Hermana in Houston: Week 10: Love getting mail!

Hi friends and family! Another week down in the mission and feeling great! It was another hard week, but it is amazing to see the blessings of missionary work!

I literally cannot believe this week is Ballroom Nationals at BYU! That was the center of my universe for over a decade, so to completely have forgotten about it is unreal! haha Good luck to all of my friends competing! Love you and miss you all! I was asked to be in charge of an activity and teach ballroom to the Relief Society of my ward, and I feel in no way qualified to teach these women any form of latin dance. HA! It's cool to see that I am able to use that talent here on my mission. The other day I was talking to Bishop Biche about dance and he grabbed my shoulders and said "You will dance again." It was such a powerful moment. He talked about how much I could influence people for good with that talent, and he almost talked me into it. haha We'll just have to wait and see.

Let me take you through a typical day here on the mission:

6:15 wake up

6:30 exercise, we are lucky and have a gym in our apartment complex

7:00 get ready and eat breakfast

8:00 personal study

9:00 companion study

10:00 training

11:00 language study

12:00 lunch

1:00 -9:00 we tract, meet referrals, teach investigators and less actives

9:00 plan for the next day and update books

10:30 bedtime (FINALLY)

I have come to love this schedule!

There are so many perks to being a stateside missionary! We get nice cars, safe apartments, cell phones, ipads (soon, hopefully!), grocery stores, restaurants, computers, everything! But it still feels like a foreign mission! haha I love being Spanish speaking - we get the different culture, different food, and we are able to learn the language. Here we have to learn Mexican Spanish as well as keep up with those from Honduras, Argentina, Cuba, El Salvador, Peru, and Uruguay who all speak COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SPANISH. I love it! I really want to learn Portuguese, I think it is the most beautiful language!

My bishop is from Argentina and we went and had dinner with his family this week. So much fun! I have so much respect for missionaries who go to Argentina (yes Ryan, I am talking to you), these people speak SO FAST! haha His wife is the cutest little thing (another Hispanic ginger, what??) and she is such a hoot. She is so animated when she talks and she always does that little finger flick thing (so glad I learned that in high school Spanish class). She made us tons of traditional food; empanadas, sandwhich rolls, pizza (to die for) and cake. It was so much fun! Usually dinner appointments are only supposed to be for an hour, but they didn't stop talking for three hours straight! Nonstop! haha

This week was really hard because you plan and plan and plan, and everything falls through. Tracting is just exhausting and ineffective, and dangerous, honestly (lots of dogs loose on the streets). We have been praying so hard to find a new family to teach, and at the end of the week we ended up finding ONE and getting a referral for a SECOND!!! MIRACLE MIRACLE MIRACLE!!! 7 NEW INVESTIGATORS IN 3 DAYS?!? AHHH!!!

I've learned that members are KEY in missionary work. So go find the missionaries in your ward and FEED THEM, DRIVE THEM, AND GIVE THEM REFERRALS.

Friday was the best day of my mission by far. I was able to go on exchanges with the Sister Training Leader Hermana Driesel. WOW. She is exactly the kind of missionary I want to become. Spending a day with her was so therapeutic! It was so refreshing to be an equal partner with her for a day. I learned so much! We found her three new families to teach and I met some wonderful members in her area! I was able to teach a whole lesson by myself and it went SO WELL! I was on cloud nine! I knew I could do it if I just got the chance! When we went home that night and planned she was so sweet. She told me that I was fantastic. That I was doing absolutely unreal with the language. That I did such a good job with the people. That I taught really well. That I was here for a reason. That Heavenly Father does not expect me to be perfect, and that He is proud of me. BEST DAY EVER.

Last night was so hard. J is a less active that we teach and we just love her. She lives in a little trailer with her five year old, M, and her nine month old, J. Her landlord gave her 30 days to move and sell her trailer because they are shutting down the trailer park. She literally has no friends and none of her family is willing to help. She isn't legal, and the "father of her children" refuses to help her. She has no money, nowhere to live, no one to help her. She told us everything last night and we just wept together. It broke my heart. There is literally nothing we can do for her and it was a horrible, horrible feeling. We read her scriptures and sang hymns to her, and said good-bye. So hard. Being a missionary, you have the opportunity to feel a portion of God's love for others, and see them as He sees them. We can only hope that this experience with bring her closer to God, and not push her farther away from the church, and it helped me see that it is her choice which direction it will go.

I finally had it... the dream. The dream where you come home and are at the airport, coming down the escalator. You see your family. You run to hug them... you wake up. Apparently it's a common thing out here. NOT FUN.

Daylight savings is SO ROUGH as a missionary. Losing that precious hour was so hard. haha but now we get an hour more of light at night to knock doors!

Funnies of the week:

Everyone here drives a Dodge Charger or a Mustang. EVERYONE.

"Let's set a comp goal to do something CRAZY! ...Like write a poem!" -Hermana Hoj

I said, "Te pedimos que bendigas este familia con felicidades..."

or "We ask that you bless this family with congratulations" instead of happiness. haha

and the best...

I told a member that after my mission I was going to finish school and caZar (hunt) for a man, instead of caSar (marry) a man. I mean, it's BYU.

Love you all SO MUCH!

Hermana McOmber