My first week in Paris!! Pics!!

Bonjour tout le monde!

       Wowww so much has happened this week I feel like I've lived a million lifetimes here. I have like fifteen minutes to write so I'm sorry if I leave something out or this is super scatterbrained oof!

       So I'm in Paris now HA and it is super crazy ah I'm so distracted this keyboard is in French and so it's correcting everything to be French ANYWAY so I got to the Visitor's Center on Monday and it's been crazy since then- I haven't even breathed. We've had nonstop lessons all week. Also, everything I've ever been told about French people is a lie. They are so nice to us and I love them. Just everybody speaks spaghetti. Like I have no idea what people are saying and it doesn't sound quite like the French I learned in the MTC. But that's okay, I can bear my testimony and people understand so that's the most important right now.

       ALSO we had a really fun rendezvous this week (Note from Danette...a "rendezvous" means an appointment). We showed up at this lady's apartment and she was super busy and asked us to come back and teach her a lesson later. And us, being persistent missionaries, asked if we could help with anything and she said she was just cutting chicken. Okay normal. So we come inside, and it smells so strong of dead things and we turn the corner and just... just...full chickens. Like her husband is standing there with a massive butcher's knife whacking away at these chickens that they just killed from the farm. In the sink there's no joke about forty chicken heads and our ami (Note from Danette...an "ami" means a friend, or someone they are teaching) grabs a knife and starts just cutting off heads and breaking bones and me and my comp were just standing like uhhhhhh. There's blood all over the floor...all over the walls. This was my very first rendezvous. It was definitely a memorable one. 

Paris, Reunion, and Barbados. Gonna miss these ones.

Another because I miss the Tahitians too. Our district was the best no competition.

I waited nine whole days for p-day and can I just say it was so worth it. (Note from Danette - a "p-day" stands for preparation day. It's when missionaries run errands, do laundry, write emails home, kind of like a day off). Like every street looks like this. And people are just walking around like it's no big deal. And yes it is like Ratatouille here, people keep asking me that HA!

Sacré Cœur - this is a Catholic Cathedral overlooking all of Paris it's gorgeous. And here's my new district who I also love very much. We were frolicking all around Paris today.

The view at Sacré Cœur

Apparently it had been a year since it snowed in Versailles and my first day it snowed!! 

Just the French mansion of one of our amis. Like, people live in this thing.

Huge blessing. My first day, Elder Neil L. Anderson came and spoke to us. He served in France too, and he taught us a lot about missionary work. It was honestly a little scary because he talked about how difficult missionary work is in France, but we are all sent here for a reason. All the missionaries here are so strong and I've already seen the results of their hard work (and the work of the missionaries before us, like Elder Anderson). 

{Note from Danette: This next pic was shared with me by Jill Brown. We go to church together, and her son, Josh, is in Morgan's mission! He went out a couple of months before Morgan. Also, one of Morgan's best friends from high school, Christian, is also serving in the same mission! All three of them were able to see each other Morgan's 1st day in Paris when Elder Anderson came to speak to their mission...so fun! Here they are, along with Morgan's first companion (I love how Morgan and her comp are color coordinating their outfits😍...girls will be girls!).

HA so the first district meeting I have, our elders whip out these flans and I thought we were gonna eat them with a spoon, right? No. They just lean over and literally INHALE the flan and swallow it in one bite. Without even tasting it. And yes I did it and almost died.

Bonne Semaine!

Sœur McOmber



(From Danette) Here's one more picture that was emailed to us when Morgan arrived in Paris at the Mission Office! Her Mission President, President Sorensen is on the right. The couple in the left is a married couple serving in the Mission Office...so sweet!

I also have to tell you a fun story. So...Morgan emailed us the day before she was supposed to fly out of Salt Lake City to go to Paris. She was so excited because missionaries normally get to call home from the airport before they fly out. She told us her flight was around 4pm, so we were all sitting at home, so excited to talk to her. The next time we would be able to talk to her after that wouldn't be until Mother's Day...so yeah...very excited.

The time came when we were expecting her call, and she still hadn't called and I was getting worried, so Mark suggested I call the Salt Lake Airport and have her paged. I did that, but she never answered the page. Then I got online and started looking up flights to Paris, trying to figure out when her flight would be leaving, since we didn't have any exact information about her flight. Turns out the flight was leaving at 4:50 PM, so we gave her a little more time to call us. When she still hadn't called, I tried paging her again...no answer. So then I got worried that maybe there was something wrong. That's where our minds go as mothers, right? So I called the number for Missionary Travel in Salt Lake City. They were closed since it was a Sunday, so I called the emergency number for Missionary Travel. The sweet lady who picked up, said her daughter had also gone to Paris a few years ago on her mission and had not had a chance to call. She figured Morgan had just gotten caught up in lines and just couldn't call. But she offered to check to make sure Morgan was okay, and had actually boarded the plane, which she had.

I was very glad she was okay, but depressed that we hadn't been able to talk with her before she left.

The next morning at 6:30am I had just gotten up and my phone ringer was still off. I happened to be looking at my phone when it showed somebody was calling. I didn't recognize the number, and the place it was from was definitely in another language, so I knew it had to be Morgan! When I answered she immediately exclaimed, "Mom! I'm so sorry! I completely forgot to call! By the time I remembered we were over the ocean!" Yeah...I gave her a pretty hard time. I told her, "Seriously! You forgot to call your mother! How in the world do you forget that!" We both had a good laugh. She said she had even heard the page we had done for her at the airport, but figured it couldn't be for her since they didn't call her sister McOmber. Ha! She was also all by herself, with no companion or any other missionaries, so it's not like she had the reminder she would have had if there had been other missionaries calling home. She said her mind was on leaving the MTC, and everything she had to do when she got to Paris. Silly girl!

When she got to Paris, and an hour had passed at the airport, and no one had come to pick her up, she had to figure out what to do. Here she was in a different country, barely speaking any of the language, and no phone. She said she looked at the itinerary and saw a phone number, so she found a phone and called that number, which turned out to be the Paris Mission Office. They told her they hadn't been expecting her until later, and they were really glad she had figured out how to call!

It's a good thing Morgan is so independent and able to handle things like that. She said she was never worried. She just did what she needed to do and it all turned out. Our family got to talk to her for about 30 minutes that morning…I added Mark to the call from work, and Bryan and Madi to the call from Utah. Loved connecting with her!