God's Plan December 12, 2022

 dobro utro !

this week was a blast and a half:) It's wild because the craziness comes and goes and this week, just as we thought everything was going swimmingly, we had a hectic church yesterday to keep us humble and remind us that we do ofc still live in one of the most wild places with the church so so baby and new still.
 Here are some pics from last pday !
we ran into some of our members Jana and Trpe as we were leaving the church:)
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Since we had to change our work ours to pay some important bills in the morning, we had the night free so we went up to the cross on top of Vodno and it was hecka cool since it was so foggy
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some pics of sis ch and I absolutely killing it (ahaha) as the only sisters in a ~6 hour radius
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we spent some time with Danica one morning and so ofc she insisted on lots of pictures
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working with the members here has really helped me understand how God sees our efforts. God doesn't ever compare us to those around us, while too often we are focused on horizontal comparisons. He only cares if we give our very best effort we can that day. It may only be 20% of the effort of our neighbor, and it may not even be the same effort we could give the day before or will give tomorrow, but He doesn't care. If we have given our full hearts to him, he doesn't care if it is literally almost nothing. And if His grace is sufficient for me, it is sufficient when I can't help these people as much as I would like to, and it is sufficient when you feel like you can't do anything more.
okay now some cute lil pics of Skopje
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some pictures from church !
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and in honor of our friend Teo, who we currently send memes back and forth with on the daily
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Recently I've been thinking a whole lot about God's plan for us. We taught the Plan of Salvation a couple of times this week and it was absolutely wonderful. I know I have the tendency to think that God has this perfect, ornate plan of exactly everything I need to do to be happy and have a good life (okay so maybe that is all a little extreme but you get the point). So then inevitably, when I'm just chilling here in little Macedonia and nothing seems to be going "as planned" it's easy for me to get frustrated and feel like surely this can't be God's plan for me. I mean how on earth could the plan have been to have us wait an extra 8 months, 8 months where maybe I could have gotten at least passable at the language, and then leave yet again only 2 sisters and 5 elders in this country? How could it be God's plan to have the missionaries that will follow us still be waiting for their visas while our time to train them is slowly ticking down? How is it his plan when this poor country seems to be falling apart and it seems like nobody wants to help it?

It's fairly common in the church to say "I know God has a plan for me." I think it is *little* bit too presumptuous to think that God has a plan laid out specifically for us and if we accidentally make the wrong choice, or don't listen to a prompting, we will mess up his whole plan for us. In reality, God's plan for us is really just The Plan of Salvation. Now don't get me wrong, I do think that God is involved in our lives, but I just see it as more of a way that he knows what choices we will make and he knows what choices will bring us happiness and eventually lead us to where we want to be and the people we want to become. When we choose to follow the promptings that God may give us to direct our life (although often he doesn't give us direction and it really is just up to our choice), we are often just being led to a choice that will bring joy. Often the alternative isn't even a bad thing, God is just trying to help us be happy. And so when we think, what is God's will for me and my life? At the core it really is just to have faith in Jesus Christ, repent when we make mistakes, make and keep covenants, be worthy of and receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. If we do those things, we will always be in line of God's plan for us. 
So ljubov,
Sestra Jeni
xoxo ur fav balkan missionary
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