Bien rentrée

Salut mes amis! 

       Bittersweet moment. I'm home everyone. Made it all 18 months and I'm so full of gratitude for the opportunity I had to serve - even with the quarantine making things weird at the end there. My dad asked me this morning if I would do it all again and without hesitation I would. 

        What have I learned? There's a lot of little things like how to live with people, how to navigate a massive metro system, how to cook African beignets, etc. But I am so overwhelmed with the most important lessons I learned about the character of God. He loves His children so much. He loves me. I can see His love for complete strangers and I see His hand in my life whenever I look for it. 

       Even on the flight home, I had 5 separate flights and was just praying on making it home with my 3 overweight bags (my parents had planned on coming to pick things up before the coronavirus exploded). We got there and they let all my bags pass for free. I also forgot my proof of residence and the kindest airport security of my life let me through when technically I was illegally entering the U.S. (don't report me). The plane took off and I was just looking over France and thinking about all the memories as a sad mess. Up until the last moment of my mission, my Heavenly Father watched over me and took me in His arms. 

I love my mission. I love this church and I know it's true. I know that God and my Savior Jesus Christ love us a whole lot. 

Avec beaucoup beaucoup d'amour 

Sœur McOmber 

À la prochaine!! 

If you want my new email it's morganmcomber914@gmail.com. Big thank you to everyone that has been supportive of me throughout this crazy adventure. Je vous aime tous!! 

Last candid of the Bourroux

People think we eat lots of French food, but really the thing I've eaten the most on my mission is these 5€ kebabs

My last p-day exploring Paris. Really gonna miss this

Our ami Elise!! She calls me Barbie - not even sure she knows my real name. My last p-day we cooked empanadas with our elders and invited her to come. She sang Tahitian songs with us.

Homemade Tortillas

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't written in so long! Like a lot of us I feel I don't have any fresh and exciting updates. I miss nature but I think we're getting to the end of confinement which is exciting. Have to say I'll miss dearly my sisters I've been sharing an apartment with for 3 weeks- I don't think our neighbors will miss me though HA we laugh so hard sometimes they bang the ceiling with a broom (we yodel sometimes as well, we're working on it).

         We've cooked so much too, it's amazing. We eat so fancy. I literally put lemon zest on something the other day AND we made homemade tortillas last night, complete with empanadas made by my Hispanic companion, Sœur Sandres. 

Recipe of the week: Homemade tortillas  

Whisk equal parts veg oil, water, milk. Add flour and combine with your hands until it's not sticky. Roll out and cook on salted pan. 

Note: We also used this dough for empanadas and used about 1c. of water. It makes a ton. 

      These past few weeks have given us a lot of quality time to study. I feel so spiritually enriched. We've also been blessed with video calls from Sœur Eubanks and Elder Wilcox in these past weeks. And the women's conference was so so good (~I invite you~). One thing Elder Wilcox mentioned that surprised me was that Mosiah 3:19 is the most quoted scripture during general conference in the past 50 years. 

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

It takes effort to overcome the natural man. It takes effort to change. If it were in fact easy, everybody would do it. It builds character to realize we are completely dependent on God- like a child. He can refine us and help us become the Saints we want to be if we seek to include Him in our lives. 

J'espère que tout le monde va bien! Vraiment 

Je vous aime ❤️

Sœur McOmber 

Our homemade tortillas. Mexican food is real hard to come by in France so this moment was sacred.

Brad Wilcox! He's so cute, he got set apart in the Young Men's Presidency and was sad he couldn't hug the prophet. "I hug everything, even trees!"

Schnell, from Africa, showing us her banana trees. Her and her brother read the Book of Mormon every day and write down all their questions.❤️ I have no doubt they will be baptized. 

Got a call from her the other day and realized she changed her profile picture to me HA 

My adorable companion. I love Sœur Sandres, such a selfless, giving, soul. Also, she makes me laugh so hard I'm always stomping (truly, our neighbors detest us) 

Walks with the gang 

I think I could stand to be quarantined here for a while

Randomly going through fiches and realized somebody I found from online teaching last February just got baptized! I only did online referrals for a month, but voila God uses technology to accomplish some pretty amazing miracles. 

Le paradis

Hola mis amigos !!

      It is so good to be back in Versailles with all my friends I can't even express. The sisters here take such good care of me wow...Sœur Curtis legit made us a turkey yesterday. I remember being worried in the beginning of my mission about being surrounded by sisters - I never grew up with them. But I am so so thankful for how much they look out for me and it's good to be back with the family. On rigole bien. 

       My new comp, Sœur Sandres is super sweet too. She likes to talk about psychology experiments (many involving cockroaches) and viruses so I'm learning many things. With all 4 of us in the apartment, we laugh all the time and it's basically a miracle anything gets done HA...today Sœur Sandres saw a bug and whipped out her chanclas to hit it about 40 times - seeing new sides of her every day <3 "those can lay eggs on your head y'know. Ya'll gonna be callin' me to apologize when you get parasites."

        Last night, we had a spiritual veillée with our mission presidency and I loved something Frère Gaston said. He talked about how the results of our work are up to God and how our efforts are what really counts. I feel like this is so relevant because sometimes it's easy to sit back when we feel the work is going smoothly. It works also vice versa for the missionaries who work hard but see nothing- especially in relation to statistics. Even Jesus Christ couldn't save the whole world, he could only open the door. But God sees every effort we make in becoming, growing and serving- regardless of the outcome. 

Je vous aime et Dieu vous aime <3

Sœur McOmber

Every day we get an hour to go on a walk outside and the whole world is out?? Corona has not changed a thing which is...slightly concerning.

Sœur Bourroux bought us all chocolate eggs for Easter

Gordon Ramsey has a restaurant here! Of course it's right outside the gates of the Versailles castle. It's also a hotel and spa at like $1000 a night

Still here

Bonjour tout le monde! 

        So pretty much everybody knows at this point that many missionaries all over the world have gone home. I kind of expected to be one of them but no we're still kickin!! President is taking our équipe out of Troyes and bringing us back to the Center though. Doesn't change much because we are still in captivity, but it's definitely a blessing to have other sisters around to lean on when things get hard. 

        I have to say I desperately needed to hear the message of Elder Holland Sunday morning. When there is no hope, we are left with the flames of the inferno. I was kind of tired of hearing messages of positivity about a week ago as I was really struggling with this. I had never missed my family more, I felt like I wasn't a productive missionary, I was trapped in the middle of nowhere and I couldn't even speak my native tongue. Even though I knew people had it worse, that knowledge didn't make the burden any lighter. I just felt nobody understood. But the truth of the gospel is that there is always hope. There is always somebody who understands. And though I preach that a lot, I really felt the truth of that message this week. Because of Christ, our sadness is not forever- even if the situation seems to be. There is always something to hope for- whether it's the hope of a brighter future or the hope that God has a plan carefully catered to each of our needs. 

       

I love you all and hope you are doing well. Thank you to all those who pray for the missionaries, your prayers are much felt <3

Sister McOmber

EvERyBoDy StAy CaLM

Welp, this is it guys 

       In the space of three days, we got quarantined, I got emergency transferred, and I got a new Francophone companion. I'm on my second outbound about 100 miles south of Paris. We lost many missionaries and all of our senior couples except the Bourroux. I can't believe how drastically things have changed with such short notice. When we heard we were going to be quarantined, I honestly didn't think I'd make it 24 hours. The stir crazy is coming for me. 

       After I said bye to Sœur Busch, Antony, and potentially the VC forever, I was a puddle of sadness. I was on the train home dramatically looking out the window and when we finally got to Troyes, there was a giant rainbow. My cute little Tahitian companion was ecstatic, laughing and looking out the window with me. And I realized that, everything is gonna be okay. This simple little rainbow I took as a sign from God that this is all part of the plan. He loves me and He will help me get through these weeks even if we have to work differently than usual. 

       I know that God is with us and I have been inspired by how many members of the church and even just members of society are coming together to overcome this. I have a lot of respect for those that continue to work because their profession is necessary for us. I saw a lot of elderly at the grocery store yesterday and pray that God will protect them for the sacrifices they're making for society.

Que Dieu vous protège ! For anybody else that is quarantined and stir crazy, feel free to send me an email. All voice memos will be gladly accepted <3

Sœur McOmber 

Quarantine preparations. I moved immediately after this to find my new apartment only had a can of soup. This is good preparation for college.

Versailles 

Love my Sœur Busch <3 wasn't a long time but it was a good time 

Troyes with Sœur Tuhoe 

Did baptisms with Emma!! It was my first time doing baptisms at the Paris temple and it was beautiful! All of the art is so French- It's like the Louvre but all these impressionist paintings of Jesus and nature. There's water lilies everywhere in the stained glass and it's gorgeous. I was so happy to get to go with her, she loves the temple.

In loving memory of the district of Melun <3 

They love tiny things here. Even the cartons of milk are tiny. So here's some tiny dollhouse things, the tiny carton of eggs is 35€90, this is like a rich person's retirement hobby 

Marie Thérèse had swollen feet so we brought Jesus to her this week

Senior missionaries are the backbone of our mission so I hope we get them back as soon as possible. Until then, they are all home safely and waiting to hear more news. Love all the memories that I have from working with them and hearing their stories.

The gang hit the wax museum this week, so here's some French people and some not French people 

Coco Chanel

Napolean 

Leonardo Da Vinci

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Paris Saint Germain) 

Mahatma Gandhi 

Louis XIV (King in Versailles)

Marie Antoinette before the guillotine

Michael Jackson, bien sûr 

Victor Hugo (wrote Les Misérables) 

French chef, I like him because he reminds me of Gusteau in Ratatouille 

The Pope

Leonardo DiCaprio 

"Let's build a wall" 

Ice Age - a classic 

Ryan Gosling

This is in fact not a wax human but Sœur Sandres :))