First week in Princeton, NJ

It's been a crazy week! 

Tuesday was crazy! I through all my stuff into bags Monday night and Tuesday morning and we were off to transfers. Before I left I threw my shoes that had holes in them on the power line outside my house ( it's a thing here in Jersey City, picture attached) at transfers I met my new companion Elder Brinkerhoff, he is a good guy and we are going to have a lot of fun! (Video attached) 

The rest of the week was A TON of just talking to people, knocking on doors, and street boarding. Just basically anything to find people to teach. We knocked our own complex saying that we just moved into the complex and that we were looking for service opportunities. We met 2 super cool people. The first was Pat. Nice lady who has had some recent health problems so she can't leave the house too much and needs help walking her dog. We walked her dog for ten minutes and then came back and shared a spiritual message. She wants us to come back every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to walk her dog and said she would be interested in hearing all our messages! The second person was Lisa, she said that she worked at a senior center where they needed more people to come, play cards and talk with the people, we told her we would love to do that! After a while of talking the topic of the Book of Mormon came up and we talked to her about how important it is. She told us she would read it and was open to have us come back to tell her more about it. Things are looking up

Sunday we met the ward, and I love them! Definitely different from Jersey City though haha things are a lot more casual. We are going to be meeting with a lot of members this week! Gillian got baptized!!! I couldn't go because I was a whole state away but I heard it was amazing. Elder Crowther told me that the spirit was SO strong and everyone felt it. It has been a long road getting Gillian the opportunity to be baptized and I am so blessed to have been a part of that process!

I am happy to be here in Princeton, It is sooooo beautiful and I am very excited for all the possibilities!

Love you all,

Elder McOmber

Special shoutout to my cousin Ethan Thompson! He goes into the missionary training center this week!

This week was my last week in jersey city. I am going to miss this place so much! After serving here for 7 months, I have been called to train a new missionary in Princeton, New Jersey! Gonna be a blast.

I've had some amazing times in this area. I said my goodbyes to all the members, the hardest goodbye was probably Rashee, Gillian, and Jahadah. Luckily I will be seeing them tonight before I leave tomorrow. I have been so blessed to have gotten to know them so well. I look forward to all of the amazing things God has in store for me and for them!

If anyone knows about Princeton New Jersey let me know!

Much love!

Elder McOmber

The district at our last district meeting

October 8, 2016- I love this missionary!

Slower week this week. Lots of contacting. Met some cool people though!

We met this one guy named Nathan. He thought we worshiped Joseph Smith, we explained to him that we are christians (we are the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter Day Saints) he was super cool and after talking to him for 20 minutes about the importance of the Book of Mormon  he decided to take one and read it to know whether or not it is true. Super cool guy!

I didn't get a chance to talk much on it last week, but General Conference was awesome. It is such a blessing to be able to hear from God's Living Prophet and Apostles.

My favorite talk was by Elder K Brett Nattress, in it he said, "The gospel truly is about the one. It is about one lost sheep (see Luke 15:3–7); it is about one Samaritan woman at a well (see John 4:5–30); it is about one prodigal son (see Luke 15:11–32). And it is about one little boy who might claim he is not listening. It is about each one of us--as imperfect as we may be--becoming one with the Savior as He is one with His Father (see John 17:21). I testify that we have a loving Heavenly Father, who knows us by name! I testify that Jesus Christ is the living Son of the living God. He is the Only Begotten and our Advocate with the Father. I further testify that salvation comes in and through His name--and in no other way. It is my prayer that we will devote our hearts and our hands to helping all of Heavenly Father’s children to know Him and to feel His love. As we do, He promises us eternal joy and happiness in this world and in the world to come. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

I testify that everything he said is completely true. The gospel really is there for each of us. Heavenly Father knows you by name, and cares deeply about you!  

Love you all and I hope you all have a good week!

Elder McOmber

Picture 1: all m missionaries in my original area on top of the church

Picture 2: my companion and me.

Loving life here in New Jersey!

We met some cool people this week:

Eileen: we were looking for service and saw a nice women struggling with bags of groceries, we helped her get her stuff up to her apartment and asked if she had ever seen missionaries like us before. She then told us that she was baptized into our church over 20 years ago and was recently praying for direction in life and felt like we were god sent. Everything happens for a reason. 

Renee and Genesis: two really cool people we ran into, we taught them the beginning of the plan of salvation, they were interested in having us come and teach them and their families. Looking forward to it!

Update on Rasheem and Jennifer: they came to church! And they loved it 😊 looking forward to meeting wit them on Wednesday.

Update on Rashee: we haven't been able to meet with him in a couple weeks but it is because he has been super busy with school, football, and work. He came to church and told us that he is quitting work because he needs to make God a priority in his life. He wants to find a job that will honor his Sunday devotions. He is so awesome!

Update on Gillian: she is doing well! She is meeting with the bishop on Thursday so that they can get to know each other. Things are moving 😊 we stopped by while she was at work to surprise her haha (picture included)

Update on Shruthi:I don't know if I talked about her before but a couple of weeks ago we contacted this guy named Ashok, he was atheist but he said his friend would be interested. Her name was Shruthi, she was super cool and loved the lesson, we found out she lives a half a street into the hieghts area so we passed her off the those elders, she has taken all of the discussions and is getting baptized. Every week at church she comes up to me and tells me the countdown to the baptism next week and gives me an update on what she learned. She was so prepared it's crazy!

At church Brother Murphy (they guy we used to help read every week) came up and told us that he has been missing us since they split the area. He is so awesome (picture included)

I just love it out here! If you have any questions about what I believe or what I do out here, please feel free to shoot me an email! 

Love you all,

Elder McOmber

Happy bday Elder McOmber! Caught a shark, if a Greek person could rap the bible, I think it would sound like this video...

Hello all! I just want to say, thank you for all of the birthday wishes! They really meant a lot 😊 Pretty Long week, Elder Crowther and I just talked to A LOT of people. Sometimes it gets hard finding those that want to listen, but you just gotta keep trying. My birthday! My birthday was a blast, we started out the day contacting the top of our area, after doing that for 3 hours we took a 7/11 slushy break, so good. Worked again for a while and went to Taco Bell, where this homeless guy came in and sang Psalms 1 for us! The video is attached, He was super cool haha Sunday Sunday was stake conference, for those of you who don't know that means all of the congregations in the Jersey City and Newark area get together super fun! After that we came back to jersey city and helped with a baptism for Bayonne (they don't have a baptismal font, and ours water system gets complicated) went the rest of the day doing the work but at 8 we went down to the waterfront to talk to people and see the 9/11 tribute across the water. Super cool! While we were there this guy caught a mini shark! That about sums up the week! I hope next week is a little more eventful haha Love, Elder McOmber

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