Hermana in Houston: Week 17: 4 Months!

Hi loves!

I hit my 4 month mark this week! Ahh!

What a hard week. haha Luckily it flew by! I have been down in the dumps with the worst cold ever! I've had this horrible cough for the entire transfer and this week my body literally just shut down. I went out and kept going like normal one day (let's be honest, if I can dance on a broken bone then I can do ANYTHING), but unfortunately it is pretty hard to be a missionary when you are sick. You have to hug and kiss people, chat with them, teach them, and you have to look nice and inviting while doing it! My cough is the opposite of nice and inviting. haha So the next day I stayed home to rest and try to reach the doctor to get some medicine... but I couldn't sleep knowing there was so much that needed to be done, so I deep cleaned the house. haha Rough week.

Joe Jensen, this one's for you! My cashier at Target last Monday was named "Decourtney." I took a picture so there is proof that I officially do not have the most ghetto name in the world. (People, get on Youtube and watch "100 Most Ghetto Names." Apparently "Courtney" is more ghetto of a name than "Watermelon-aniqua." hahah)

I finished reading the quad this week! It took me 4 weeks to read the Book of Mormon, and three months total for the quad. Best feeling ever! Can't wait for the General Conference Ensign to come out!

This week we had Interviews with President! President Pingree is the most Christlike man I have ever met. Wow. He said EXACTLY what I needed to hear and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I am a bit of a perfectionist (HA) and he helped me understand that I really am doing a good job as a missionary.

So one of the families we teach is X and her husband, and her brother E and his wife, and all of their kids. We only stopped by for a quick lesson, but it was a miracle that their kids were already in bed and that all four were home from work, so I followed the prompting to teach them the Evangelio lesson, which covers Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost and Endure to the End. When I started talking about the Gift of the Holy Ghost, E's head snapped up and he had this huge look of shock on his face. He and X spoke super rapidly for a couple seconds and he turned to me and said, "We are members of your church!" WHAT?!? No wonder they were such golden investigators. hahah X and E were baptized as youth in Honduras, but went inactive. X came to church on Sunday! They will be a huge support in helping their spouses and children join the church. So crazy!

The story above is the reason it is so interesting to be a stateside spanish speaking missionary. South American missionaries go and baptize 100 people at a time, but many of those people never go to church again, and then they come to the United States and can't find the church because they don't speak English. There are SO MANY people here searching for the truth but "know not where to find it!" And they're already baptized and just need to be reactivated! Ahh!

One day we were walking down River Oaks and we saw this cute old man sitting in front of his house, so we went over and said hi. He is this old, leathery, skinny, blind man with two teeth. He is from from Mexico. He had us pull up some chairs and grab some water and sit and chat with him. He was SO sweet. I absolutely LOVED talking to him. Then we sang "Grand Eres Tu" for him and he just started sobbing and praising God. It was one of the best experiences of my mission so far. If all I do on my mission is help people feel like he felt, then that is enough.

One day we were trying to visit people and no one was answering their door, per usual. It was 8:30 so we had half an hour and no one to talk to! We have a saying in the mission, "If you are craving a mango, go get a mango." Hermana Burnham was craving tater tots, so we drove over to Sonic. haha! We ended up meeting this cool kid and had a really great conversation with him about the church!

Church as a missionary is so crazy. I can't wait to come home and actually sit and enjoy church. haha We stand at the doors and greet everyone that walks in, then we ran up to the stand to sing prelude music with the ward choir, then we ran down to sit with our investigators and less-actives that came (YAY!), then we whispered to them everything that was going on, then we ran up to sing another song with the choir, then we finished whispering everything for the rest of sacrament meeting, then we herded them all into the next room for class, then we ran and did singing time in junior primary, then we ran and herded them to Relief Society and Elders Quorum, then we ran and led singing time in senior primary, then we ran and made a list for relief society to sign up to feed us, then we ran and talked to the Stake President, then we ran and picked up the food a member made for us out in her car, then we ran back in and tried to get all of the right kids back to the right parents and find our investigators, and then we have to thank everyone who signed up to feed us and say goodbye to everyone. It is MADNESS.

It was so amazing to have our investigator W at church! He is so ready! He loved Sacrament meeting, and the Stake President found us after Sunday School and told us to get him a baptismal date right after church, so we were stoked! But when we walked in to the end of Elder's Quorum, we found him totally surrounded by people all trying to talk to him and our ward mission leader was trying to pry open the doors of the baptismal font... LITERALLY. Needless to say, he is overwhelmed and will not be setting a date any time soon.

Funnies of the Week:

Passed a house when we were tracting this week that had FAKE FLOWERS planted in their front yard. Yep.

Ask an Argentine to say "February."

Saw a car with a Utah license plate and a BYU Alumni sticker and literally wanted to jump out of my car and hug them.

I love you all so much! Thank you for your love and support!

Haz lo justo!

Hermana McOmber