Sometimes I meet the Ambassador of Iraq... nbd...

HEY EVERYBODY!!! First things first! So - about the shooting that occurred and the Naval Yard a week ago, it turns out that it WASN'T in my area - THANK HEAVENS! But it was pretty close to my area, as far as miles go. I'm only about 4.5 - 5 miles away from DC where it happened. But no worries. It was over the Potomac River - therefore out of the boundaries of my mission. Anyways, this week has been quite interesting! On Monday I cut a couple of Sister's hair, which was SUPER fun! I'm actually scheduled today to cut at least THREE more Sister's hair! I LOVE it! :) Monday night we had Family Home Evening with the Babitz and our investigators Bobby and Keren! It was SO fun! We started out by meeting at Sweet Frog and got fro-yo, then we went on over the the Babitz home and played games! We played a game called "Cold Turkey", which apparently isn't manufactured anymore, which is SUPER sad cause it was SUUUPER fun, and a frog game (I don't know what it's called). We all had a blast playing games and getting to know each other better! And now Keren had a couple of new friends in the ward, which is exactly what we wanted out of this! :) Tuesday we had our usual routine - District Meeting, lunch and comp. study. After that, we visited Keren and went with her to run some errands. It was fun! I love Keren SOOOO much!!! She really IS MUCH MUCH more than an investigator to me! She's truly become one of my best friends! :) She's definitely someone who I will come back and visit and hang out with after my mission! :) After that, we had dinner, then we had a POWER HOUR! After our power hour, we visited a sweet member in our ward, Sister White. I LOVE her! She's wonderful! She's the one I told y'all about who has the sugar gliders! :) Right after we were done visiting with Sis. White, we went straight over to Keren's and walked over to another fro-yo place and got fro-yo with her cause there was a miscommunication on our part to her about getting fro-yo, so she didn't get it then. Anyways, after we were done with our fro-yo at Tuti Fruti, we walked over to institute, and only made it for the last half of it, but it was still really good! Keren really enjoyed it! :) Wednesday was really good! We met street contacted for an hour or so and met a Taiwanese guy named Burd who was walking a dog (the irony of that is just SO hilarious to me!). We talked with him and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and had about half a lesson with him, but unfortunately we had to cut things short with him a little bit cause we had to book it back to our apartment for cleaning checks. Don't worry, Mom and Dad and Cory - we were rated Celestial! :) After our cleaning checks, we visited sweet Alma at the Potomac Nursing Center; right before we visited Alma, we visited another sweet resident there named Titi. She's a sweet Ethiopian woman who we've known for a little while. She told Sister Akin and I over and over again that we need to get boyfriends so that they can give us money (...so THAT'S why people get boyfriends! Haha!), also so that we can make our parents happy by getting married. We tried to explain to her that we're not allowed to have boyfriends out here on the mission, let alone get married. She told us that we need to hurry and get married within TWO months of getting home!!! HAHAHAHA!!! Sister Akin and I both laughed at that and thought that might be a little soon, but assured her that it's in the plans to get married EVENTUALLY, but we're in NO rush! Haha. She's so cute and sweet! I LOVE Titi! :) After we were done visiting with people there, we street contacted until dinner and met a man at a bus stop named Elliott who's from Gana! He's met with missionaries before and was really nice to us, so we got his contact information and we're gonna do all we can to see him again this week! :) After dinner, we visited a couple of members - Rebecca and Tati. I love them both! Especially Tati! She's wonderful! I really LOVE Crystal City! :) Thursday we went on exchanges and I went with my dear Sister Woodbury! It was really good to see her again! She's really wonderful! :) And speaking of Sister Woodbury, I realized that I never really told y'all anything about her! She's from Murrietta, CA; was the goaly for BYU's girl's soccer team '04 - '07, so she's kinda a big deal. Haha. We're really different in a lot of ways - she's not bubbly AT ALL, and she's more of a tom-boy, but she's sweet. I love her! :) Funny thing about our exchange - I may or may not have gotten a tick in my hair that she picked off of me. ...we're not exactly sure what it was, but it was definitely a questionable-looking insect. Friday was SO good! We exchanged back and started our day off with ARP; after that, we went home and did weekly planning! SO fun... Haha! That night, we went street contacting for the next couple of hours or so and met the Ambassador of Iraq... No big deal. Yes, I'm dead serious. He was sitting at a park bench and his wife and daughter were nearby. We had NO idea who he was or anything, and then Sister Akin and I approached him and started talking with him about God and Jesus Christ and he invited us to sit down at the picnic table where he was sitting. Turns out he's very spiritual, so that's good! :) It was interesting cause when he called his wife and daughter over to meet us, his wife was hesitant at first and asked him, "Is it safe?" He assured them that we were friendly, good, God-loving people and it was indeed safe. We noticed a couple of big met standing off in the distance, watching us as we talked with him, so we think that they were probably his body guards or something... Kinda neat! Anyways, after we were done chattin it up with the Ambassador (...he's probably not getting baptized anytime soon cause he seemed pretty set in his religious ways - being Muslum and all - but we gave him a pass-along card with our names and phone number and got his phone number as well. So that's kinda cool), we met another man named Jim - a cool, nice, black guy walking on the sidewalk by the park. We gave him a Book of Mormon, too. We hope to see him again soon! :) After that, we met a nice member (not in our ward) named Sister Bell and we talked with her for about fifteen minutes with her non-member boyfriend. They were both really nice people! After that, we went into Nordstrom at the Pentagon City Mall and went into the bathroom there and ended up meeting two other really great women there and talked about the gospel and gave them a pass-along card! Then after that, we booked it over to Keren's and had a late dinner with her at Panera! Sister Akin and I just got smoothies, but it was really good! :) Saturday we helped out with a weeding service project with our ward, which was fun! We got there late and we were talking to people a lot, so we really probably only cleared about a square foot of forest with what we did together, but it was still really good! :) Later that day, while we were in the business center in the club house of our apartment complex, we were almost done with our progress record on the computer, when the computer just shut down out of nowhere, and our work was nowhere to be saved or found... So were stuck there for a bit longer, which ended up being a really big blessing because if we hadn't lost our whole progress record right when we did, we never would've met Shalom (a sweet African-American army woman who lives in our apartment complex). She just started talking to us and asked us, "Are y'all from the church on 23rd street?" and then we just started talking with her from there. We ended up talking with her for about an hour or so and exchanged phone numbers and she even welcomed us to stop by her apartment anytime to talk about Jesus and God and what we believe! SUCH a blessing! :) Later that night, we visited our Chinese investigator, Pei and had a lesson with him, and his roommate, Nan, ended up joining in on our lesson! :) Pei is SO great! He even gave us each a little gift from China! I love him! :) Sunday was SO good! Church was AMAZING! Sister Akin and I subbed our Gospel Principles class, which ended up being SO fun! :) After church, we had a lesson and then lunch with Pei and Nan over at the Larsen's home! I love them - ALL of them! :) We even gained a new investigator from that because Pei's friend, Nan, said that he would start reading the Book of Mormon and said that he's curious to learn more! The church is SOOOO true!!! :) Then only about two hours after lunch, we had dinner with a bunch of other members in our ward at the home of the Kaneyuki's! It was SO good and so fun to get to know some of the wonderful members in our ward better! :) After dinner, we visited Wu Biao and had a short lesson with him. He's doing wonderful with his new baby girl! He's the cutest and sweetest little Mr. Mom! I love him! :) After that, we street contacted for most of the rest of the night and met a wonderful man from Honduras named Elvin and his sweet little 2-year old boy at the Park by Giant! We taught him the Restoration and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and a pass-along card and got a return appointment with him for this Wednesday! I'm SOOOO excited!!! :) I just LOVE spanish people! Why couldn't I have gone spanish-speaking?? Haha. It's all good! I really DO love my mission and everything about it! Plus, I get to use what little spanish I do know quite frequently - at least every other, if not every day! :) I LOVE IT!!! THE CHURCH IS SOOOOOOOO TRUE!!! :D Thank you all to everyone who wrote me and/or sent me an e-mail in the past week! It really DOES mean THE WORLD to me!!! :) Thank you Kat, Aubree, Heather, Kaylee Wood, and Daddy (and Mom for your e-mails! Don't worry - that counts, too!)! Y'all are the greatest! Remember who you are and what you stand for! I love you all! :) LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. I strongly encourage y'all to really study Alma chapter 7! It's amazing! :)

NATS VS. PHILLIES

HEY EVERYBODY!!! This past week has been CRAZY!!! - But in a SUCH a good way!!! :) First things first - in answer to your comment and question/concern about the shooting this morning, Mom (and everybody else): I just found out while sitting in the club house of my apartment complex that the shooting occurred only about TEN MINUTES away from where I live. Yep. In MY area. True story. But no worries. We're safe and sound! However, we don't feel safe going out and going street contacting at this particular moment in time until we know for certainty that the suspect has been caught and is in custody. So for now, we're waiting to hear from our mission President on exactly what we should do regarding that. CRAZY stuff! Now onto this past week! Monday was really good! I cut Sister Woodbury's hair, which was really fun! I LOVE her! I'm going on exchanges with her this week - on Thursday, to be exact! I can't wait! :) Monday night was really good, too! We did LOTS of street contacting and met a Chinese guy named Cage, and a sweet woman from Taiwan named Tina! :) Tuesday we had Zone Training that morning, which was really good! I sincerely LOVE that! After that, we street contacted a LOT and met a sweet Chinese girl named Joanna, a sweet Chinese guy named Pei, and LOTS of spanish speakers! We also met a couple of sweet Ethiopian women! Also - while we were having a lesson in the street with Pei shortly after we met him, this man (probably in his mid-forties) was crossing the street and made eye contact with us, and we moved over on the sidewalk to make room for him to walk by, and he deliberately stuck his tongue out at us while he walked by. People are great. Haha. Then about ten minutes after that, a crazy woman screamed at poor Sister Akin while she was backing me in the car, telling her that we weren't allowed to park at the Potomac Nursing Center - even though Sister Akin calmly explained to her that we volunteer there a lot, so they give us a free parking pass. Well, that woman didn't wanna hear that, so she told us that she saw us walking from the other direction (in other words, she could tell that we weren't coming out of the nursing center), so she was going to go inside and tell them to never let us park there again. I love people. Haha! But it's all good. Cause we ended the night REALLY well with seeing some Jesus-loving women who high-fived us for being missionaries and doing what we're doing (the Ethiopian women). I LOVE them! :) Then we finished the night off by visiting with the Babitz (an AWESOME couple in the ward. I LOVE them! I've seriously become friends with them! They're wonderful! AND Sister Babitz also LOVES Harry Potter! That's where we bonded!), then we visited with another great couple in the ward named the Behnke's. Overall, even despite the negatives, it was a really great day! Sister Akin and I have grown to have the attitude of simply laughing at the poor, unfortunate souls who treat us like dirt and give them titles of our "(anti) Fan Club". For example, the woman who screamed at us is the President, and the man who stuck his tongue out at us is the Secretary. Good times! Haha! Pretty soon all of the roles are either going to be filled, or there are going to be doubles of each role. Haha! Just kidding! But really though, it's a much better way to look at all of it! Anyways, Wednesday was Zone Conference, which was SO good! President came, AND I got to see Sister Woodbury again, so it was a DOUBLE good day!!! :) That night we went street contacting and met Ivonne (a Columbian woman) while street contacting at the park, and we even taught her the whole restoration lesson! :) After that, we visited our less-active friend, Rob! Thursday we met a lot of other new incredible people! We met an amazing black man named Steve while street contacting at a bus stop by the park! He's incredible! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would read it AND come to church next week! :) That night we had dinner with a family in our ward named the Kaneyuki's! They're awesome! Friday we went to the Nationals game - Nats VS Phillies - which I just found out was a Baseball game the night before when I was talking to Sister Akin about it. I figured it was either Football, Baseball or Softball, but probably either Baseball or Softball. Sister Akin got a kick outta that. :) The game itself was quite boring, to be completely honest with you, however, in case any of y'all care about who won, the Nats won. Woo Hoo... Haha. The game itself was SUPER boring, but the socializing with all the other missionaries was SOOOO much fun!!! :) However, that even got to be not quite as fun anymore when people around us started complaining to security and others about the missionaries standing up and moving around and switching seats... So then about 3/4 of the way through the game, we were warned to not do any of that anymore besides between plays, or they'll call security and kick us out... Yep... Awesome... So they REALLY loved having missionaries there... Haha! It's all good though. Overall, it was REALLY fun! :) I sat with Sister Woodbury! :) Saturday was INCREDIBLE!!! The Lord truly handed us our day on a silver platter! We started out the morning by going to a Day to Serve activity with a new Chinese investigator who we had just met earlier in the week, which went REALLY well! We had a short lesson with her right after the activity, and she was going to come to church yesterday, but then something came up and she couldn't go; she said that she'll come next week. Then that afternoon, we went to ANOTHER day to serve activity with another new Chinese investigator who we just met earlier in the week as well! His name is Pei and he's incredible! We even had a lesson with him that night at the home of a member who speaks Chinese, and he came to church yesterday and LOVED it! We are now planning on meeting with him once a week from now on, and he's coming to church again this week! :) On top of that all, we also ran into another investigator of ours named Jacob - we hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks or so - and we visited with him for a bit and caught up with him! Then right after that, we had another lesson with our new Indian investigator named Bipin! We're also planning on meeting with him again this week! He already read 20 pages of the Book of Mormon since we first met him just a few days before then! He's really incredible! The only main thing holding him back from baptism right now is that his dad's a Hindu priest, so he's not really sure about it all right now; however, he is still curious and wants to continue learning. He also agreed to continue to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! After all that, we ended the night off with having a wonderful member visit! Our day was SO busy that we only had about a 10-15 minute dinner break! But it's all good cause it was one of the best days that I've had on my mission so far! I LOVE being a missionary!!! :) Sunday was really good, too! Church was WONDERFUL!!! It was everything I needed! That evening we had dinner with a couple in the ward named the Stenquist's. I love them! That night we visited with Rob again, and this time we were able to have more of a lesson with him. He's great! :) I love you all! The Church is true!!! :) Love always, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Mom! I am SOOOO sorry, but I was a terrible daughter and didn't have time to mail you your birthday present! But don't worry! I will be sure to mail it to you next week, so you'll only get it a week late! SO sorry! I LOVE YOU!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON FRIDAY!!! :D HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON THURSDAY, LANCE!!! :D HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAST WEEK, DESI!!! :D

Baseball Game

This is me with my excited face at the baseball game when the Nats got a home run!

Sometimes I get attack-hugged by strange men...

HEY EVERYBODY!!! So, I realized that I haven't really said much about my sweet companion, Sister Akin, in any of my previous letters, so I'll give you a quick summary about her right now! :) She's a cute, short, blonde girl (as you could see from the pictures) from a small town in Wyoming called Powell. She loves the outdoors - such as biking, hiking, camping, back-packing, etc. She hates Harry Potter (...deep breath, I know... this was ALMOST a deal-breaker... haha. Just kidding... kinda...) and loves Lord of the Rings. But the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings things don't matter cause we both have a deep love and appreciation of BSB (Backstreet Boys) and NSYNC - but mostly BSB. We bonded a lot over that! We even have a lot of mixed CD's that Elder Brown (our District Leader) made for us, and there are some songs by Jericho Road on there and they're EFY-typed songs, but totally BSB-style. We definitely love our boy bands! Haha! We have a lot of fun together! :) She's SUPER sweet and loves to do the dishes (which I don't really love all the time, so it works out. Haha!). Plus, she eats super healthy, too, so the fact that I'm a gluten-free (and practically dairy-free as well) vegeterian doesn't bother her at all! That's about the jist of what I can think of to best describe her in one quick paragraph! But she really is really great! I've been really lucky to have her as a trainee, and most importantly, as a companion! :) Anyways, I'll give y'all a quick summary of this past week now! :) To start things off, last Monday night was really good! We saw a sweet elderly lady slowly walking down the street, talking her groceries back to her apartment, so we decided to park our car and walk with her! She wasn't too warm or welcoming at first, but after a few minutes, she quickly warmed up to us and seemed happy that we had walked with her! :) Right after that, we headed over to the park right behind the Giant Grocery Store and street contacted there for a bit and talked to a lot of latino guys. They all were very quick to listen to us, and then as we were walking away, getting ready to leave the park, a couple of guys even called us over (they were watching a soccer game that was going on right then), so we walked over to them, and ended up basically having a lesson with one of them! We talked to him for about 45 minutes all about the church and the gospel and he seemed interested! He even said that he might check out our church! :) Tuesday was a FABULOUS day!!! We street contacted a bit that afternoon by the Pentagon City Mall and met a really sweet lady and gave her a Book of Mormon, then shortly after that, we met a hispanic man and gave a Book of Mormon to him as well! Then that night while we were street contacting some more, we met a wonderful Ethiopian man named Charli and had a lesson with him in the church parking lot! And the night just continued to get better and better! When we got back to our apartment that night, we just so happened to see our investigator, Jacob, (the army guy who lives in the building right next to us) who we hadn't seen or heard from in about a week and a half! He parked his jeep fairly close to where we were parked and got out just shortly after we got there! So we quickly jumped out of the car (as normally as possible. Haha) and said "hi" to him. He came right over to us and talked with us for a good ten minutes or so! We had even planned on seeing him that coming weekend! Blessings upon blessings were being showered on us all day! :) We then topped the day off by visiting a sweet girl who just moved into our apartment complex and ward with her husband a few weeks ago, and she gave us a card and a bag of grapes as a treat and thank-you for helping them move into their apartment! I love her! She's wonderful! I love our ward! :) Wednesday was SO weird!!! We tried street contacting in the early afternoon, but we are NOT going to be doing that again, at least not anytime soon! Appartently that's when all of the weirdos are out - at least walking down 23rd street in Arlington! We met a man and tried to talk to him about the gospel, and we mentioned Jesus, and he said that he knows Jesus. Then he said, "Let's pray right now," and he folded his arms and closed his eyes and went on the rehearse "Our Father's Prayer". It was really interesting... But that wasn't even the start of it! Right after he finished that, he stood up from the bench he was sitting on, and walked towards me and HUGGED ME!!! It was TERRIFYING!!! Not only am I a missionary, so I am not supposed to have any sort of physical contact with a guy who isn't related to me (so out here on the mission, that means nobody), but I didn't even KNOW this man! Plus, I think he was a little bit mentally-unstable... But that's ok. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget! That's for sure! Haha! But that was only the beginning of it! SO many weird things continued to happen ALL day long! It was just SUCH a weird day! We even tried to kinda stalk down one of our investigators who we haven't heard from in a couple of weeks, and we know that she works at a Thai restaraunt around, we just don't know which one... So we've been going into different Thai restaraunts in the area and seeing if she works there... Well, we decided that it would be easiest to park in a parking garage cause that would be the most convenient. However, what we DIDN'T realize is that it costs $6 AN HOUR to park there!!! WHAT?!?! Yep. True story. So by the end of our hour there, Sister Akin was short $6 and we still hadn't found our investigator... Haha. But it's ok. It made a good memory! Plus we learned from that! Later that day, we had dinner with the wonderful Chambers! I love them SO much!!! :) After that, we stopped by the apartment really quick to put the food away that the Chambers had given to us, and we saw the Elders in our District - Elder Brown and Elder Staples - and their investigator, Amanda and her dog, Brewski, so we talked with them for a bit. They're all wonderful! I love them! After that, we went and visited Jan! I love her! :) Thursday was a WONDERFUL day!!! We had another wonderful day of street contacting and had two lessons, got TWO new investigators, three return appointments, and gave away two copies of the Book of Mormon!!! We also had four really great member visits! Plus we saw Jacob AGAIN right after dinner in the parking lot while we were heading back out to work! You'd think this would be some sort of sign to him that we need to have another lesson with him or something since we keep running into him like this! Haha! Seriously though! Friday was an interesting day... Haha. We started the day out with Launching Leaders - SO good! And I saw my wonderful Sister Woodbury! Her and Sister Goates came there at the end to go on exchanges with some other sisters in my zone! I love them! Especially Sister Woodbury! It was SO good to see her! :) After that, we had weekly planning, which ended up taking SO long! Haha. But it's ok. It was good! Then we went street contacting all night and ended up getting a lesson and another new investigator! :) GOOD NIGHT!!! Saturday was pretty good! We attempted to have a lesson with Leonard (a man who we had met street contacting earlier in the week and had a lesson with at the bus stop), but it didn't end up happening... He either stood us up, or we just had a lack of communication or something... We'll go with the second one! But it was ok cause then we ended up meeting a Morracan man named Abe who's a french-speaking Muslem. He was very willing to talk with us! We gave him a french copy of the Book of Mormon and even got his number and we're planning on seeing him in the next couple of weeks or so! He just said that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon (like the whole thing) before we meet with him! We told him that wasn't necessary, but he said that he still wants to read at least a good portion of it before we see him again, so we said that would be great! :) We continued street contacting, and unfortunately not as many people were as nice as Abe after that... We got rejection after rejection, but I guess that's what it's like being a missionary! It all comes with the territory! However, in the midst of all of the rejections, we street contacted into a very nice woman who said that she has a best friend who's Mormon and she talked to us for a good 5 to 10 minutes or so; after we were done talking, she even gave us each a hug! That was exactly what I needed! :) Then shortly after that, we street contacted into a grumpy man who looked at us shortly after we told him where we were from and what we were about, and he said, "You are EXTREMELY rude to gay people!" ...we didn't really know what to say to that, so we didn't really say anything. People are great! Haha! Well, we didn't end up meeting with Jacob on Saturday like we were planning on - he cancelled on us - but we DID end up seeing him AGAIN in the parking lot of our apartment that night and waved at him and said "hi" right before he got in his jeep and drove away! Seriously! Three times in one week! I really think that the Lord is trying to tell him something! It's no cooincidence when someone runs into missionaries THREE times in one week! The Lord's gotta be tryin to tell him somthin' with that! I just hope he'll listen one day! Haha. Sunday was SO good! Church was wonderful! :) After church and comp. study, we had a wonderful object lesson on the Plan of Salvation with Sandra and Iganacio! I love them! Sandra thinks that I have a baby face, so she calls me "little girl". Haha. I love her! After dinner, we street contacted some more and ran into Bobby and Keren! I love them! :) We then went back to their apartment and visited with them! Keren's off of Mormon activities for the time being until after Yomkippur (a Jewish Holiday), which ends on the 14th of this month. However, she said that she loves us and has been missing us and will definitely continue meeting with us and coninuing her studies after that! I LOVE them!!! :) I love being a missionary! :) The church is true! A really great conference talk that I read recently is called "In His Own Time, In His Own Way". I would STRONGLY encourage each of y'all to read it! It's amazing! I LOVE YOU ALL!!! LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Thank you all who have been writing me recently! That means you, Aubree Bean and Daddy! I love you both! And anyone else who writes me! Thank you!

I LOVE TO SEE THE TEMPLE!!! :D

HEY EVERYBODY!!! MAN! This past week has just FLOWN by!!! Last week was a REALLY good week! ...interesting... but good! Haha. Oh! Quick thing - I totally forgot to tell y'all about something in my last e-mail! On Tuesday - the week before last - when Sister Akin and I had our first sick day, we had quite the adventure involving a GINORMOUS millipead in our bathroom!!! Seriously! It was HUGE!!! And SO gross and scary-looking! We still don't know how it got into our apartment, since we live in a pretty nice complex and we keep it pretty clean, but moral of the story is, it got in. So I was sitting on the toilet, and all of a sudden, I felt something fall on my arm. It felt soft like a hair, but it was definitely much heavier than that. So at first I just brushed it off, and then it landed on my LEG!!! And then lo and behold - there it was. A GIANT millipead with a million hairy little legs, running around. I immediately jumped up and started screaming! Sister Akin was then a little bit concerned and asked me what was wrong. I was so terrified that all that I could really get out was, "...A... a... a... BUG!!!" I ran out of the bathroom as quickly as I could, and then proceeded to tell Sister Akin all about the terrifying adventure I had just experienced. So then we were ready; we were going to overtake this thing and bring down the millipead if it was the last thing we did! This was NOT ok that it was here - in our apartment! This is OUR home - we are not giving it up to the millipeads! So we armed ourselves and grabbed our ammo: I got my Big Sexy Hair hairspray, and Sis. Akin grabbed the Windex - after all Windex DOES cure everything, right?? So we ventured out into the unknown bathroom in hopes of finding and destroying the enemy. Well, it turns out we were just SO brave that we wanted to stand outside the bathroom door and wait for the millipead to come out of hiding before going into our mode of attack. We waited... and waited... and even turned on some EFY tunes to pump us up... and waited some more... I even threw a can of asparagus spears into the bathroom in hopes of scaring the millipead out of hiding, but to not avail... until we saw it! It came out of hiding behind the toilet and ran across the floor! And that's when we knew we had it! So we bravely started spraying our ammo at it in hopes of wounding it just enough to stop it, or at least slow it down. Well, this little guy was a fighter. He didn't wanna quit. He was the one on the front-lines who just doesn't give up. So we had to do what anyone else in our situation would do - make it run into the bathtub, and then bring it down by spraying half a can of hairspray on it and causing it to practically be glued to the bathtub. Well, after we had started taking our victory pictures, the little fighter started to try to move again and show us one last fight, so we had to put him down a second time. ...don't worry. We got the main parts of this adventure on video - which I will be sending home shortly and y'all can enjoy it then! Haha! Anyways! Now onto THIS week! :) Monday we started the night out by visiting sweet Alma at the Nursing Home. Then we had a lesson with Mary Ann, which was SO good! I LOVE her! She was WONDERFUL at that lesson! She totally accepted the soft baptism invite and everything! I really thought at that time that she would quickly turn into a solid investigator... But just wait til Wednesday... Tuesday was wonderful! We had dinner with a fabulous couple in the ward, who I LOVE (I went to their house for dinner my very first night in the field!), named the Greens! That was SO fun! We had pizza, and they even bought me my own mini gluten-free personal pizza! I LOVE them! They're the best! After dinner, we stopped by and visited a less-active couple in our ward named the Funaki's. They are WONDERFUL!!! They're both Samoan and - 'nuf said. They're wonderful! I LOVE them! I felt an instant connection with them! I was definitely meant to meet them out here! :) Wednesday we had lunch with Mary Ann, which was SO good - as far as the food goes (we went to a REALLY good pizza place down Fern Street in Arlington called Extreme Pizza. SO good! They even make gluten-free pizza there! Mom! Cory! We are going here when y'all pick me up in 13 months!), but not so good as far as a lesson goes... She turned a complete 180 from where she was the last time we had seen her when she was accepting the soft baptism invite and saying, "Well, ya. If I get to that point and I come to know that these things are true, then ya. I'll be baptized." No. Not this time. This time she had a billion questions and concerns - which is fine, but she had said that she had done some "research" over the past couple of days since we'd seen her... and we all know that when people are doing research, they're not going to the source - AKA: mormon.org, or other church-affiliated websites. So anyways, she basically got all freaked about nothing and told us flat out that we'd be wasting our time if we were to continue meeting with her because she said, "I will NOT EVER get baptized!" She then went on to tell us that she really likes us as people and enjoys spending time with us, and she feels like we're doing a great thing in spreading the word about Jesus... However, she is just not interested in pursuing learning about our church anymore... So we were bummed, to say the least... And quite honestly, even more so than that, we were kinda really EXTREMELY confused on the dramatic change of character and everything in her towards us and the church... Oh well. I guess we just gotta remember that there's a thing called "agency" - such a blessing and a curse sometimes! Haha. Seriously though! Anyways, after we were done practically being broken up with by Mary Ann, we tried to visit a man in our ward named Virgil who's a somewhat recent convert (I think he was baptized last year sometime), but he wasn't home... But his sister and her grandson were home, so we visited with them for a little bit, and that was SO wonderful! She makes jewelry, so she brought out a whole case of necklaces that she had made, and we looked through them and admired how beautiful they are; she then went on to tell us that she does this as a hobby, but she also sells them. Then she offered us to each take a necklace - any necklace of our choice! So we narrowed it down to three or four choices, then held them up for her grandson to see and asked him to choose his favorite one for us to take! Well, we each ended up leaving with a brand-new red-bead necklace, chosen by a five-year-old genius! :) After we had our new jewels, we visited a sweet woman in our ward - Sister Pierre - who's from a part-member family (her husband's not a member), and we unfortunately weren't able to visit for too long cause her and her little baby were both sick. So we just visited for a few minutes, and then right before we left, she gave us a whole container of strawberries cause it was buy one, get one free at Giant! YES! I LOVE that! So we were blessed just from that! Right after we left the Pierre's, we stopped by the Babitz's and finished the night off visiting with them! They are fantastic! They are seriously HILARIOUS!!! Oh my goodness! I would seriously hang out with them all the time if I weren't a missionary! I. LOVE. THEM!!! Especially Sister Babitz! She's a HUGE Harry Potter nerd, just like me, so we obviously get along WONDERFULLY! :) Thursday we started the morning off by going to our ARP (Addiction Recovery Program), which was really good. It really does help you out spiritually as well! I LOVE it! :) That afternoon, we went to the Potomac Nursing Center and helped out with the activity, which was nails and manicures this week! So that was SUPER fun! We painted some lady's nails and visited with them! I LOVE those activities! It makes me feel right at home - in SO many ways! :) After that, we visited Keren and had a wonderful lesson with her! She is SO full of questions and wants to learn SO much! We LOVE it! She's fabulous! :) Then that night, we visited Jan! Her and her husband, Jack, are still struggling with both of their health, but they're both staying positive, and Jan's always holding firm to God. I love her! I love them! They're like an aunt and uncle to me! :) Friday we didn't do much as far as seeing people goes cause we were weekly planning for a good portion of the afternoon. Then that night we visited Negeset at her work. She's a sweetheart! I love her! :) Saturday was SOOOO good! We had a really wonderful lesson with Keren that afternoon! Her faith is increasing every single time that we see her! I just LOVE this woman! She really IS one of my really good friends now - much more than just an investigator! :) We even ended up having dinner with her that night - which was SOOOOO good! We had a gluten-free pasta with Keren's home-made Israeli pasta sauce! It was DELICIOUS!!! And then we were able to just talk and spend time together some more! It was WONDERFUL! :) Then in the middle of the lesson and dinner with Keren, we visited a woman who just moved into our ward named Rae Carol, and she is FABULOUS!!! She's in a wheelchair and can't walk, but she just has the most positive, up-beat personality and attitude I've ever seen! I LOVE her! :) Sunday was wonderful as well! Church was FABULOUS! We ended up having two investigators come to church - only one to Sacrament meeting, though, cause the other one came right after Sacrament meeting. But as long as they're coming to something, right? So our Chinese investigator, Hong Bin came and brought his roommate, who is also from China! So that was really cool! And then right after Sacrament meeting, our less-active member, Ignacio and his wife Sandra came with their adorable little kids! They are wonderful! I love them! They're some other people who I truly feel like I was supposed to meet out here! :) Then after dinner, we visited our good less-active friend, Rick, and went on a walk and talked with him while he walked his dog, Moki. I love Rick! He's wonderful! :) After we saw Rick, we went and visited our sweet Alma at the Potomac Nursing Home! We gave her a beautiful ring last week that our investigator, Jan, had given to us to give to her, and Alma absolutely LOVES it! She even told us that she's NEVER taking it off! Then when we visited her on Sunday, we gave her a perfume that Jan had also given to us to give to Alma. Alma also loved that. Jan is wonderful! Alma's adorable! I love them both! We're going over to the Potomac Nursing Center tonight to do a Family Home Evening activity with Alma! I'm excited! It's gonna be fun! :) This week has already started out WONDERFULLY!!! We went to the DC temple this morning with a woman in our ward - Sister Stouder. She is SO sweet and wonderful! She was one of my "babysitters" while I had to stay home sick one night. I LOVE her! I LOVE the temple! I encourage y'all to go and do a session there ASAP! I'm tellin' ya - it's AMAZING!!! :) Anyways, I LOVE my mission! I love being a missionary! I'm excited to see what the rest of the week holds in store for us! :) I love you all! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! :D LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Katie Cassani - yes, I have been getting your letters. Sorry about not writing you back lately. I really have hardly written ANYBODY back lately due to lack of time. I know that's a terrible excuse, but as a missionary, it's all I've got. Haha. Just know that I still love you! Thank you for your letters! Family! I love you! Mom! Lance! It's your birthday month! WOO HOO! :D