Good Week

Hello! This week was good with teaching and service. On Tuesday we had a bunch of teaching. Big ones were both member visits, one active family and one less active. We had some good thoughts with the Fernandes family about coming up with our truths (things one knows to be true and no one can convince otherwise) and revelation which was one of my favorite lessons I think. The second was a less active member who's husband passed away a couple months ago. She is so sweet, one of those people that's like everyone's grandma. She lived in Switzerland for a good part of her life. It was cool to hear her story

Then on Wednesday we helped our landlord clean a water mill then went to the island Ugljan to visit the branch president and help him prepare to make a driveway with concrete. They are a hoot, him and his wife, so we had a ton of fun there!

Then Thursday we started this service where we go to an old folks home and take lunches to people who cannot leave there homes, so it's very good stuff. Then we met with a buddy named Igor, super fun guy. We had a prayer with him and it was a pretty powerful moment, he is atheist but he really appreciated the whole thing so that's nice. Planting seeds. Then we finished with English class which is always fun with the sweet ladies that attend.

The next day we went to island Pašman where one member lives, Orijana. She is the backbone of the church here. She's awesome. So we had good conversation and we blessed her home with I've never done before but it was nice. Then we had friends meet us at the church and we made the print and play version of Secret Hitler which was fun hahah, it was just arts and crafts for a while haha!

Saturday we had a service with Red Cross that was funny because we show up and immediately "take a break" and we chilled for like all of it. Maybe cleaned up glass from bags brought up from the ocean for like 5 minutes haha but it was still fun and during it a bunch of questions were asked about the faith and such so there were little teaching opportunities during it. At the end we got a boat tour down this river which was sick. It reminded me of Lake Powell but less red. Then we met up for a celebration with another service group (the one for people with autism) and did like a field day which was fun, there was a competition for a three legged relay race and I got second which was cool, the price being that I can ask the association for like 5 hours of service. My plan is to invite them all to a Red Cross event and just connect them all and stuff and I think it would be fun.

Last we had church and soccer which was fun. More and more people are joining the soccer group and we are planning on doing a meet up for hanging out on Tuesday with everyone which is gonna be so much fun.

That's the week. Yall are awesome, have a good week!

Elder Gubler

First Week of Last Transfer

Hey so the final transfer has arrived, pretty crazy. So we got new comps. My official comp is Elder Diaz from Millcreek, super fun guy and a ton of fun. He's very down to earth too. He is one of the missionaries waiting for a Bulgarian visa. Then we got Elder Stirling, same thing with Bulgarian visa. He also went to Olympus so that's awesome, he's a stud and a way funny guy, we have been having a blast. Then is Elder Walters who is one of the most musically talented people I've ever met. We got a good squad here.

The beginning of this week consisted of a meeting with Red Cross which was fun as usual, they seem to like us which is nice haha. On the mission I definitely have learned to appreciate nice people a lot more than before hahha. Then we met with some friend for volleyball and ended up teaching about temples and the plan of salvation which was super great, very naturally brought up and everything. It was a good environment and all. It's sad, most of our friends here are going to be leaving because school is finishing up. And tourist season is happening now and it's so crowded now, it's low key a bummer but we meet some way fun people hahah.

With that, we have a soccer group going where this last time, we played with 3 Croatian kids, two Turkish people, a Scottish guy, a guy from Netherlands, and 4 Americans (us). Quite the lineup but it's been so much fun, I miss soccer a ton so it's good to play.

We had a good game night and good turn out with our good friends. And for church one of the families we met, the wife actually, came to church and we didn't know that she was coming. They are so sweet it's amazing. I hope they keep having good experiences there.

We got invited to play volleyball with friends and we met some new people but we played at this Beach in nin called ždrijac which was straight out of one of those travel pages on Instagram. It was so pretty. And finally we also visited the national park krka which was gorgeous.

Church

Hey so this week was pretty good. It started off with an exchange that I spent in Split, beautiful place as always!

We did some volunteering with Red Cross which was a ton of fun! We just cleaned up a bay area and had a nice lunch after. We are still on the search for more service as always. I definitely love the weeks we have a ton of service.

So we found a friend online from Thailand who is a member but living here in Zadar. He works at a hotel with a friend and their family, all from Thailand. We went to visit him at the hotel and we all played volleyball together, SO MUCH FUN. I love volleyball a ton even though I'm not the greatest at it. They all ended up coming to church which was awesome and hopefully we can work with them more!

The family (the Sarkanović's, Biserka and Slaven) we met last week also came to church yesterday. It was funny because on Saturday evening we got a call from our branch president who said he wasn't going to be able to come to church the next day and that the speaker wouldn't be able to do the talk. So I conducted and we all wrote little talks and I was the translator for the Bulgarian missionaries during it all. It was a nice experience because I got through it fine which felt good, of course they simplified it down for me as well but still. Afterwards, the family who came (their first time) said they really enjoyed it and complimented me on the translating and stuff. They were like "it's crazy for us to come here and have an American translate into Croatian here in a church in our own country." We are planning to start teaching them the lessons when they come back the next week which will be way fun!

We also met this guy from Turkey who also wants to take some of the lessons, he is such a cool guy.

Next week we are planning on playing soccer with buddies and I'm stoked to play again haha it's been too long. 

Finally we went to this cool castle for pday with a Ukrainian refugee who was baptized by one of the missionaries who's currently with is so that was really cool!

Hope y'all have a good week!

Elder Gubler

Great Teaching Week

 This week was so awesome!

We started off going to zone conference and went to these pretty lakes called Plitvice for our activity. The next day we had the actual conference and it was so good! It's one of my last ones which is weird to think about haha.

Then when we came back, we met with this group of women from when we met at the Red Cross service activity. We ended up teaching them a bunch of stuff and explaining a ton and it was so awesome, it just felt super natural (probably one of the best feelings on the mission) especially because it came from service (also great feeling). One of them came to game night and we played secret Hitler for the first time on my mission and I loved it, I haven't played that game in so long.

Next we were looking for a member's house which we couldn't find and so we were asking people nearby and stuff if they knew her and this one family is walking home and we started talking to them. They were like "wow you're Croatian is good how did you learn" and then went into why we are here as missionaries and such and then THEY asked for our numbers and invited US over so we could talk about Jesus. Literally best feeling, and so when we went we taught a whole ton and they said they are planning on coming to church to see what it's like. They were so kind and welcoming, it goes a long way.

We did more service with our friend with autism, Nikša, best guy, he is remembering our names now. We are tight now I'd say hahah. We also did basketball and I played soccer with some older dudes that were actually very good, I only got to play for a couple minutes but I'll take what I can get, it felt nice go to play at a higher level again. Then we ended with playing volleyball with new friends.

Pday we went to šibenik, city in-between Zadar and Split, very pretty. Played some bachi ball and had a good time.

Hope y'all have a great week!

Redbull Sponsor

Hey so this week went by pretty fast. We went to Zagreb today to drop off Elder Merrill and pick up the missionary from Ukraine, Elder Crane who just recovered from appendicitis and then we came back to Zadar. 

Last Friday we were walking in Centar and noticed this big thing for "Wings for Life World Run" and a tent that said volonteri on it. So we just walked in and said can we help? And they said yes come back in an hour and so we ran home, changed, and came back. We met some way fun people and helped prepare stuff for like 4 hours. We got cool shirts and bracelets and unlimited Redbulls hahah, the gist of the thing was run by Redbull. It was good to be normal with them all and kind of correct the image some people had of us and being weird and such. It was also fun to hear people say stuff in Croatian thinking we don't understand and just to respond to them later hahah, in the end everyone was super cool and it was a ton of fun!

Today we went to a cool beach kind of tucked away and we just hung out there.

That's all for this week, have a good one!