Crêpes for dinner, cheese for dessert.😋Lots of pics!

Bonjour tout le monde!

       This week was slightly more chill than last week. I write these emails super quick and this week I had a realization, ya'll don't know hardly anything about my amis! It's hard because in France they are very strict about being professional so I can't take pics with them really, but I can talk about them without using names. 

       So we have a lot and I can't talk about them all. But one of my favorite rendezvous this week was with an ami in the hospital that is an actual angel. My first rendezvous we showed her the gospel library app and by the next week she had read SOO much from it. We were such proud parents I just wanted to hug her. She's gone through a lot, and every time we testify to her that something is true, she does it. Anyway, it was our fifth lesson with her this week and we invited her to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon. She said "I've already read it. Also, once I get out of the hospital, can I please go to church with you?" Yes. Yes you can come to church with us. So cool to see people that are so prepared and willing to learn. 

       Okay also French people are the funniest ever and I love them. We had a dinner rendezvous this week with the French couple missionaries that took 3 HOURS because they looove to talk. It is literally impossible for French people to let you out in an hour. We ate crêpes for dinner and cheese for dessert (? what is going on) but it was super fun and we invited somebody to baptism during that lesson/dinner so it ended up being productive. But yeah, you can't take away meal time from the French. It's sacred. 

        Last p-day we visited the Chateau de Versailles and it was pretty much exactly what you'd expect an olden day French billionaire house to look like HA it was super posh. We kept seeing all these fancy beds and Elder Vincenzi kept saying "I would love to have a rendezvous with Dan here" or he'd say "Dan 2.0" and finally we were like okay who is this Dan. He said "every missionary has rendezvous with Dan. Daily Afternoon Nap." HA dad jokes. 

Hope everybody had a good week!! Bonne Semaine!

Sœur McOmber

CHaNgEs

Coucou mes amis et ma famille!!

       I know I say this literally every week but wow this week was so eventful I don't even know where to start. Obviously, our missionaries have experienced some pretty crazy changes while they've been on their missions. I don't know what type of spiritual high President Nelson is on, but I have a feeling that my mission is going to be filled with changes. Three months in and the temple has changed, missionary calling rules have changed, heck we have two hour church?! I'm so ready for whatever President Nelson is about to do next. He is every mom's favorite prophet right now.

       So yeah, I called my family and the only time it works is at 6 in the morning their time but that's okay HA...I can talk to my mom all day. Today I just called her on our walk to the Versailles Castle (pics next week ) and it definitely makes me feel a little more at home to know I can talk to them every single week. It makes me want to work harder so I can share everything with them face to face. At first I was a little worried about the change because I feel a lot of missionaries learn independence and can focus better when families are not involved, but of course I also understand how this can positively influence missionary work. After they announced this, a sister in the Center just started bawling because one of her brothers is autistic and could never type letters to her. God knows what he's doing and this change is just proof of his love for us.

       Which brings me to the next ~inspired~ change I encountered this week. Yeah so last week I just went on and on about online teaching and how amazing it is, right? Well, this week, the director of online teaching came to our center and discontinued it HA. The reason is because Rome has a new temple, and their Visitor's Center is getting 24 new sisters. Already, most of the people we teach have different time zones, so they don't really need all of us online in Europe. Which means!!!!! I have only 2 days in the Center now and I get to do hecka finding (my favorite thing in the world). A lot of the Sœurs were pretty sad because truly online teaching is so so effective, but I know it's still being done...just by other Sisters. I'm okay with it and I'm excited to do more proselyting all over Paris. I also love my time in the Center because we can always help strengthen the members and it feels like home, so I'm glad I get to do both.

       About this week, I was a father! That's what it's called when we take new missionaries out finding but we're not technically their trainor. It was wild because I've only been here three weeks and suddenly I'm taking this brand new missionary out to talk to strangers in French. Usually I'm not the leader of the conversation, but this time it was me and I was all handing out temple cards and teaching this bright-eyed lil blue how to talk to strangers. It was super fun and then I had dinner with all the blues and my comp because I never got the classic blue dinner ( I showed up to Paris all alone and they forgot me at the airport lol...don't worry all is well. My survival French helped me call the mission office). Anyway, so we got three new Sisters at the Center and I love all of them. We all stay in the same 3 apartments so it's a party every night (after we do areabook calls and work okay, we are hard working missionaries I promise).

      So Valentine's Day was this week and I was a little sad because apparently the French don't celebrate holidays. But me and my companion decided NO we will not stand for this, and we are going to do something. So there's this store in France called "Picard" and Sœur Ethington has an aneurysm every time we so much as drive past it. It's all frozen food but like ~super classy French frozen food~ and they have super cool cakes and dinners and stuff. So we bought a GIANT raspberry cake and brought it back and hid it under thirty layers of aluminum foil so the other Sisters didn't find it. And on Valentine's Day, we whipped it out and the other Sœurs nearly cried they were so happy (not quite sure why because we celebrated four birthdays this week with cake HA). But yeah, that was our Valentine's Day and it was a party.

Le Chesnay. I am so lucky I get to go finding here every day.

O' Tacos. The Elders NEVER stop talking about this place and how amazing it is, and all the Sisters warn me that it is the worst thing I could ever eat. So what do I do? I go there because I need to experience it for myself. And lemme tell you it does not deserve to be called a taco. What I am holding is Cordon Bleu and beef in a flour tortilla with about thirty pounds of spicy cheese sauce. The light in my eyes, that's because I haven't tasted it yet. 

Lil French cottage. These houses are IMPOSSIBLE to get into because they all have gates. So we just look at them and say "that's nice" and then go finding somewhere else. It's rare for somewhere this nice to even answer their gate.

President's kids go to school here. I think they practice wizardry 

Just a rondaboot HA that's how the Soeurs say roundabout now because my first week I had a hard time switching between French and English, so that's how I said it lol Anyway, this memorial is to remember the French wars and we drive by it every day.

We have this little thing we do where we buy random things we don't need. This is our "cookies of the week". Also pastry of the week: Pistachio Eclair. I don't have a picture but it's a bright green long pastry that looks like it's filled with guacamole. But it's pistachio cream and it is so so bomb.

First day the temple has been open since I got here. I didn't take this picture but like seriously the Paris temple is beautiful. There's blue stained glass everywhere and the chandeliers are gorgeous and look like little rainbows when the sun is out. You can look at more pics on lds.org

Bisous tout le monde!!

Sœur McOmber

Moving day! Mais pas pour moi😉. Pics!

Bonjour les gens!

     Allors, this week I felt like I'm actually maybe getting the hang of the missionary thing. The past few weeks have been crazy and it still is crazy, but I'm not a deer in the headlights all the time anymore. Woah...but btw it turns out missions are hard who would've thought HA. No but people keep asking me for pics of the Eiffel Tower and if I'm doing sight seeing, and this is the furthest from a vacation I have ever been lol. It's definitely beautiful but even on our p-days we do a lot of service. Just a reminder for me I guess that even though we're all over the world, we're all doing the same things. Missionaries work hard man. 

      So this week we did hecka finding and the sisters are so funny about it. I'm always SO EXCITED for finding and they just look at each other like "such a blue" which is what they call the new missionaries. But three weeks in, and it is still my favorite thing. The sketchier the place, the more of a goldmine it is. So we go to some pretty scary places. But we just approach strangers and tell them about the Plan of Salvation, or at least that's ~my~ favorite thing to talk about, and even if they're not interested they always take our lil pamphlets. I love love love talking about The Plan of Salvation because it's so cool that God loves us enough to make this plan where we can be with our families and our friends again. Anyway I could talk about that forever BUT...

       Also, THE President Sorenson is in our ward (he's our best friend) and so we've been at his house a few times this week, and his wife sets up rendezvous with some of her friends (she's a referral master, like that woman is so hardworking) and it's been so cool to work with her. She's such a boss and she has these lessons all planned like I feel like she's teaching me. But anyway, me and the comp were at her house and after the rendezvous she fed us pasta. But not just any pasta...mushroom pasta (the only thing I don't like, mushrooms) and I kid you not this plate was entirely mushrooms with some noodles for decoration. And I was so afraid, the moment she turned I gave my companion some of my schrooms. And when we walked out, my companion was laughing so hard - turns out she doesn't like mushrooms either and she had to eat about 50 that day whoops.

      Okay so one more announcement, online teaching is pretty much the best and here's why. I have taught people from all over the world that could never hear the gospel in any other way except online. The work we are doing in these Centers is so valuable to God's Plan and I never really realized until I got here. Yesterday, India became available to us online (along with several other countries. Before, we couldn't talk to them because in their country it would be unsafe for them) but I guess our church's relationship with other countries is getting better? I don't know the science behind it but all I know is it's a blessing. Literally the day India became available, I got a chat from India and it was a guy begging for us to teach him. He said he's read the Book of Mormon and that the nearest church/missionaries are 1400 miles away! There's absolutely no way this guy could hear the gospel except online. The down side of people like this is, of course, they can't be baptized. But we know that everybody gets a chance. If not in this life, then the next. So we're going to teach him more this week, and probably a lot more people from other countries. This is the fulfilling of prophecy. One day the church is going to reach all corners of the world and I'm excited to be part of it.

Praying for ya'll, hope everybody had a good week! A plus!

Sœur McOmber

Transfer schedules came out today and Sœur Tulieva is leaving. She's going to Colmar which is right next to Switzerland. I'm a little sad that her outbound came so soon, but the people there need good missionaries like her.

French house

Our p-day was moving day! Not sure why or who...I was just lifting things and goin where people told me HA!

Les Sœurs dans Le Centre des Visiteurs.

Elder Meunier is a senior missionary in the center, and this was his birthday cake.

Turns out French pastries are good. New discoveries!

Holy I love it so so much here I am never coming back to America. Before I came, I thought I would just want to stay in Paris, but even the surrounding areas that we're proselyting in are incredible...Boulangeries on every corner and the houses in Chesnay look like castles. And of course I work at the prettiest place in Chesnay- the Paris Temple. The Paris Temple is so beautiful that random strangers on the street see it and just want to go inside. But they can't...so they talk to us! Which is awesome because that's how we find new amis (friends/investigators) to teach! And we have a lot of amis, most of them are from Africa. A lot of them say "hallelujah" and "amen" while we're teaching HA which is great because we don't have to guess whether they're feeling the Spirit or not.

YESTERDAY okay this is my favorite thing ever okay listen. Two awesome things about the temple: 1. We see the Elders and other Sisters all the time so I've already gotten to meet so many missionaries serving in France in the space of two weeks. Which is super cool because I feel so unified in the work when I know all the missionaries I'm working with. And 2. So because everybody knows the sisters in the Visitor's Center we throw these massive parties every two weeks with a bunch of members, missionaries, and their amis. It's called a "véillee" and converts share their testimonies and there's music and afterwards everybody eats food and it's so hype. A VC (Visitor's Center) sister (Sister Marteeny) asked me to play a song from Lamb of God for it- which was pretty much straight fire. Not because of me, but this sister is an opera major and the whole Visitor's Center was in tears (also strongly recommend listening to Lamb of God, Rob Gardner is a legend). Anyway, but the best thing about the Véille is it just feels like one giant family. Everybody comes in and we all bise (the french thing where you kiss cheeks) and literally all of Africa is there and everybody is so warm and happy and THE AMIS they get to meet other amis and missionaries and members and I don't know how to even do it justice. The people are so genuine I just felt like I was home. 

I also got to play the piano for a baptism yesterday! One of our amis Maurice got baptized and I don't know him too well yet, but it was super powerful to see one of his best friends speak about how baptism blessed his life. And that baptism wouldn't have happened if that member hadn't reached out to the missionaries. Before my mission, I wish I would've realized how important member missionary work really is. We can teach and some people are totally ready to receive the gospel...but the greatest tool we have is the members! When I am in a lesson with members and the members testify to our ami, it's a super powerful experience. And they automatically have somebody to go to church with, and feel more at home. I'm grateful we have so many members in our ward that our willing to reach out and spread the gospel. You don't have to be a missionary to talk about Jesus! So I invite you all to reach out to your friends and share your testimony with them. You never know who needs your message right now.

The stained glass picture of Jesus in the Visitor's Center. People that come in always love this. I love it as well, because it shows people that don't know much about the church that we believe in Christ. Also when I first got here, the elders told me there was a hidden fly so I stood there for like 15 minutes trying to find the stupid fly. There is, in fact, not a fly HA. 

My trainor! She's half-french so she's the reason I know anything right-now. She's super cute and I love her.

French pastries. This is called a Tartlette Framboise and I feel like I don't even need to talk about this. Like, just look at it. French pastries are l'amour de ma vie.

I've also eaten about 13 baguettes this week because, no matter where you buy them, they're bomb. The French have tons of different type of meat and cheese so we just randomly pick stuff from the store and try it with bread. It's an adventure.

Hope everybody had a good week! Bonne semaine!

Soeur McOmber