Farewell Crystal City, HELLO (New Area)!!!

HEY EVERYBODY!!! Man! This past week has just FLOWN by, just as all of the weeks before! I cannot believe that in just a few short days (on the 3rd of October) I will reach my 6 month mark of entering the MTC!!! CRAZY!!! Anyways, onto this past week: Monday was a crazy hair cutting day, but SOOOO much fun!!! I cut hair for three Sisters - Sister Call, Sister Mckee, and Sister Lamborn. I seriously had a BLAST!!! I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty positive that I've cut hair more (at least girl's hair) since I've been on my mission than I did in the past a lil' over a year between when I graduated from hair school and when I left on my mission! CRAZY! I've seriously cut pretty much all of the girl's hair in our district/zone! It started out with me just cutting Sister Woodbury's hair, and then people saw her hair and loved it, and then it just traveled and caught on like wild fire through word of mouth. This is the best advertising technique in the world! If I wasn't a missionary, I would be making BANK right now! But it's ok. It's also good to do service. :) Anyways, towards the end of our P-day, we went to the Pentagon City Mall and had dinner with Sister Pierre and her sweet adorable lil' boy Hudson, and our wonderful investigator/friend, Keren! It was SO fun!!! I love all of them!!! After dinner, Sis. Akin and I walked Keren home and talked with her. After that, we did some street contacting, then we stopped by and visited our friend Negeset. She's a sweetheart! She always gives us hugs and kisses on the cheek whenever she sees us! I love her! After that, we visited a sweet member in the ward named Sister Stevenson. GOOD DAY!!! :) Tuesday was... interesting to say the least. Haha! First we had district meeting, which was really great, as always. Then we went home and had lunch and did our companionship study. After that, we had a REALLY weird power hour. We went to the park by Pentagon City Mall where we usually go, and we met a cab driver who was doing Thai Chi on the grass, so naturally we talked to him. ...About fifteen minutes later, we wished that we had continued wondering what this man was doing in the park instead of asking about the Thai Chi because he ended up trying to bash with us for a good, long while, and it took about half an hour or so for us to finally get away from him. Fun. Then after that, we thought that we were done with the weirdos for the day, but nope! Why would we think that?? The weirdos had just begun! Right after that - literally the NEXT person we stopped and talked to was an interesting physics guy who took about fifteen minutes and several physics jokes that Sister Akin and I didn't really understand and just pretended to laugh at (which got to be REALLY awkward, by the way, when he called me out and asked if I actually got it, and I said "I think so..." cause I thought that I really maybe did, before he started explaining it. Then he asked me to explain what I understood and proceeded to tell me that I didn't understand it at all... Well darn it all! I KNEW I should've taken Physics in High School!), just to tell us that he really wasn't interested in what we had to say, nor would he ever be. Nice guy. Haha! Oh, the life of a missionary! Then right before we were done street contacting before we took our dinner break, we stopped one of the last people, and his name is Jason. He didn't seem to be interested in the least of what we had to say, although he continued listening to us. We still gave him a mormon.org card on it with our names and phone number, and he actually ended up texting us a couple of hours later! He told us that he had some questions for us and was wondering if we'd like to go out to dinner with him sometime! ...HUH?? How did THAT happen?? ALL I was talking about was the gospel with him, and he did NOT seem to be interested in that in the least! Oh well. Well, we found out a couple of days later what his TRUE motive was behind contacting us after we had run into him again and talked some small talk with him a bit and got to know him better. He thinks that Sister Akin has beautiful eyes! Seriously. He texted us that. HAHAHAHA!!! Sister Akin felt SOOOO bad, but I was just relieved that for once I wasn't the one who was being flirted with! (I promise that I don't mean to say that in a cocky way at all, I'm just stating the fact). Haha. Anyways, the rest of the night was pretty good. We tracted a little bit (my first time tracting in who knows how long, so we were both kinda nervous), and we met a sweet high-school-age girl named Melanie. She told us that we could come back and talk with her family tomorrow night since her parents weren't home right then! What a tender mercy! Then shortly after that, we stopped by to see a potential investigator, and he wasn't available to see us at that time, but we talked with his roommate, Melissa, for a few minutes. She's really sweet! She invited us to come back over! :) Wednesday was really great! We visited sweet Alma at the Nursing Center, which is always great! Then we had a lesson with Edwin - a man who we met in the park last week or the week before. It went really great! He's wonderful! He accepted the soft baptism invite! :) That night, we had a lesson with Sandra, and it was SUUUPER scattered. Her and her husband are so cute and sweet and love to talk, but it's just impossible to keep them on topic sometimes! At least they DEFINITELY understand eternal families and that God is our loving Heavenly Father VERY WELL! We went over that part REALLY thoroughly! Haha. Thursday we did weekly planning for a little bit, then we stopped partway though to have a lesson with Keren! The lesson was WONDERFUL! We watched a TON of Mormon Messages and a conference talk, and she LOVED every single part of it! I just love her SOOOOOOOO much!!! :) After our wonderful lesson with sweet Keren, we did more weekly planning until dinner. Then we had dinner with the Mori's - a Japanese-American elderly couple in our ward. They're really good friends with Elder Holland and they call him and talk with him once in a while. No big deal. Also - Brother Mori has worked very closely to the President and even went to the White House for a Christmas party! I'm just telling you this so that you can get an idea of the typical lifestyle of most of the people who live in Crystal City and close to DC. About 90% of my ward works on the Hill. It's fine. Haha. Anyways, after dinner at the Mori's, we had a power hour. Then we visited our sweet Chinese investigator, Pei, and his roommate, Nan. I love them! They had no idea we were coming over cause we just felt like we should stop by, and they were just finishing making dinner (home-made REAL Chinese food!), and they offered for us to have some! We weren't too hungry since we had just had dinner, but we did have a little bit, and it was really good! :) After we were done eating, we read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon with them and they seemed to really enjoy it! :) When we extended the soft baptism invite to both of them, they both accepted! :) Friday was jam-packed with meetings! First we had Launching Leaders, which was AMAZING!!! Then we had a half mission conference!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE those!!! It's always SO fun to see so many other missionaries! After that, we had dinner with a new couple in the ward named the Redd's. They're really great! They even gave us TONS of left-overs after dinner to take home with us, which ended up being EXACTLY what we needed since we were already almost out of food cause we hadn't bought a ton of groceries on Monday. The Lord is ALWAYS watching out for us and gives us EXACTLY what we need - even when we don't directly ask for it at times! God is GOOD! :) After dinner, we visited Melissa again and she introduced us to their other roommate, who was nice, but didn't seem as excited to get to know us or talk to us. But Melissa was SUPER excited to talk to us and even told us to come back on Monday night so that we could have a lesson with her AND Phil (the potential investigator who's her other roommate)! AMAZING!!! After that, we visited our dear less-active friend, Rob. I love Rob! He's wonderful! Towards the end of our visit with him, Sister Akin pointed out that there was a slug slithering on the lip of his open beer can on his porch. He's really into analogies and ended up calling us later that night and left a message describing the slug and how fitting it was for it to be on his beer can. He went on to describe how the slug was a metaphor for what alcohol does to him - and anybody. It slows you down. It was SO good to hear that! Saturday and Sunday were the biggest days as far as things happening with our investigators this week! First of all, we went to the Relief Society General Broadcast on Saturday night with our investigator, Keren, and she LOVED it! We rode up with a ward member who has friendshipped her and we went to a dinner that they had right before the broadcast started, and Keren loved that, too! There were a lot of women in the ward who approached her and talked to her, which she really liked! She even exchanged phone numbers with a couple of them and is planning on hanging out with them this week! This is WONDERFUL!!! Our ward is truly reaching out in love to Keren all the time! And her faith continues to grow! I love her SO much! She has truly become MUCH MUCH more than just an investigator to me! She's become a dear friend who I genuinely love and care about, which makes me work even harder to get her into the waters of baptism! :) Don't get me wrong - I have a deep and genuine love for all of our investigators, but since I've seen her progress from the very beginning, it's been really neat! :) Also - Sunday was AMAZING and packed full of miracles!!! Church was AMAZING - AND our military investigator, Jacob, CAME TO CHURCH!!! It was truly incredible!!! He also was quickly fellowshipped by several men in the ward, including Brother Babitz (who I've been dreaming of them being BFF's forevs!) and he seemed to feel very welcomed and comfortable as he talked with them! :) He's really amazing! He hasn't really been progressing lately, but after he went to church yesterday, I might start calling him that! :) Also, there was a New Member Fireside, which was really wonderful! Wu Biao spoke about his conversion, and it was SO sweet and sincere! I was SO proud watching him up there! It made me feel SO good to think back that I was partly his missionary at the end for the last lil' over two months or so before he got baptized! :) He's wonderful! Anyways, I'm about outta time, but I love you all SOOOOOO much!!! Please continue to write me! And if you're not writing me, please DO!!! :) THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! One last quick note: I've been reading the book of Jacob in the Book of Mormon over the past week, and it is a FANTASTIC book! Especially Chapters 4, 5 (yes, even when you're in the vineyard), and 7! I strongly encourage y'all to read those! :) And pay attention in chapter 5 when the Lord of the vineyard tells the servant "counsel me not". The entire chapter is a really wonderful and powerful analogy of life! I've never appreciated it so much until now that I'm on my mission! LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Anne Orrock P.S. Since I'll be leaving my area, please DO NOT send any mail to my current address from now on! If you must send me a letter, you can send it to the mission home, and I'll be able to pick it up when the zone leaders go to the mission office next week at district meeting (or at transfers on Thursday). But it might just make things easier if you wait until I write you later and tell you my new address! Thank you SO much! Shout-Outs! Kobbi: THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FOR FIXING MY MEDALLION!!! That really means A LOT to me!!! You're SO sweet and amazing! Thank you SO much for all that you do!!! :) Cory: Thank you SO much for ALWAYS sending me a weekly e-mail! You are WONDERFUL!!! I cannot even tell you how much it means to me to read your e-mails each week! I love you! :) Mom: Thank you SO much for your e-mails and letters! You are SO sweet! It's funny how I've been realizing more and more since I've been out here just how similar we really are! Haha. Don't worry, it's a good thing! I'm proud to be like my mama! :) Daddy: I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!!! Thank you SO much for your weekly letters to me! They always brighten my day! You are SO sweet! :) Aubs: Thank you SO much for being such a wonderful friend and being so faithful in writing me! I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!! :) Kat: Thank you SO much for you and Justin's sweet and funny letters! I love you both! :) I miss you!