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