Mixtape

Mhmmm

       Yeah so remember last week when I was being real fanatical about running through the rain? Well I caught an intense strain of the flu and was out for like 4 days only able to eat sandwich bread HA So I don't recommend running through the rain for hours unless you have proper clothing (ie. Not somebody from Arizona) Here's the best part: after interviews today they are giving us flu shots. Little late pres. 

       Other than that, this week was super fun. We went to a dog shelter (they didn't make us pick up poop but they said they'd call us back and we can walk the dogs!?), we have a rendezvous with my favorite Tahitian family (poisson cru???), and I basically played the harp yesterday for a fireside so pretty productive I'd say. 

         It was actually so random, yesterday the center was slow so Sœur Tulieva and I tested all 305 instruments on the keyboard (one is an a capella men's choir HA). We played the harp one and Sœur Frogley (Center couple) was like "woah you have to do that for the Veillée." And so for the fireside, all these people are sitting watching me and President's family is there and I just start playing a harp solo on the keyboard HA I felt like Ross in that episode of friends where he just puts together songs from all the keyboard sound effects like "I create ~music~." But then I turned around and everybody was crying so I think it turned out okay. 

To leave you with something ~spiritually uplifting~, I'd love to share one of my favorite scriptures from the Book of Mormon this week:  

Jacob 4:7 "Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things."

The closer we come to God, the more aware we are of our shortcomings. I've learned a lot about myself on my mission as I've strengthened my relationship with God. I've also learned the simple act of asking God to make us better than our weaknesses, can change us. If we ask Him to make us a kinder person, He will. If we ask Him to make us more patient, He will. He created the whole world, He can definitely create more of us than we can create of ourselves. I invite you all this week to ask God's help in overcoming a weakness in your character. You will not become perfect, but I promise you will become better. 

That's all for this week!! Take your vitamins and get your flu shots kids. I hope everybody has a fantastic week. 

Avec amour, 

Sœur McOmber

Me, Sœur Janda, and Sœur Tulieva spent a romantic night on the town

(from Danette) I got an email this week...which actually happens quite often...from a lady who visited the Paris Temple Visitor's Center and talked with Morgan. Here's what she said in her email: "Hi! Just wanted to tell you we met your beautiful daughter at church in Versailles a couple of weeks ago! Here is her picture. Such great young ladies! I live in Mesa. Marsha Hatch"

French rain💦

Salut! 

       So transfers came and I'm in a trio with Sœur Tulieva and Sœur Janda. We also have 2 Tahitians coming to our apartment so needless to say I am becoming very awkward in English. I just start speaking French to all the American tourists...I don't know how to stop. 

       Also, this week we taught the golden couple from last week and some other new amis. One of them tried to come to church last week and accidentally ended up at the temple (there's worse places to end up at). She took a 2 hour train ride and left at 7 just to get there, we were very impressed. Her name is Francisca and she's the warmest human - she wants us to come teach her children and make us Congolese food. 

      This week we marched many hours through the freezing rain and every time we find people like this, it all just becomes so worth it. You see all these people on the metros going to work and think...wow they look pretty important. Everybody in suits and heels. But little do they know that the most important work is going on right next to them. This is such a cool thing that we get to teach people about Jesus Christ all day every day. There's nowhere else I'd rather be right now than marching through the rain in France. 

À la prochaine ! 

Sœur McOmber

pas des témoigns

Bonjour tout le monde! 

I don't have a lot of time but I want to share one miracle that happened this week. 

       On our temple day, this cute couple walked in from the street with a lot of questions for us. They had family in Brazil that lived close to a temple and wanted to know what it was about. So we gave them a tour and, when we were talking about baptisms, they asked if we got baptized for ourselves and not just for our ancestors. And they were like..."How can we be baptized into your church? Everything you've taught us is everything we believe. We've been looking everywhere for this." And we were like..."Well you can meet with the missionaries...?" We had been praying everyday to find prepared people and it was cool to see an answer to our prayers. This was only one of the amazing people we got to meet this week. It's true, if we're giving our best, God really does make up the difference.

Okay gotta go Elder Shawen just pointed to his plaque and said "nous sommes des témoigns" (we are jehovah's witnesses lol) I love new missionaries. 

Hope everybody has a good week! 

Sœur McOmber

It's "pumpkin spice season" in the words of Elder Carpenter

Nephi who

What a week to be alive! 

        We've been watching Book of Mormon videos all week and they're actually so good. I'm like on the edge of my seat even though I've read the book- the movie is always better, you know? And who doesn't have a crush on Nephi like...? Actually though, I'm really glad they created them. I'm a visual learner myself and The Book of Mormon can be really confusing for a lot our French-speaking amis with no reading background (understandably). So I think it's really cool that they're doing this. 

      And then of course, General Conference! I haven't seen all the sessions yet but the women's session was beautiful. I loved the music of all the little girls - so powerful to hear children sing their simple testimonies of Christ. I also loved the new theme for the Young Women. It's always really inspiring to hear so many strong women speak. And Sunday morning, President Nelson's talk about all the fruits that have come from our discipleship made me proud to be a member of this church. It was a great conference and I'm already looking forward to the next one.

        One more reason that it was a great week was due to the mass number of friends missionaries brought to the temple!!! We taught so many people about temples and even helped set dates to go, I've never seen so many happy people. We had elders just hanging out at the temple all day because they invited so many people to have lessons there (the elders want to be temple sœurs I think). Last week, I finally got to go to the temple for the first time in months and I was just sitting in the Celestial Room thinking, "Wow what a happy place." I'm so glad that Heavenly Father loves us enough to give us temples. Even though we still have problems, when I am there I don't feel anything but warmth and peace. What a blessing to get to invite people to prepare to have that same opportunity every day.

I love you all and hope you all had a fabulous conference!

Sœur McOmber 

My favorite Brazilian family- The Essers! They have the cutest little girls (all with afros, it's adorable). They're always so motivated to do missionary work too, love that! 

Joy to the World Quoi

Hi everyone!

          I finally feel I'm getting in the groove of being "Sister MTC" (as President calls it) for Sœur Janda. Our companionship goal this week is for me to cook for her HA...she just sits and waits patiently while I add random things to a pot.

         This week we also had zone conference and new missionary conference. Kind of embarrassing because I went all the way to Paris just for the Assistants to call and tell us it was at our church building 5 minutes away RIP...so we got there like an hour late but it's fine I'm fine. I saw Sœur Madsen and ate pizza for the first time in a hot second so it's good. 

      At zone conference, we talked about the importance of spirit-led invitations. President Ballard talked about how baptism is a lifelong commitment and we should never be rushing to baptize somebody who isn't ready. President, a businessman, was a bit uncomfortable talking about it because he was worried we would not be motivated if there weren't goals with a deadline. I've gained such an appreciation for my own baptism and I've seen baptism bless the lives of others as well and it's true- it's one of the most important steps we make in our lives, so we should never be taking it lightly. I guess I'm just realizing that, even though living the gospel doesn't mean we have to be ~serious~ quoi, the way we live our covenants should be taken very seriously. When we make a promise with God, we can know that God will always keep His end and bless us with more than we could ever imagine for ourselves.

Anyway, I hope you all have had a great week and YAY it's ~fall~ so we can play Christmas music now!!!! 5 times more exciting as a missionary, the selection's a bit limited quoi.  

Gros Bisous!!

Sœur McOmber 

Views from the Operahouse in Paris. I thought this was the coolest thing ever because I'm a big fan of Phantom of the Opera. Kind of was expecting underground water tunnels and sliding mirror entrances to caves but this is cool too lol. They actually still do operas here (seems like something a classy lady would attend. Probably somebody that plays tennis and drinks tea)

My lil francophone babies

  

D'ima did her endowment for the first time!!! Was lucky enough to get to see her after at the Visitor's Center just beaming

Chill days at the Center 

Zone conference! The African woman on the right was an ami of the Paris Sœurs. I told her I liked her lipstick and she was like "oh do you want it?!?" She goes and gets her bright pink lipstick (so sweet) and she's like "please take this. It would look so good on you." Didn't even know what to say HA I swear Africans are the most warmest and selfless people, that's where the Celestial kingdom is gonna be, I know it.