HELLOOO... KINGSTOWNE!!!

HEY EVERYBODY!!! Soooo... This past week has been... CRAZY - to say the least! I just left Crystal City on Thursday, and that was seriously one of the hardest things that I've had to do since entering the MTC... and... well, of course, actually coming out here to Northern Virginia. Crystal City had become my home away from home. I knew most everybody there in my little area. There was Mary (you talked to her on the phone, Mom! She's a receptionist at the club house of my apartment complex in Crystal City!), and Ron and his dog Nelson! And, of course, SO many other people! I literally cried for days when I was saying goodbye to people! ESPECIALLY when I had to say goodbye to my sweet Keren! She's our Jewish investigator from Israel. I LOVE LOVE LOVE her! She is SOOOO much more than an investigator to me! She is literally one of my best friends! Some of y'all may have even noticed that she added me as a friend on facebook, so y'all can see what she looks like! She is WONDERFUL!!! Anyways, it has been a SUUUPER hard adjustment leaving Crystal City and coming to Kingstowne, to say the least; even though Kingstowne is only in Alexandria, which is right next to Arlington, which is where Crystal City is. So I'm literally just about fifteen minutes south of where I just was. But it's still been an adjustment. But it's ok. Change is good. Change is necessary. Change makes you grow. And I know that I had grown SOOOO comfortable in Crystal City that I knew that it was getting time for me to head somewhere else pretty quickly because I needed to get out of my comfort zone again. It's funny how that's necessary for you to grow. Anyways, today has been a CRAZY P-day, so I REALLY don't have much time to tell you about my week, so I'll quickly tell you the main highlights! Last Monday I said goodbye to sweet Negeset and sweet Alma. That was hard. I started crying pretty hard when I was saying goodbye to Alma. I LOVE her! Then we visited Melissa (a new potential) and kinda had a lesson with her. Tuesday we had our last District Meeting and it was sad, but good. Sister Akin and I gave the spiritual thought and it was really nice. After that, we went on a mini exchange while Sister Akin went to a trainers meeting (oh ya, did I mention that my little baby is TRAINING now??) and I went with Sister Steadman. We visited Sister Palkki in the ward and it was really great to say goodbye to her! Later, we went to dinner with the sweet Chambers! That was great, but really hard to say goodbye to them! Later, we stopped by and saw Rick and the Behnke's and said goodbye to all of them. Wednesday was a CRAZY day! Sister Akin and I started the morning off by running up 23rd St! That was CRAZY!!! We had made this goal to run up this street - which consists of two major hills - because we had always seen people running up it, and they NEVER looked happy. They always look like they hate their lives a little bit. So, Sister Akin and I decided that we were going to change that! We were going to run up 23rd and smile all the way! Well, I don't know if I smiled the WHOLE way, but I did do my best to smile more than frown! Haha! It was HARD, though! Right after that, we stopped by the clubhouse and said goodbye to Mary, Ron and Nelson, and the shuttle bus driver, and got pictures with all of them! Later we went to the Temple Visitors Center with Keren, which was AMAZING!!! We watched the Joseph Smith movie and it was AMAZING!!! After that, we went out to lunch with her, then got ice-cream. After that, Keren was even asking us if she could come to a lesson with us sometime! Then she even said that she wanted to go street contacting with us! It was AMAZING! So we did a tiny bit of street contacting with her on our way to her apartment afterwards. It was SO fun! She didn't say anything, she just stood back and watched us work; however, she would clear her throat and make sure that we talked to everyone! I LOVE HER!!! Later, we said goodbye to Jacob, which was hard and sad for me, but it was good. He's wonderful! After that, we had dinner with the Lopez's, then right after that, we had ANOTHER dinner with Sandra and Ignacio! I was SOOOO full that I thought I was going to throw up ALL over! It was bad, but the food was good! I just felt bad that I barley ate anything! Anyways, after that, I visited the Stouders and said goodbye to them, then visited and said goodbye to the Babitz! Annnd... I am out of time now, so I will give you a quick update on the rest of my week next week! I love you all! I hope that you watched conference! It was amazing! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! If you haven't already seen it, watch Elder Holland's talk on depression! He's amazing! Also - I LOVE my new companion! Her name's Sister Schramm, and we are SOOOO much alike! I'll tell you more about her next week when I have more time! I LOVE YOU ALL!!! Thank you SO much for all of your love and support! :) LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock

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!

Sometimes I meet the Ambassador of Iraq... nbd...

HEY EVERYBODY!!! First things first! So - about the shooting that occurred and the Naval Yard a week ago, it turns out that it WASN'T in my area - THANK HEAVENS! But it was pretty close to my area, as far as miles go. I'm only about 4.5 - 5 miles away from DC where it happened. But no worries. It was over the Potomac River - therefore out of the boundaries of my mission. Anyways, this week has been quite interesting! On Monday I cut a couple of Sister's hair, which was SUPER fun! I'm actually scheduled today to cut at least THREE more Sister's hair! I LOVE it! :) Monday night we had Family Home Evening with the Babitz and our investigators Bobby and Keren! It was SO fun! We started out by meeting at Sweet Frog and got fro-yo, then we went on over the the Babitz home and played games! We played a game called "Cold Turkey", which apparently isn't manufactured anymore, which is SUPER sad cause it was SUUUPER fun, and a frog game (I don't know what it's called). We all had a blast playing games and getting to know each other better! And now Keren had a couple of new friends in the ward, which is exactly what we wanted out of this! :) Tuesday we had our usual routine - District Meeting, lunch and comp. study. After that, we visited Keren and went with her to run some errands. It was fun! I love Keren SOOOO much!!! She really IS MUCH MUCH more than an investigator to me! She's truly become one of my best friends! :) She's definitely someone who I will come back and visit and hang out with after my mission! :) After that, we had dinner, then we had a POWER HOUR! After our power hour, we visited a sweet member in our ward, Sister White. I LOVE her! She's wonderful! She's the one I told y'all about who has the sugar gliders! :) Right after we were done visiting with Sis. White, we went straight over to Keren's and walked over to another fro-yo place and got fro-yo with her cause there was a miscommunication on our part to her about getting fro-yo, so she didn't get it then. Anyways, after we were done with our fro-yo at Tuti Fruti, we walked over to institute, and only made it for the last half of it, but it was still really good! Keren really enjoyed it! :) Wednesday was really good! We met street contacted for an hour or so and met a Taiwanese guy named Burd who was walking a dog (the irony of that is just SO hilarious to me!). We talked with him and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and had about half a lesson with him, but unfortunately we had to cut things short with him a little bit cause we had to book it back to our apartment for cleaning checks. Don't worry, Mom and Dad and Cory - we were rated Celestial! :) After our cleaning checks, we visited sweet Alma at the Potomac Nursing Center; right before we visited Alma, we visited another sweet resident there named Titi. She's a sweet Ethiopian woman who we've known for a little while. She told Sister Akin and I over and over again that we need to get boyfriends so that they can give us money (...so THAT'S why people get boyfriends! Haha!), also so that we can make our parents happy by getting married. We tried to explain to her that we're not allowed to have boyfriends out here on the mission, let alone get married. She told us that we need to hurry and get married within TWO months of getting home!!! HAHAHAHA!!! Sister Akin and I both laughed at that and thought that might be a little soon, but assured her that it's in the plans to get married EVENTUALLY, but we're in NO rush! Haha. She's so cute and sweet! I LOVE Titi! :) After we were done visiting with people there, we street contacted until dinner and met a man at a bus stop named Elliott who's from Gana! He's met with missionaries before and was really nice to us, so we got his contact information and we're gonna do all we can to see him again this week! :) After dinner, we visited a couple of members - Rebecca and Tati. I love them both! Especially Tati! She's wonderful! I really LOVE Crystal City! :) Thursday we went on exchanges and I went with my dear Sister Woodbury! It was really good to see her again! She's really wonderful! :) And speaking of Sister Woodbury, I realized that I never really told y'all anything about her! She's from Murrietta, CA; was the goaly for BYU's girl's soccer team '04 - '07, so she's kinda a big deal. Haha. We're really different in a lot of ways - she's not bubbly AT ALL, and she's more of a tom-boy, but she's sweet. I love her! :) Funny thing about our exchange - I may or may not have gotten a tick in my hair that she picked off of me. ...we're not exactly sure what it was, but it was definitely a questionable-looking insect. Friday was SO good! We exchanged back and started our day off with ARP; after that, we went home and did weekly planning! SO fun... Haha! That night, we went street contacting for the next couple of hours or so and met the Ambassador of Iraq... No big deal. Yes, I'm dead serious. He was sitting at a park bench and his wife and daughter were nearby. We had NO idea who he was or anything, and then Sister Akin and I approached him and started talking with him about God and Jesus Christ and he invited us to sit down at the picnic table where he was sitting. Turns out he's very spiritual, so that's good! :) It was interesting cause when he called his wife and daughter over to meet us, his wife was hesitant at first and asked him, "Is it safe?" He assured them that we were friendly, good, God-loving people and it was indeed safe. We noticed a couple of big met standing off in the distance, watching us as we talked with him, so we think that they were probably his body guards or something... Kinda neat! Anyways, after we were done chattin it up with the Ambassador (...he's probably not getting baptized anytime soon cause he seemed pretty set in his religious ways - being Muslum and all - but we gave him a pass-along card with our names and phone number and got his phone number as well. So that's kinda cool), we met another man named Jim - a cool, nice, black guy walking on the sidewalk by the park. We gave him a Book of Mormon, too. We hope to see him again soon! :) After that, we met a nice member (not in our ward) named Sister Bell and we talked with her for about fifteen minutes with her non-member boyfriend. They were both really nice people! After that, we went into Nordstrom at the Pentagon City Mall and went into the bathroom there and ended up meeting two other really great women there and talked about the gospel and gave them a pass-along card! Then after that, we booked it over to Keren's and had a late dinner with her at Panera! Sister Akin and I just got smoothies, but it was really good! :) Saturday we helped out with a weeding service project with our ward, which was fun! We got there late and we were talking to people a lot, so we really probably only cleared about a square foot of forest with what we did together, but it was still really good! :) Later that day, while we were in the business center in the club house of our apartment complex, we were almost done with our progress record on the computer, when the computer just shut down out of nowhere, and our work was nowhere to be saved or found... So were stuck there for a bit longer, which ended up being a really big blessing because if we hadn't lost our whole progress record right when we did, we never would've met Shalom (a sweet African-American army woman who lives in our apartment complex). She just started talking to us and asked us, "Are y'all from the church on 23rd street?" and then we just started talking with her from there. We ended up talking with her for about an hour or so and exchanged phone numbers and she even welcomed us to stop by her apartment anytime to talk about Jesus and God and what we believe! SUCH a blessing! :) Later that night, we visited our Chinese investigator, Pei and had a lesson with him, and his roommate, Nan, ended up joining in on our lesson! :) Pei is SO great! He even gave us each a little gift from China! I love him! :) Sunday was SO good! Church was AMAZING! Sister Akin and I subbed our Gospel Principles class, which ended up being SO fun! :) After church, we had a lesson and then lunch with Pei and Nan over at the Larsen's home! I love them - ALL of them! :) We even gained a new investigator from that because Pei's friend, Nan, said that he would start reading the Book of Mormon and said that he's curious to learn more! The church is SOOOO true!!! :) Then only about two hours after lunch, we had dinner with a bunch of other members in our ward at the home of the Kaneyuki's! It was SO good and so fun to get to know some of the wonderful members in our ward better! :) After dinner, we visited Wu Biao and had a short lesson with him. He's doing wonderful with his new baby girl! He's the cutest and sweetest little Mr. Mom! I love him! :) After that, we street contacted for most of the rest of the night and met a wonderful man from Honduras named Elvin and his sweet little 2-year old boy at the Park by Giant! We taught him the Restoration and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and a pass-along card and got a return appointment with him for this Wednesday! I'm SOOOO excited!!! :) I just LOVE spanish people! Why couldn't I have gone spanish-speaking?? Haha. It's all good! I really DO love my mission and everything about it! Plus, I get to use what little spanish I do know quite frequently - at least every other, if not every day! :) I LOVE IT!!! THE CHURCH IS SOOOOOOOO TRUE!!! :D Thank you all to everyone who wrote me and/or sent me an e-mail in the past week! It really DOES mean THE WORLD to me!!! :) Thank you Kat, Aubree, Heather, Kaylee Wood, and Daddy (and Mom for your e-mails! Don't worry - that counts, too!)! Y'all are the greatest! Remember who you are and what you stand for! I love you all! :) LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. I strongly encourage y'all to really study Alma chapter 7! It's amazing! :)

NATS VS. PHILLIES

HEY EVERYBODY!!! This past week has been CRAZY!!! - But in a SUCH a good way!!! :) First things first - in answer to your comment and question/concern about the shooting this morning, Mom (and everybody else): I just found out while sitting in the club house of my apartment complex that the shooting occurred only about TEN MINUTES away from where I live. Yep. In MY area. True story. But no worries. We're safe and sound! However, we don't feel safe going out and going street contacting at this particular moment in time until we know for certainty that the suspect has been caught and is in custody. So for now, we're waiting to hear from our mission President on exactly what we should do regarding that. CRAZY stuff! Now onto this past week! Monday was really good! I cut Sister Woodbury's hair, which was really fun! I LOVE her! I'm going on exchanges with her this week - on Thursday, to be exact! I can't wait! :) Monday night was really good, too! We did LOTS of street contacting and met a Chinese guy named Cage, and a sweet woman from Taiwan named Tina! :) Tuesday we had Zone Training that morning, which was really good! I sincerely LOVE that! After that, we street contacted a LOT and met a sweet Chinese girl named Joanna, a sweet Chinese guy named Pei, and LOTS of spanish speakers! We also met a couple of sweet Ethiopian women! Also - while we were having a lesson in the street with Pei shortly after we met him, this man (probably in his mid-forties) was crossing the street and made eye contact with us, and we moved over on the sidewalk to make room for him to walk by, and he deliberately stuck his tongue out at us while he walked by. People are great. Haha. Then about ten minutes after that, a crazy woman screamed at poor Sister Akin while she was backing me in the car, telling her that we weren't allowed to park at the Potomac Nursing Center - even though Sister Akin calmly explained to her that we volunteer there a lot, so they give us a free parking pass. Well, that woman didn't wanna hear that, so she told us that she saw us walking from the other direction (in other words, she could tell that we weren't coming out of the nursing center), so she was going to go inside and tell them to never let us park there again. I love people. Haha! But it's all good. Cause we ended the night REALLY well with seeing some Jesus-loving women who high-fived us for being missionaries and doing what we're doing (the Ethiopian women). I LOVE them! :) Then we finished the night off by visiting with the Babitz (an AWESOME couple in the ward. I LOVE them! I've seriously become friends with them! They're wonderful! AND Sister Babitz also LOVES Harry Potter! That's where we bonded!), then we visited with another great couple in the ward named the Behnke's. Overall, even despite the negatives, it was a really great day! Sister Akin and I have grown to have the attitude of simply laughing at the poor, unfortunate souls who treat us like dirt and give them titles of our "(anti) Fan Club". For example, the woman who screamed at us is the President, and the man who stuck his tongue out at us is the Secretary. Good times! Haha! Pretty soon all of the roles are either going to be filled, or there are going to be doubles of each role. Haha! Just kidding! But really though, it's a much better way to look at all of it! Anyways, Wednesday was Zone Conference, which was SO good! President came, AND I got to see Sister Woodbury again, so it was a DOUBLE good day!!! :) That night we went street contacting and met Ivonne (a Columbian woman) while street contacting at the park, and we even taught her the whole restoration lesson! :) After that, we visited our less-active friend, Rob! Thursday we met a lot of other new incredible people! We met an amazing black man named Steve while street contacting at a bus stop by the park! He's incredible! We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would read it AND come to church next week! :) That night we had dinner with a family in our ward named the Kaneyuki's! They're awesome! Friday we went to the Nationals game - Nats VS Phillies - which I just found out was a Baseball game the night before when I was talking to Sister Akin about it. I figured it was either Football, Baseball or Softball, but probably either Baseball or Softball. Sister Akin got a kick outta that. :) The game itself was quite boring, to be completely honest with you, however, in case any of y'all care about who won, the Nats won. Woo Hoo... Haha. The game itself was SUPER boring, but the socializing with all the other missionaries was SOOOO much fun!!! :) However, that even got to be not quite as fun anymore when people around us started complaining to security and others about the missionaries standing up and moving around and switching seats... So then about 3/4 of the way through the game, we were warned to not do any of that anymore besides between plays, or they'll call security and kick us out... Yep... Awesome... So they REALLY loved having missionaries there... Haha! It's all good though. Overall, it was REALLY fun! :) I sat with Sister Woodbury! :) Saturday was INCREDIBLE!!! The Lord truly handed us our day on a silver platter! We started out the morning by going to a Day to Serve activity with a new Chinese investigator who we had just met earlier in the week, which went REALLY well! We had a short lesson with her right after the activity, and she was going to come to church yesterday, but then something came up and she couldn't go; she said that she'll come next week. Then that afternoon, we went to ANOTHER day to serve activity with another new Chinese investigator who we just met earlier in the week as well! His name is Pei and he's incredible! We even had a lesson with him that night at the home of a member who speaks Chinese, and he came to church yesterday and LOVED it! We are now planning on meeting with him once a week from now on, and he's coming to church again this week! :) On top of that all, we also ran into another investigator of ours named Jacob - we hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks or so - and we visited with him for a bit and caught up with him! Then right after that, we had another lesson with our new Indian investigator named Bipin! We're also planning on meeting with him again this week! He already read 20 pages of the Book of Mormon since we first met him just a few days before then! He's really incredible! The only main thing holding him back from baptism right now is that his dad's a Hindu priest, so he's not really sure about it all right now; however, he is still curious and wants to continue learning. He also agreed to continue to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! After all that, we ended the night off with having a wonderful member visit! Our day was SO busy that we only had about a 10-15 minute dinner break! But it's all good cause it was one of the best days that I've had on my mission so far! I LOVE being a missionary!!! :) Sunday was really good, too! Church was WONDERFUL!!! It was everything I needed! That evening we had dinner with a couple in the ward named the Stenquist's. I love them! That night we visited with Rob again, and this time we were able to have more of a lesson with him. He's great! :) I love you all! The Church is true!!! :) Love always, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Mom! I am SOOOO sorry, but I was a terrible daughter and didn't have time to mail you your birthday present! But don't worry! I will be sure to mail it to you next week, so you'll only get it a week late! SO sorry! I LOVE YOU!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON FRIDAY!!! :D HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON THURSDAY, LANCE!!! :D HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAST WEEK, DESI!!! :D

Baseball Game

This is me with my excited face at the baseball game when the Nats got a home run!

Sometimes I get attack-hugged by strange men...

HEY EVERYBODY!!! So, I realized that I haven't really said much about my sweet companion, Sister Akin, in any of my previous letters, so I'll give you a quick summary about her right now! :) She's a cute, short, blonde girl (as you could see from the pictures) from a small town in Wyoming called Powell. She loves the outdoors - such as biking, hiking, camping, back-packing, etc. She hates Harry Potter (...deep breath, I know... this was ALMOST a deal-breaker... haha. Just kidding... kinda...) and loves Lord of the Rings. But the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings things don't matter cause we both have a deep love and appreciation of BSB (Backstreet Boys) and NSYNC - but mostly BSB. We bonded a lot over that! We even have a lot of mixed CD's that Elder Brown (our District Leader) made for us, and there are some songs by Jericho Road on there and they're EFY-typed songs, but totally BSB-style. We definitely love our boy bands! Haha! We have a lot of fun together! :) She's SUPER sweet and loves to do the dishes (which I don't really love all the time, so it works out. Haha!). Plus, she eats super healthy, too, so the fact that I'm a gluten-free (and practically dairy-free as well) vegeterian doesn't bother her at all! That's about the jist of what I can think of to best describe her in one quick paragraph! But she really is really great! I've been really lucky to have her as a trainee, and most importantly, as a companion! :) Anyways, I'll give y'all a quick summary of this past week now! :) To start things off, last Monday night was really good! We saw a sweet elderly lady slowly walking down the street, talking her groceries back to her apartment, so we decided to park our car and walk with her! She wasn't too warm or welcoming at first, but after a few minutes, she quickly warmed up to us and seemed happy that we had walked with her! :) Right after that, we headed over to the park right behind the Giant Grocery Store and street contacted there for a bit and talked to a lot of latino guys. They all were very quick to listen to us, and then as we were walking away, getting ready to leave the park, a couple of guys even called us over (they were watching a soccer game that was going on right then), so we walked over to them, and ended up basically having a lesson with one of them! We talked to him for about 45 minutes all about the church and the gospel and he seemed interested! He even said that he might check out our church! :) Tuesday was a FABULOUS day!!! We street contacted a bit that afternoon by the Pentagon City Mall and met a really sweet lady and gave her a Book of Mormon, then shortly after that, we met a hispanic man and gave a Book of Mormon to him as well! Then that night while we were street contacting some more, we met a wonderful Ethiopian man named Charli and had a lesson with him in the church parking lot! And the night just continued to get better and better! When we got back to our apartment that night, we just so happened to see our investigator, Jacob, (the army guy who lives in the building right next to us) who we hadn't seen or heard from in about a week and a half! He parked his jeep fairly close to where we were parked and got out just shortly after we got there! So we quickly jumped out of the car (as normally as possible. Haha) and said "hi" to him. He came right over to us and talked with us for a good ten minutes or so! We had even planned on seeing him that coming weekend! Blessings upon blessings were being showered on us all day! :) We then topped the day off by visiting a sweet girl who just moved into our apartment complex and ward with her husband a few weeks ago, and she gave us a card and a bag of grapes as a treat and thank-you for helping them move into their apartment! I love her! She's wonderful! I love our ward! :) Wednesday was SO weird!!! We tried street contacting in the early afternoon, but we are NOT going to be doing that again, at least not anytime soon! Appartently that's when all of the weirdos are out - at least walking down 23rd street in Arlington! We met a man and tried to talk to him about the gospel, and we mentioned Jesus, and he said that he knows Jesus. Then he said, "Let's pray right now," and he folded his arms and closed his eyes and went on the rehearse "Our Father's Prayer". It was really interesting... But that wasn't even the start of it! Right after he finished that, he stood up from the bench he was sitting on, and walked towards me and HUGGED ME!!! It was TERRIFYING!!! Not only am I a missionary, so I am not supposed to have any sort of physical contact with a guy who isn't related to me (so out here on the mission, that means nobody), but I didn't even KNOW this man! Plus, I think he was a little bit mentally-unstable... But that's ok. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget! That's for sure! Haha! But that was only the beginning of it! SO many weird things continued to happen ALL day long! It was just SUCH a weird day! We even tried to kinda stalk down one of our investigators who we haven't heard from in a couple of weeks, and we know that she works at a Thai restaraunt around, we just don't know which one... So we've been going into different Thai restaraunts in the area and seeing if she works there... Well, we decided that it would be easiest to park in a parking garage cause that would be the most convenient. However, what we DIDN'T realize is that it costs $6 AN HOUR to park there!!! WHAT?!?! Yep. True story. So by the end of our hour there, Sister Akin was short $6 and we still hadn't found our investigator... Haha. But it's ok. It made a good memory! Plus we learned from that! Later that day, we had dinner with the wonderful Chambers! I love them SO much!!! :) After that, we stopped by the apartment really quick to put the food away that the Chambers had given to us, and we saw the Elders in our District - Elder Brown and Elder Staples - and their investigator, Amanda and her dog, Brewski, so we talked with them for a bit. They're all wonderful! I love them! After that, we went and visited Jan! I love her! :) Thursday was a WONDERFUL day!!! We had another wonderful day of street contacting and had two lessons, got TWO new investigators, three return appointments, and gave away two copies of the Book of Mormon!!! We also had four really great member visits! Plus we saw Jacob AGAIN right after dinner in the parking lot while we were heading back out to work! You'd think this would be some sort of sign to him that we need to have another lesson with him or something since we keep running into him like this! Haha! Seriously though! Friday was an interesting day... Haha. We started the day out with Launching Leaders - SO good! And I saw my wonderful Sister Woodbury! Her and Sister Goates came there at the end to go on exchanges with some other sisters in my zone! I love them! Especially Sister Woodbury! It was SO good to see her! :) After that, we had weekly planning, which ended up taking SO long! Haha. But it's ok. It was good! Then we went street contacting all night and ended up getting a lesson and another new investigator! :) GOOD NIGHT!!! Saturday was pretty good! We attempted to have a lesson with Leonard (a man who we had met street contacting earlier in the week and had a lesson with at the bus stop), but it didn't end up happening... He either stood us up, or we just had a lack of communication or something... We'll go with the second one! But it was ok cause then we ended up meeting a Morracan man named Abe who's a french-speaking Muslem. He was very willing to talk with us! We gave him a french copy of the Book of Mormon and even got his number and we're planning on seeing him in the next couple of weeks or so! He just said that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon (like the whole thing) before we meet with him! We told him that wasn't necessary, but he said that he still wants to read at least a good portion of it before we see him again, so we said that would be great! :) We continued street contacting, and unfortunately not as many people were as nice as Abe after that... We got rejection after rejection, but I guess that's what it's like being a missionary! It all comes with the territory! However, in the midst of all of the rejections, we street contacted into a very nice woman who said that she has a best friend who's Mormon and she talked to us for a good 5 to 10 minutes or so; after we were done talking, she even gave us each a hug! That was exactly what I needed! :) Then shortly after that, we street contacted into a grumpy man who looked at us shortly after we told him where we were from and what we were about, and he said, "You are EXTREMELY rude to gay people!" ...we didn't really know what to say to that, so we didn't really say anything. People are great! Haha! Well, we didn't end up meeting with Jacob on Saturday like we were planning on - he cancelled on us - but we DID end up seeing him AGAIN in the parking lot of our apartment that night and waved at him and said "hi" right before he got in his jeep and drove away! Seriously! Three times in one week! I really think that the Lord is trying to tell him something! It's no cooincidence when someone runs into missionaries THREE times in one week! The Lord's gotta be tryin to tell him somthin' with that! I just hope he'll listen one day! Haha. Sunday was SO good! Church was wonderful! :) After church and comp. study, we had a wonderful object lesson on the Plan of Salvation with Sandra and Iganacio! I love them! Sandra thinks that I have a baby face, so she calls me "little girl". Haha. I love her! After dinner, we street contacted some more and ran into Bobby and Keren! I love them! :) We then went back to their apartment and visited with them! Keren's off of Mormon activities for the time being until after Yomkippur (a Jewish Holiday), which ends on the 14th of this month. However, she said that she loves us and has been missing us and will definitely continue meeting with us and coninuing her studies after that! I LOVE them!!! :) I love being a missionary! :) The church is true! A really great conference talk that I read recently is called "In His Own Time, In His Own Way". I would STRONGLY encourage each of y'all to read it! It's amazing! I LOVE YOU ALL!!! LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Thank you all who have been writing me recently! That means you, Aubree Bean and Daddy! I love you both! And anyone else who writes me! Thank you!

I LOVE TO SEE THE TEMPLE!!! :D

HEY EVERYBODY!!! MAN! This past week has just FLOWN by!!! Last week was a REALLY good week! ...interesting... but good! Haha. Oh! Quick thing - I totally forgot to tell y'all about something in my last e-mail! On Tuesday - the week before last - when Sister Akin and I had our first sick day, we had quite the adventure involving a GINORMOUS millipead in our bathroom!!! Seriously! It was HUGE!!! And SO gross and scary-looking! We still don't know how it got into our apartment, since we live in a pretty nice complex and we keep it pretty clean, but moral of the story is, it got in. So I was sitting on the toilet, and all of a sudden, I felt something fall on my arm. It felt soft like a hair, but it was definitely much heavier than that. So at first I just brushed it off, and then it landed on my LEG!!! And then lo and behold - there it was. A GIANT millipead with a million hairy little legs, running around. I immediately jumped up and started screaming! Sister Akin was then a little bit concerned and asked me what was wrong. I was so terrified that all that I could really get out was, "...A... a... a... BUG!!!" I ran out of the bathroom as quickly as I could, and then proceeded to tell Sister Akin all about the terrifying adventure I had just experienced. So then we were ready; we were going to overtake this thing and bring down the millipead if it was the last thing we did! This was NOT ok that it was here - in our apartment! This is OUR home - we are not giving it up to the millipeads! So we armed ourselves and grabbed our ammo: I got my Big Sexy Hair hairspray, and Sis. Akin grabbed the Windex - after all Windex DOES cure everything, right?? So we ventured out into the unknown bathroom in hopes of finding and destroying the enemy. Well, it turns out we were just SO brave that we wanted to stand outside the bathroom door and wait for the millipead to come out of hiding before going into our mode of attack. We waited... and waited... and even turned on some EFY tunes to pump us up... and waited some more... I even threw a can of asparagus spears into the bathroom in hopes of scaring the millipead out of hiding, but to not avail... until we saw it! It came out of hiding behind the toilet and ran across the floor! And that's when we knew we had it! So we bravely started spraying our ammo at it in hopes of wounding it just enough to stop it, or at least slow it down. Well, this little guy was a fighter. He didn't wanna quit. He was the one on the front-lines who just doesn't give up. So we had to do what anyone else in our situation would do - make it run into the bathtub, and then bring it down by spraying half a can of hairspray on it and causing it to practically be glued to the bathtub. Well, after we had started taking our victory pictures, the little fighter started to try to move again and show us one last fight, so we had to put him down a second time. ...don't worry. We got the main parts of this adventure on video - which I will be sending home shortly and y'all can enjoy it then! Haha! Anyways! Now onto THIS week! :) Monday we started the night out by visiting sweet Alma at the Nursing Home. Then we had a lesson with Mary Ann, which was SO good! I LOVE her! She was WONDERFUL at that lesson! She totally accepted the soft baptism invite and everything! I really thought at that time that she would quickly turn into a solid investigator... But just wait til Wednesday... Tuesday was wonderful! We had dinner with a fabulous couple in the ward, who I LOVE (I went to their house for dinner my very first night in the field!), named the Greens! That was SO fun! We had pizza, and they even bought me my own mini gluten-free personal pizza! I LOVE them! They're the best! After dinner, we stopped by and visited a less-active couple in our ward named the Funaki's. They are WONDERFUL!!! They're both Samoan and - 'nuf said. They're wonderful! I LOVE them! I felt an instant connection with them! I was definitely meant to meet them out here! :) Wednesday we had lunch with Mary Ann, which was SO good - as far as the food goes (we went to a REALLY good pizza place down Fern Street in Arlington called Extreme Pizza. SO good! They even make gluten-free pizza there! Mom! Cory! We are going here when y'all pick me up in 13 months!), but not so good as far as a lesson goes... She turned a complete 180 from where she was the last time we had seen her when she was accepting the soft baptism invite and saying, "Well, ya. If I get to that point and I come to know that these things are true, then ya. I'll be baptized." No. Not this time. This time she had a billion questions and concerns - which is fine, but she had said that she had done some "research" over the past couple of days since we'd seen her... and we all know that when people are doing research, they're not going to the source - AKA: mormon.org, or other church-affiliated websites. So anyways, she basically got all freaked about nothing and told us flat out that we'd be wasting our time if we were to continue meeting with her because she said, "I will NOT EVER get baptized!" She then went on to tell us that she really likes us as people and enjoys spending time with us, and she feels like we're doing a great thing in spreading the word about Jesus... However, she is just not interested in pursuing learning about our church anymore... So we were bummed, to say the least... And quite honestly, even more so than that, we were kinda really EXTREMELY confused on the dramatic change of character and everything in her towards us and the church... Oh well. I guess we just gotta remember that there's a thing called "agency" - such a blessing and a curse sometimes! Haha. Seriously though! Anyways, after we were done practically being broken up with by Mary Ann, we tried to visit a man in our ward named Virgil who's a somewhat recent convert (I think he was baptized last year sometime), but he wasn't home... But his sister and her grandson were home, so we visited with them for a little bit, and that was SO wonderful! She makes jewelry, so she brought out a whole case of necklaces that she had made, and we looked through them and admired how beautiful they are; she then went on to tell us that she does this as a hobby, but she also sells them. Then she offered us to each take a necklace - any necklace of our choice! So we narrowed it down to three or four choices, then held them up for her grandson to see and asked him to choose his favorite one for us to take! Well, we each ended up leaving with a brand-new red-bead necklace, chosen by a five-year-old genius! :) After we had our new jewels, we visited a sweet woman in our ward - Sister Pierre - who's from a part-member family (her husband's not a member), and we unfortunately weren't able to visit for too long cause her and her little baby were both sick. So we just visited for a few minutes, and then right before we left, she gave us a whole container of strawberries cause it was buy one, get one free at Giant! YES! I LOVE that! So we were blessed just from that! Right after we left the Pierre's, we stopped by the Babitz's and finished the night off visiting with them! They are fantastic! They are seriously HILARIOUS!!! Oh my goodness! I would seriously hang out with them all the time if I weren't a missionary! I. LOVE. THEM!!! Especially Sister Babitz! She's a HUGE Harry Potter nerd, just like me, so we obviously get along WONDERFULLY! :) Thursday we started the morning off by going to our ARP (Addiction Recovery Program), which was really good. It really does help you out spiritually as well! I LOVE it! :) That afternoon, we went to the Potomac Nursing Center and helped out with the activity, which was nails and manicures this week! So that was SUPER fun! We painted some lady's nails and visited with them! I LOVE those activities! It makes me feel right at home - in SO many ways! :) After that, we visited Keren and had a wonderful lesson with her! She is SO full of questions and wants to learn SO much! We LOVE it! She's fabulous! :) Then that night, we visited Jan! Her and her husband, Jack, are still struggling with both of their health, but they're both staying positive, and Jan's always holding firm to God. I love her! I love them! They're like an aunt and uncle to me! :) Friday we didn't do much as far as seeing people goes cause we were weekly planning for a good portion of the afternoon. Then that night we visited Negeset at her work. She's a sweetheart! I love her! :) Saturday was SOOOO good! We had a really wonderful lesson with Keren that afternoon! Her faith is increasing every single time that we see her! I just LOVE this woman! She really IS one of my really good friends now - much more than just an investigator! :) We even ended up having dinner with her that night - which was SOOOOO good! We had a gluten-free pasta with Keren's home-made Israeli pasta sauce! It was DELICIOUS!!! And then we were able to just talk and spend time together some more! It was WONDERFUL! :) Then in the middle of the lesson and dinner with Keren, we visited a woman who just moved into our ward named Rae Carol, and she is FABULOUS!!! She's in a wheelchair and can't walk, but she just has the most positive, up-beat personality and attitude I've ever seen! I LOVE her! :) Sunday was wonderful as well! Church was FABULOUS! We ended up having two investigators come to church - only one to Sacrament meeting, though, cause the other one came right after Sacrament meeting. But as long as they're coming to something, right? So our Chinese investigator, Hong Bin came and brought his roommate, who is also from China! So that was really cool! And then right after Sacrament meeting, our less-active member, Ignacio and his wife Sandra came with their adorable little kids! They are wonderful! I love them! They're some other people who I truly feel like I was supposed to meet out here! :) Then after dinner, we visited our good less-active friend, Rick, and went on a walk and talked with him while he walked his dog, Moki. I love Rick! He's wonderful! :) After we saw Rick, we went and visited our sweet Alma at the Potomac Nursing Home! We gave her a beautiful ring last week that our investigator, Jan, had given to us to give to her, and Alma absolutely LOVES it! She even told us that she's NEVER taking it off! Then when we visited her on Sunday, we gave her a perfume that Jan had also given to us to give to Alma. Alma also loved that. Jan is wonderful! Alma's adorable! I love them both! We're going over to the Potomac Nursing Center tonight to do a Family Home Evening activity with Alma! I'm excited! It's gonna be fun! :) This week has already started out WONDERFULLY!!! We went to the DC temple this morning with a woman in our ward - Sister Stouder. She is SO sweet and wonderful! She was one of my "babysitters" while I had to stay home sick one night. I LOVE her! I LOVE the temple! I encourage y'all to go and do a session there ASAP! I'm tellin' ya - it's AMAZING!!! :) Anyways, I LOVE my mission! I love being a missionary! I'm excited to see what the rest of the week holds in store for us! :) I love you all! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! :D LOVE ALWAYS, Sister Aubrie Orrock P.S. Katie Cassani - yes, I have been getting your letters. Sorry about not writing you back lately. I really have hardly written ANYBODY back lately due to lack of time. I know that's a terrible excuse, but as a missionary, it's all I've got. Haha. Just know that I still love you! Thank you for your letters! Family! I love you! Mom! Lance! It's your birthday month! WOO HOO! :D