Month: January 2024

On Tuesday, we helped clean thus lady's house. We changed, then had a lesson with a new guy, then went to dinner. Probably one of the worst dinners with the food.

On Wednesday, we contacted a ton. Then we went to our lesson with a less engaged member. She is a super sweet lady who loves when I braid her hair. We had a lesson with Dorinda, who was just baptized. We asked her how she felt at her baptism and she said she felt so content. She said she had never felt that at peace in her life!We contacted more, then had dinner with a member family who just decided to come back to church. They were so sweet and had good food. 

Thursday was fun. I got to call my dad for his birthday! We went to the church for this Book of Mormon class. Our friend Donna showed up. We had this lesson with a less engaged member and he was so old. He was not interested in coming back but he was super nice and gave us cookies. We ate dinner, then went to this Restoration devotional in Eugene. One of our members drove us and Dorinda. She is just the best! She had a whole bag of snacks in her car for us. We had a blast. 

On Friday, we had District Counsel and NMT. We went to the Institute for lunch. We went to the church and did some facebook, then had a zoom lesson with a new guy. We invited him to come to this ward potluck and he said he would come! We then had dinner with a member family. They have us over almost every week. We had a super fun dinner with them, then had lesson with another family. Overall the lesson was fine. 

Saturday was fun! We got up and played soccer in the pouring rain. We weren't sure if anyone would show up, but they did. We came home and changed, then went to our wards potluck. The elders quorum bought 40lbs of meat for it. Our friend Matt showed up too. We had a ton of fun talking to people and eating good food. We then went to this service. It was probably the worst one yet. This lady had us outside in the rain, scrubbing these muddy mats. I think we were just spreading the mud around but we tried. We got so muddy and gross.

Sunday was good. The weather has been soooo nice! It had been sunny in the mornings, then just a decent temperature all day. Today's high was 62. I was loving it! We had church, then ate lunch, then did some weekly planning. We went and visited with the sweetest lady. We had dinner with a member family who has 2 little boys. One is obsessed with dinosaur and kept bringing them to us. It was overall a good day.

This week was good and I count the sunshine as a miracle! Definitely helped to brighten my day and to remember the Lord. Hope you all have a great week!

Love, 

Sister O'Barr 

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we were still stuck inside because of the ice. On Thursday, we finally were able to drive! We had district counsel. It was fun. On Friday, we had zone conference in Eugene. 

Sunday was amazing! Our friend Dorinda was finally able to be baptized after it was recheduled because of the ice. She texted us that morning saying she was nervous so we sent her a few scriptures and a song and she said she felt so much better. Her baptism was so good! So many members showed up to support her. She just kept saying wow and that she was so happy. It was a super cool experience for me because I put her on date for baptism in my first transfer and I got to be here for her baptism. I will never forget it! We also had an awesome member dinner but they live super far in the middle of nowhere and there were fallen trees all over the road. It was an obstacles course in the dark and with the rain.

This week was awesome and I will never forget it! Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Love,

Sister O'Barr 

On Tuesday, we had essentially a sister trainer leader over all the sisters in the mission, Sister Crouch. She is such a diligent missionary. Overall I learned a lot on how to be a good missionary. 

Wednesday was odd. Sister Crouch had to meet back up with her companion, who was with the STLs. So we drove her over to their apartment. We had a lesson with a member. We met the sisters for lunch, then had a lesson with our friend Dorinda who was supposed to be baptized on Sunday. We also met with a member of our ward.

On Thursday, we had a mentoring session with a new mentor. It was fine, a little awkward. We met with the sisters for lunch again. It was fun! We had a meeting with our ward mission leader to make sure everything was good for Dorinda's baptism. We've been looking for some new ways to find and we decided to post on Facebook in a a Corvallis group. We did an ad for free service and everyone loved it! We've gotten so many responses. Several people are interested in lessons, more people would like help. Its been crazy all the responses we've gotten. 

We had NMT and district counsel on Friday. We ate lunch at the Institute with the zone. We had fun playing pool. Then we knocked on some doors and spent some time responding to all the facebook messages we received. We had dinner with a member family. Everyone is preparing for this ice storm. We've gotten a ton of messages from members telling us to stay safe and to not go out.

Saturday was cold! We got a big ice storm. President didn't want any of us driving. It limited what we could do. We had a service in the morning and they lived close enough that we walked. Then we came home and ate lunch. We decided to go back out and knock on a few doors that lived by us. We came home, had a cool zoom lesson, then made dinner. Sister Flake and I decided to play some card games, then the power went out in the middle of it. We decided that we would stay at our apartment and hope we didn't freeze. It came back on about an hour later so we were all good.

On Sunday, everything was cancelled. Church and our friend's baptism was cancelled. We rescheduled it for next week. President still doesn't want anyone driving. We got even more ice and snow overnight so we decided to walk to the sisters apartment. It was a 2 1/2 mile walk on straight ice. We planned on staying the night with the sisters so we packed the stuff we would need. We kinda looked homeless, lol. It was so fun! Definitely an experience I won't forget. We ate lunch with the sisters, then walked to the Institute for Come Follow Me with the YSA. We definitely could have been more productive but we also couldn't go anywhere. 

I hope everything is going well for everyone! Stay warm and safe. I know the Lord watches over us and can help keep us safe during this bad weather! Love you all!

Love,

Sister O'Barr 

Monday was so much fun! We ended up going to the coast again and the weather was so sunny and nice! We did this “hike” that an elder recommended and it was straight down a waterfall. Would not recommend but it was a good zone bonding experience as everyone helped each other down and then back up the waterfall.

On Tuesday, we ended up contacting a ton of people and knocked on a ton of doors. Our dinner cancelled so we met with the sister for dinner. 

Wednesday was busy. We had a lesson with a friend, then walked this lady's dog. We also had a lesson with our friend who is getting baptized next Sunday!! The lesson went really well and I think she is prepared to be baptized. We had dinner with a member family.

On Thursday, we had an awesome lesson with a less engaged member. She is older and has a learning disability. She wanted us to explain the Chosen. So we sat and watched and episode of the Chosen and paused it every few minutes to explain. We met the sisters at the church to eat lunch, then we had interviews with President. He is such an intense guy. We had a meeting with our ward mission leader to help make sure that everything is set for our friend's baptism! We had dinner with some members who are just the sweetest. She loves to cook and is so excited to have people to cook for. 

Friday was interesting. We had NMT and district counsel. We all went to the Institute for lunch. We had a lesson at the furtherest south you can go in our area so it was like a 20 minute drive. The lady lives in a 100 year old house that hasn't really changed since it was built. It was odd. Sister Flake wasn't feeling well so we came home. She was feeling better later that day so we went to our member dinner. 

On Saturday, we played soccer in the morning. It wasn't raining when we showed up but it started pouring freezing rain and we just kept playing. It was so much fun!

Sunday was pretty chill. We had dinner with a member family that is just awesome. I really do love this ward. 

I hit 4 months on Thursday! Crazy to think how fast my mission is going by! I am so excited that we get to study the Book of Mormon in Come Follow Me this year. I've definitely seen the importance of having a testimony of the Book of Mormon in my missionary work! I hope you all get a chance to study it! 

Love,

Sister O'Barr

Helaman 5:12

“And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.”

On Tuesday we had the first half of the day to do laundry and grocery shopping. So we did that, had a lesson with a less engaged member, then met the sisters for lunch at the Institute. We had dinner with a member. It was so fun! We then all went to the church to open transfer news. Neither one of us got a call so we knew we weren't going STL or training, but we could have gone anywhere in the mission. But we didn’t! We will both be here for another 6 weeks. 

Wednesday was fun. The young women decided to do a 12 hour BOM reading challenge and they invited different people to come share testimonies of the BOM throughout the day. So we were invited to come share and they fed us lunch as well, which was nice. We went to different addresses to attempt to get in contact with some less engaged members. It had been pouring rain but we had still decided to walk to save miles. As soon as we left the house, it got super sunny and there was a rainbow! 

On Thursday, we had super good lessons with both of our friends who are getting baptized. One of our friends isn't going to let anything stop her from getting baptized and its so cool to see her devoption!

Friday was odd because we usually have NMT and district counsel on Friday but we didn’t because of transfers. We ended up helping a member clean her house that she's moving out of. She was so appreciative and insisted on taking us out to dinner. We had a few other lessons and a mentoring session, then we went to dinner. 

On Saturday, we went and played soccer. Then we had NMT and district counsel. We had a cool lesson with a friend and a member who came. We kocked on a few doors, then got dinner.

Sunday was fun! We went to church, then came home, ate lunch, and did some planning. The sisters came over for dinner and we made tacos and played games. We had some sparkling cider to celebrate the new year. 

A funny story from this week was this super old guy kinda threatening to shoot us if we ever told him what to do. He's a less engaged member and we went to visit with him. We tried to tell him that he could watch church on zoom. He's super old and I think he just didn't understand. He told us he didn't like the elders at all. He said “if anyone tries to tell me what to do, I'll shoot them.” We probably wont go back, lol.

Its so cool to see how the Lord is in every aspect of my life and is always looking out for me! I definitely couldn't do this on my own! Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister O'Barr