Thursday, July 4, 2013

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!! :D

HEY EVERYBODY!!!
I'm SO SO sorry that y'all had to wait a couple of days to hear from me!!! Sister Woodbury and I switched half of our P-day to today so that we can write and half to Friday so that we can (hopefully) go to the temple!!! We haven't found a ride to the temple yet, so I REALLY hope that that ends up happening! I hear that the DC temple is BEAUTIFUL!!! I can't wait to go!!! :)
This past week has been really good! Last Tuesday we did some service for a family in our ward who's moving to Africa and helped to clean their house for them! We ended up getting the lucky job of cleaning out the fridge and got to take any food that we wanted to keep! YAY!!! I LOVE service! The Lord loves missionaries and He always rewards our efforts - whether through immediate blessings of food, or other more spiritual blessings. But either way, He know exactly what we need at the time, and food is DEFINITELY what we needed then! :)
Wednesday we had the whole mission conference, which was, of course AMAZING!!! I LOVED seeing my sweet MTC companion, Sister Lochridge, there! That was SO fun! :)
Thursday we went to the Potomac Nursing Home and helped out with the activity and helped to paint some cute old lady's nails! It was really fun! Then we visited with Alma and read with her in the temple prep book. She's going through the temple in August as soon as it's her year date after baptism! I'm SO excited for her!!! :)
Friday was interesting. We had a lesson with Diane, which was really great. However, the catch is that she may or may not have been slightly extremely intoxicated during our lesson... The funny thing is that we had originally planned on teaching her the Word of Wisdom, but when we saw the circumstances, we thought it would be best for us to post-pone that lesson until she could actually remember it... Haha. But on the bright side, we know that she's not an angry drunk. She's VERY spiritual, so that's awesome! She even accepted the soft baptism invite! We tried to shoot for a date, but then she wasn't really understanding it and we thought it would be best for us to wait to set a date for when she's NOT drunk. Haha.
Later that night we had an INCREDIBLE lesson with Jan and we went to the Essig's house (a family in our ward) and watched the talk by Elder Brad Wilcox, "His Grace is Sufficient" (y'all NEED to watch that if you haven't already, by the way. It's truly INCREDIBLE!!! It strengthened my testimony A TON!!!) and then invited her to be baptized WITH A DATE!!! Baptism is a REALLY sensitive topic for her since she's already been baptized, so we were REALLY gentle and understanding of her concerns in the way that we presented it to her; however, by the end of the night, she agreed to pray about August 24th to be baptized! THE CHURCH IS SOOOOOO TRUE!!! :D
Saturday we had Launching Leaders and it was SOOOOOO good!!! We went over Moses chapter 1 and talked all about our potential and how we need to NOT settle! We need to live up to the potential that God sees in us! I encourage all of you to really study that chapter! It's REALLY incredible!!! :)
Later that day we saw (and I met) Irene - a former investigator who Sister Woodbury taught a couple of lessons to a while back before I got here. We didn't get to have a lesson with her, but we're hopefully going to get to see her at least one more time before Sister Woodbury leaves next week! ...Oh ya. Did I mention that transfers are next Thursday, which means that Sister Woodbury will probably be off training someone else, and with the influx of Sisters coming out right now, most Sisters will probably train. Which means that I will more than likely be training someone as of next Thursday!!! Yes. That's right. Little me who's only been out here three months. Yep. But it's ok. I know that it's all in the Lord's hands and I feel very strongly that He wants me to train - which TERRIFIES me in some ways; but in other ways, I know that if the Lord wants me to train, He'll give me the strength and guidance that I need. :) Kinda exciting, right? Hopefully I'll know for sure before I e-mail again on Monday and I'll let you know. :)
Also on Saturday, most of the time that Sister Woodbury and I were street contacting that day, NOBODY liked us and nobody would talk to us, or even listen to us and give us the time of day. I started to feel pretty crappy about myself and felt low and like a real missionary with that experience. I prayed and prayed that someone would at least be nice to us, if nothing else. Sister Woodbury had MUCH more faith than I did at that time, I am embarrassed to say, and she said, "It's ok. We're going to meet someone and they're going to listen to us and be nice and we're going to place a Book of Mormon tonight. It'll happen." I didn't really believe her at first, but no more than ten minutes later, lo and behold, we met a guy named Ken who was VERY nice and we talked to him and he listened to us and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he'd read it! We're gonna call him sometime this week to see if we can set up an appointment to meet with him! The church is SO true!!! :)
Sunday we went to church, of course, and it was really good! President and Sister Riggs ended up giving us a surprise visit to our ward and taught a special Sunday School lesson about missionary work to the Priests and Laurels in the ward! It was SOOOOO cool! And the Bishop invited us to sit in on the class and talk a little bit about missionary work, too. :) After that, we had combined Relief Society and Sunday School and President talked a little bit in there, too. It was a really special Sunday! :)
Monday we visited our Athiest friend, Nan, and watched part of President Monson's talk on Obedience from General Conference with her. We skipped to the part where Pres. Monson's so cute in talking about setting the forrest on fire and the lessons that he learned from that! She really liked his story and now has at least a little bit of respect for our beloved Prophet. :)
Now onto this week! Monday night we had dinner with Huget, which was interesting. Haha. She didn't take it well, to put it lightly, when Sister Woodbury broke the news to her about leaving next week.
Tuesday (yesterday) was quite the day!!! We FINALLY had a lesson with Reacha (our investigator who we had to drop a couple of weeks ago cause she wasn't keeping appointmentss)! I called Sabrina (her neice) on Monday and Reacha answered and said that Sabrina wasn't going to be able to meet with us, but that she would love to meet with us tomorrow! We said "Ok!" and had a wonderful lesson with her yesterday! She even told me that when Sister Woodbury's gone, that I need to make sure that I still keep her on track and that I don't let her get out of appointments that easily. She said, "You need to say, 'Reacha, we have an appointment for right now and we're going to meet with you.' Don't let me get out of it that easily. I need my study." I said, "Ok! Will do!" We even invited her to be baptized again with a date, and she said that she'll have to think about it a bit to see if that date will work, but she does still want to be baptized!!! :) After we got out of her house, while we were walking to our car, a guy called over to us from accross the street. We thought that surely he must know one of us. Nope. It was just some creeper 55-year old African-American guy named Curtis who thinks we're cute and made it VERY clear that that's all he was interested in talking to us about. We kept on trying to talk about Jesus, but he kept on saying things like, "You're very beautiful". He even said that he'd marry either of us. Ya. Ew. Then he said that he likes them more "thick" about ME! Yep. He basically called me fat. That was the last straw. We left shortly after that. He's also Baptist and invited us to come check out his church on Sunday and said that he'd come to ours. Cool that a Baptist invited us to their church, but unfortunately I think that this one has other motives behind it. EW. CREEPER.
Later that night we visited a lady in our ward who's very terminally ill named Tati. I know that our visit to her really meant a lot. :) As soon as we walked out of her apartment and we were walking towards our car, we met another guy named Eric - only this guy was AMAZING! We ONLY talked about the gospel and gave him a Book of Mormon! We totally would've met with him, but unfortunately he doesn't live in the area, not even in the state. He just comes here for business a lot, so he said that he might give us a call sometime when he's back in town! :)
Also - another cool thing that happened sometime in the past few days, but I don't remember exactly which day - haha - while we were street contacting, we met a Baptist guy who we got talking to who was actually really nice to us. It's really uncommon for Baptists to be so kind to LDS people... unless your name's Curtis... But his wasn't! Haha. Anyways, he thanked us for our service in spreading the good word and thinks it's wonderful that we're trying to bring others closer to Christ! He even added that the Baptist church looks highly on the Mormons (...I don't think that's really a church-wide thing, but that's cool that he thinks so)!
One last quick thing: On Monday night while Sister Woodbury and I were street contacting, I realized that I would be in need of a bano fairly quickly, but the problem was, something REALLY funny had just happened (but I of course can't remember exactly what it was), so I started laughing REALLY hard. The following is described in Sister Woodbury's words:
"To end off that night while we were walking to the car Sister Orrock got laughing about something and realized she would need to be finding a bathroom in the near future. While she stood there in the well known pee stance I did what any good companion would do.. I made her laugh more until she actually did have a little accident :) Good thing we were on our way home! I know I'm mean but she was a good sport about it."
...Yep... It's true. Embarrassing?? Maybe slightly. But it's ok. It made for a good story that I'm sure all of you will NEVER forget. ;)
Anyways, I gotta run now! Sorry for such a long e-mail, but I guess that's what happens when you don't e-mail for a week and a half! :)
I LOVE YOU ALL!!! HAVE A HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!! :D And yes - President Riggs has given us all permission to watch the Fireworks tomorrow night!!! I can't wait!!! :D We have to go with a member (or non-member or part-member family, we just can't drive ourselves) and we need to not do anything stupid, and be home by 10:30! WOO HOO!!! HAPPY FOURTH, INDEED!!! Plus, we're also going to a bbq at Diane's house tomorrow afternoon. She invited us while we had our lesson while she was intoxicated. She invited us twice. She REALLY wanted us to come. We'll see if she remembers inviting us when we get there... haha!
 
THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!! :D
LOVE ALWAYS,
Sister Aubrie Orrock
 
P.S. CONGRATULATIONS TO DESI AND JENS!!! YOU'RE ENGAGED!!! I KNEW you two would get married while I was gone!!! And I even knew that y'all would get engaged this summer! I am SOOOO excited for Jens to join our family!!! Congrats again!!! :D
And CONGRATULATIONS TO MARCI AND HER FUTURE HUBBY!!! Although I don't know him that well, I know that you're happy, Marci, so I am SO happy for you two!!! Mawage! Wuv! Tawoo wuv! The bwessed awangement... Haha! Anyways, I'm done! But SOOOOOO happy for you!!! I love you, Marci!!! :)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MALARIE YESTERDAY!!! I LOVE YOU, SISTA!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MI AMIGA MICHELLE TODAY!!! 21!!! WOO HOO!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ANDREA DRAUDT ON THE 5TH!!! :D
Brienne: I've got your letters and I've been meaning to write you back, but I just haven't been able to yet! I'm so sorry! But I PROMISE you'll get a letter/postcard from DC in the near future! Thank you SOOOOO much for your letters!!! They really mean the WORLD to me!!! I love you SOOOOOOOOOOO much!!! :)
Daddy: Thank you SOOOOO much for your letters that you always faithfully send me every single week! I love you SOOOOOOOO much!!!
Family: I LOVE YOU ALL!!! Give Lola-kins LOTS of loves from her mama! :)
 
P.S. IT'S ALMOST MI CUMPLEANOS!!! 21!!! WOO HOO!!! :D
HEY EVERYBODY!!!
Just a reminder that it's my 21st birthday on July 15th (12 days from now!), so if you want to send me a nice letter or package or whatever, PLEASE send it SOON!!! :D Mail takes a little extra time to get to me cause it needs to be forwarded from the mission office. So if you want to send me a package, please send it by Monday, and if you want to send me a letter, please send it AT LEAST five business days before - so by about Tuesday next week. Thank you all SOOOO much for your support!!! I'm really NOT expecting anything big for my birthday, all that I ask is for you all to write me - even if it's a short letter and a picture of you, that would really mean THE WORLD to me!!! Thanks again for all y'all do!!! I love you!!!
 
Love always,
Sister Aubrie Orrock
 
 
 
 
 
 

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