Christmas

 Hello everyone! I'm lazy so I'm going to make this email quick with some pictures.

Christmas was awesome! We watched Fiddler on the Roof which is an awesome movie and would recommend. It was a cool experience too in terms of being a missionary because we created a little Facebook program celebrating Christ's birth which a few people joined and it was awesome. We got lots of sweets and food. We also delivered some gifts to members and friends who also got stuff for us and it felt nice to be able to help others in even the small ways. A lot of people who aren't members were very appreciative of the gifts and even gave us gifts in return. It made me happy because everyone was showing kindness despite differences in faiths and beliefs.

It snowed the day after and it was beautiful and really reminded me of skiing. For pday we hiked around in some snow with an awesome friend of ours named Adnan, a very friendly guy. It felt so good to be in fresh air and with a bunch of snow.

 

Also there is a friend of ours we do these calls every week, we call them toastmasters, where we ask questions to one another and answer in the other's language. Like we answer in Bosnian and they answer in English. But this last one we did, this guy named Fadil, super hilarious guy and I love him, was telling us how grateful he was for the work we do. He said stuff like (I am paraphrasing) "English class normally costs like 200 dollars but you guys do it for free. From the bottom of my heart I thank you guys and I am so thankful to meet you. All those other guys who don't listen to you are STUPID" then he proceeded to just hype us up. It was so nice, and Fadil isn't a member either, just a friend of ours. It makes me so happy to have relationships like this with people.

Pictures

Snow stuff and knitting progress

 

 

Knit Club

 So we started a knitting club. Its pretty great, I learned knitting a little before my mission and now it carries over into my mission. Special thank to those who taught me in the first place, you guys are awesome!

This week was crazy busy. In summary, we did another Banja Luka trip (3 hours drive) and stay there for 2 days, so we had to fit a month's worth of work into those two days so it was crazy crammed. We had 11 lessons/meet ups in that time. It was great. One of the people was this conspiracy lady told us stories that were pretty entertaining to listen to but hard to do so with a straight face. We met two other guys who were around our age and they were so cool too. With one of them I had an actual conversation in Bosnian so that was awesome to final be able to do that (it wasn't a very crazy convo though). 

After that we came home and had to do visa stuff and had to get blood taken, that was way fun especially because I don't know medical vocab in Bosnian. 

And finally we had our pday which we had a knit club and my district is learning to knit and its the best time. Now we are about to go ice skating.

 

Have a great Christmas this week!

Pictures

1. Međugorje last week

2. Sorry not a lot of pictures this week, ill send more over if we take some cool ones tonight

 

 

Medugorje

This weeks email may be pretty dry so I'll try and sauce it up. We had Return and Report which is basically when my MTC district all gets together (over zoom) and we do a few things together to show like how we are doing and how well we are learning the language. The biggest part is the "5 min lesson". Everyone is super nervous for it but basically all the new missionaries teach a whole lesson in language to other missionaries. That went well and everyone killed it, so it's a nice relief now that that is done.

Besides that, this week was kinda normal in terms of just finding and talking with a bunch of students (which this coming week we hope to be meeting with them because finals are finishing up). 

This pday we are going to Međugorje which is like a place where Catholics believe the Mother Mary appeared to 6 children and still appear to them like once a month. It's on the top on this mountain hill and when people climb it they do it barefooted to show their devotion because the trail is super rocky, so we decided to join in on it. It was a pretty cool experience. 

Pictures

1. Since not a lot happened, here is a picture of the drive to Međugorje

2. Walking on the trail barefoot 

3. The top of the trail

4. View from the top

5. A statue of Mary from a different hill

 

 

Crazy flying man gave us a visit

Okeedokee so this pday was crazy! We go on this hike to a waterfall and we are on top of this cliff and see this helicopter across the mountainside and we see them lifting up this dude from this giant rock and we were like "oh sick". Then it flew over to us and we were like "is it actually coming over here" and it did the same thing at the bottom of the cliff so we watched them drop and lift this guy from a cable. Right after it starts to fly up, with the guy still hanging on the cable, then comes up and flies literally like 35 ft above us (crazy wind) and the dude from the cable just lands right next to us, waves, then proceeds to dip and they just fly away. So that was a wayyy unexpected event!

This week we had a few lesson plans fall through but we were able to start talking to a bunch of college students who are really nice and down to meet up after their finals, so hopefully some cool stuff can come from that. 

Those are pretty much the highlights of this week. Here's the stuff everyone skips to anyway.

1. Helicopter man

2. Comp and me

3. View

4. Lovely cat

5. We named him boots and he followed us the entire hike

6. Copter man again

7. This video may work?

 

 

Veliki pozdrav!

Okay so hello everyone! This week was wayyy fun! Language is picking up and I'm getting slightly more comfortable talking so that's awesome. I don't have a ton of time so this may be a short email

Baka is the word for grandma and it's amazing because bakas are like their own people. Like a woman doesn't slowly become a baka, it's like one day they are just some girl and then they get a lil older and the next day they are full baka (like with the scarf head band thing, not Muslim covering) and it's awesome. They even have communities for bakas. They have this street where a bunch of them sell produce from their gardens and we call it the baka market. It's awesome!

Thanksgiving was way fun! We cooked up some food and hung out and played some very fun games. Christmas doesn't exist in Sarajevo because its mainly Muslim so no Christmas stuff is really coming up. There is some stuff in malls for like commercial use but that's about it. In Banja Luka they'll have a bit more because they are orthodox. So we will mostly be doing out own stuff in Bosnia for Christmas.

Also they had the Bosnia holiday on Nov 25, celebrating their independence (I think that is the holiday, not 100 percent sure). So that was pretty cool to see. 

Funny story

We run a 5k in like 30 degree weather and get home to take a warm shower but we come home to find out water heater not working so we went like 2 and a half days with heating or warm water so we just had full coats on and stuff throughout those days. Twas rough. Plus our land lady came to fix it and she's tough. She told us how "unclean" our apartment was but I promise you all it was clean (like especially for missionaries) and so she takes a paper and writes "KEEP CLEAN" and proceeds to put it over our picture of Jesus. We prayed for her that night.

Anywho, y'all are great, have a nice week

Priatno!

1. Comp studying in like 30 degrees

2. National day

3. Frozen spider web (looked and felt like silly string because of the cold)

4. Land lady's note she hung over Jesus

Wassup

 Wassup.

Pictures are at the bottom if y'all wanna skip.

So I don't remember very well what was in my last email so if I repeat stuff I'm sorry. 

This week was cool! We had the chance to go to Banja Luka for about a day and a half. Basically we packed for like 3 days then drove about 3 hours to do some work there in Banja. Very awesome place and a very scenic drive over there as well. 

Last week we did a service thing at this horse place which was way fun. We scooped poop for like 2 hours which made time for excellent conversation with the comp (literally awesome guy). 

Checked out an Olympic bobsled track today which was very fun to walk on. Plus we looked in these old buildings that have been blown out because of the war, very cool to see.

Language is getting better. Able to respond a few times which is great! Being surrounded by it helps a ton, plus my trainer is good at like everything so he answers all of my questions. 

Have a great Thanksgiving week!

Elder Gubler

Bosnian hay

Field with blown out house

Inside said house

Bob sled track 1 and 2

Olympic sign

Ņöşē

Banja luka snow

Fog

Sarajevo

Horse service in fog

Veliki pozdrav!

 Howdy Everyone!

So basically this week has been super super busy. Taught a lot of lessons, did some finance stuff, taught english, and the everlasting battle with learning the language. It's really humbling and this week has let me know how little I actually know of the language. There's already so much to learn so my brain gets fried each day. But it's all in the learning. My comp is awesome and so patient with me so that's great!

I love how nice the people are here and how willing they are to talk about religion. Some aren't like searching for truth but more of just curious on what we believe and love talking about what they believe and learning about ours. I am loving learning about their culture too.  

Fun thing for this week, this dude came up to us and talked about how he had a friend who was from Mexico, came to Bosnia and is in jail now and referred to him as his "client" in his Marijuana clientele. He asked us to give him an English book for his client to hear while he is in prison. So you already know we gonna give the man the classic. A Book of Mormon.

I'll slap some pictures on here. 

Love you all!