Zone Conferences!

 Hello! These past few weeks have literally been so fun! We have been doing zone conferences. So we have had the chance to travel to each of the zones and do presentations. It's so good to see all the missionaries. Like half of them I've never met and met for the first time haha, others I haven't seen for like a whole year so it was so good to see everyone again. 

Recently we have been super busy on pdays and so we kind of lost some pdays but it for sure makes up for it that we get to go to each country and do an activity for zone conference! 

Some of the stuff we have been busy with is helping the new Kiribati  missionaries getting settled in here. Like the Samoans (who just got home actually), they are trying to get home so Croatia is like a pit stop. It's been so fun because they gave us the skirt things (lava lava I think is what they are called) and are teaching us a dance. We are planning on doing a cultural night with them have them make traditional food and teach everyone dances and stuff so it should be a ton of fun! We have also been helping some Russian missionaries come in who will be here for two weeks or so I think. There's like 25 of them.

Besides those we have had some way fun times doing service and stuff! We been helping a member build his house which has been way fun, he sadly broke his back so he just walks and helps as much as he can and literally will randomly just say, "my back is broken. My špinal. I broke my back", love the guy, his name is Krešomir. We also have been cleaning with čisteći medvjedići which has been so fun. We are making good friends with people there. One of which is named Zora who is so nice and full of energy and is so funny and great. 

Zone conferences

Serbia:

* The first one and it was great because my whole mtc group was there except for one person so it was so good to be with everyone, especially the ones I haven't seen since the mtc hahah. For our activity we went to this Castle which is on this beautiful side of a hill and river and on the other side is Romania, pretty crazy. 

Slovenia:

* Super beautiful there, as with Serbia, this was the first time I was there. Slovenian is really interesting, The language sounds sooo hard hahah but talking with people in Croatian we can understand each other. Its was way cool to finally meet a lot of the missionaries there in Slovenia, we dont see them a whole lot. They are so awesome. For our activity we went to this place and took a gondola up to Velika Planina which means big mountain. It was beautiful though, it was up in the Alps and they have this little village hut things that people could rent and spend a couple nights in. We were up there for the day and it was like I was on top of the world. I can now say I have played chess and spikeball on the top of the world. Afterwords we had an exchange which was way fun . We taught English and such it was cool. The situation with covid there is interesting, you have to have proof of vaccination or that you have recovered from covid within the past 6 months or else you cannot enter any buildings.

Croatia

* Croatia was way fun! See all the people here was great as always. For our activity we went to Sljeme, which is this area in the mountains and then walked around, very beautiful especially in the fall. Later in the evening we went to Mirogoj on sve Sveti which is like the day of the dead. We went to the one last year so it was crazy because It was exactly a year later that I was there. It's a graveyard for many of the people who died in the war and they also have Krešomir čosićs grave there and there were candles everywhere and it was beautiful.

Bosnia

* It felt so good to be back here. I love Bosnia so much. It's sad there is some rumors of civil unrest between Republica of Serbia and the Federation so it's a bit sketchy, the missionaries in Banja Luka are now in Sarajevo because of it. And with that in Sarajevo there are floods going on which is sad, it's wiped out some houses in Iliđa which is sad. So keel Bosnia in your prayers. In terms of happy fun stuff we got to check out this cool castle and stuff called vranduk were they had archery inside which we got to do which was so fun. Then we spent time in Sarajevo and Baščaršija which has been amazing. I love this place. The best food by far, it's all local food. Čevapi, punjenje paprike, sarma. Literally all amazing. I got to visit one of my best friends here who is this nice Lady who sells pape (little knitted socks) in Baščaršija. We got to know each other last year when I was here and we took pictures then I came back this year and retook them and it was so nice to see her. She is so nice and was so excited to see me haha, it made me so happy she remembered my name. Her name is Hatidža.

If you remember, we had a friend at American Corner who's name is Miodrag and he is such a cool guy. He's young and just has his whole life figured out and got selected to be a representative of Bosnia for young leaders in Europe and he's going to a conference in Rome for it. But he's going to stop in Zagreb so I'll be able to see him there which will be so sick. Plus he has been having questions about after life and the Godhead so I am soooo excited to talk to him about those. Plus he's gonna check out the temple in Rome. 

Sorry it's so long. Pictures!

Predmet

 

Bok bok! Hows everyone's week. Mines been pretty fun. Nothing too crazy actually, rather just a few main points.

We finally transfer planned which took like 2 or 3 days because we had so many random obligations to do. One of which was we had to wake up soo early to take some missionaries going home to the air port, we woke up at like 4 and I was just so tired the rest if the day, even after a nap and such it was crazy. I am excited for the transfer though and I think I will learn a ton. My comp Elder Peterson is a great guy and we both want to get our language abilities up so this coming week we are trying an "English fast" and only do Croatian the whole week. So far it's been good hahah, it helps keep my mind in language. We got some fun things planned for the work in general. We also got some good bonding time and had some good conversations during transfer planing which was fun.

The next thing was that we had return and report for the two Canadian missionaries Elder Atwood and Elder Thompson (my grandson) which was so fun. They did great and they are both such studs too it was awesome. They came out to the mission later than normal because Canada wasn't letting out of the country for covid, but now they have made it after a couple months. It felt weird leading it but it was still good. 

Then we had a service opportunity which was so fun! We have been working with these people called "čisteći medvjedići" which means cleaning bears which is kind of fun. We went with them to join this other service group called Rangers. We met in Sisak, about an hour out of Zagreb, and cleaned up along side a river. It was literally so fun and we met so many fun people. We got these free shirts and medals for helping which was fun. Plus there was this one lady leading it and she would give announcements and stuff through these speakers and stuff and while we were eating lunch, she started welcoming the guest volunteers (us) and started walking over. As she's walking over I just take the biggest bite of my sandwich and am chewing and she comes over and begins to ask me questions and to introduce myself and us and what not. So I'm like chewing as fast as humanly possible then had this brief interview which was super fun hahah, my mouth was still a little full of bread during it, whoops. Kind of scary because I'm still working on the Croatian. It was all so fun though, so many great people, especially thus one woman named Zora who is this sweet lady who is always just so happy and laughing so I hope we can see her again.

Church was good, we had some people come and got to know these two younger dudes named Adrijan Flis and Danijel Babić and I was talking to them about brawl stars and rocket league and now we are going to play together when I get home and I could not be more excited hahah!

Final note: Samoan missionaries finally made it home after 3 months here haha but now 5 missionaries from the Kiribati island are here, they have been serving for like 35 or 36 months now. I feel so bad, they are just trying to get vaccinated then go home. So meeting them was super cool.

Besides that we had a fun pday playing sports and such, got some nice food and a nice tour of zagreb. Fun fact: Zagrabiti - to scoop (story of the name Zagreb. Za short for iza (behind) and greb for name of water banks. This because it was behind the river) (when a someone asked a lady to scoop up some water from the bank she sajd, "zagrebi mando").

 

Elder Gubler

 

 

 

 

Busy Week

We had such a crazy week. So basically this whole week was just planning and performing travel plans from transfers, it was so complex to do everything with who was going where, who had vaccines, who needed covid tests, getting people through borders, luggage, comps. It was a lot hahah. But we got to pick up the new missionaries coming in and two of them went to high school with my cousin Max so it was a fun connection with them haha.

But fun stuff is that the Samoan missionaries who were here left today to hopefully get home, they have been on their missions for so long because of covid and trying to get home for them has been extremely difficult with borders closed to home and such. I am gonna miss those guys. There was one, Elder Lealofi, who stayed with us a couple nights and he is such a fun chill guy so I'm gonna miss that guy lots, he taught us some fun Samoans phrases hahah. These guys got turned back at the Germany border already once and the situation was if they got covid they would have to wait 6 more months until they could even attempt to go back home so we have been keeping them in our apartment completely isolated, and because of that my comp,Elder Peterson (awesome guy) and I have been in a hotel which has been so fun.

In addition,we are helping missionaries get into Bulgaria so we got to meet them and such and do service and they helped us find some people there, good group of guys. Some of then are learning Persian so they have been getting taught Persian by some members here, but at the same time the missionaries can teach them and are helping then come to church and such so that's awesome.

We also got some missionaries trying to get home to the Kiribati island came in, there are five of them and they are all super nice! Some of them have been on their missions for like 34 months.

That's been about it this week. Love yall have a great week!

 

 

 

Late Weekly

 Hello! Yeah this week has been crazy busy. We had a normal beginning of the week then on like Thursday we get a call from the APs and they're like, "pack you bags and be ready for us to get you in hour and a half." And we were like shoot okay so we did and we got taken to the mission home (mission palace) and we get interviews with President field and he pulls me in and just goes, "you're AP" and I was like freak and then we started finishing up transfer planning and travel plans and such for like 3 days then transfers happened and we were just helping everyone get to where they needed to be. It's been SO busy but I really enjoy being busy so this is good. We were doing travel stuff and it's so complicated with borders, who's got a vaccine, covid tests, and someone got covid so we had to quarantine a bunch of people and change plans and such, it's awesome.

I should have mentioned it before but we had a way fun service thing in the hills where we cleaned out this old house and it was a ton of fun but kinda nasty because there was stuff literally to the ceiling covered in mouse poop and there were some mice running around. Yikes.

Literally that's about it so I hope yall had a great week!

Bok bok

 

 

Picking an Apple

Hello evabody! So this week has been pretty eventful, we had a lesson with someone who had questions about life and so we had nice discussions about the value of life and how beautiful it can be.

We also had one of the Samoan missionaries, Elder Lealofi, living with us this week and it was so fun. He is an AMAZING cook and such a fun happy guy. Having him with us was definitely just a boost of joy. 

We had a service Project with a member up in the Selo and it was basically just cleaning out an old house. It was so fun, she is blind and she has a friend named Srećko who is such a nice man, and I found this really cool vest and some old Crostian fairy tail movies

We had a fun English class with two people. First with Blanka who has a group that shares cool stories with their Croatian sheep dogs and she gave us one to help translate because she wants to make a book. Another we met for the first time, she was super nice and we will hopefully be able to meet with her later this week.

I may have mentioned this already but we teach English at a company that works with UEFA and it's is cool. We have been doing a toastmasters kind of thing which has been super fun, the people there are nice and funny, especially Tatijan. He is like Fadil from Bosnia so that is a lot of fun

Lastly we went to Zadar this week and it's a city on the coast, literally beautiful. With the elders there we did a game night and we met some younger people there and one of them was a girl who plays on the Croatian national soccer team so that was way cool. She wants to go to America to play soccer too so that's cool.

Speaking of soccer we had a good turn out. One more fun thing, whenever I play soccer I'll wear my Modrić jersey and a lot of the kids or people i meet cant say my name so they just cal me Modrić and when I see them elsewhere besides soccer like out in the town I'll just hear "MODRRIĆ" and we all freak out and talk and hang out for a bit. So awesome!

That's about all folks, enjoy your week!

 

 

 

Burgers

 Hello svima! Okay so this week has been pretty good

So the beginning we had our soccer group turn out super well, we had a good turn out of people and it was so smooth between meeting up, choosing teams, and playing and there was no complications it was so nice. Plus the quality of play was just really nice too.

The next day we were inviting a bunch of members to branch conference by making brownies and such and taking it to their house and sadly it did not work out very well because addresses didn't work or they didn't respond or want anything. But it was still good to go to parts of the city and I haven't been to.

That same day we also had a lesson with Nina and we set a date for baptism! We are gonna work with her to help her be ready for that so that should be super cool! I am very excited. It's set after transfers right now so I hope I'm still here for it.

Later in the week we also went to this burger festival that was such a fun vibe. Just music, and bunch of burger shops. It was soo fun that we went twice. Once with missionaries and once with Nina.

Towards the end of the week we had an exchange in Rijeka and it is soo beautiful there wow. It's on the coast and is very hilly so just filled with stairs and pretty buildings and the sea. Very nice.

Lastly on pday we did an escape room and finished it will literally 1 second left and we met this singer guy that I thought looked kind of like Bob Ross, but he's Italian so like a Mario Bob Ross kind of mix.

Anywho have a great week yall!

 

Elder Gubler