Training 4 Ukraine : LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

Being a Sister Training Leader has been interesting. I think it has helped me learn and grow as a missionary more than i have nessicarily helped other missionaries.
"Selective Obedience brings selective blessings." -Elder Klebingat

Today I just wanted to write about some of the things I have noticed as an STL:
-Missionaries are amazing but have challenges.
-We are so lucky to be missionaries right now and to have the love and trust from God to help bring His children to Him. He literally takes us around to show us His world and help us find his lost children.
-God does the work. God prepares, God teaches and the holy Ghost testifies. I see it.
-100 % Obedience really is the key to true happiness and success.
-Missionary work should be joyful. God wants to show us miracles, but sometimes we do not give Him enough thought to really see His miracles. We sometimes focus too much on the bad, the hard, and we miss the magic happening right in front of our eyes.
-God loves his missionaries and He is proud of them, encourages them and tells us that "WE CAN!"
-God is good and only good comes from God. Even when it is correction it comes out of love for us, and we will recognize the good in it and realize that it is from God. Bad, harmful thoughts are from no one else but Satan. God does not want us to be discouraged. He lovingly corrects, lifts, and helps us to carry on with a smile.
-Our mission is young and a lot of the mssionaries new and old feel a lot of stress, home sickness, depression, and that missions are nothing but HARD. But we can do hard things. We do not give up, we do not quit. There is no need for it to be a soul crushing, terribly hard, unfun, without joy time.
If we are obedient, speak the language, follow the schedule, seek to plan with the Spirit everyday and seek to do what is right, to follow the still small voice we will realize that our trials, or homesickness and stress are not as hard as they seem.
When we are obedient we qualify for the companionship of the Spirit and we become closer to God and His Son Jesus Christ and they make the hard things a little less hard, a lot more bearable and oh so worth it. We can find true joy even through the tough, hard, faith trying times. I know it.
The hardest time on my mission happened to me this transfer. IT was heart breaking, devastating, confusing and down right hard. I am by no means perfect, but as I decided to give Christ all of me, to give him my broken heart, to be obedient, faithful, diligent and hardworking as much as I could be, God did something incredible! The heart ache I had I was sure would eat me up, was gone in just 2 weeks. It was so quick and I wholeheartedy believe that it was because I tried so hard to do all that I could for Him, to obey Him, trust Him, love him, that my realtionship with Christ increased and I was more ready to hear and willing to respond to the prompting form the Spirit and I just felt myself being lifted. My circumstances did not change. God did not take about my trial but he guided me through it by the hand and through it all I found true joy. We need to remember patience. We bear our trials with patience. Alma 26:27
I am so grateful to be a missionary.
WE CAN DO THIS! and it is a wonderful work.

I love you! This week was great. We travelled to Vinnistya by train and later we were in Kyiv for a leadership conference. I love President and Sister Packer! A lesson I learned this week is that we need to "mourn with those that mourn." It is our baptismal covenant and we need to all work on this. It is about other people and we came to earth with others, to love, to learn, to grow, to serve and to return to God together. I met this really wonderful lady, an inactive who really struggles financially and otherwise. She lives in a very small poor place and she opnened up to us not all the way in words but God was Good and really gave me the opportunity to feel how this woman feels in her daily life. He loves her, and she is really hurting. It is our job to help and love and support one another. It was a week of so many miracles and so many prayers of the people I know.
GOD IS GOOD
have a wonderful week and know i love you!

love cectpa karren