The Confessions of a Nanay

Magandang Hapon to all!

     The word nanay means mom which is the word used to describe trainers to their trainees. So I am a nanay now! And anak ko (my child) is so great! But I gotta be honest, training was not all that I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to be this dignified, all knowing being who was passing on all of my wisdom to the new, less experienced trainee. But Sister Galera has seriously been training me. She is great at teaching a has a lot of ideas for finding people and working with the ward. Her ideas are all great and exciting but since she doesn't know all of the people or the area that well yet, her excitement is placing a ton of responsibility on me.
    I am learning so soooo much as I do my best to humble myself and be patient. The other sisters in the house have been telling me that I am stressed. I really don't feel like I am. But they say I just stare off into space all of the time. And when I am not staring off, I am eating haha. Apparently I am a stress eater. The most challenging part of our new companionship is probably the language barrier. Sister Tanner and I could talk for days and Sister Galera is very quiet, and speaks Tagalog. But that's a good thing! I hope to find the best way for me to be able to teach her English and her to teach me Tagalog. But overall, I am truly blessed to be working with Sister Galera. She really doesn't need to be trained which is I'm sure why I am the one training her haha. I am really the one needing to learn from her and I am so lucky!

     As far as work this week, things have been moving along in San Juan! I met and taught like 3 or 4 less actives who Sister Tanner and I could not contact for the life of us. It's so nice having someone who speaks Tagalog and we really see improvements in the work! We have a potential investigator named Lily Lim Pulanco. Yeah fun name haha. She is 51 and a widow. Her husband passed away from smoking and alcohol. She has 5 children and 7 siblings! Her family seems really close. Her brother is being taught by our zone leaders in Lingsat and he is getting baptized in February! So he referred her to us this week.
    From the beginning Lily was really friendly and receptive. She said that she has noticed a change for the better in Freddy and is so happy for his choice to be baptized. We met with her twice this week. The first lesson was of course about how the gospel blesses families and she can be together with her family forever. And then we went back and taught about the restoration. She was so into the lesson! She was asking questions like "So which church did Joseph Smith choose?" And we were like "He didn't choose any, he restored the church through the power of God and that is the church that we have today! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!" And we were all into it and I was so happy because she even said that she believed that what we shared could be true and she would pray about it later that night. And so we closed our lesson and I was all stoked thinking we for sure had a new investigator. And when we asked when we can come back to teach again, she hesitated. She said, "Sisters, I just feel bad wasting your time. Because I am Catholic.".....so we were just like "Okay so we will come back on Wednesday Sister. See you then!" haha. Although it was a little discouraging that she wasn't stoked to learn more and begging us to get baptized, she still said that she would pray about our message and we still got a return appointment. And we will not be giving up on her any time soon.

    And at church, Nardz was there again! Also Kathleen! Unfortunately, Hesa was not :( which is actually really surprising because when we met with her this week we asked if she was coming to church and she said "Yes!" so happily. Before she would hesitantly say she would try to come. But she was sick this weekend so we are guessing that is why she ended up not coming.

   Like I said before, we had some good contact with less actives. One of them Sister Fely, is a silly old lady. She is not that old but she hasn't been to church since 1992 because someone offended her. The woman who offended her is no longer in the ward and she doesn't even remember what she did to offend her! But she hasn't been coming to church! What the heck? haha. She is just lazy and we are going to visit her this week and make sure she starts coming back already. Her birthday was this sunday so she couldn't come because she already had a party planned. But she's going to come back! I just know it.

    Well that's really all for this week. Thank you guys for your emails last week! I was especially interested to hear how Jakes soccer season is going. Of course I am way more into it that I should be considering it is a high school soccer season and I am in the Philippines haha. But I so so sooo wish I could have been at that game against Kahuku! That sounds like a heart wrencher like seriously. I am excited to hear how OIAs go! Oh! And the game against castle please! I really want to know haha. Hmmm I really can't think of much else to share and I have a ton of pictures I want to send! So I guess I will say goodbye now and until next week! I love you all! Don't forget me! But more importantly don't forget to do whatever you can to come unto Christ in all that you do. Love you!

- Sister Sawada