American Corner

 So this week has been very exciting! It started off with us meeting someone named Slavko who actually grew up in Germany and is now living here in Banja Luka. He has met with missionaries before and he is such a fun a cool guy, its nice to talk to chill people every once in a while haha. He has told us he wants to be baptized but he doesn't want to give up some things with the word of wisdom. I am so stoked to keep meeting with him, I really enjoyed getting to know him.

We taught our English class we set up and that went well! We went over American geography and it was a very fun conversation with the people here. We also had our first day at this horse club we found which was way fun, we really just helped clean off this paint on some fence and that was about it, we did get free food which was great though haha. At the end of the week we also did some work at the soup kitchen here and they invited us to a ping pong tournament the next day but sadly we got SUPER busy so we couldn't go. They had all these cool little trophies too.

Lesson wise, we have been calling this super sweet woman named Katarina. We have been reading from the Book of Mormon and stuff for a while now, I have been in contact with her since my second transfer and after our lesson this week she said she believes that the Book of Mormon is the word of God! So that was way exciting, we also invited her to church and SHE CAME! This is huge for me because this is the first person in my whole mission (who I first got in contact with) that came to church, so that was super exciting and I am so excited to talk to her again about how she liked it and such.

Then the big squeeze. On Monday we had a presentation planned at this place called American corner which is kind of like a mini embassy that does a lot of presentations, workshops, and teaches about America and STEM stuff. But we had a presentation about us and who we are! It was so so fun, we talked about who we were before we came on a mission, what we want to do after the mission, and what we are doing on the mission. in addition we also talked about American culture and differences with our lives at home to living in the Balkans. There was like 15 people which was an amazing turn out. Plus one guy is interested in what we do so we hope to meet up with him, and along with him, another person wants to learn english so it was very good. In college I did a lot of presentations in the business scholars program so doing this one felt oddly fun to be presenting again, it was a weird but nice feeling.

My emails are getting longer than before

 

Woah Woah Woah

 Zdravo svima! Okay this week was pretty great! To be honest nothing too crazy happened but like keeping happy vibes through everything makes it soooo much better in every way shape and form.

So we met up with some of our friends from our English class the beginning of this week. They are Nikola, Jasna, Danomir, and Mario. They are all such studs, they took us to one of their favorite bakeries and we got some way good bread. We are excited to keep doing stuff with them and hopefully they can invite some people to English class so we can help some more people out.

After that we took a bus down to Sarajevo for zone conference which was so cool. We met a guy from Macedonia there. I never pictured to be on a bus from Banja Luka to Sarajevo talking to a Macedonian in English, Serbian, and attempted Macedonian talking about God. So that was super fun! He was a foreign exchange student living in Idaho for a year so he knew about missionaries and stuff. He asked a bunch of stuff about the church a LOT with him. He was such a nice and fun guy so I really enjoyed talking with him. It was a really cool experience to meet someone.

Then we had zone conference and such which was awesome. We also visited some members and our friend Ermedin (Civil engineering professor who we practice English with; such a cute guy and literally my second grandpa) which was a ton of fun! We also got a little bit of time in Baščaršija (old Town in Sarajevo) and I got these awesome pants that I'll send a picture of. Then we finally got a car back so we drove back up to Banja Luka and I love the drive so much, it is so beautiful and so therapeutic. 

Once back we visited with one of our friend's friend who is a clerk in the orthodox church and he gave us a tour of the main church in Banja Luka (Crkva Isusa Spasitelja I think is the name) that was such a cool opportunity to learn more about the orthodox faith and check out the church. I have a lot of respect for their history and them in general, it's all very fascinating.

After that, since we have the car, we drove to this horse club to meet with the director there and set up service stuff! It was so fun and I am very excited for that. Again, another thing that blows my mind. Like we just met with these people and spoke in a foreign language about horses and service and it was so awesome

Then on Sunday we had an awesome lesson with Irma (at least I felt it went well) and we all shared our experiences of how we came to know the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon (including her)! So she shared hers and it was awesome. We talked about a bunch of different things and in the end we asked her thoughts on baptism! She said she wants to see if it's what God wants for her so we offered to help in anyway we can by sharing what we know about baptism. So the next time we meet we will talk about that and I am excited.

Then for Pday we went to Travnik and checked out some castle and some mosques there. It is a very beautiful place and has very good čevapi at Plava Voda. Then afterwords we played some pool which I am developing a huge love for hahha.

There is this high school in Travnik that is split with Muslims and Catholics. I put in a picture of it and the blue side is for Catholic and the yellow is for Muslims. It's just a crazy sight to see about the separation at this high school building for different religions. 

This upcoming week is going to be awesome. Basically what we have planned is two days of horse service; a day volunteering at a soup kitchen; hosting an English class; teaching about baptism; and last but not least is giving a cultural presentation at this place called the American Corner to a bunch of people.

Hope yall are well! 

 

Elder Gubler

 

 

Weekly

 Okay so today we were Walking back to our apartment and there was the EURO game going on with Poland and Slovakia I think it was and I peeked in and started watching and there were these two older dudes there and we all reacted at the same time when there was a big save towards the end and I was like "yo who do you want to win?" And we just started talking and we all sat down and chatted for like an hour. It was so cool like literally never would I expect do be in Bosnia and then just sit and chat with two Balkans in Bosnian about their lives and languages and such. They both were good friends growing up and lived in Italy during the war. They were both so nice and we exchanged contacts so hopefully we can meet up with them again. There names were Haris and Zoran.

We met a good chunk with members here this week and helped out in the ways we could, like with welfare and some spiritual messages here and there. The bigger things were that we got some good service in! We kept doing some work at this soup kitchen called Mozaik Prijateljstva which was a ton of fun. This week there we just helped prepare food and set out clothes for people to come by and take.

We made a good friend with a guy named Damir who is this awesome 18 year old guy who lives here. He wants to practice his english and hang out with us so we did just that. The next day he came with us to meet with these other people we met who were from Argentina and Venezuela at this event they were hosting. They are some fun people who met and married some Balkans and now they live here haha, the event was just to show some Latin American culture and stuff so it was way fun to help out. And oh boy, my Spanish is literally dust now. Every time I try to say anything besides the basics it just comes out in Bosnian. Anyway, it was a lot of fun with all of them! We tried some candy from Argentina which was pretty good. And now that we have met them and stuff, we are planning to meet again with them and American Corner to set up an intercultural night which would be an event where we could all share something about where we are from! We are super excited for that. I find the most joy in doing fun things like these and helping in the community and such, it's awesome. So back to Damir. We are planning to start meeting with him weekly and teaching english and such. He also asked if we wanted to play soccer sometime and i have never been more excited. I just gotta buy a ball, find some time, and then we will go play. 

On the topic of english, we had our second class of the english discussion group which had a great turn out again! Some new people came and we made some new friends. We are actually planning on hanging out with them this following week so that is gonna be tons of fun. Later this week we will also be having zone conference in person in Sarajevo so i am also excited to head back to the home land hahah. plus this weekend we are going to meet with a horse club ranch thing out near Banja Luka to set up some more service there. We are just tight on cars right now so once we have a way to get there every week we are going to volunteer there as well. This following week should be good, lots of stuff to look forward to. If we could: play soccer, visit Sarajevo, set up more service, teach more english, and hang out with some more local friends all in one week, I would be ecstatic. Unfortunately I don't think we will be able to fit it all in one week so we might spread it out, which is also good. Either way, some fun stuff coming up.

Ooo one more additional note: we met up with another one of our friends from english. He is such a fun and nice guy, his name is Andrej Doko. He is catholic and we talked about going with him to check out their cathedral and stuff. We also are planning to play soccer with him and some of his buddies at some point. They host these little fun events every so often so i want to join some of them (low key very jealous).

 

Last note: today we are planning on playing some pool which is the funnest thing ever. I missed playing haha, all i need now is some golf, pickle ball, and spikeball.

I hope everyone is doing just dandy wherever you're at! Not many pictures this week but I'll send what i do got.

 

 

Wekkly

 This week had some pretty exciting stuff! So we have been teaching and meeting with quite a few people regularly now. It's been a very positive experience to help these people in these ways. We are working through an addiction recovery program with someone. Another two we have been reading the Book of Mormon together, so giving some good spiritual nourishment. With all of them it's been so cool to see how these things have been helping them.

With that note, we have been trying to help people in any way we can. So we got in contact with a soup kitchen and we started serving there this week! The people there are so funny and fun to work with! It is very nice to do some service too, it's one of the biggest things I look forward to for sure. We also had our first English conversation course this week which went awesome! We created this group on Facebook and are getting in contact with all the people that old missionaries knew and just anyone who wants to practice English. We are gonna be doing it weekly and I think it will be an awesome way to help the younger population here because a lot of them want to learn English.

We have been doing a good chunk of work at this place called the American Corner (basically like little place that holds STEAM workshops) and our friend, named Miodrag, took us to lunch at this super nice restaurant and it was delicious

For pday my comp (literally awesome guy Elder Titus) and I went to this cool island thing in a river that had a restaurant on it that was so fancy and cool. We felt so European eating there, plus it was so cool that we just wander in, order in the language, and eat on some island thing. It's definitely something I would have never guessed I'd be doing a year ago.

Language is still coming along but there is so much more to improve one. I feel like I am barely learning anything but when I look back like a week I see how much I actually am. Very fun time learning this stuff!

Anyway that's about all. Lijep Pozdrav I budite dobro dragi prijatelji