Fluffy Guys

 What's up y'all. So this week was pretty fun. 

So basically the week was pretty normal and nothing too crazy. It was filled with a lot of practice for our radio interview on Saturday. It was so cool when it happened too. We went into the radio booth and it had all the lights and stuff and I never really pictured that I would be in a radio station in Bosnia, like ever. So that was way cool. We just talked about our service group we created here in Sarajevo and how we want to help in the community! My comp is very good at the language so he answered most of the questions while I answered about two or three but I did pretty well! Of course there is always room to improve but I was just happy for the chance to talk on the radio haha. We got to choose a song to play during the middle of our interview and we chose "Humble and Kind" so that was awesome haha! They also told us at the end of the interview that they would tell their partners in national TV about us so maybe we will be able to go on TV too! 

Outside of that we had some sauce with missionary work and an awesome Pday. We did some hike stuff in the snow and it was soo much fun! It literally feels like we are on Hoth sometimes. Also there were a ton of dogs there so we got to hang with some fun dogs too!

Anywho, hope all is well ill send some pictures soon.

Elder Gubler

Weaklee

 Okaye soo hear iz da weaklee eemayle.

sorry that was literally so dumb, I thought that would be fun to type like that but now looking back I'm realizing its just dumb haha.

So nothing really crazy happened this week. Some highlights are that we taught a new student English which is fun because he doesn't know a whole lot so we have to teach in language which is something i haven't had to do yet because most people here who are learning English know it pretty well already. Besides that we had an opportunity to do service which was great, we were just cleaning out a backyard of an apartment complex and we were about 2 hours in when the people who lived at the apartment place started to get super mad for some reason so the lady we were working with told us we could just head home so we did and we just heard them yelling at each other for a good while it was funny. She texted us later and everything was good.

We had a lesson with one of our friends where we read a scripture together and i tried to share a thought on a scripture and the words for "to write" and "to piss" are very similar. "to write" is "napisati" and the other is "napišati" (š is pronounced with a "sh") so i made that mistake during the lesson and it was hilarious, hopefully i never do that again. Love this language.

Then we had toastmasters which was way fun and i did pretty well that time so that was a nice confidence booster too especially after the lesson.

UPCOMING

so upcoming basically we have an interview on the radio (which i think i mentioned last week) which will be on Saturday so that should be a ton of fun.

Anywho I will send some fun pictures. 

What if the world was literally made of like really tiny blocks

Okay so this week was kind of a roller coaster. So we started by driving up to Tuzla, which is like a 2 hour drive, and so we got some very nice naps on the drive hahah. While there we met with a bunch of people. One of which was someone I met on my Facebook page named Džemal (pronounced jemal) who is literally the greatest guy ever! He is like 72 but when we met, he was the most energetic guy and so fun! It was really nice because he keep complimenting our language ability (my companion is a LOT better than me). He would say "you've only learned for that long? BRAVO!" It was a real confidence booster since I've been feeling down about my language. He hikes like 6 hours a day and love just doing active stuff. We plan to meet with him when we go to Tuzla again so I really look forward to that. We also met with one of our friends from Toastmasters (weekly activity to practice foreign language) and he is the funniest guy I have ever met. Also while in Tuzla we checked out two humanitarian activities our senior couple was doing there: funding a new water tank for a silo and a new bakery to feed the hungry. While at the Bakery opening, we had lunch with the mayor of Tuzla which was cool and a lot of other people from this service group called Merhamet. We got in contact with two of the people who are the heads of Banja Luka and Tuzla so we hope to do service stuff with them.

After that we came back to Sarajevo and met with some people who are in the scouts of Bosnia to see if we could set up any service opportunities together which seems pretty promising. During that meeting I got a little roasted for my language hahah (so ups and downs this week) so that was a bummer, but tis what happens. Then we have also been preparing for an interview on the radio with one of the most famous radio stations in Sarajevo. They want an interview because of our service page we created called Služimo! Sarajevo. Basically a little service group we created to allow us to offer volunteer service and allow other people to join/ask for service. So that will be a lot of fun. We are going to have a member with us to help make sure we don't butcher anything on the radio (language-wise and just anything-wise). 

OOH another fun thing this week was that we got Audited twice haha which is basically when the branch presidency (us) gets checked on our financial stuff to make sure everything is in line. It lasted like 4 hours so that was fun.

Then a little sickness went around so we had to quarantine for the remainder of the week pretty much which meant a lot of Facebook work which is okay. There was a LOT more stuff to be happy about.

Anywho Lijep pozdrav. 

Weekly Sauce

 Hello Hello! so here's the sauce

We went to Banja Luka this week and we were very busy there. We were there from like Tuesday through Thursday and we did a lot of work with members and stuff which gave us a bunch of finance work to do when we got back to Sarajevo. Then we had like a ton of zoom calls on Thursday and Friday so that took like all of our time those days. Then Saturday we did a lottttt of finance again which will serve well (not) because we are going to get audited twice next week (basically just means they check all payments and financial stuff that happened in the past six months) It will take a long time but we will survive. 

Today was the real sauce. Literally soo funny. so we had a normal morning and then we went to a museum with a member named Begic, who is incredibly good at networking,to talk to the director to find service stuff. It was so funny because we find out the museum is closed and he marches in anyway and tells the guy in there that we were these two amazing American humanitarian workers and says to make us meet with the director. Which is actually kind of worked because we ended up talking with a higher up who said it is possible we can do service there but she just needs to check with the director. I hope it works well because I want to do more service stuff.

After that we went to these GREAT BOSNIAN PYRAMIDS. They claim that they are the largest man made pyramids in the world. Nope, it's a hoax. Scientists have come and proved that they are actually just hills. But its hilarious because some of the people there believe its real. They had these tunnels they "excavated" (aka just dug them) and said that there were these giant ceramic objects (literally just rocks) that had crystals inside them and created energy. we learned this on the guided tour where the guy was like "we scanned these rocks and found a river 21 meters below that creates negative Ion energy which is sent directed up and countered by the crystal which then vibrates and created energy which is used by the pyramid." it took all of my energy to not laugh. One of the senior missionaries was like "so its just a rock" when the dude was explaining the electric rocks and he was like "NO IT IS A CERAMIC MAN-MADE....etc" literally hilarious. Then they said the energy can heal people who have cancer or asthma just from being in the tunnel. They said they also scanned the pyramid and it was hallow all the way through and again we asked "oh can we see it" and he was like "well no" then we asked "what kind of scan did you do?" and he was like "well i don't know, i don't know how to say it in English." It was just funny because they explained everything very specifically like "on the walls it is a different material than the tunnel so that means it was excavated and NOT dug out by people, so we are not just digging this tunnel" which was exactly what they were doing. Then after there was a littler park outside that had other funny stuff that claimed to help your blood circulation from walking on wet rocks and stuff and they also said they were going to build a time machine in 2021. 

Anywho this is a long one. I hope you enjoy, I'll send pictures in another email.

 

 

Ne sjećam se koja je sedmica

 Hello! So this week literally flew by but the highlights were mainly closer to the end.

The first one we made a Facebook video which was pretty fun and it turned out pretty well, its on my Facebook actually if you do want to see it so go check it out!

The second was on Sunday! We had a great turnout at church! The most I've seen so far on my mission in person. Two members that have been sick with covid and cancer recovered and came to church and it was so nice to see them again. One of them is named Begić and he has soooo many connections so he is gonna help us get some service going on which we think we might be able to do some stuff at a museum which would be a ton of fun! The morning we went to mas which was very interesting and cool to experience. Church itself was awesome. It was one of those days i was really clicking and i could understand and talk with people better. Two of the members spoke and i understood a lot more than i normally do! They were beautiful talks and I'm sure most have been i just haven't understood them hahah. Then after church i had a call with a member named šefik from Banja Luka and i was able to talk and have a nice conversation with him. And it was soooo awesome! I was understanding plans, dates, times, and events and i was responding to all of it and we planned some stuff for our next Banja trip.

That was a real confidence booster and it really was some more proof for me that the gift of tongues is real, like literally i am literal poop at speaking this language and its moments like that that help me know that God is helping me with learning and being able to communicate with others here.

Next thing was Sunday night we had a lesson we a friend of ours and it went so well! We have read a few chapters and she has told us she feels peace and happiness when reading the Book of Mormon, its so awesome to know we are helping her find happiness. She believes that it is the word of God and wants to keep learning so this is amazing. Plus that lesson i was able to add something too which is the best feeling ever, like just knowing I am actually helping in some way hahah. 

Anywho this was a long email. Pday was dope, did some fun snow hike. Y'all are awesome and God loves you all! 

Pictures .

 

 

 

 

 

I Never Know What to Title These

 Howdy! So this week we had a ton of lessons and some went well and some went average but nothing crazy good and nothing crazy bad, pretty average week hahah. There is one person we hope will continue reading the Book of Mormon because she told us she felt great peace when she read it with us the first time. So that's a highlight. 

Next highlight, we teach English and last week our lesson was apparently too easy for the people there so we tried to make a new topic that no one knew a lot about in English. Finance! We got some good business-y words and examples and we thought it would be good because people would actually learn stuff. But the only person who joined was a 13 year old who is actually really good at English. But it was hilarious because we pretty much ended up teaching finance to this dude and it was very funny.

We saw the Childhood War museum today. It has artifacts and toys from the war along with excerpts from the owners of the toys about what sentimental value it had for them during the war. It was very sad to read some of the stories but definitely puts it all into perspective.

 

Also, we gave a blessing of healing to a friend. It was my first one and to be honest, I didn't really know what to do and I wish I was more prepared for it because I was too worried about not know what to do or if I said the words right (I did the anointing).  When my companion gave the blessing though, I could feel the spirit more prominently and I really hope we can give a blessing again so I can be ready.

Little spiritual challenge: 

Go and read "Try Try Try" by Elder Eyring in the April 2018 general conference. I have been reading other general conference talks and they have helped me so much and always apply to me. I have heard that this one is very good :). So i will read and study it this week and I'd invite you guys to give it a read yourself and apply it to your life. I know that the prophet and the apostles are not only very wise people but seers and revelator's in our day. I hope you all can benefit from them as much as I have.

 

Week Somethin

 Howdy everyone! So this week my new comp came in, he is such a cool and fun guy, literally the best! He is also incredible at the language so I can hopefully learn a ton from him which is sick. He came in around Wednesday or Thursday or something I don't remember, but we had a crazy busy week trying to figure out stuff for our new apartment. We've had to look and find a new apartment because our landlady at our current one is wak. So that has kept us really busy. The one we are probably moving into looks sooo nice, it is super European-looking and has a very cool view of a mosque just outside. This coming week is also going to be very busy. We have about 2 to 3 lessons set up for each day next week so iIam super excited for that. Also because its a chance for me to continue to practice and improve my language.

Spiritual:

We had a first lesson with someone who we have been talking to on Facebook for a long time and it went so well. She was super nice and she said when she got the Book of Mormon (we sent in the mail) she felt super happy and excited to start reading. We were all like, yup that's awesome, and we taught the restoration and it went well and she agreed to read the first chapter and meet again with us and read the second chapter together.

Pictures: