Miracles Happen in McLean! :)

HEY EVERYBODY!!! This past week has been packed full of ups and downs - but overall, it's been really great! :) To start off, on Monday we visited and did some service for an adorable member in our ward named Coralee, who I ADORE! She is SO sweet and cute and I just LOVE her! I really feel like she's another one of those people who I was supposed to meet out here! :) Tuesday we had District Meeting (and now I'm in the McLean zone, by the way, in case you were a little confused about the title of this e-mail), which was wonderful, as always! :) Probably one of the best parts of District Meeting was when our DL (District Leader) was taking us on a church tour to show us how to do that, but since I'm still on one crutch and it would've been kinda uncomfortable for me to hobble around the whole time, I sat in a spinny chair with wheels on it while my companion, Sister Christensen, pushed me through the whole church! Haha! It was wonderful! And the best part is, it really wasn't even MY idea! In fact, I felt kinda funny about it at first, but the DL, and everyone else in our district were all telling me to do it, so I did! Haha. I felt like a little kid again! It was wonderful! Oh, the joys of finding joys and happiness and having fun, even when you are injured! It's wonderful! Life is beautiful! :) After that, we went home and had lunch, then we did our companionship study, cause we didn't have time to do that before District Meeting. That night, we had dinner with a wonderful family in the ward, and it was so fun! :) After dinner, we had a lesson with our investigator, Jason, which went really well. Sister Sallisbury came with us again, and it was so good! :) Jason is slowly progressing like a very slow sunrise, but he's progressing none-the-less! I am SO happy to see the steady progress that he continues to make each and every time that we see him! Oh, how I LOVE being a missionary! There really is no greater joy in this life than that of bringing others to the gospel! :) Wednesday we went to the Alternative House that we vollunteer at and helped out there for about an hour and a half or so, and that was really good! :) After that, we tried checking on some people, but weren't too successful cause nobody was home or they just wouldn't let us in... Haha. But it's ok! The work continues! :) That night, we had dinner with Sister Parker, and that was WONDERFUL! I seriously LOVE this woman SOOOO much!!! She is SOOOOOOOOOO wonderful, and so ready and willing to help us anytime we need! :) NOTE TO SELF: I want to be like Sister Parker when I get home from my mission!!! :) That night, we went and checked on another investigator of ours named Ann, and that was... interesting... Haha. I'm not so sure how ready she is to really move forward in the gospel right now, but who knows?? Who am I to say?? She very easily could make a turn around and all of a sudden be way hyped to learn more about the gospel - who knows?? But for now, we're kinda at a stand-still with her, but that's ok. Some people are quick in their converstions - like turning on a light bulb; while others are MUCH slower, like a sunrise. Both are good. Both are right. It just completely depends on the person and how quickly they learn and accept things. Sometimes I just want EVERYBODY to accept the gospel and Jesus RIGHT NOW!!! But I know that realistically, that's probably not gonna happen. Haha. But it's all good. Everybody's learning and going at their own pace, but the important thing is that I am doing all that I can as a disciple of Jesus Christ to teach everyone around me about Him and our Father and the love that they both have for us! :) Thursday we did online proselyting, and then we went to Great Falls Manor and did some service there (it's a home where three elderly women and an older couple live, and we go and entertain the elderly women). I (kind of) played the piano - like I literally just played the right hand and sight read - the best I could - a bunch of songs, some of which I knew, most of which I didn't, and they LOVED it! They told me to come back every week and play the piano for them... Haha! Oh boy! Now I'm REALLY starting to regret quitting those piano lessons as a kid! Is there enough time to repent for that now and become a half-way decent piano player by this Thursday?? Haha! Well, it at least definitely made me feel good to know that these cute elderly women were at least mostly enjoying my half-way piano playing skills! :) After we were done doing our service there, we had dinner there with all of the women and the older couple. It was a delicious dinner! We had a REALLY good veggie (for me) stir-fry, which I LOVED! :) Friday we did our weekly planning, then we had dinner that night with another wonderful family in our ward named the Halls! :) It turns out that Brother Hall is the former Bishop of our ward, and he is now the stake president. I love their family! They are adorable and wonderful! :) After dinner, we visited another family in the ward - the Paynes, and I LOVE Sister Payne! She is absolutely adorable and SO fun and funny! I just love her! :) Saturday was our MIRACLE DAY!!! Seriously! Just about EVERYTHING that we planned went perfectly according to plan! That NEVER happens to me! ...well, I can only think of a very small handful of times on my mission when that has actually happened, so it's very rare! But on Saturday we started the day out by visiting Brother Murray - a less-active man in our ward. Then we had lunch, and after lunch, we visited our wonderful investigators, Renette and Ashley and had a wonderful lesson on the Plan of Salvation with them! They are SO wonderful! I LOVE them! :) Right after them, we booked it over to the church and met with another sweet less-active woman in our ward named Sister Williams. I LOVE her! She is absolutely wonderful and adorable! :) After her, we went over to another member's home and had a skype lesson with Sister Christensen's cousin, which went really well! I love her! (Sis. Christensen's cousin - I love Sis. Christensen, too!) That night, we had dinner with an elderly single man in our ward named Brother Larsen, and we went out to eat at Noodles and Company! SOOOO good! And Brother Larsen is HILARIOUS! I LOVE him! :) After dinner, we stopped by to check on a referral that a member had given us, but we didn't have an exact address, so we're still not sure if it was the right house... but the house that we tried to go to was just SUUUPER creepy-looking, and mostly creepy FEELING. Thankfully God was watching out for us and nobody answered the door, but next time we'll definitely take those signs into consideration - especially when we're both feeling hesitant to knock on the door, that's probably not a good sign... Haha. But it's ok. Cause we're fine, and now we've both learned our lesson to listen much more closely to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost in our lives. :) After that, we stopped by and had a quick lesson with our investigator Jean Pierre. I LOVE him! He's an elderly man from Switzerland, or something like that, and he has an accent, and he's just funny and cute! :) We finished the night off by visiting another wonderful member in the ward named Sister Davidson, which went really well! I love her, too! :) All in all, Saturday was definitely the best day! :) Sunday was... CRAZY!!! Haha. We had meetings from 6:30 - about 10:40 in the morning! Yep! You read that right! 6:30 AM meeting... meaning we had to be up by 5:20 so that we could leave the house by 6:00! Ya... let's just say that we definitely took advantage of nap time during our lunch break when it finally rolled around by about 3:00 in the afternoon! :) Church was WONDERFUL! Our investigators Renette and Ashley both came to Sacrament meeting, and then Renette had to leave early cause she had to go to work, but she let Ashley stay! And Ashley LOVED it! :) I am SO happy! Also, I taught the Gospel Principles class, and it went REALLY well! ESPECIALLY considering I didn't end up having any time besides a little bit during Personal Study the day before, and then during Sacrament Meeting that day to prepare it! But I taught on Faith in Jesus Christ, and I feel like I learned more out of teaching it than I actually taught! Haha. But I feel like that's usually the case. But that's ok. It was really great, though! :) That night, we had dinner with the Hubner's, and that was wonderful! They all love Les Mis, so we listened to a Les Mis song (don't worry - it was totally a missionary appropriate one!), and it was WONDERFUL!!! I LOVE them! :) Anyways, all in all, this week was pretty wonderful - a little bit crazy at times, but mostly because we haven't been able to do much tracting as our main source of finding new investigators due to my injured ankle, but it's been good! I love it our here and I wouldn't wanna be doing anything else in the world right now! :) I love you all SOOOO much! Thank you SO much for your constant thoughts and prayers! I definitely can feel them! And know that I constantly think about and pray for each of you! :) THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Grandma Orrock: THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH FOR ALL THAT YOU GAVE ME FOR CHRISTMAS!!! SO sorry that it's taken me so long to give you that shout-out that your deserve so much! I love you! :) BRITTNEY: MI HERMANA!!! It's su cumpleanos en una semana!!! FELIZ CUMPLEANOS A TI!!! I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!!! :D Spencer Duncan: SOOOO sorry that this is over six months late, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH for your wonderful letter that you sent me!!! You are wonderful! Please write me again! I hope that you got the post card I sent you! :) MOM: Thank you SO much for your sweet letter! I love you SOOOO much!!! DADDY: Thank YOU so much for your sweet letter, too! I love you SOOOO much!!! :) MAL: Thank you SO much for the letter that you sent with Mom's letter! Your last part about the oreos made me cry a little bit - but in a good way! I love you! :)