February 21 through 24:

After spending about 10 days reviewing computer and hardcopy files we felt ready to tackle the job of meeting our teachers and students. Having 16 branches and classes scattered throughout the country we decided to see the Varna area classes. This was a great trip that took 4 days to complete. We have the missionaries in the 4 branches we visited to thank for setting up the visits and getting us to where we needed to be. Actually, we only got lost once, in the big city of Sofia with its 3 million people. We were only trying to skirt the city to get us on the road to Rusa, our first class. Rusa is on the Danube River, a medium size city with narrow roads in a mass of confusion. Class was great. The teacher, Krasy, was fun to be with and the 3 students there had a good time and participated well. The only problem was the hotel. Quite different from what we had experienced and for a 3 star rating, I would have expected more. We woke up to the elevator going up and down constantly. When we wanted to take a shower, there was no water. Construction workers on the street broke the water line. Breakfast was good, however.

Ayri, on the left, is our one member student with his teacher, Krasy, on the right.

As we were driving to our next town on Friday, we drove along the coast of the Black Sea. The whole length that we saw was one resort after another. It kind of reminded us of the Gold Coast and Sunshine Beach in Australia. We stopped at one place and walked on the beach.

We next hit the Black Sea resort town of Burgas. This is a well laid out city with about 200,000 people. Because they had moved the chapel the Elders met us to take us there after first helping us get checked into our hotel. The other set of Elders met the four of us for dinner, and then took us to the church and translated for us. This class had 4 students (one was seminary age). Once, Hassim was to be baptized in the Black Sea the next morning. It was not a warm day. Our hotel, thankfully, was a 4 star hotel and was as nice as any we have ever stayed in.

Saturday: Varna was next, and it also is located on the beach. Here, though it is a decent size branch, and the members are supposedly active with 4 students, we had no class. For some reason it was cancelled and all we could do was talk to the branch president who was also the teacher. He informed us that he could no longer teach and introduced us to the teacher he had chosen for the class. With Dimitar Dimitrov, the new teacher, we have a lot of hope. He has lived in Vienna in a stake for 35 years and taught many classes. John was able to observe him teach the Elders Quorum class on Sunday and was very impressed, more so than for any of our teachers this mission and our last.

Dimitar and Pres. Nikoli Danev

After meeting with Dimitar we drove to Dobrich, an hour's drive from Varna and met with the one student there named Ivan. His teacher was a missionary and we talked to him afterwards about getting a local teacher. Ivan's former teacher went to the U.S. Ivan does the reading and the homework, so we are not too worried about him.

Elders Jack and Flammer with Ivan and Branch President.

We spent the night in Varna at a supposedly 3 star hotel, but it was worse than the one in Ruse. The smell in the bathroom was like the sewer backing up and the cigarette smell from other rooms was awful, even though ours was a non-smoking room. Etc. food was good, the price was way higher than the 4 star in Burgas. Church in Sunday was very good. We met a Sister missionary from Narva, Estonia. It was good to talk to someone from our first mission even though she joined the church after we had left.