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!