Aug 29, 2016

Hello everyone! This week has been a blast! Elder Crowther and I are going out and talking to everyone! I don't remember if I talked about her yet but Elder Crowther contacted this girl named Solange in a Dunkin Doughnuts, we taught her the restoration there but had to leave for another lesson. We got in contact with her and met with her this week at the church with another member. She had done a lot of reading and homework of her own and came loaded with questions. We answered them all and then taught the Plan of Salvation. Afterward we talked a lot about baptism and she has accepted September 25th as a day to work toward. Super cool lesson. The Elders in the Jersey City Heights Area Contacted two cool people named Rasheem and Jennifer. We had an awesome lesson with them and Jennifer's mother Debby. After talking about the Restoration of Jesus Christ we told them we will be holding a baptismal service on the 25th and asked them if they wanted to get baptized. Jennifer looked at Rasheem and said, "Are we ready baby?" He said, "Yeah, we're ready" Then she said, "Alright the 25th is the day." We turned to Debby and asked, "what about you Debby?" Debby said, "If Gods with it, I'm with it." Hahaha such an awesome lesson." Update on Alex: Alex is in Mexico now and doing well! He went to church and said he loved it. We also talked about him going to the Mexico City Temple soon! Last but definitely not least, on Sunday the primary president wanted Elder Garfield, Elder Crowther, and Me to dress up as Book of Mormon Prophets and act out some stuff and they guessed who we were. Elder Crowther was Nephi, Elder Garfield was Abinadi, and I was Alma All I can say is I am loving it here in Jersey City! Much Love, Elder McOmber

Aug 22 letter

Hello everyone! I love you all and I appreciate the prayers! We stopped by someone's house who had not been to church in over a year, just make sure all was well with him and see if there was anything wrong and if we could help out in any way, turns out he has moved to West Africa! His son, Albert, is living in the residence now and we were able to teach him the message of the restoration and we will be back again later today. On Tuesday during district meeting, the senior couple did a fun game with all of us (Picture and video included) I love them so much! I went on exchange with another new missionary named Elder Findlay. He is a really good guy. He is from Pocatello Idaho and he had never seen a sky scraper before! I took him into Newport and we contacted people at the waterfront. The whole time he was just saying, "Elder, I have never seen anything like this before, this is amazing!" Hahaha I loved it. Update on Gillian: she is awesome, we had a couple lessons with her and Jahadah. We are hoping that we can go to the Philadelphia Temple open house with her. She is intrigued with the idea of temples and wants to go. That is pretty much it when it comes to highlights from the week, but still a really good week full of blessings. Much love from New Jersey Elder McOmber

Aug 15 letter

It has been an awesome week! Jahadah is continuing to be so active with the missionaries! She is with all three sets weekly! She has been especially helpful with Gillian. Gillian is very shy so it is really good for her to have a solid friend helping her along. We had an awesome Word of Wisdom lesson with both of them in Newport. Gillian came to church for the fist time on Sunday! So happy about that, she bought a new dress for it and she said she couldn't sleep the night before. You could just see how nervous she was. But Jahadah made her feel welcome and took her around with her. After church she said she really enjoyed it! It was Alex's last Sunday in jersey city, he is off to Mexico on Wednesday. I am bummed because I thought I had more time with him but it's okay because I know it isn't really goodbye. I will be able to skype him as well as Facebook him. I made my special desert and we sat and had a very nice gospel discussion that included many Gospel principals. Those are all the major updates from this week! Love you all, Elder McOmber 1 and 2 Me on top of an Elephant after the lesson with Gillian and a picture next to where we had the lesson 3. Picture with Alex on top of the church 4. The last hug I gave him in Jersey City

letter from Aug 8

It has been an awesome week! Update on Jahadah: We have three sets of missionaries in our ward and every single day this week she went out with at least one of the sets of missionaries to teach a lesson! She is getting very excited for her mission! She has introduced one of her friends to us, her name is Madavi. Madavi is so cool, she was a Hindu and she had lost her faith in God. Jahdah introduced her to us and we taught her about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She ate it right up, she is really diving into the New Testament and the Book of Mormon because she really wants to know who Jesus Christ is. It is so cool to work with someone's faith from the ground level! Update on Alex: he is doing well! He was given the priesthood yesterday at church! He invited us to his apartment to have a few bean, chorizo, and cheese burritos. Soooo good. He told us that he had to go to Get some more undergrad work to get done in Mexico. So he is leaving on August 15. I am not going to lie I was really bummed because I thought I was going to have 10 more weeks with him. I am sure He will be great and stay strong in Mexico and I will be able to stay in contact with him! Yesterday was my favorite Testimony meeting I had been to in my life! To start off, Jayla and Rashee were at church, super awesome to see them there. It was Fast and testimony meeting. Sister Sabo bore her testimony because to was the 9th anniversary of her joining the church, she talked about how it was such a blessing in her life and that she was never turning back, she also said it was the 24th anniversary of her being sober. Then princess got up and shared her testimony of her conversion experience. She talked about how she had been smoking crack for 30 years and how the church took her from a life of drug dealing, getting jumped, homeless, being dragged by cars, to living a godly life, being drug free, and having true friends that were there for her. She said, "The atonement works from the inside out!" It was truly amazing to hear her complete turn around and to see how happy she was about it. She then pulled out her harmonica and started singing amazing grace. A Brother who had been visiting for the past 3 weeks from Utah, got up and said that this was his last Sunday in this ward. He said it was the best ward he had ever been in, and that it was definitely the most powerful testimony meeting he had ever been a part of! He wasn't wrong. Latrinda Ross got up and bore her testimony on how awesome the leadership has been in this ward. Bishop Thompson is an amazing bishop. To cap it all off we saw an old women that we had contacted a couple days before walk in, we had told her about the meeting and so she knew it was a testimony meeting. She got up and bore a testimony about how great God is and how he has totally turned her life around. In third hour I was with Elder Garfield in Young men's where Brother Dyer did a very real and in depth lesson where he talked about this amazing experience. He is a Stage dancer for Pop Artists (One of the most physically fit guys I have met) He had been given an opportunity of a lifetime and was told to think about, He then got home and realized that he needed to do some scripture study, after that he prayed and said, "God, I really want this job, but I want you to know that If this is something I shouldn't do then tell me. Nothing in this life is worth stopping my eternal progression and coming to church to take the sacrament feeling awful." He said that he didn't accept the job but later he was given even better opportunities that allowed his life to grow even more. I love this ward so much!

better be ready!!! Elder McOmber is your new companion!!!!

Hello everyone! Pretty eventful week! On Monday, Elder Woodward and I went around and he said his goodbyes to everyone, he had the pleasure of serving in this ward 3 times over his mission so he was super close with them all! On Tuesday I met my trainee! (Video of us meeting at the end/attached) that experience was the moment that we found out that we were companions. He is the man hahaha he wants to talk to everyone! On our first day we were sitting in the car at a red light and he rolled down the window and yelled, "hey! We have a message about Jesus Christ do you want to hear it!" We talk to a lot of people hahaha He is fresh out of Utah and never lived anywhere else, he gets really surprised when we talk to someone who has never heard of Mormons or the Book of Mormon. He is a little scared of the hood but I think he will get over it. He is awesome! We taught this really cool women named Rosemary and her fiancé named Zubin. A lot of Rosemary's family recently joined the church, she was living with her family in Idaho for a few months and went to church a few times there. She has since come home and is meeting with us. She has invited Zubin to meet with us as well and things are going really well! We also met a women named Lubna who is a semi-practicing Muslim. She was interested in hearing more about our church so we set up a time that we could meet up. We brought Alex and the lesson went super well, Alex shared his conversion experience and testified of the Book of Mormon. Soooo cool. That's it for the big stuff this week, love you all Elder McOmber