CAROL'S GETTIN' DUNKED!!! :D

HEY EVERYBODY!!! This week has been pretty crazy (as always) - haha - but mostly in a good way! To start off, on Monday night we visited Sister K., and it was a really good visit! I love her SO much! :) Tuesday we had District Meeting, which was WONDERFUL! I was able to see and talk with my dear, sweet Sister Lochridge (cause in case I forgot to mention before, we're in the same zone)! I love her SOOOOOO much!!! I actually saw her again today at zone sports and trimmed her hair, and we talked a lot and played some card games together! It was SO much fun! We just laughed and laughed! It seriously felt like we were back in the MTC again with how much we were laughing and talking together! I really have missed laughing like that! It has been FAR TOO LONG!!! So it felt really good to chat with her and laugh like the good old days! :) After District Meeting, we went home and had lunch, then we went and visited Sister Russell! I LOVE HER!!! She really is SOOOO awesome!!! She's a ward missionary and is REALLY on the ball with missionary work and helping out the missionaries in just about any way she can! So we visited with her and scheduled a time to go to lunch and for her to come out on an exchange with us (come out and work with us for a couple of hours) - which will be after I'm most likely gonna be gone after this transfer, but it's all good. She'll have fun with Sister McKenna and whoever her new companion is! :) Later that day, we did online proselyting, and I got to chat with some really awesome people! :) And it was on Tuesday while I was chatting with one of these amazing people that this wonderful idea sparked my mind, and since then, I have created a blog that goes along with this idea. The idea that came to me is all about how sad it is that most women and girls don't see their divine worth or potential, and that's just TERRIBLE!!! So my blog is all going to talk about girls and women seeing themselves the way that our Father in Heaven sees them. See yourself the way that God sees you. I'm just in the beginning of it, but I really like what I have so far! So please feel free to check it out and share with anyone and everyone! :) That night, we had dinner with the McCorquindales, and it was REALLY good! I love them! They are SO sweet and an adorable family! :) After that, we went to the church for a Relief Society activity and helped to make capes for homeless kids to help them feel like they're a super hero! It's a really cute idea, and Sister Clouse, Sister McKenna, and I all made 8 capes total together. We ended up not having time to finish them that night, so we finished them over at Sister Clouse's house later, and they are SO cute! :) Wednesday we visited the Clouses and helped finish some of the capes, then we had lunch. After lunch we did more online proselyting and I chatted with awesome people again! :) That afternoon we visited Pokuwah P., and it was SO good! She really is such a sweetheart! That night, we met Brother Sheng at a restaurant that has gluten-free pizzas, and had dinner with him there. It was really fun, and the food was DELICIOUS!!! :) That night, we did some tracting; and although we didn't get the most positive responses most of the time, for some reason I was actually kind of enjoying it for once. Really, it was WEIRD. I've hardly tracted my entire mission cause basically ALL we ever did in Crystal City was street contact, and I LOVE street contacting! And so the fact that I was feeling more comfortable with tracting was really weird, but whatevs. Maybe the Lord's preparing me for something new! He likes to do that once in a while. Haha. :) We finished the night off by having a really wonderful lesson with Desmond! We got him to say that he would think about and pray about baptism!!! It's AMAZING!!! I LOVE being a missionary and being such a big part in people's conversions! It really is an incredible feeling! :) Thursday we went to Koinonia and did our weekly service there, which was WONDERFUL! They gave me about three different gluten-free foods to take home cause nobody really uses them anymore! And it was EXACTLY what I wanted/needed at the time! THANK YOU, HEAVENLY FATHER!!! He really DOES know exactly what we need, and exactly when we need it! :) After Koinonia, we went to the Clouses and visited with them and worked a little bit more on the capes. After the Clouses, we had lunch with Sister Davis and Sister Paul at Mazzios - another place that offers gluten-free pizza! Sister Davis is such a sweetheart! I love her SO much!!! :) And the spoiling continued! That night, we had dinner with Sister Mitchell, and she is WONDERFUL!!! Towards the end of dinner, she asked us if we were allowed to accept gifts, and I said, "YES!!!" So she picked up a HUGE gift bag and said, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" She had gone out and bought both me and Sister McKenna all of the essentials - toothbrush, toothpaste, contact solution, body wash, Q-tips, and even GUMMY VITAMINS!!! She had so much more in there, too, but those were just a few of them! Seriously, I almost cried with gratitude! It was truly amazing, and EXACTLY what I needed - what we BOTH needed! And on top of that, as if that wasn't enough, Sister Mitchell even asked me how my back and neck were feeling (her husband's a licensed chiropractor), and she went on to tell me that she had talked with her husband and he said that he would be more than willing to give me an adjustment totally free of charge! YEP! And so right after we got out of dinner, I gave President Riggs a call to make sure it would be ok and that we didn't need to get a female for me, and he was thrilled about it and said that if he's a licensed professional to GO FOR IT!!! So I don't know when exactly, but one of these days in the next couple of weeks we're going to go over there and he's gonna give me a chiropractic adjustment! This is AMAZING!!! Cause I'm not gonna lie, I've been doing alright, but after being out for nine months and not going to a chiropractor or massage therapist or anything like that, my body's overdue for something like that. So it really was a true answer to prayer! :) After that, we went and stopped by a potential investigator who Sister McKenna had tracted into when her and Sister Billman were on exchanges the week before, but he wasn't interested - to say the least. But it's ok. At least a seed was planted, an invitation was extended, and that's really all that we can do at this point. When he's ready, he'll come around. We finished the night off by having a really wonderful visit with Bobbi! I really do love her SO much! She's wonderful! :) Friday we visited the Clouses again and for realsies finished the capes - haha. They may have taken a little bit of time, but those homeless kiddos are gonna LOVE them!!! :) That night, we had dinner with the Riggs - NO, not President Riggs and his family, but we have a family in our ward named the Riggs. But they're really wonderful, too! I love them! :) That night after dinner, we visited a sister in the ward who we had never met before, and it was... interesting... She's really sweet and great. :) We finished the night off by visiting Sister Ho, whom I LOVE and totally adore! :) Saturday we went to Sister Clouse's baby shower for about an hour, and that was really fun! It was so good to get to chat with some of the sisters in the ward! :) After the baby shower, we went and checked on another potential investigator who Sister McKenna had found on their exchange, and this one was pretty positive, but it was just not a good time for them, so we're gonna go back this weekend when her husband's home and hopefully have a lesson with them! :) After that, we went over to the Grigg's and had a quick visit with them and gave them an update on how their missionary efforts in their neighborhood are looking (they gave us five referrals when Sis. McKenna was on the exchange); then they gave us each a cup of hot chocolate for the road. I LOVE the Grigg's! They're awesome! :) We finished the night off by finding a less-active woman who apparently is no longer a member and is now a different religion... those are always interesting... haha. But it was ok cause after talking with us standing out and freezing on her porch, she finally let us in and we ended up visiting with her for like an hour and a half! It was SO good! She's such a sweetheart! And she was actually telling us about how she defends the Mormons when others bad-mouth them because of her Grandmother! AMAZING!!! Sunday was CRAZY!!! We re-put Carol officially on date for baptism! :) She was sick last week and missed church on Sunday, so her baptism was pushed back a week; however, she appeared to have cold feet in general about getting baptized - which was really weird considering how incredibly excited she was about it the week before. Well, she called us on Saturday night and told us that she wanted to come to church on Sunday, so we found her a ride. We had tried talking with her about baptism a little bit, but she wasn't really liking the idea of setting a specific date quite yet - at least until she was completely over her cold, or whatever she had. Then at church, we introduced her to the Bishop right after Sacrament Meeting, and we had already explained the situation about her to him that morning in Ward Council, so what did he do?? He did what any other Bishop would (or SHOULD) do, and one of the first things he said to her was, "Carol! I hear you're getting baptized on Saturday! Congratulations! We are SO excited for you to join our ward!" Carol was a little bit surprised and didn't really know what to say right off, then she just kind of smiled and said, "Oh, ya... Sure. ...Well, as long as the Sisters are with me every step of the way!" And I just jumped right in and said, "Of course we will be! We'll be right there with you every step of the way!" Then all of a sudden it was like night and day, and from that moment on she just switched and was all gung-ho about baptism again! Then what really sealed the deal was when she went to Relief Society and they announced her baptism to everyone (I might have asked them to do that... haha), and then Carol was once again slightly caught off-guard, but she was happy to see that she had so much support! Then to top it all off, we got her baptism interview all taken care of shortly after church, and then that night the Relief Society President came with us to visit her and she did her own sort of "Welcome to Relief Society" thing with her and gave her a "Daughters in my Kingdom" book. It really has been AMAZING!!! Seriously! Members really are SOOOOOOOOO key in the work! Even when you think you've got them about to jump into the font, they can still get cold feet, and then the members are the ones who can warm them right back up! :) We also visited the Hubbards in the ward, then finished the night off by visiting with the Clouses again! All in all it was a wonderful week! :) Anyways, I gotta run, but I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOO MUCH!!! Thank you SO much for all that you do and for your thoughts and prayers! I PROMISE I can feel them each and every day! :) Keep up the amazing work! And seriously, please check out my blog! And read and study Mosiah chapter 24 if you haven't already! :) LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock