Hermana in Houston: Week 20: It's raining, it's pouring!

Hi loves!

What a week. I finally went to the doctor and hopefully now I will be on the up and up. President Pingree came over and gave me a blessing one night, and it was absolutely amazing. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH! He and Sister Pingree are two of the most incredible people I have ever met. They take such good care of me and love me so much. I don't think they will ever understand how much they've helped me and impacted me.

Hermana Glauser (my companion) is one of the Sister Training Leaders so I get to go on Exchanges often! So much fun! Tonight Hermana Koch is coming over and spending the day with me and I am SO EXCITED! I met her at BYU through Montana Brian! Can't wait to tell you all about it. This week Hermana McCleary came over for exchanges! It was such a fun day! She is one of the most unique people on the face of the planet. She has a pet BEAR for crying out loud! hahaha We had such a blast together. I learn so much on exchanges, I love love love it.

One night our ward mission leader, Hermano Escobar met up with us for a lesson. The investigators weren't home, and it was almost the end of the night, so I took Hermana Glauser and Hermano Escobar to meet Sabaloos (my sweet Pakistani friend) for the first time. It was so much fun! Sabaloos is always so excited to see me and just hugs and kisses me! She has a picture of Hermana Burnham and I as her phone background and she wanted to show it to everyone. She of course got right to work on preparing us a Pakistani dish, and I managed to convince her to only make us one thing. haha! Luckily her husband George was there and he helps me translate a little. She made us my favorite dish, these vermicelli noodles in a sweet sauce with pistacios and coconut. It was scalding hot and she just heaped it on a plate for each of us and kept dishing more on with each spoonful we ate. haha It was so much fun to have Hermano Escobar see what we really do as missionaries. We are in the homes of people who we can hardly communicate with, eating HUGE amounts of food they literally force feed us, and you just LOVE them immediately. He was so touched by that experience, it was so neat.

It rained a lot this week, so River Oaks flooded, per usual. This week was especially bad though! Usually we can just walk across everyone's driveways to make it down the street, but the water had reached everyone's porches! We ran into a boy that we always say hi to, and he led us through the woods behind the houses to get to the end of the street. I was praying SO HARD! hahah J does not like us being in River Oaks because he used to live there and he has told us some serious horror stories about what goes on there, and I'm sure we haven't even heard the worst of it. So as this kid is leading us into the woods I was just laughing to myself, "If only J could see me now!" (Don't stress, I would NOT have followed this kid if I hadn't felt 100% sure that we were going to be okay). It was such an adventure. haha! Everyone in the neighborhood was passing us, trying to get to work or pick up their kids from school, so we got to meet so many new people! Never a dull moment as a missionary!

The best part of this week was when we stopped by to say hi to F and S, young girls in a menos activos family in our area that we just adore. Their parents are separated and we have been trying so hard to help them. So we walk in and not only their mom was home from work but their dad was there too! IT WAS THE FIRST LESSON THEY HAVE EVER HAD AS A FAMILY ALTOGETHER!!!! AHH!!! I literally could not believe my eyes, and just beamed through the whole lesson. Miracle, miracle, miracle! The night before I was so sad because I could not figure out how we were going to help this family, and Heavenly Father showed me how! We taught them the importance of family scripture study and prayer and the spirit was so strong! They all participated and it went so so so well! I still can't believe it!

Funnies of the week:

Watching Hermano Escobar eat Pakistani food.

Visiting the old folks:

John: "I know my phone number!"

Me: "Wow, John! I'm impressed! That's a lot to memorize!"

John: "Well, aren't you going to ask me for it?"

Me: "Ohh! haha Can I have your number?"

John: "NOPE!"

hahahah I love him so much

We kept seeing dead fish on the road and sidewalks, and we were so confused for the longest time. Then we used our brains and remembered all of the flooding.

I was describing the CCM to a member family at dinner this week and they made a joke about the natives only coming up to my waist (holding their hand at the height of the table) but I laughed and told them that literally is how tall Hermano Trejo was. They DIED laughing. I am a giant here.

I gave a little boy a CTR ring and was he wanted a picture of it, so I told him to do a thumbs up. He couldn't figure out how to do a thumbs up, and his grandma kept telling him, "One finger! One finger!" Unfortunately, the one finger the ring was on happened to be his middle finger.... he walked around and showed everyone his one finger with his CTR ring the whole rest of the lesson. "Look what the missionaries taught me!" hahahahahah

I love you all so much!

Thank you for your prayers and support! They mean so much!

I'd love to hear from you!

Hermana McOmber