Month: October 2023

      Hey guys! This week was so busy and went by so fast! I have lost all track of time. On monday, we played volleyball with the other missionaries. We had dinner at a members house who owns a timber farm and the husband does chainsaw carvings. They gave us this super cool log that he carved!

     Wednesday was chill. We've been having some car trouble so we called the vehicle coordinator and he had us unplug the monitoring device. It fixed everything. It rained also rained all day.

     We had a really cool lesson with the lady we put on date for baptism on Thursday. We had a member come and it was super spiritual! She is coming to see a baptism from another ward tonight.

     On Friday, we had District Counsel. We went to the Institute afterwards and we played ping pong. It was a ton of fun! We had to go get an oil change so we sat around the car dealership for a bit. Our lesson cancelled so we decided to go walk around Bi-mart and Walmart to do some public finding and to pick up some stuff. When in Bi-mart, we talked with this lady who was super nice and we gave her a Book of Mormon! Then we went to Walmart and we ran right into a friend! If we were just a few minutes later, we would've missed her! We were able to invite her to the ward trunk or treat!

     On Saturday, our service fell through so we went to a farmers market in downtown Corvallis! It was freezing cold but so much fun! We bought pumpkins and talked to a ton of people. We had a lesson, then went to the church and made rice crispy treats. We went and gave treats to a bunch of people in the ward. Then we decorated our trunk for the wars Trunk or treat! 

     On Sunday, we went to church. We had a special 5th sunday lesson on the Addiction Recovery program that the church has. We also had a really good member dinner!

     We went fishing this morning! It was super cold and we didn't catch anything! But the sunrise was super pretty!

     I hope you all have a great week and can look for God's hand in your life! 

Love,

Sister O'Barr 

    This week was crazy! On Monday, we played volleyball at the church with the other missionaries in the zone. Then the elders wanted haircuts. When one sister went to do it, the guard fell off and accidentally shaved a spot on the back of his head! It was super funny! I'll attach a photo of the damage

    We had a really cool miracle on Tuesday! We were supposed to help someone move in but when we got there, we had a voicemail from her saying everything fell through and it wouldn't happen. So we changed in our car, then went knocking. We saw this one family cleaning their guinea pig cage so we went over and talked with them. Turns out it was someone who had texted the elders saying she wasn't interested anymore. But when we started talking with her, she was very willing to have us come back over to talk with her more! Super cool miracle!

    On Wednesday, we put a friend on date for baptism! It is so exciting that she has chosen this! We also went to dinner with a member family.

    On Friday, we had District Counsel and interviews with President. I really like everyone in our zone. We went to lunch with the other sisters in our district. We also worked on our talks for Sunday. We got asked to speak. Our lesson fell through so we went to downtown Corvallis to talk with people.

    On Saturday, we had a mission wide zoom meeting with President, mainly to talk about planning and finding. We had lunch with a member. She is super sweet! We did a lot of walking and knocking. We met up with the sisters to do splits in downtown Corvallis. We walked the streets to public find again, but we went kinda late and most places were closed and there weren't a lot of people there. 

    On Sunday, we spoke. It went really well. We also met our bishops son who got home from his mission in Africa. We also had dinner with a member family and their kids are crazy! Super fun time!

    So cool to see all the miracles this week! I can't wait to see more!

    

Love,

Sister O'Barr    

    

    This week has been super busy but so good!

    On Monday, we played volleyball with the other missionaries nearby. We had dinner at a members house and they served this really good tomato tortellini soup.

    Tuesday, we had 3 lessons. We had a lesson with a lady named Dorinda. She is super nice and asks a lot of questions. The lesson went well and she came to church too! We knocked on doors for a bit after. One guy was an inactive guy who still loves God and appreciates what we do. He gave us a bag full of homemade jams. We had dinner with a member family and their kids were so cute. They also feed us soup. Must be soup season now.

    On Wednesday, we had zone conference so we drove down to Eugene. It was 3 hours long but the fed us after.

    We had an investigator ask for a blessing so we met with the elders near us and they gave her a blessing. It was super cool!

    Thursday we did a ton of knocking and contacting. Then we had a member dinner and they made amazing pizza!

   On Friday, everything kinda fell through. We blame it on being Friday the 13th, in October. Both of our lessons flaked on us. And it rained all day. So we went to the church building to call a ton of people. Not my favorite thing. Then we helped clean the church.

    Saturday was awesome! We had a really cool service opportunity and 2 amazing lessons. We were sitting at a park and Sister Richins felt impressed to call this lady. When she answered, we asked if we could help with anything and they said they really needed some help cleaning their house. So we quickly changed and headed over. They were both so sweet and grateful. We are going back this week for a lesson.

    We taught really cool lesson about the plan of salvation. We are going back this week. We also had another lesson with the lady the elders gave a blessing to. We invited her to read the Book of Mormon and she seemed pretty committed, which is cool!

    Sunday was fun! It was the primary program and it was so cute. We also had an awesome member dinner! The family was so much fun!

    We have so much planned for this week! I'm excited to continue teaching these people!

Love,

Sister O'Barr

    Hey everyone! I'm in Oregon! I'm in Corvallis for my first transfer. My trainer, Sister Richins, is super nice! She's from Arizona and is the oldest of 7. She has been out for a year. 

    On my first day, we first went to the stake center in Eugene, where I met my trainer, ate lunch, interviewed with the mission president and picked up bedding. We were there for so long. We rushed to our apartment, which is about 50 min from Eugene, unloaded our suitcases, then ran to a member dinner. The family was so nice and they made so much food. 

    We are pink washing the area which means that elders were here before us. The apartment was a hot mess so when we got back, we had to move the beds from the living room to the bedroom. We have done a lot of cleaning.

    On Saturday, we had new missionary training and district counsel. It was fun to get to meet all the missionaries in the area.  Sister Richins and I had a teaching appointment in the afternoon. We went grocery shopping, then came back to clean. The other sisters in the area came over to help us clean. We had dinner at the bishops house. They have an adorable farmhouse. Their family was so cute. It was a really good time. 

    On Sunday, we went to church. Everyone in the ward seems so excited to have sisters. We came back to our apartment, which has no AC. We came back to do some personal study, weekly planning and such. We contacted a ton of people. We had dinner at another members apartment. Sister Richins made me lead the message but I thought it went decently. We decided to knock on some doors of people we have in our area book. The first guy said the guy no longer lives there and laughed in our faces. We knocked on a few more people's doors and got similar responses. The last door we knocked on was a guy who used to be a member.  We talked about his mission and his girlfriend seemed pretty interested. Guess we'll see if anything comes from it.

    I'm excited to see what else is in store for me this transfer!

    

Love,

Sister O'Barr 

    

    This week was full of the Spirit and growth!

    On Thursday, we did laundry first thing in the morning. Then we were able to do an endowment session in the temple. I felt a lot of peace about leaving next week and that the Lord will support me in my struggles. 

    On Friday, we had to get up super early to get to a sealing session at the temple at 7am. At dinner, an elder in our district heard a worker say it was messier than usual so our district quickly decided to clean up. At first, I was a little angry that we were cleaning up others messes, but we ended up joking and having a good time. I left feeling happy that we were able to help. All the workers were super grateful. We ended up going to the field after that and I finally won a game of spike ball, with only a little bit of help from Elder Jensen.

     We watched General Conference all of Saturday and Sunday. Conference was so good! I'll definitely be taking the prophets invite to think celestial. I know it'll help me on my mission!

     On Monday, we had class and one of the elders in my district called my shirt the color of fry sauce. I wasn't very impressed with that comparison. We played a lot of volleyball this week. When we played on Tuesday, an elder in my district hit the ball right into my face. He seemed so appalled but I was laughing so hard as no damage was done. We've also been playing hacky sack and I'm getting semi decent at it!

     I leave for the field tomorrow! A few missions, including mine, are implementing a new mentor program for new missionaries. I'll be doing it for the first 12 weeks in the field.

     Nothing too exciting today, just laundry and packing. I can't wait to finally be in the field and start fulfulling my missionary purpose!

Love,

Sister O'Barr