-8ish and drove for 3 hours until we got into

ASHLAND! Long drive.

I said goodbye to my sisters from the MTC and that was surprisingly hard. I love those girls. Some are in Salem (which is being split next transfer. I won’t see those girls until after the mission) and some went to the coast. I LOVE Eugene! It was SOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL! Ashland is so so. I SMELLED MY FIRST MARIJUANA! It was . . . interesting. I still think it was skunk, but my trainer swears by it. 

My trainer is AWESOME! Her name is Sister Clove and she is from Enterprise UT. She is really good at piano and singing, and is a very hard worker. She’s very serious all the time so I do my best to push her buttons. We get along REALLY well. I figured this out last night when she told me she prayed for a companion that would be her friend. I told her I prayed for a companion that would kick my butt. We both win. 

I placed my first book of Mormon on the airplane over! To an African lady named Luul. She was Buddhist and VERY interested the Church. She is in Sister Framptions area (my MTC companion) so I gave the info to her. All the sisters were SUPER impressed I placed one. She was really great. EVERYONE HERE IS CRAZY!! I met a lady who’s first and middle name is Apple Candy. Really. We were tracting and we came to a drive way and I could smell Cat urine (say it like Rache does) INSTANTLY. we knocked on the door and talked with this old lady who rescued and owns 51 cats!!! Good thing she is rich and owns a big house. I tried my hardest to get  a return appointment. I WANNA SEE ALL THOSE CATS! Everyone here owns a pet, it’s just a given.

The ward I am serving in has 750 but only 225 come. We have A LOT of work cut out for us. Our boundaries are Ashland and Talent (for those of you who would like to google.). I am my trainers 3rd child, and two days ago when we were training (I was just being myself) she said “I don’t think I have had as much fun in the last 6 months as I have today” That made me really happy, even though I was thinking “Girl, just you wait until I get my finger paints out!” AH! the members feed us almost EVERY night! I LOVE IT! First night we had homemade lasagna and it was AMAZING! Everyone was amazed that I am from Utah and I have never had homemade lasagna. Weird. I do my best to eat good. I have a banana and oatmeal for breakfast, salad or chips and salsa for lunch, and as many veggies as I can get for dinner.

 

Everyone makes fun of me for being home school. I love it. First thing President Young said in our interview after I told him was home schooled was, “But you’re not shy at all! You sure you were home schooled?” Thanks President. My companion said THE SAME THING that night.  I’m glad I represent well. President Young is an AMAZING man. I love him, he is SO inspired.

 Last week I had my first mini break down. It was a good learning experience, I learned that I’m not as magnificent a teacher as I thought I was. I need to teach with meaning now. But I am doing my best to improve and I was fine in an hour or so. On Thursday I introduced myself to someone as Jill. Then I slapped my face. Ouch. Then I said I was Sister Orr.  My companion won’t let me live it down. But that’s okay, because she ran over a cat last week and I won’t let her live that down. Every time we talk with strangers I ALWAYS find a way to say, “Oh! Sister Clove here just LOVES cats.”

Weird things I am getting used to – Talking to EVERYONE on speaker phone and answering “Hi, this is Sister Orr and Sister Clove” (I keep saying Ove and Clorr. oops).

Leftover MTC stories – I met THE FIRST Vietnamese Sister missionary!! OH MY LANTA! SOOOOOO COOL! They haven’t opened the mission, but since she is Vietnamese she is going over.She isn’t allowed to wear her tag, so I’m not really sure what she will be doing, but SHE IS THE FIRST SISTER TO GO!! YAY HER! I got a picture with her because she is a super hero.

Well, more stories to come as I serve God’s hippies. LOVE IT!

Sister Orr IIP.S. I just read over my letter again, and I realized I use a lot of exclamation marks and I say LOVE IT a lot. he he he. Sorry for all you grammar nuts at home, BUT MY MISSION ROCKS!

Letter from the MTC

FAMILY (including friends)!!!!!!!!!! I’m here!!! Oh my lanta, I can NOT believe it has been a week! Just so you know I will send this family letter now for the half hour I have and then write personal ones later. So much to do, so little time.

FIRST! DearElder works and I cannot tell you how much those letters mean!!! I thought before I came here, “Meh, I’m here for 2 weeks, I don’t really care if I get stuff” but HOLY PANCAKES it makes a difference in my attitude. There are 6 of us girls going to Oregon in my zone, and 4 elders that are going to Frezno Cali. I’m so glad Rachel told me to love them like my little brothers. Some of them are just dorks. One pulls out his scriptures and puts them on his lap and sleeps every time we have study. But I remembered, “Eli fell asleep in church at Clairs baby blessing” and I have learned to love them   One of the sisters here uses essential oils, but it’s that butterfly brand. YAY! I’m not the only hippy in my room! We have had some CRAZY experiences with the sisters. My companion is JUST LIKE Sydnie Carter and Osanna mixed. We teach well together. One sister, the blonde one, has seizures when she gets over stressed. They are different than the normal ones I have known. She will pinch the bridge of her nose and close her eyes and her brain will turn off from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. We were in the middle of practicing being an investigators and she had one right in the middle of her sentence. “Well, I don’t know Joseph Smith but- . . . Did you see that? Wen one te montr adsta frin. . . . .”  then blacked out. Our teacher started freaking out. She came to in about a minute and was really embarrassed, but luckily us sisters knew what was going on and we helped her. That was the second day. I LOVE the girls I am with. We are all so different, but it’s so weird to see how close you can come to someone when you are working through the Lord. One other crazy thing I noticed; we do role plays about 5 times a day. It felt stupid at first then I realized how much fast I can learn. It strips you raw and the spirit shows how to improve. Well, quite often we are supposed to be the investigator. When we do it, we are pulling feelings and emotions we actually have! I was roll playing with a lady in her mid twenties pretending that I had questions about certain things, and I realized I really did have those questions and those feelings about it! So now, when the sisters in my group go, I listen really close to see how I can help them best.

Not that I don’t love ya’ll, but I haven’t been homesick yet. Granted, I cry now and then for Scout. You all know where I am going, but she doesn’t know where I am or why I haven’t come back yet. It breaks my heart. But all the sisters in my group are having a hard time. I feel it is because of your prayers and the will of the Lord I am able to help others when I am not focused on myself. We’ll see how long that lasts. 

Okay! New missionaries coming out, the MTC is BEYOND amazing! I LOVE it here! The food is awesome, the spirit is SO strong, and everyone is working towards the same goal.  Nothing helped me more than teaching lessons in church and going to the temple. SO! We went to the temple today, it was SO great to go back. Going as many times as I could before was SUCH a blessing in my personal life, but the down side is I had to stop cold turkey!! Alllllll week I was telling the sisters how excited I was to go back. I told the Lord I was paying attention and I received a lot that will help me serve.

So, the sisters here have pictures on the walls and I got jelly fish. Ya’ll wanna send me some? Maybe of my puppy or your face? Also, Uke music would be swweet. I pulled it out this morning before we went to the temple and it made me SOOOOO happy to play music again. But I need more than what I remember of my french song and Ingrid. Also a ward roster. I need addressessssss!

OH OH OH !!!! I forgot! We went to a devotional from Janis Kapp Perry. She wrote “As Sisters in Zion", "Love is Spoken Here", "I Love To See the Temple", and more. AMAZINGLY POWERFUL! I love music. BUT! What I wanted to tell you was she wrote a new song called “THE Sisters of Zion” (a little different). And we were the first group to sing it! It goes to the same tune as Sisters in Zion, but she wrote it for missionaries!! She is creating an album JUST for sister missionaries that will be allowed to take on the mission! I wrote down the lyrics that I LOVED. I hope I don’t get sued for telling you before it’s released.  it goes, “We’ll go forth enlisted with Heleman’s army, In numbers much greater than ever before” WOW!!! POWER!! Also heard from Russell M. Nelson. What a prophet!!

I am having the TIME of my life. I love it here and I love you all. I’ll send pictures later.

I LOVE JESUS!!!!!!!

Sister Orr II