HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! ...almost!

HEY EVERYBODY!!! SO sorry I didn't finish telling y'all about my previous week in my e-mail last week! So I'll tell you all about it right now! Thursday, November 14 - Sunday, November 17, 2013: Thursday was transfers, so we spent the morning going around and Sister Schramm said her final goodbyes to people. Then transfer meeting happened, and I got my new companion, Sister McKenna, and she's great! After transfer meeting, I got kinda lost on our way home, PLUS there was crazy VA traffic, so it ended up taking us about 1 1/2 hours to get to our dinner appointment instead of 30-45 minutes... It's fine... It was making a memory. Haha! Anyways, we had dinner that night with a SUPER cute new family in the ward named the Barton's, who are just SO sweet and they have the cutest kids! I LOVE them! :) After that, we visited the Carver's, and that was really good! :) Friday we weekly planned... not much new there... Haha. Then later that day we got on FACEBOOK!!! *GASP* APOSTATE!!! Haha! Nope! SURPRISE!!! Actually, as of that Wednesday, so almost two weeks ago now, my mission has officially been on facebook! CRAZY, huh?? So y'all have probably already seen a friend request from a "Sister-Aubrie Orrock" recently; well, THAT'S ME!!! Haha. So ACCEPT IT! It's NOT a prank, I promise!!! :) That night we stopped by and visited our less-active friend, Bobbi, who I LOVE! :) Then after that, we went over to the Grigg's and did some service for them and helped them clean up their home a bit. It was fun. I LOVE the Griggs! We're going to their house for Thanksgiving! And they're also gluten-free! So this is going to be SUCH a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! SO much wonderful food that I can actually eat that won't make me sick! YAY!!! :D Saturday we had a lesson with the wonderful potential investigators who Sister Schramm and her last companion, Sister Hills met and had just been doing service for! Their names are Katy (the mom) and Abby (her daughter). I LOVE THEM!!! After Katy and Abby, we had a quick drop-by visit with the Fitzgeralds (they were about to leave somewhere, so we couldn't visit with them long). I LOVE THEM! They are SO sweet and SO cute! :) After the Fitzgeralds, we had dinner with the Shengs! They are WONDERFUL!!! They are BY FAR one of my most favorite families in the ward!!! :) And Brother Sheng just found out that he's gluten-intolerant, too, so now they REALLY know how to cook for me! :) Sunday we visited with Amber, and it was SO good! I really DO love her SOOOO much! And every time I see her and talk with her, I just have that feeling reaffirmed that she is one of the people who I was supposed to meet out here, and it just helps remind me that I'm EXACTLY where the Lords wants and NEEDS me to be at this time! :) After Amber, we had meetings for forever and a day (well, from like 12:45 - 3:00) until church at 3:00. Then church was SO good! :) After church, we had dinner with Sister Chipman, and it was really good. Sister Chipman's really sweet, but has a tough exterior that you just have to get past, then you see how sweet she really is. I love her! :) After dinner, we visited Sister K., and it was a really good visit! I really am coming to love Sister K. more and more! :) Ok! Now onto this past week! Monday, November 18 - Sunday, November 24th! Last Monday was crazy, but good, as P-days usually are! Haha! But what was really funny was right after we were done grocery shopping and I was in the car, driving and backing the car out of the parking stall, and Sister McKenna was backing me, a woman started talking to us. She appeared to be laughing, so at first I just ignored her since I've just gotten used to people giving me weird looks when my companion is backing me, or when I'm backing my companion. Haha. But then I thought I heard her say something like, "Are you learning how to drive?" Surely I had heard her wrong, so I rolled down my window and asked her what she said, and she laughed and said, "It's ok. My daughter's learning how to drive, too." Realizing that I had, indeed heard her correctly, I quickly corrected her and laughed and said, "Oh, no. I'm not learning how to drive. We have to do this as missionaries to be extra safe and cautious." She then was obviously somewhat embarrassed about the mix-up, and tried correcting herself by saying, "Oh, don't worry. I think that's great. In fact, I think that more people around here should do that." ...So apparently I look like I'm 15 or 16 with my bangs cut straight across and my hair high-lighted again... Yep... Kinda forgot about just how young that really makes me look sometimes... AWESOME... Sister McKenna thought that it was THE FUNNIEST thing in the world and wouldn't stop laughing about it... Me, on the other hand... not so much. Haha. Tuesday we had District Meeting, as usual. I LOVE LOVE LOVE District Meeting!!! :) After District Meeting, we visited our good less-active friend, Lauren! :) I LOVE Lauren! Later that day, we had dinner with Sister Blake! She's wonderful! And she has the cutest baby girl! :) After that, we went to the church for the Gospel Principles class; but shortly before the class, we talked with our investigator, Carol, on the phone and just checked to see how she's doing. Well, apparently she wants to come back to VA cause she HATES Ohio, so we might just end up teaching her in person again! Anyways, Elder Smith and Elder Richards taught the Gospel Principles class this week, and it was SUCH a wonderful class! They taught all about Christ's life and drew a timeline and everything! It was SUCH a great lesson! They're wonderful Elders! Wednesday we had Launching Leaders! I LOVE Launching Leaders! The Ritchies are WONDERFUL!!! I always learn SO much from their classes! :) After that, we went on exchanges! Sister McKenna went with Sister Stones and I stayed in Kingstowne and Sister Borland came to me! :) It was SUCH a wonderful exchange! I was able to learn SO much about myself and I felt like it helped me to grow SO much and to truly see my potential! I LOVE Sister Borland! And I LOVE exchanges! They're so great! :) And what made our exchange even sweeter (literally) was the Carvers! Sweet Sister Carver texted us earlier that night during dinner and invited us over to have some gluten-free cookies that she made! Um... YES! Ok! THANK YOU!!! So yes. The cookies were DELICIOUS!!! So we got a really great member visit in, and ate some DELICIOUS (and supposedly healthy) cookies! :) LOVE IT! Anyways, unfortunately I am out of time once again, so I am so sorry that I will not be able to tell you all about the rest of my week last week! But I will tell you quick bullet points and then fill you in the rest next week! :) Thursday we exchanged back and then had a phone lesson with Carol again! Then we visited Sister K. again that night. Friday we had this INCREDIBLE conference by a member of the seventy named Elder Teh (he's from the Philipeans)! I LOVED it! I'll tell you more next week! After that, we got on facebook for a bit. Saturday we visited with the Kemp's (a less-active elderly couple we just started working with), and they told us that they want to start coming back to church! The church is SO true!!! That night, we did some service at a retirement home called Manchester Lakes and helped organize musical performances for the night (we did that throughout the week), and it turned out pretty good! Sunday was... interesting... and kinda sad... It was announced in Sacrament Meeting that an older less-active woman named Sister Sausville (who Sister Schramm and I would visit pretty regularly) had passed away last week... Sad! Anyways, we finished the week off with a good member visit with the McCunes! I LOVE them! :) Well, I REALLY gotta go now! But I love you all SO much! :) Have a Happy Thanksgiving! :) Love Always, Sister Aubrie Orrock

SQUIRRELS and NEW HAIR!

HEY EVERYBODY!!! So - first things first! Transfers were on Thursday, and yes, I did get a new companion. Sister Schramm and I were just getting along too well, Heavenly Father knew that he had to split us up! Darn it! :( It's ok, though. Cause even though I miss Sister Schramm, I have Sister McKenna now, and she's wonderful, too! The funny thing is that Sister Akin (my trainee), Sister Schramm, and Sister McKenna were all in the MTC together, and even in the same District - in fact, Sis. Schramm and Sis. McKenna were MTC comp's! Crazy, huh?? So we're predicting that after Sis. McKenna and I get split up that I'll get Sis. Akin's MTC comp. as my next companion, which is Sis. Christainsen. Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see! :) This past week was pretty crazy with transfers, so I'll do my best to tell you all of the highlights that we've had! :) Oh! But first before I do that, I just realized that I've been neglecting to tell y'all about a HUGE event that happened a few weeks ago with our DL, Elder Stone and his comp. Elder Harper! So, I'll do my best to paint the best picture of this for y'all so that you can fully enjoy this moment as much as Sister Schramm and I did! Once upon a time, at the very beginning of this past transfer of me and Sis. Schramm together, we discovered that we both have an abnormal fascination with squirrels. We don't know why, but do we really need a reason?? I mean, come on. They're SQUIRRELS. What's NOT to love and be fascinated in?? 'Nuf said. So - now fast-forward back to about three weeks later. Elder Harper had carved Jesus' face into a pumpkin and put it on their balcony. Well, what Elder Harper DIDN'T know was that squirrels eat pumpkins. In fact, they LOVE pumpkins. So, a few days later, he went back out to the balcony and saw a squirrel chillin' inside his pumpkin. So, remembering the very first words out of Sister Schramm's and my mouth being about how much we LOVE LOVE LOVE squirrels, he thought that it would be a good idea to bring the pumpkin inside and capture the squirrel and then show it to us... Well, what he also didn't realize is that Squirrels don't like being captured by humans in their apartments. They really just wanna eat their pumpkins and be left alone. So, needless to say, the squirrel was MUY (VERY) upset when it realized that it was being captured and then that its capture was also creating a video in the mean time to show his fellow missionaries (specifically certain Sisters) about it being captured. Elders Stone and Harper then had the BRILLIANT idea to take off the plastic or glass see-through container that they had on top of it in the pumpkin for a while and attempt to place a plastic crate on top of it to keep it captured, but allow it to breathe better... As they were in the midst of making the switch of capturing devices, the squirrel darted out of the pumpkin and into what it hoped to be freedom at last! However, to its despair, it was still captured in their apartment... So it then continued to dart to and fro around their apartment for a period of about 45 minutes while Elder Stone (who resembles Cory Ruward quite well in height and stature) proceeded to chase the squirrel around with his bathrobe on backwards over his clothes, and wearing gloves. The squirrel eventually leaped onto their therma-stat and broke it... After having so much fun, both the squirrel and the Elders had finally had enough of their game of capture and tag, so the Elders opened their door and the squirrel ran away. The squirrel still holds a vendetta against these Elders - particularly Elder Stone. Seriously - I'm pretty sure that the squirrel spread the word to all of his friends and family in town, cause whenever there's a squirrel near their apartment and it sees one of the Elders, it will immediately run up a tree and then proceed to make warning calls to those around. Seriously - they make squawking sounds (kinda like Lola does when she's upset); and now they particularly direct these sounds to the Elders. They also throw acorns at the Elders as they ride their bikes or walk. True story. Well, I guess that's what they get for temporarily holding a squirrel hostage. HAHAHA!!! Oh man! Don't worry - I've made a deal with the Elders to get a copy of the videos from them, and I will be sure to put them on a jump-drive and send them home soon so that you all can enjoy! :) Well, anyways, now I REALLY don't have much time to tell you about this past week, but I just HAD to tell you about that because I've been DYING to tell y'all about that for WEEKS now, but I've just been forgetting! So - here are some highlights from this week! Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were pretty much times that Sister Schramm said her goodbyes to people - especially Wednesday cause we got the for sure call on Tuesday night confirming our suspicions. So Monday we had a lesson with Opoku, which was really great! We finished talking about the Restoration, which was really good! :) Tuesday we visited with the Shengs, which was really good! I love them SOOOO much! They are seriously one of the cutest and kindest families I've ever met! After the Shengs, we had dinner with the Kachers, and they're adorable, too! That night, we had our usual Gospel Principles class, which went AMAZINGLY well - especially considering Sis. Schramm and I taught it with only a couple of hours notice! What can I say? The church is true! Wednesday we had a lesson with Wondifraw, and he's pretty much still the same. He comes to church every week, but he's not progressing in the sense that he doesn't wanna get baptized - not anytime soon, anyways. But it's ok, I guess. At least we're doing our part to bring him closer to the gospel. After Wondifraw, we went over and visited with Sister Davis and assembled another bookshelf for her. What can I say?? We're practically carpenters. :) After Sister Davis, we had dinner with the Ormes, and they are WONDERFUL! I love them SO much! :) After the Ormes, we went and visited a few other people, like Sis. K. and Jenny, so that Sis. Schramm could finish saying her goodbyes. Also - that day someone fed us an omlet, and let's just say that it was not American cheese in that, and we both (especially I) felt sick after it. Oh, the things that you do to be nice to people as a missionary, including eating questionable food. At least with me, it's been nice being a vegetarian and having other food allergies, because it usually keeps me from being in those types of situations. ...Not this time... Haha... Not much time left, so I'll just quickly tell you this last quick thing, then I'll tell you about Sis. McKenna and the rest of the week next week! Sister Sheng is a hairstylist, so she actually put highlights in my hair today - and FOR FREE, too! She's WONDERFUL!!! I'll take a picture and send that next week as well! Oh! And Cory! Thank you SO much for the extra cash in my account this week! I was able to get some more warm cloths such as a scarf and hat and gloves - all of the nice winter necessities that I left back home. Haha. But now I won't freeze - and I'll be cute and stylish! Thanks again! :) Anyways, I love you all SO much! Thank you SO much for writing me - those of you who have been! E-mailing counts, too! I just print it off and read it later! PLEASE write me!!! :) I LOVE YOU ALL! Y'all are in my thoughts and prayers! Love always, Sister Aubrie Orrock

Transfers this week!

HEY EVERYBODY!!! So sorry again for having to cut things so short last week! Like I said, it was a crazy day! So anyways, I'll finish telling y'all about the week before last week (Friday, November 1st through Sunday, November 3rd), then I'll continue with this past week! Friday was SO good! We had interviews with President! I always love any time that I have the opportunity to see President! He just brightens my day! I cried to him and told him that I was having a hard time understanding why I've been having so many health problems since I've been on my mission - cause I had some before, but not like this, and not this frequent. He responded first by laughing slightly and told me that my health problems may have stemmed from my companions needing to learn things such as patience or compassion, etc. He then went on to apologize that they were having to learn these things at my expense. Haha... Love it. It's ok though. Cause, not to jinx myself or anything, but right at this moment, I'm pretty healthy and my current companion, Sister Schramm and I are getting along GREAT! :) ...We all know what that means... TRANSFERS!!! Haha. It's sad, but true. We all know that as soon as you really click with a companion and you get the brain waves goin', one of you is bound to get the boot. We think it's gonna be Sis. Schramm and that I'm gonna stay (and possibly train again) in Kingstowne, but no promises. This is all just our pure speculation. After interviews with President, we weekly planned. Then that night we had dinner with the Orland's. I love them! They are such a cute family! And all three of their kids have severe food allergies, so they totally understand the gluten-free and vegetarian thing with me! It's AWESOME!!! :) Sister Orland even made some DELICIOUS gluten-free banana bread and gave me a couple of loaves to take home! I love them! :) I really have been getting SO spoiled on my mission, it's ridiculous! And I'll even be the first to admit it; but not saying that anything needs to change... Haha. I really am in such a wonderful area! I love Crystal City and I love Kingstowne now, too! In fact, as far as a place where I would actually live in real life, I would definitely choose Kingstowne over Crystal City cause Crystal City's way too hustle and bustle, where as Kingstowne is a little bit, but it's not so big city-like. It's a lot more similar to Orem - just WAAAY more green and colorful and without the mountains, but I LOVE it! :) After dinner we visited a sweet less-active woman named Lorraine. I love her! We had a wonderful visit with her! :) Saturday was an interesting day. We had dinner with Sister K. that night at Gangus Grill for her birthday. YUM!!! Sunday we visited with the McCunes a bit before church, and that was really nice! :) Then church was really great! I really do love Kingstowne now! I love the ward and everybody and everything! That night after church (that's right. We have dinner from 3:00 to 6:00 pm. CRAZY, huh??), we had dinner; then we went and had a really great lesson with Opoku. This was my very first time meeting him, but he's from Gahna and is awesome! The lesson went great! We taught him most of the Restoration and he loved it! He even accepted the soft baptism invite! YAY!!! :) Now onto this past week! Monday was CRAZY busy, but SO much fun!!! We went to D.C. as a District (technically we're not supposed to hang out in large groups of missionaries, so since there were four sets of us, and Sis. Schramm and I are the only Sisters, the Elders mostly grouped off and we hung out by ourselves and then traveled together to and from on the metro! I love my District SO much! They're SO fun! :) After we were done hanging out in D.C., we came back and quickly did our grocery shopping and all of our other stuff that we needed to get done, then we had dinner and Family Home Evening with the McCune's in our ward and Lorraine and her son. I love them! They're wonderful! :) Tuesday was really good! We had District meeting, which is always wonderful! We even did a really fun practice teach activity where we practice taught blind-folded. I LOVED it! :) That afternoon we had a really great lesson with our investigator, Carol, and before I was even finished giving her the soft baptism invite, she told us that she would pray about baptism! OK! SWEET! LOVE IT! :D That night, we stopped by the Williams' in our ward and picked up our dinner from them, and then went home and ate. After that, we had our Gospel Principles class, which was interesting. Haha. It was good. It was just a funny combination of people who we had there. There was Sister K., Carol, and Sister Davis. I love them all, but they just all have very different personalities, so it was just funny to watch them interact with each other. Wednesday was a MIRACLE DAY!!! We visited a potential investigator family (this was my second time meeting them, and first time really talking with them) who agreed to let us start teaching them! The only reason why we haven't just started teaching them before is because they were kind of a referral through a couple of different people in the ward, but missionaries first met them through helping them move into their new house, and not through talking about the gospel. So it's started out and been a friendship with them for a while now (since long before I got here), but Sister Schramm and I finally basically told them our purpose and asked if we could start teaching them and they said yes! :) The church is so true! I love it! Wednesday we had a wonderful lesson with our investigator Fasaad and the Elder's recent convert, Darci, came with us! :) By the end of the lesson, Darci and Fasaad had a bro handshake goin' on and they were already friends! The power of member-present lessons! I love it! :) Thursday we started the day off at Koinonia (the local food bank that we volunteer at). After that, we went out to lunch with Sister Russell in the ward to Chipotle. I LOVE Chipotle! And I love Sister Russell! She really is wonderful! And she used to be in the Crystal City ward, so she understands my love for Crystal City! We bonded over that. It was great! :) That night we had dinner with the Cheeney's in the ward. They're such a cute, fun family! And the best thing was when we were sharing our spiritual thought and we all sang "The Wise Man" together and they all got REALLY into it! It's such a fun song! Friday we did our (possibly) last weekly planning together. :( We really think that Sister Schramm is getting transferred and we're both really sad about it! We became quick friends and we have SO much fun together! That night we visited Bobbi, which was really great! I love Bobbi! Saturday we did a LOT of service with Koinonia and helped out with their huge food drive! It was really fun! We had all of the Kingstowne missionaries there - Elders Stone and Harper and Elders Smith and Williams. That afternoon, we visited with Carol some more in the computer lab in the clubhouse of our apartment complex while Elder Smith and Elder Williams fixed her laptop and she told them about how she wants to get baptized, too! I love it! :) That night we had dinner with the Fitzgeralds! I love them! After that, we went over to the Grigg's and had cake and ice-cream with them (gluten-free cake) for their daughter, Sarah's birthday. I love the Griggs! They're wonderful! Sunday was really great! We visited with Amber E.! I love her! I know why I'm in Kingstowne now! :) That night we visited Sister Davis and it was really great! It actually ended up being a prompting and she really needed us! I LOVE those times as a missionary! :) THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! I love you all SOOOO much!!! :) Love always, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Read Mosiah chapters 12-14. They are SO good! :) Thank you all who have e-mailed me/written me! I really appreciate it! (Mom, Dad, and Cory. Y'all are the winners recently! Everyone else - PLEASE WRITE ME!!!) :)

Washington Monument!

Israeli Engagement!!!

HEY EVERYBODY!!! Just so ya know, this has been a CRAZY P-day, so this week's e-mail is gonna be QUICK! SO sorry about that! Anyways, last week was really good! Monday was so great! We visited with Sister K. and it was really good! I'm really starting to love her more and more! After Sister K., we visited a woman named Vanessa who we had met street contacting the week before, and we had a really great lesson with her! It truly amazing how the Lord places people in our path who are truly prepared! I love this work SO much! :) Tuesday we visited Sister Davis and put together a wooden shelf for her (I know, first we're assembling grills, and then book shelves. It's fine. I work better with putting things like that together than I do with putting food together and cooking! Haha. It's sad, but true!), and it was actually really fun! Later that day, we had dinner with the Bylund's in the ward, and that was good. They have the cutest little kids! That night, we had our usual Gospel Principles class that we taught that week for less-actives and recent converts. It went really well! We taught about prayer and why it's so important, etc. Wednesday was really good, too! We had Launching Leaders, which was amazing as always! I LOVE the Ritchies! They're wonderful! After Launching Leaders, we ended up having a mini District lunch with our whole district minus one set of Elders; so it was Elder Stone, Elder Harper, Elder Williams, and Elder Smith. We went to Noodles and Company. YUMMY!!! :) That night we went to our ward Halloween party, which was SUPER fun! They had a chili cook-off, which was delicious! To be honest, I only tried one of the types of chili that was there cause some ward member thought of me and made a vegetarian chili! SO sweet! But what was almost even sweeter was my District Leader, Elder Stone, made chili for the chili cook-off and he made me my own separate vegetarian chili. I love the Elders in my district! They're the best! Thursday (Halloween) was SO much fun! Earlier that day it was ...interesting... we went to go check on a woman on the Bishop's List, and she wasn't home, so we went and talked to some guys who were standing outside of their house across the street from where we were. They were two Israeli men, and... let's just say they REALLY enjoyed talking to Sister Schramm and I NOT about the gospel... They really liked our blonde hair and blue eyes and basically proposed to us. There was an older guy and a younger guy, and the worst part was it was the old guy who was hitting on us the most. Can you say CREEPY?? Ya. Anyways, he went on to tell us that if we just pay for a plane ticket to Israel, we would have free food, free housing, free everything. Cause we'd be married. Yep. That wasn't the first marriage proposal that I've had on my mission, but it was definitely the most forward and interesting one. That night we got together with our whole zone and watched "Monsters University" and "The Crudes". It was really fun! However, it showed me just how much my worst fear is coming to pass! I am going to be an awkward RM. It's official. I was freaking out a bit during the Crudes when they were were holding hands! Anyways, I gotta run! I'll tell you more next week! I love you all! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! :) Love always, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. CONGRATULATIONS DESI AND JENS!!! Welcome to the family, Jens! And Heather! Guess what?? Sister Kaitlyn Roper is in my mission AND she's my Sister Training Leader! She remembers you from St. George! I love you, my sister! :)