SALON TIME in ARLINGTON!!! :D

HEY EVERYBODY!!! This past week has been CRAZY, but absolutely WONDERFUL all at the same time!!! :D I'm partly back in the good old Crystal City, as I mentioned to y'all last week, and it is GOOD to be BACK!!! :D Plus, I also partly cover Kingstowne as well, so I'm just basically back in my two favorite areas! It's seriously THE BEST thing ever!!! :D I really don't know what I did to deserve this sometimes, but man! God is GOOD! And life is WONDERFUL!!! :) Monday was preparation day, and we had F.H.E. (Family Home Evening), and we ended up being in charge of it, but nobody really told us anything about it until the day before, so that was interesting... Haha! But it actually turned out REALLY well! And now I'm facebook friends with a TON of people in the ward, so it's AWESOME! Furthering the work through fb! LOVE it! :) And I strongly encourage y'all to start doing the same! It could be something as simple as "liking" my posts on facebook, and then your friends quietly seeing that, or you could even "share" my posts as well. Or, if you really wanna be crazy, you could even MAKE YOUR OWN spiritually-uplifting post and share that! :) Tuesday was great! :) We had District Meeting that morning, which was WONDERFUL! It turns out that my new DL (District Leader) was in my very first district my very first transfer of my mission - Elder Chaffin! And he's companions with Elder Staples, who I served in Crystal City with for my fourth, and last transfer there! SUUUPER small world! I LOVE it! They're both great Elders! :) That night, we had dinner, then after dinner, we had a wonderful lesson with Mabinty! She is SO wonderful and sweet, and she wants to be baptized SOOOOOOOO badly! We just have a few more things to teach her! So she told us that she had been thinking and praying about it, and she wants to move her baptismal date to sometime in April! We said "ok!" So we ended up praying about it later, and Sister Ellis, Sister Osmond, and I all felt really strongly that April 26th is gonna be the day for her! We are SOOOO stoked! :) Wednesday early afternoon we started the day off by going to the chiropractor for Sister Ellis. After that, we worked on the area book and transfering information from that into electronic form on our iPads, then we did facebook time for a bit! :) After that, we met a wonderful potential investigator who had been sent to us from Sister Woodbury and Sister McKenna, and it was seriously a MIRACLE that we met him when we did! We went by his house to go check on him, and right as we were parking, we saw a young looking guy walking through the parking lot, and we totally would've missed him if we had left even a minute later! It's moments like those when I KNOW that God is truly looking out for all of His children, and He truly has a plan for ALL OF US in our lives! He will place prepared people in the path of His prepared servants! I STRONGLY believe that and have a testimony that that is true! I've seen it in my life time and time again - ESPECIALLY on my mission, and it is AMAZING!!! :D That night, we had dinner with Kari, then we had an AMAZING lesson with one of our INCREDIBLE investigators named Leslie! She is SO sweet and we LOVE her, but she's married and has an ADORABLE sweet little baby, so we have to pass her to the family ward... Darn it! ...at least for us. Haha. I mean, we're SO happy for her and her husband that they're happily married and that they have a sweet little family, but for the first time in my entire mission, I just want EVERYBODY who I teach to be single! Haha! It's a weird phenomenon and mindset to get into! Haha! But it's ok. The family ward that she will go to is great and they will love her and embrace her, so it's where she needs to be and it'll be best for her for us to pass her. It's just the selfish side of me wants to keep her cause I love her SO much! Haha. Anyways, that night, we didn't end up having our English class which we apparently usually help teach on Wednesday nights to the spanish speakers in the area, but nobody was able to come, so class was cancelled. It was a slight bummer, but it ended up being EXACTLY what needed to happen cause we went on a little mini split with the other Sisters who live in our apartment with us (that's right - there are FIVE of us Sisters in ONE appartment! It's a party. We definitely have WAAAY too much fun sometimes! Haha. Just kidding... but seriously though. Haha!), so Sister Vai'tu'lala went with me and Sister Osmond, and then Sister Gray and Sister Ellis went together, and we street contacted for an hour, and it was one of the most glorious, BEST hours of my life! Haha! But seriously though! It was SOOOOOOOO WONDERFUL!!! It was EXACTLY what I needed!!! It was SO wonderful and freeing to get back in my element of street contacting, cause that's the way I was "raised" in the mission, so that's where I feel the most comfortable. So, with that said, I was pretty darn excited, to say the least, while we were street contacting! I went a little crazy and I was literally talking to every single person who would listen to me who I walked by! It was WONDERFUL!!! I love this work! I love this gospel! I love being a missionary! It really IS THE BEST thing in the world! There really is NOTHING else that I would rather be doing right now in my life, and no where else I would rather be! Arlington is my true home away from home, and it is SOOOOOOOO wonderful to be back! I know that I've already said that SO much, but I just cannot even fully express in words how incredibly happy - MORE than happy, more like JOYOUS - I am to be back here! :) Thursday was a MUCH-NEEDED day for all of us Sisters in our apartment! :) Sister Gray bought hair coloring equipment (color and developer), and I colored her hair for her! It was SO much fun! :) The only minor details that I forgot to tell the Sister when they were getting the goods, was to get a coloring brush or bottle, and gloves, and maybe even a cheap shower cap... so we were missing a few major things to actually get the color onto her hair, but it was ok! We improvised, and we used a kitchen bowl and a fork to mix the color, and I put a sandwhich back and a grocery bag on top of both of my hands to use as gloves, and we didn't have anything to use as a color brush, so I just scooped the color into my hand (that was more like a paw), and slapped it on her hair and just massaged it in like shampoo. And it worked!!! It turned out REALLY good, actually! I was quite surprised and a little impressed with our impovisational skills! :) Later that afternoon, we went street contacting for an hour before dinner, which was WONDERUFL! :) After that, we went and checked on Fernando, who is a sweet less-active member in our ward! We LOVE him! We also met one of his neighbors after we were done talking with him and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon! It was SO wonderful! :) That night, we had dinner that night with our favorite member couple, Matt and Sarah! We LOVE them! They are the epitome of what I want in the future! They are just too cute and sweet! :) That night, we finished the night off by having a wonderful member-lesson with a couple of Jason's in our ward (there are a LOT), and Elise from the Crystal City ward ended up being over there, too! It was SO wonderful to see her! SUCH a wonderful night! LOVE it! :) Friday we did our studies, then weekly planning, which took most of the day through the afternoon. After that, we went to a musical at the Temple Visitors Center called Savior of the World. It was great. Saturday we did our studies, then lunch, then our progress record and facebook. After that, we went tracting for about an hour or so. Then we visited a sweet member of our ward named Benedicta! We LOVE her! :) She is WONDERFUL! After that, we had dinner with a wonderful member of our ward named Solana! SO sweet and wonderful! LOVE her! :) After dinner, we had a wonderful lesson with our investigator, Saliu, and our wonderful member, Alex D. came as well! :) After that, we finished the night off by going to the stake center (which just so happens to be the church building that I met in when I was in Kingstowne), and went to the General Women's Broadcast, which was WONDERFUL and FANTASTIC!!! I really hope that all y'all were able to watch it, and that you DID watch it! Cause it was WELL worth it! :) Plus, I was able to see a TON of people from the Crystal City AND Kingstowne wards!!! It was WONDERFUL!!! That's right. I'm back in the Mt. Vernon Stake for the THIRD time! Or, should I say, I've only been OUT of the stake ONCE! And that was for ONE TRANSFER!!! SO crazy! I guess that there's more work that I need to do here in Arlington and Alexandria! :) LOVE it! :) Sunday we went to church, which is ALWAYS wonderful! :) After church, we went and visited one of our WONDERFUL less-active members named Amao. LOVE him! And one of our wonderful members, Bobbi, came with us! :) It was SUCH a wonderful visit! :) After that, we went back home and took a nap for our "lunch hour" since it was fast Sunday cause it's General Conference next weekend, and it was WONDERFUL! Oh, how I miss Sunday naps! Haha. But it's ok cause I would MUCH rather be out here tired and doing the work that I'm doing, than at home, able to sleep whenever I want! I LOVE being a missionary!!! :) Unfortunately, however, when I woke up from my nap, I wasn't feeling very well. I mean, I had started feeling not so great from when I first woke up that morning, but it was even more after my nap. I felt better in the way that I was more rested, but I just felt kinda nauseous and other things, and I still don't know where it came from - just outta the blue! But it's ok. We went to dinner, and I thought that maybe I just wasn't feeling well cause I was hungry, but even after I ate, I was still feeling sick. So we ended up going inside for the night about 2 and a half hours early, but it's all good. I took a good, long nap. Then woke up and went straight back to bed for the night, so when I woke up this morning, I was feeling MUCH better - still slightly uneasy in the stomach, but better none-the-less. Although it's frustrating at times when I'm not feeling well, I've really come to accept the fact that there's ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS something to be learned from whatever trial I (or even any of you, or anybody in this world) may experience. God allows us to go through trials - big and small - for OUR BENEFIT. It's for us to grow and to learn how to depend on HIM. These experiences with all of my health challenges on my mission have certainly been exactly that - challenging. However, I wouldn't change or trade any of those experiences for anything because of what I have learned and gained! I am SO grateful that my Father in Heaven trusts me and loves me enough to allow me to go through so many trials! God is good! Life is beautiful! :) The church is true! I love you all! Thank you SO much for e-mailing and/or writing me to those of you who have! Y'all are WONDERFUL!!! :D LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. In case any of you are wondering, YES, my cute companion, Sister Osmond, IS indeed related to Donny and Marie Osmond. They are her great-aunt and uncle. Cool, huh?! And yes, she can sing and we sometimes jam out to "Joseph and the Amazing Techni-color Dreamcoat" and it's the best. Haha! But in all seriousness, she really is just such a REAL person, and Sister Ellis is, too, and I love them both and am SO blessed to have them both in my life! :)