Oficialna sum makedonka zena October 31, 2022

 dobar den !!

As is custom in many missions, there seems to be a right of passage that comes for each missionary: making traditional food with the local grandmas. This week I reached that status:)) we learned how to make ajvar (Ajvar is a condiment made principally from sweet bell peppers and eggplants. The relish became a popular side dish throughout Yugoslavia after World War II and is popular in Southeast Europe. Homemade ajvar is made of roasted peppers. And yes i did take that definition from google) this week from our member Suzana !!

We bought 10 kilos of red peppers and I'm pretty sure the people at the pazar thought us 2 American girls were insane.

here's actually 30 kilos because we made 10 kilos of stuffed peppers (pulneti piperki !!)

end of day one... the next morning we started bright and early:)) 7:30am 

we did indeed have to stir this with a giant stick for like 2 hours... lots of time for us to have some really important conversations with our member. 

We ended up making the avjar out of 20 kilos of peppers and 10 kilos of tomatoes... it was a lot. I don't feel like explaining the whole process but hopefully you can gather it from the pictures. 

some delicious pulneti piperki :))

okay now random photo dump 

 

this week we had dinner at Teo's house! We got to officially meet his mom and she made us this beautiful traditional Macedonian meal. She is an absolute icon but speaks no English so it was very interesting. We had dinner, carved pumpkins for halloween and then had a lesson with her. She had lots of interesting questions, which were made even more challenging in Macedonian, but I can tell she really does just want to understand what it is that we believe. She still doesn't know that Teo was baptized, so please keep them in her prayers as we keep teaching her that her heart will be softened to that news. 

While there were lots of beautiful and great things that happened this week, it was also a very difficult week. We spent a lot of time paying bills and meeting with our lawyers for legal work, and the remainder of the time we really just spent helping our members. It seems like in one way or another they are all really, really struggling. Sometimes it feels hopeless to think that a couple missionaries could handle all of this, because honestly we can't (It only becomes more evident when an hour before church is starting you are suddenly informed that the Branch President and the person who was going to give the talk are sick and now not only do you have to translate all of church, but teach sunday school and give a talk). Needless to say, I was feeling mega overwhelmed and not handling everything with the most Christ-like patience and grace that I maybe ought to have had. As I was studying one day this week, I read a couple of things that helped change my perspective just a little: 

"Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response."

"I made a decision long ago to serve the Lord in whatever situation I found myself. When I am under stress, I try to figure out how what I am thinking will help me become more celestial."

I think it's okay to realize that the situations we are in are hard. But, we can still choose how we react to them. It is really easy to complain about the difficulties of my mission and the lack of support and guidance that seems so necessary but is often so absent. It is certainly much more challenging to try and choose joy in the midst of all of it. BUT we are here to have JOY. And maybe it's something that is innately divine in each of us. It isn't something we have to find necessarily because maybe it is a part of us. Maybe Jesus Christ is Joy and our source of joy not because he is adding something more to our lives (although he does), but because he also shows us the way to let go of the things we don't need, uncovering the Joy that we have always had, but maybe don't always recognize. 

So when you get overwhelmed this week, focus on Jesus Christ instead and think of what things you can let go of to find the joy inside of yourself.

So ljubov,

Sestra Jeni