Our Bulgarian Branch Christmas Party

Our Christmas program was not unlike those of wards we have attended in the past. Talent presentations and stories of the birth of Christ. We even had Santa Claus come visit the children. The costume was not as elaborate, but the children were just as excited. Who can help but love these activities. Our celebrations included dinner at the District Presidents home for all the missionaries. the President and his wife are very musical and they entertained us with accordian music and song. And then the President did a comedy routine beating an egg while singing. If anyone can help me load this onto the blog, I have it as a video.

PS: Yes we did eat roasted Bulgarian chicken for our Zone Conference, see story below.

Why Did the Bulgarian Chicken Cross the Road

Christmas Eve at the AndersensElders Kasabov, Andersens, Jacobson, Hammond, Kingsley, Jones, Wahlquist, Sisters Shuvalava, Wakefield, Dahle, and Peterson.

Elders Jorgensen, Mace and Andersen at Christmas Zone Conference.

Zone Conference Talk - Fear Not (All missionaries were required to prepare a 3 minute talk)

For centuries, the question has been asked, “Why did the Bulgarian Chicken cross the road?” I have searched for many months for an answer to this perplexing question. I have suffered fatigue, insomnia, self doubt and criticisms from every side in my search. I stand before you today to report my findings. The chicken, filled with fear and trepidation, crossed the road to meet with the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I must tell you of the events leading up to this historic rendezvous. From the chicken’s own journal I learned that he was attracted to the missionaries because of their clean cut appearance and smiles. Other chickens in the yard had also noticed the missionaries, but they had heard from the head rooster that the missionaries were BIG TROUBLE and to avoid contact.

As I mentioned before, it was with great fear that the chicken crossed the road. On the morning of this historic crossing, just as the sun began winking, the chicken flew to his roost and with a loud ‘cock-a-doo’ announced, “Today I will cross the road and find for myself what these missionaries are all about.” His announcement caused no small stir among the chickens. All egg production seized. Clucking turned to ‘klackel’. His friends warned, “Don’t do it little brother, if you do, you’re sure to die.” Others just pointed their wing tips at him and threatened, “If you talk to those missionaries we’ll never speak to you again.” Many of the older hens pleaded, “You know how the Bulgarians drive; you’ll never make it across the road.” Then the head rooster cocked his head, twice, and the brood became deathly quiet. He crowed, “If you talk to those missionaries, you will go straight to that lake of burning fire where the sly fox waits with smacking lips.” The gasps of the hens caused several to faint.

The little chicken began to doubt his own abilities; even the hackles on his neck began to tremble. Then, he remembered the words of his dying mother, “Fear not little flock”, she had clucked, “I taught you not the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” With his heart pounding, and the words of his mother echoing in his ears, he hopped from the safety of his perch, and with one giant leap for all chickens, dashed across the road, and lived fear free for ever after; and happily, too, he testified.

Elder Andersen

From giving Thanks to celebrating the Birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ

Thanksgiving in Bulgaria is only celebrated by Americans, but the Bulgarians all wished us a good Thanksgiving, being concerned that we had the oportunity to celebrate. This we did by having our district of 8 Elders over for a dinner. We provided the meat, gravy, rolls and pies; they brought the rest. Not all of it was typical trimmings, but they were so full with the rolls, and turkey and ham that the pie was practically untouched.

Elder Kasabov and Elder New

Shortly after we had our last Super Saturday of the year in Sofia. Same as before, the parables of the "Lost" and the 10 Virgins. Afterwards we all made our own oil lamps.

Gena and Analie with their lamps

Once a month the Sr. Couples get together and have a conference with Pres. Bennett. This is always a time to coordinate the activities of the Sr.s and relax with a wonderful meal. The Bennett home (Mission Home) is exceptionally nice and inviting.

President Bennett and Elder Jorgensen with Sister Andersen

The following week Sister Bennett invited all the sister missionaries over for a Sister's Gathering. We really felt the spirit of Christmas as we sat around and shared the Christmas traditions of our families. I felt so proud of these beautiful sisters who told of the selflessness of their family traditions where the spirit of Christ was the center of their celebrating, making sure others who were less fortunate did not go without, and the feeling of giving over the self-centeredness of receiving. The future of the Church is in good hands with the strenghth of the army of missionaries in the field. They will be a powerful force for good throughout their lives because of the teachings they have received in their homes, and as they exemplify those teachings wherever they are.

As we prepare for this Christmas, we want all to feel the true joy of the birth, life, and death of our Savior. We share our testimony with you that He came to this earth, as the Son of God, to show us the way back into the presence of our Father in Heaven. May we all put Christ at the center of our thoughts and gifts this season. Share your love and blessings with all around you and may these feelings last throughout the coming year. We love you all.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Going the Rounds of Class visits

Since our temple trip, we have not sat around, unless you call the hours of driving between cities. The week following the trip to Germany we went to Hascovo, Ruse, Dobrich and Varna. By the time we returned home we did not want to sit for a very long time. However, the following week we ended up going to Burgas for 3 days. At least we were able to sleep in the same place for 2 nights. Our first trip was to observe classes. Hascovo has a great class and a dedicated teacher in Petar. Ruse has the best teacher, but no class, Dobrich and Varna are blessed with Missionary teachers, good teaching, not the ideal situation however.

In this picture we are with Elder Henninen from Finland, Ivan, our student, and Elder Salt, the teacher. Whenever we visit a city, we usually take the elders involved out to dinner. This time, because of Ivan's special circumstance, we invited him as well. He was on cloud nine thinking we would ask him to join us. He got to choose the place, a spaghetti and pizza place.

We neglected to get pictures of the Ruse teacher and the Varna class. Sorry that we did, but our memories are good. In Ruse, we took the teacher and missionaries out to dinner. Varna's class met on Sat. morning, so no dinner there.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Burgas. Friday night, the class was taught by Elder Werden, in the white shirt, and there were 2 students. Elder Warnick is in the sweater. Great job! Elders. We did take 4 elders out to dinner in Burgas before class. BELOW: Saturday night we attended the branch fun night and afterwards put on a fireside for the branch. We don't know all their names but there were 2 teen-age investigators there. We were so thrilled as they are probably the only young investigators in the whole mission. We don't have enough youth. Names: front row in red shirt is Andrei, to the right of him is Borislava, 16. We showed Elder Holland's Sept 7 CES fireside talk on Joseph Smith's Temple Prison. It was great.
During our free time Sat. afternoon, we drove down the Black Sea coast looking for a place to hold our Youth and YSA conference. We found a great place and we will see if this is the place we use. The weather was windy and cold, but we stopped at a beach to eat a snack and caught some wind surfers out in the water. Sunday, we spoke in the Burgas branch, and four hours later, we were back home in Plovdiv.

This past Saturday we were in Varna putting on our Super Saturday. We did this in conjunction with the Varna District Leadership training meeting. We included the whole district in our teacher training lesson as it is so needed. We then broke for lunch, which the district treated us too. After lunch, we took the seminary aged students and their teachers to the Relief Society room where we taught them a lesson and had an activity. The lesson was on parables and we assigned, beforehand, the different branches to role play selected parables. This picture is of the Varna branch getting ready to do the lost sheep. Rodi, 16, is in the hat as the shepherd; Didi, Iva, and Constantine are the lost sheep. Rodi was big enough to lift the lost sheep, Iva, and carry her back to the fold, but prudence spoke louder, so he didn't.The Burgas Branch was assigned the parable of the Prodical Son. Borislava, in the blue sweater, played the part of the prodical son. Andrei, our other investigator, in the blue shirt, is looking on as the prodical son is reunited with his family. Our two investigator youth joined right in and really did an outstanding job.

We next talked about the parable of the 10 Virgins. We had purchased a couple of oil lamps and then made enough to make 10. Drops of oil were added to the lamps for each testimony building act we do so our reserves will be full when the bridegroom comes. Oil lamps are common here as souvenirs. Afterwards they made their own oil lamps out of clay. They turned out pretty good.

This is Iva from Varna and Acen from Burgas working on their lamps. We have 2 more Super Saturdays coming up for the Plovdiv and Sofia districts.

Freiberg Temple Trip

Temple Trip to Freiberg.

Going to the temple had been our dream since we arrived in Bulgaria. President Bennett readily agreed and told us to go with the group of members going in the Fall. It turned out that all four Sr. Couples went and we had a wonderful time. We left Sofia on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. and arrived at the temple 26 hours later. Sleep was the only real issue and some of us did not get any. Monday, the temple was closed so we walked through beautiful "Old Town" Freiberg. Tuesday through Friday we spent in the temple doing ordinance work and witnessed a wonderful young couple's sealing. Tuesday evening, the 4 Sr. Couples cooked dinner for the Bulgarian group, which consisted of 28 of us, and Thursday night the Bulgarians returned the favor and cooked for all. Because of the size of our group and other groups who were also attending the temple, housing at the temple complex was limited. In order to accommodate all of us, the couples were separated, even the newly wed couple, into various rooms; the men to one set of rooms and the women to others. Great experience to get to know the faithful Bulgarians as we shared rooms with each other. It was also a time to renew acquaintances with our good friends, Neil and Rosemarie Spencer, from Anchorage, Alaska. Neil served as Bishop of our ward, and John was one of his counselors. They are working in the temple as missionaries, and they just radiated with love and happiness. They are doing such a great job as missionaries. They treated us to dinner one evening, and drove us around the area of Freiberg, it was so good to be with them and to reminisce old times.

Germany has the most picturesque countrysides and hamlets of all the countries we travelled through. We drove through 6 countries to get to the temple including Bulgaria.
Old Town Freiberg has typical 16th to 19th century architecture. This is in one of their squares in old town. They were celebrating the opening of a mineral museum claiming to have the largest display of minerals in the world. We were pleasantly surprised to see this parade go by as we ate lunch in one of the restaurants in Old Town Elder and Sister Mace, Elder and Sister Jorgenson, Elder and Sister Andersen, and Elder and Sister Jewell. Four lucky Sr. Couples posing in front of the temple. Notice how handsome the Andersen's are.

The spire of the temple at 8:00 a.m. just before we embarked on our 24 hour trip back to Bulgaria, and another 24 hours without sleep

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2008

We woke up today to a blustery, rainy day. I had not been in the best of moods. Yesterday was a slow, boring day as had several days been these past few weeks. Add to that the discouraging news we have had this past week: One branch still had not received their material, due to neglect from a few sources and a missionary who doesn’t have his head screwed on right; a branch president called 2 people to teach the S/I class and was turned down twice - so missionaries will be teaching that class; two of our area supervisors have new jobs and don’t have time to be of much help to us. There were several other things that really got me down.

Fifteen minutes before we were to leave for church, the rain stopped and the sun shone in a part of the sky; this wonderful rainbow appeared in our view from our apartment window. WOW. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pictures. I call this my
PICTURE OF HOPE



Off to church and conference. Most of the speakers spoke to my moody feelings and especially to my desire for Hope. What uplift. What a call to repentance and to shake myself out of my negative feelings. Wake up; smile; laugh; there is a principle of compensation for every tear of sorrow will be replaced with 100 tears of joy; there is hope at the end of the depression; God never leaves us alone; “come what may and love it;” trust in the Lord; we can believe and expect a glorious future with, and because of, our Heavenly Father and Savior. What wonderful messages of hope for those depressed; no, for everyone. We hope all listened with their heart and soul to our prophets of today. The Branch had a wonderful lunch prepared for those of us who attended the first session (we got the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions), and it made the second session so much more enjoyable to sit through. We'll see the remaining sessions next week.

Things you don't see in America

This past couple of weeks has been Super Saturday week ends for us. Yesterday we just had a spiritual feast at Zone Conference. These meetings boost our spirits and fill us with renewed enthusiasm for our job. We love SIR work. Please note this is an anachronism for Seminary and Institute of Religion, which is a name change from CES throughout the world. After our last list we noticed things we have not seen in America ever, or at least for a very long time. This, for us, has been interesting to think of things we don't see and thought you might be interested in this as well. Some of these are enjoyable, some outright disgusting.

Grape arbors in every yard where there is a single family home.

Billboards with half naked women. All this since the Communists left. The communists at least did one thing right and had strict moral conduct.

Piles of coal being shoveled into a house. Reminds us of our grandparents homes because coal is the major source of heat here in Bulgaria.

Horse drawn carts going up and down city streets all over Plovdiv, Sofia, and smaller cities and villages. Note the red tassel in front of the horses' face. This is a symbol of the gypsies. They use their horse drawn carts to pick up anything of value that has been thrown away or lost on the road side.

Men and women digging through garbage cans in any neighborhood, any time. These are gypsies looking for saleable or recyclable items. These are not homeless people, though, we do have some who find their food from the cans.

Policemen with Lollipops, This is our description of the stick, with a little round reflector on the end. Policemen, standing at the side of the road, hold out their "Lollipops" and point the stick at an errant driver. They never use their vehicles to chase speeders or for other violations. And yes, we have been waved over several times. After they tell us what we have done wrong in their Bulgarian tongue, we smile and ask them if they speak English; to that, they just yell at us a little more in Bulgarian, and then motion for us to be on our way.

No regard for emergency vehicles with flashing lights: we have yet to see a car pull over when one goes by with its lights flashing.

Emergency landing area on freeways. Right in the middle of a freeway, the speed limits lower and the barrier down the middle disappears. Purpose: so an airplane has a safe landing strip in case of an emergency.

The worst thing of all, try to visualize this, driving down the road, and in your lane right in front of you a car stops and puts on his hazard blinkers, gets out of the car and runs into a store close by. You have to dart to the left, when you can) and so do all the cars and buses behind you. Common event seen anyplace in the city!

Thoughts from Bulgaria.

Our activities have been rather mundane for the past several weeks as we have prepared for a new Seminary/Institute year. So here are some mental pictures for you to eschew; this is what we see as we have been traveling around the country.

Bulgarian Chicken - road game. Take a one lane road, cars parked on the sidewalks on each side and 2 cars heading for each other on streets no more that nine feet wide. Which one will slip into whatever space available at the last moment looses. (or wins). Only rule: if you don't yield, you should wave your thanks to the one who does.

Our Bulgarian "Oh, How I Wish" list. Oh How I Wish:
1. women would wear slips.
2. people use deodorant
3. they used bottles for their pills rather than the push out aluminum packets.
4. husbands and wives sat together in church, ( a few do.)
5. men did not relieve themselves on the side of the road in plain view.
6. there was a liter law.

SUPER SATURDAY
With the beginning of the new school year, Seminary and Institute also begins. We are holding Super Saturdays in order to get the students excited and to pass out materials for the new year. The assigned course of study is the New Testament. Each of our zones have few students, but each one is important. We teach, involve the students, provide lunch, teach some more, and then we play games at our Saturday events.

Teachers, Missionaries who will also teach, and students listening to the lesson.

Elder Mattinson, with Svetislav, Daria, Dida, and Ivan deciding how the NT was organized.

Dida, our Area Supervisor, a YSA with good English language skills is helping

Elder Andersen with translation with his lesson.

Where is the ring? Elder Anderson, in the center, is trying to find the one hiding it.

Here, students and teachers are playing Bible Bingo.

Enjoy your week; we love hearing from you.

E/S Andersen; John and Peggy

Spectacular Fountains

Our goal is to visit each of the Branch Presidents in Bulgaria as soon as possible, before the new school S/I year starts. So when we went to Pleven, we knew we were in for a treat as the Branch President's wife served with us in the Baltic Mission. Her name then was Sister Petrova, now it is Tatiana Vezerov. They have a beautiful baby named Annie. We enjoyed our visit there, however short it was. We will definitely make a return visit to this beautiful branch and the Vezerov family.

Never have we seen such a beautiful park and walking street in all of Europe. It was covered with these beautiful fountains and paths that wound through it. We took many pictures and had to show them to you.

Pres. Wolfgang Paul from our Area Presidency came on a whirlwind tour of the mission. We had Zone conference under his direction and then a very spiritual fireside that evening. During the Z. Conf. I, Sister Andersen, was asked to bear my testimony. Having just been spiritually fed, this was an emotional event and opportunity for me. Both Pres. Paul and his wife gave us much to contemplate about our purpose for being here in Bulgaria. Much can happen if we just dig in and do as we have been asked. "Open our mouths." We need to show our gratitude and not murmur but have faith and rely upon the Lord. We are here for just a short time. But the one thing that caused us to ponder the most was his statement, "The 10 year mark after our mission is the true measurement of the success of our mission." When I thought upon this, I thanked my Heavenly Father that our sons can say that their mission was a success, not because of the number of baptisms, but by the lives that they live. This gospel is TRUE.

Our 5 day whirlwind tour of the branches.

As we travel to various parts of the country, we take time to look at historical sites along the way. The first 3 pictures are of the Rila Monastery in the south-west part of Bulgaria. It is probably 800 years old, still functions as a monastery, and one can even stay there as they offer hotel accomidations.
On our way home from Shumen, a town about 100 km from the Danube River and Black sea, we drove to the top of a mountain to see this monument, called Buzludjia. (The spaceship like structure at the top) It is from the Communist era and it was boarded up about 20 years ago. People have broken into the place and as it is falling apart, no one seems to care that people go in and look around and maybe take some of the mosaic tiles. We did enter, but did not pilfer. There is mosaic tile murals on most of the walls and they are falling off, exposing the paintings underneath used to guide the placing of the mosaic tiles. We don't know what this monstrosity was used for, but it had huge windows overlooking all sides of this mountain peak.
This shows the murals and the deterioration of the place.
You can see how extensive the murals are and how intricate. This section is the most intact of all the walls.

In the last 5 days we have met with 7 branch presidents. When we meet with them we take them out to dinner and discuss their seminary/institute needs including going over the list of potential names belonging to their branches. A new direction from SL just arrived regarding the calling of seminary/institute teachers. As senior couples we no longer call the CES teachers; that job is now the branch president's, and he does this like he would any other calling in his branch. This puts more emphasis on the program and more responsibility on the district and branch where it should be and not on the mission. Though it sounds great to be going out to eat all our meals when we travel, it gets old, but is a good way to get a feel for the needs of the branches. We have learned a lot and have found out some of their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the Br. Pres. have no concern about the need for S/I. They grew up without such programs in their lives and, of course, have no idea how seminary or institute should be run. One Branch President, who's own son should have been attending, did not have a teacher for 5 months after the original teacher quit, and did not even think to call a new one. We learn and wonder what we can do to increase their understanding of how important S/I is for the future of their branches. The picture below is of the teacher and his wife in Hascovo.

Out of 19 branches we still have 5 more to visit this month. We go to Pleven this weekend, and Ruse and Velico Turnovo next weekend where we also have to speak in Sacrament. We will be speaking every 3rd Sunday in the 3rd zone of the mission, the area closest to the Black Sea, rotating with the other Senior Couples through the zone's 6 branches.

Where has the time gone; we have now be in Bulgaria six months.

Miscellaneous from Bulgaria

Nobody knocks on our door at 8:30 a.m., or so we thought. We opened our door to Tony, our landlord, who had this wonderful cake in hand. We did not tell him he was a month early. He is a very thoughtful person, who is so aware of us. He speaks a little English, wishes we would speak even that much Bulgarian. A former pro soccer player in Germany, he owns 7 apartments in our building and 3 on the Black Sea. We shared the cake with the missionaries that night at the branch.

An interesting fact about Bulgarians: They do not eat lettuce. The lettuce we have purchased was tough, tasteless. So we eat our salads as they do. Chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, a small amount of onions and green peppers with fresh parsley. We decided to grow our own garden. Yes, we have 4 pots with 2 cucumber plants and 2 tomato plants. They are on the patio next to our bedroom. This is also the place where we hang our clothes to dry in the summer. So, you can know the luxury of living in the past we are posting pictures of our wonderful patio.

The Black Sea

Joining millions, or so it seems, we spent our weekend at the Black Sea. This has to be the resort destination for Europe, and Russia. In our travels between the 3 branches we visited, we stopped at 3 beaches just to see what it was like. Our pictures show little sand, mostly white umbrellas, and almost nude bodies going on for what seemed like miles. We walked out on Varna Beach and navigated our way to the water's edge. Looking back over the path we covered we decided that modesty was not a word they understood and we decided to make our exit as quickly as possible. Sunny Beach was so crowded that finding a place to park the car was impossible. We were there to meet a young friend named Radost, which means Joy, a new member of our Branch in Plovdiv who was working there for the summer. After visiting with her for lunch, we walked to the beach and found a repeat of Varna Beach. I did not know there could be so many people in one place at a time; on the beach, in the swimming pools, walking the shopping areas, Half of Europe and Russia had to be on the Black Sea Beaches this past week; the other half of Europe on different weeks. The Germans get 45 days of paid vacation, and most of them spend it here at the Black Sea resorts.

Our efforts were to meet with the 3 branch presidents in that area and give our fireside. They are all wonderful men and work hard for their small branches. Dobrich has fewer than 10 people who show up each Sunday. The Br. Pres. is retired and handicapped with only 1 leg, so he doesn't get around very much. But he is so dedicated and loved by the members. His name is Dimitur Neykov (English spelling)

TheVarna Branch Pres. is young, 29, with one child. He is quite busy, but knows his people very well, and tries to work with them as best he can. His name is Nikolai Danev. He is one of only few members who understands the administration of the church.

Burgas' Pres. is a very loving person, very concerned about his people, and shows them he cares in so many ways.

We took each of the Branch presidents out to dinner to show them our appreciation, and to talk about the young people in their branches. In 2 of the branches we took the missionaries out to dinner with us. Translation is only an excuse; they love to eat, and we love to feed them. This is how we get to know them and learn about how the work is going in their areas. We also quiz them on the youth and young adults in their branches so we can know who is active and how

the inactives are responding to their efforts of

reactivation. The branch presidents are also

working hard to get their young people enrolled

in Seminary and Institute. We also gave a fireside to 2 branches and spoke in Sacrament Meeting at Burgas on Sunday.

President Nikolai Nikolav is the 2nd from the right. This is a picture of the branch who came to the fireside.

Sunflowers, oh, how beautiful they are with their yellow eyelashes surrounding their piercing brown eyes. Thousands of acres of this plant are planted each year covering the landscape of Bulgaria. The farmers raise them for their seeds; not to eat at ball games, but to press them for their oil. Sunflower seed oil is used in cooking mostly; we use it regularly. We couldn't help stop near one of the fields and have our pictures taken among them. Above, Peggy is giving them competition for their beauty.