Week 7: This Hermana is (FINALLY) in Houston!

My first TRIO companionship: Hermana Hoj and Hermana Burnham

This Hermana is (FINALLY) in Houston!

 I absolutely love it here! It is not quite as hot as Mexico, but I can feel a little bit more humidity. There are so many trees here! It's basically a forest! It is so bizarre to not have any hills or mountains- I keep looking at the top of the trees and the bottom of the sky and wondering what is missing. haha My system is SO much happier coming back to normal food (God Bless America), and this regular keyboard is so great. haha

We had to wake up at 1 am to make it to the Mexico City Airport in time for our flight, and as we were driving there the road we needed to take was blocked by a train accident so our driver went into PSYCHO mode (as if driving in Mexico City wasn't bad enough). It was like a horrible rollercoaster- veering and swerving and slamming to a stop and weaving through traffic and flying over speedbumps... I literally could not walk in a straight line when I got out of the car I was so sick! Luckily the airport was super easy and not scary like I dreaded it would be for six weeks. haha When we got to our layover in Dallas I had a Subway and never has a sandwich tasted so good in my life. But American Doritos are the worst! Flavorless!!! I'll be importing those from now on. haha I am so glad I had a few minutes to call you, Mom & Dad! All it took was hearing your voices and I was bawling. I love you so much. Everyone at the airport was so nice. There was this huge black guy who looked pretty rough but he checked on me to see if I was okay, and it turned out he was on our plane so we talked for like 45 minutes and he helped me with my bags and everything. He played in the superbowl and was wearing one of those massive rings. The other Hermanas thought I was nuts. hahah Just makin' friends everywhere I go!

We got off the plane and the Pingrees were right there to greet us with a big hug! They are so great! I love them so much! And then the very next person I saw was Elder COLE TANNER! I went to high school with him, he is a year younger than me, and we got our mission calls on the same day, to the same mission, and our farewells were on the same day! He left first, but had to go home and get surgery so we ended up actually getting to our missions on the exact same day. WHAT ARE THE ODDS??? haha We were freaking out.

The next morning when we went to the chapel to meet our new companions I saw  Hermana HOLLY FULLMER who I did Allyse's Bridal Fashion Team with! It was so much fun to see her and catch up with her! Then I ran into Hermana Lizzy Cotch who is best friends and roommates with Montana Brian and Savvy Nielson, so that was really fun!

They put me in a TRIO! So my new companions/trainers are Hermana Burnham and Hermana Hoj! I absolutely love them! I met Hermana Hoj at BYU once, she is friends with Christian Clark (who at the time was dating President Pingree's daughter who I also met... WHAT? Small world). We have this nice little honda we drive around and our apartments are clean and safe which is all I wanted. Our first night we knocked on my first door, only to find out she was a member! haha Again, what are the odds?! She was so sweet and we sat in her little home and chatted for a while. I understand 90% of everything said, but I cannot, for the life of me, remember how to conjugate in every tense yet. Drives me insane.

My first real day on my mission was Valentine's Day! They took me to my first tracting street, River Oaks. Our area is divided into extremely wealthy and extremely poor, and River Oaks is basically a trailer park with driveways. So we park at the end of this huge, long street and just start knocking. We skip the houses with American flags because if they speak English we can't teach them, only refer them to the English missionaries and they are really far away. So we go for the houses with shrines to the virgin Mary in the front yard. haha Every house has multiple dogs, so I saw probably every breed of dog known to man in the course of that street, not to mention about thirty feral cats running around. Luckily there was this nice german shepherd that liked us and followed us down the street and when the big boxers would growl and bark at us and get close to us, the german shepherd protected us. haha I love holding all of the little puppies we find. I miss Coco so much!

Then we taught English at the nearby hospital to a woman named Rosa. She is so sweet. It is a religious hospital so we are trying to figure out a way to sneak in some lessons with Rosa without breaking their rules. haha On the way there we saw a roadrunner! So crazy!

Then we went back to River Oaks and taught one family who told us to come back later, Mayte and Luis. I absolutely love them. We had a super good lesson- she was asking tons of really good questions and you could just see the cogs working in her mind. The Hermanas said that that was the first time that her husband had stayed for the lesson, so that was cool!

Then we had a lesson with J. Where do I even START with this kid... He is 18 and comes from a really rough background. I am not going to give details, even though his story is crazy, but basically he committed a serious crime in self defense and was bailed out of jail. He got out and realized that he needed to change, so he started reading the bible and praying. One day Hermana Burnham and Hermana Hoj went to his house and his parents told them they weren't interested, but as they were walking away, he pulled into his driveway and he said that he knew that they were missionaries so he leaned his head out the window and told them he wanted to be baptized- and just two days earlier the Hermanas had been fasting to find people who were ready for the gospel. So I got to meet him on my first day, and I learned more about the Mexican gangs, drug dealing, and cartel than really anything else that day. HAHA!  Nick, you would have loved him. 

Day two was great. I seriously love missionary work so much! We found this cute young girl named Vanessa to teach and it was such a powerful lesson. I shared Alma 32:28 with her and told her how I got my testimony of the Book of Mormon. She was so excited to read it, she literally grabbed it from my hands! She reminded me of the young women so much! I love you all and miss you all so much!

Then we taught Elisa who also lives on River Oaks. Her "residence" is the first that I have actually been apprehensious (more like terrified) to go into. We had to make it past three boxers tied to broken down cars to make it to her garage where we had to wade through so many decades of rotting junk and feral cats to get to her door, and then I basically just smiled and held my breath. The Hermanas laughed and said, "Just wait until it gets hot." 

Then we had J's baptism! It was supposed to start at six so we got there at four to set up chairs, do the programs and fill up the font, but no one came with a key until 5:45. Talk about STRESS! We were literally sprinting down the church hallway with buckets and bowls and pitchers of water trying to get the font filled just enough to make it work! hahah It went so well. So many people came to support him, and he was so so happy.

Then I made it to Sunday! I love our ward! It is an all Spanish ward, the majority of which are probably converts. Everyone was so welcoming and nice- here everyone kisses you on the cheek to greet you. They all love to tease me about my Spanish, but then they hear me speak and they tell me I'm actually doing really well! The elders that have been here for a year say that my Spanish is as good as theirs, but I know they are just being nice. The gift of tongues is MOST DEFINITELY real though, I've been able to say what I need to say in lessons and words that I literally don't even know. So cool.

We got to go into the primary for singing time, and I LOVED it! They are all precious. It was so sweet to hear them sing those songs, primary songs have the most powerful lyrics!

I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK! It is so much fun! I am happy and healthy and having the time of my life.

My new address is:

Hermana Courtney McOmber

26325 Northgate Crossing Blvd. #1621

Spring Texas 77373

I would love to hear from you!!!!!!!!

I love you all and miss you all so much!

Hermana McOmber

Last day in Mexico

Hermana Jensen and Hermana Zamora

The Nutella Bar at the CCM saved me!

The Book of CCM - I got to write in it before I left.

(A book of "scripture" that missionaries started writing in when the CCM began a few months ago)

My version of the Word of Wisdom

Goodbye CCM!!

In the USA!  Best sandwich of my life!

My first package!

The keystone of our religion!

My first day in Texas was Valentines Day!

Lots and lots of dogs (I love the puppies!)

My companions had a baptism my first week there!   Exciting day!

Sister Pingree (Mission President's wife) sent my family a picture text from the baptism.  Great surprise! 

 My family sent her back of picture of them from that same day at the temple.

Trees everywhere....but no mountains!

Big Sky Country!

My first area "The Woodlands"

Beautiful lakes all over

Week 6: One Day Left!

Always Matching Someone!!

Hi friends and family!

I literally do not know how to express to you my gratitude for your love and support, it means the world to me! I just sit here so overwhelmed because half of my brain is in Spanish, and half of it is in English and I just don´t have enough time to tell you how much I love you.

The fifth was the first official day of spring here! It is getting really hot! I am very grateful I don´t have to be here in the summer! 

Hermana Keri Stephenson got here on Wednesday, and although I tried so hard to be patient I finally hunted her down in her casa on Saturday for my package. haha I LOVED IT! Thank you so so so much! Getting mail is the best feeling in the world!

We finally got our ¨dork dots¨on Friday! In the Provo MTC you get the sticker on your name tag to show that it´s your first day, and apparently it´s kind of an embarrassing thing, but here we get them when we do in-field orientation on one of our last days and it´s a super sad thing! Everyone hugs you when they see your ¨dork dot.¨ haha 

Sunday was the dedication of the CCM! The workers worked from dawn to dusk every single day to make it look perfect. We had just finished dinner and were sitting on a bench outside of our classroom as a district, just trying to pass some time until we could walk across campus for the dedication, when Elder Dallin H Oaks comes right up to us and says hello! It was absolutely amazing to be in the presence of an apostle! He was so sweet and kept saying he was more excited to see us than we were to see him. He waved as he got in his car to drive to the dedication, and all the way down the street. What an incredible person! The spirit was SO STRONG just standing two feet away from him! A religion professor from BYU is here and documented the whole thing, so look for it in BYU Magazine or BYU TV or something. I am so grateful that the timing was so perfect for me to be here for the dedication! When I first arrived I was really sad to hear that they closed the temple just three days later for renovation, but if I had come even just those three days earlier I would have missed the dedication and meeting Elder Oaks! Hidden blessings!

So every day we teach one of our teachers- they come up with a ¨profile¨ of someone they know who is either a nonmember or convert and we teach them as if they were that person. So our teacher Hermano Cruz was our investigator ¨Raul¨ for the past few weeks, and yesterday he surprised us by bringing the real Raul for us to teach! I was petrified! Absolutely petrified. Hermana Jensen and I walk in to the room and he is this sweet, older hispanic man, with dark, leathery skin, deep brown eyes, and a quiet voice. We got talking to him and I felt the spirit stronger than I have in my entire life. He was so so sweet, and I could have talked to him for hours. He is a convert of eight months and has an insanely deep knowledge of the gospel already. We had an incredible discussion about faith, and I shared Alma 32 with him (I know for a fact that Heavenly Father helped me because I have never read that fast or that perfectly in Spanish before). Hermana Jensen shared Ether 12 with him and it was so cute because he grabbed her scriptures out of her hands and flipped to Moroni 7:5 which talks about knowing someone by their works, and he looked straight in my eyes and said, ¨You are an incredible person. You are here. You bring happiness and hope to people like me. You are a good person, because you are a missionary.¨ It was the nicest, most heartfelt thing anyone has ever said to me. I bore him my testimony, and of course cried, and he was so touched. That tender old Raul left such an impression on me. Once we got out of the lesson, Hermana Jensen and I embraced and wept. We immediately knelt and thanked our Heavenly Father for such a special experience. I have been terrified to go out in the field and teach real people, but Raul helped me see that Heavenly Father prepares people for us, and if we do our part as missionaries He will lead us to the people who will listen.

I know that I am here for a reason, at this time and at this place, with these people. It has only been six weeks, but my life has been significantly changed for the better. I am absolutely heartbroken to be leaving the CCM. I can honestly say that these have been some of the happiest times of my life. I leave in a little less than twelve hours for Texas, and I am really excited to see what the Lord has in store for me there!

I love you all and miss you all so much!

Te amo mucho!

Para Siempre Dios Este Con Vos

Hermana McOmber

It is officially Spring!  The trees are so beautiful!

Just met Elder Dallin H. Oaks at the CCM Dedication!

At the CCM Dedication with Hermana Zamora

Elder Graye Wasden and Elder Berger

District with our teacher Hermano Hector Trejo

Our beloved little Hermano Trejo

Elder Caden Nixon and Elder Watson

District with Hermano F Carlos Ortiz

Native elders we love!

Hermano Omar Cruz

Hermanas in our zone

Mexican hairspray - look like Medusa, smell like a man 

(Cologne in a can!)

Love this street we walk on every day

Elder Wilson and Elder Brett Fatheringham and Hermana Jensen

I got a package!!!

Branch Presidency

They call me "Barbie"!

I love them so much!

My district

Elder Whittaker

"Dork Dots"  - got dots on one of our last days at the MTC - everyone hugged us goodbye!

P Day is Pizza Day!

Week Five: One week left!

Hi my loves!

Can you believe I hit my one month mark a few days ago? So crazy! And in one week I will be on a plane on my way to Houston! I am heartbroken to be leaving the CCM, but I am so excited to get to Houston!

I am terrified of the airport, but luckily Hermana Jensen is going to my exact same mission so I won´t be alone! We are guessing we will fly home together as well! 

I GOT MY LETTER!!!!!!!!!!!! AHH!!!!!!!!!! I was skipping around and smiling the rest of the day. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This week as Hermana Jensen and I were teaching our investigator outside, I was bearing my testimony of tithing and out of the corner of my eye I could see an Elder with his mouth wide open waving at me. haha It was Elder Brett Tittle! It is so so SO nice to have people I know here.

I always get sick after every meal here- my system just rejects it, not sure if it´s the water or the food- so that, coupled with the stomach flu made for a pretty hard week. And I don´t really sleep because I consistently have bad nightmares and then I tense up and spend the rest of the night trying to stretch out my charley horses. And then the Hermanas next door are loud and stay up laughing and singing and do their laundry until 3am.   Pretty tired when the alarm goes off at 6 am.  But all you can do when you are sick is lay in bed by yourself all day long, so I said a prayer every morning to feel good enough to go to class, and I was blessed with just enough to make it through the day! I did NOT wait this long to get out here to miss a single second of it.

One morning I woke up and decided that if I wore my favorite outfit I would be more likely to have a better day.... WRONG. So Molle is this chicken cooked in chocolate, peanut butter, and hot sauce, and one afternoon when I was trying to eat a little lunch, I was so tired I accidentally bumped my fork and got an enormous stain all down the front of my favorite outfit. Soaked. Right down to my skin. Through all seven articles of clothing I had on {heaven help me when I get to Houston}. The natives were in tears telling me that there was no way on earth to get a Molle stain out. Well, it took seven whole days of soaking and scrubbing and washing and praying, but I got it out of everything! I was so proud of it, I wore the outfit again and showed them, and they were so shocked they all took pictures to send home to their madres. hahahahah

I seriously love the natives. I´m so sad we don´t have the time to get to know them better, they only stay here for a week or two. They all tell me I look like Taylor Swift and want pictures. haha! During gym this week I didn´t feel up to anything, so while the district played beach volleyball I would just take a nap on the grass. And one day this cute native Elder was so concerned that I would get burnt by ¨their sun¨ that he kept running over and waking me up. And they all still yell ¨te amo¨ ¨mi esposo¨ in the comedor. haha 

On Sundays we have movie night and we were watching ¨Finding Faith in Christ¨ and it´s one of the leaders computers hooked up to a projector on a giant screen in the auditorium. So the scene with the crucifixion had just ended and everyone was so somber and quiet, and suddenly the computer goes to sleep and the screensaver pops up... it was one of those hilarious awkward family cat photos. Everyone was dying. It was so funny! Something funny happens every single day, so I gave up the whole ¨funny of the week¨ because there are seriously just too many! Like, we have to have ¨companionship inventory¨ on a weekly basis, and you just tell your companion what they do that bugs you and you have to try and do it in a nice way.... but the elders usually fight. Literally ¨wrestle mania¨ in the beach volleyball sand pit. Änd sometimes we have district inventory when we need to get things off our chests. So we always joke and say ¨Distrito Inventario hasta la muerte.¨ {district inventory to the death} hahahahah

One day for class my favorite teacher, Hermano Trejo, had us run around campus and bear our testimonies with the trabajadores! It was such an incredible experience. Most of the workers here are not LDS {SUD, santos de los ultimos dias}, and they were all really busy trying to get everything ready for the dedication on Sunday. Some of them look like pretty shady characters, honestly, and we were so nervous to interrupt their work, but our teacher was pretty close by so we just took a deep breath and dove in. IT WAS AMAZING. Some of them were a little peeved that we were talking to them, but as we began to share our testimonies you could literally watch their hearts soften. The Spirit was so strong and they were so happy by the time we said goodbye. We probably talked to at least thirty workers, and now we have thirty new friends! 

I have only been out for a month, and I am not even in the field yet, but coming on a mission was the best decision I have ever made in my life. In beginning to lose myself in this work, I have found myself. In letting go of the things I thought made me happy, I have found true happiness. In leaving those I love, I have found love. I have made some of the greatest friends of my life in just five short weeks, and although I may not ever see them again in this life, they will be a constant source of support and I will cherish them for the rest of my life. I am sitting here, weeping at the thought of leaving them and this beautiful place, but the thought of bringing someone to the knowledge of their Savior is driving me forward and giving me the strength to finish out this last week.

I love you all so dearly, more than I can adequately express. Thank you for preparing me for this; for teaching me how to work hard, for teaching me the importance of prayer, for teaching me patience and kindness, for showing me more love than I could ever deserve, for supporting me with this decision, and for getting me here. I think about you every day. I teach an investigator the first lesson, about how the gospel blesses families, and I think back to family home evening every Sunday and how much I loved that. I see a skirt from Bella Ella and I think of Maren and the incredible friend she was. I see all of these crazy little birds and I think of Dad and how much he would love them. I hear an elder playing the piano like an angel and think of Mom freaking out and asking him to marry me. haha! I learn a really hard concept in Spanish and think of how Spencer could so easily figure it out, in a fourth of the time it would take me. I see the native elders playing soccer and think of how much fun Nick would have with them. I see little stray puppies running around when we drive to the visitors center and I think of my sweet little Coco. I read the theme and I think of my precious young women. I hear cute accents and immediately think of Philippa and Kseniya. I see Elder Hansen and think of Kailin and her sweet little baby on the way. I hear a song on the radio in a car that whizzes by and can picture Claire and I driving to a dance on the weekend in her fun little green car, having the best time. I put on my blue blazer and I think of Rachel and Gioia and all the good they are doing in Europe in their matching blue blazers. I do not exaggerate when I say I think of you all, every single day. 

I love you and miss you all so much!

Para siempre Dios este con vos

Hermana McOmber

freezing cold classrooms

"Book of CCM" 

(Humorous new 'scriptures' being written by the missionaries and passed down each week)

Beautiful butterflies, birds and flowers everywhere

New lockers - broke the first day!

Great friend, Elder McComb from BYU!

We are flying!

We absolutely love studying out in the sunshine

Finding such amazing friends here!

I love Sister Zamora!  We are soul sisters!

We love playing tennis

Tan lines!

Picture of some of the first elders at the CCM.

Found the elder that was a BYU student known for making videos of kissing girls at BYU.

 (Blowing him a kiss!)

Got a letter!!

We match all the time

Best Hermanas in the CCM!

It is Fast Sunday, we are starving, and we think we look like Neopolitan Ice Cream!

I have become friends with the Elder I spilled orange juice on - haha!

Teaching Family Home Evening

Feeling like me again!  Got to paint my nails!

One week left......