Unto us a child is born, unto us an AKI is given!!!!

dinner appointment at a rich rich rich home

Yes its true!!! I'm a mother of my very own AKI!!! (ps aki means kid or child in bicol. i will be referring to her as my aki for the rest of my life, so we better all get on board here and learn this word.) Ok, so yes! her name is sister j and she is soooooo great!! oh my goodness i love her so much!! but alas, lets start at the beginning.

So last day of transfer we had a dinner appointment at a member with a huuuge mansion and it was delish. The departing missionaries were all in the mission home, pretty close to our lesson dinner appt and so we went by after work and got to see them aLL! i saw my nanay!! sis ril!! we hugged through the bars and talked all about life and the wondrous awe that she was going to have a grandchild in the mission. so funny the timing, right as my nanay goes home I become one myself. we talked to sis reeder and the other elders and sisters, shed some tears, and then went to bed with all the nerves that come before transfer day.

saying goodbye at transfer point to sis m!!

The next day was transfer day, sis m was all packed to go and we went to the chapel, SM, the usual. sis m got transferred to Daet (my first zone!) and became a sister training leader!! i bet her 500 pesos she would be an stl, so good thing she did. she cried cause she was so scared and nervous but i told her stl is nothing to worry about, it's lots of fun. (HA like i know :)) HEY so the final update on her- she got so healthy when i was her kasama, due to my expertise in oatmeal and exercise :) pat on the back!! we hugged and said goodbye, ah i miss her! she was a great kasama.

saying goodbye to sis c!

Then i got my temporary kasama for the rest of that day until we went to new trainers training at 10:30 the next day. sis n is also training and so we just stressed about our akis and talked about training the whole time we worked. then the day was finally here! time to meet the akis!! we went to the mish home, separated from them to get our "training." Turns out the training to become a trainer is just a power point about the rules and stuff and things to teach them. When it was over i was like "thats IT?" thats all the training i get? but then i quickly realized that oh ya, i've been being trained this whole mission. i got this. So then before i exploded of excitement and nerves, they filed in!!! all of their cute little faces!!! 

There are 6 sisters in their batch, and immediately i knew who was mine :) ever since the first time i saw their pictures in the office weeks and weeks ago i immediately knew she was going to be my aki. Even before i got called to be a trainer i looked at her pic and knew that i would be her trainer. I know, weird right? So i saw her and we all shook hands, then the games began and everyone got paired up. Sure enough i was right!! sister j is my aki!!!! she is so cool! She's from the ppines, in Quezon city.  She is 20 yrs old, oldest of 3 kids, short term missioned here in the ppines before, and is just awesome. Also she is so stylish- like all her bags  shirts and skirts and shoes and everything, its like the cutest thing i've ever seen. its like she walked out of an anthropologie advertisement cute.

me and my aki!!!

 she's soo dang pretty! But best part, on top of all her cute-ness, she's like, the sweetest nicest thing!! she is so smart and willing to learn and help me and is kind and everything. She's like, the perfect child! She is very good at social skills too, has no problem talking to whoever we see and very easily gets along with them. She's so great, I'm learning so much from her.

Oh ya, also sister L (the other sisters in our apt) is training a sister S! She's from Bisias and its sort of hard for her to tagalog or english, but thing is she's only short term and her real mission is in Australia Sydney something. She's nice too and we have a happy ole time in the apartment. The new ones are lucky they are both there together! its good, they have a friend who is going through all the same stuff.

So the differences about training- we have 2 hours comp study instead of one, so that's different. But so far we've filled the time just fine with all of the things to read and learn in the manuals and from talking and telling stories. We are great great friends--I love her so much!

Other things that are hard, ummmm leading everything. Oh goodness. when did i become the one totally in charge here? all of a sudden I'm leading all the lessons, where we go, planning, everything. It's lots of pressure and i definitely feel very inadequate. I told sister j, "sis I feel very very unqualified to train you, like i don't know what i'm doing" and she says "I know you are SO qualified! you can do this!" ahaaa sweet innocence. If only she knew how much i DONT know and how i feel. but she's totally trusting and follows everything i do, even down to the laundry soap i buy. now i see why its so important that your trainer is good, the trainee will be their shadow and will end up just like the trainer. In that case, i am sort of glad she's with me because I know that we will be exactly obedient, work as hard as we can and then do more, and everything we need to do to have the Spirit and trust the Lord in his work. its only been how many days of training but I feel a different spirit in our work. I feel so much more reliant on Heavenly Father because of my weaknesses in this calling, and in return I feel His guidance more. It's so neat, I can probably write more about that next week. but ya, its good. its a lot of pressure, but its a good pressure. i really, really, like being a nanany :)

so thats about it for the week so far, its been a week of firsts! lots of explaining and showing and teaching. she is so good though, she's so magaling and is going to be such a great sister!! I'm so grateful for her addition here in Naga mission :) 

i love you all thank you so much for the prayers! keep them coming my way! Love you!

Nanay McGrath