Another two weeks in Bulgaria

To the delight of millions, we too had the privilege of watching certain sessions of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What inspired talks we heard. You could just see on the face of President Monson that he now carries the mantel of the Prophet. Because of the time difference between Bulgaria and SLC, we tape the sessions, but were able to see two of them last Sunday, and the final two sessions today.

Missionary work is going great. Last evening Peggy and I were able to fellowship a couple who have lived in Utah. They both understand English, and the husband speaks it fluently. They are both members of the church, but the wife is having difficulties. We took them out to dinner, and had a great time. Today the family was at church, and the husband told me his wife was so excited with our taking them to dinner, and being a friend to them, that she said to him, "This is the first time in the past two years that I have felt like a human being". These are highly educated people; the husband received his MBA degree from BYU, and the wife has a degree in Chemical Engineering. It's not too often we get to work directly with the older members of the church due to the language difference.

We are excited with the changing weather; yes, it is spring, and the fruit trees have already shed their blossoms. The internet projects local temperatures in the high 70's low 80's for the next several days. Bring it on!!!!

We continue to see new and exciting places as we travel around the country. One thing we have noticed, is no matter the weather, we can always tell when people do their washing. The included picture tells you how we know.

Our big push now is Seminary and Institute registration for the coming school year. We need to have it completed by the end of May; we are asking the full time missionaries to assist us and the Branch Presidents; we couldn't do it by ourselves anyway, we don't know where all these potential students live. One of the problems is when the Communists left Bulgaria, the Bulgarians removed all the street signs that had Russian names on them. On many streets, no new names have replaced the old. The locals know where things are, but we sure can't find them. Within time, we're sure all the streets will have names, until then, it's just a guessing game for us.

A Sr couple had to return home for family reasons and before they left the Sr.s took a tour of an old village run solely on water power. It is now a tourist attraction and we enjoyed a couple of hours visiting the craft vendors and looking at the old houses and shops. Bulgarian history dates back to at least 700 b.c. The people who lived then were called Thracians. When people died, especially people of wealth and fame they were buried in tombs that were just mounds of earth some maybe 50 feet tall, but most were closer to 20 feet tall. These mounds can be seen all over the country side. Buried with the dead were their riches and through the ages the tombs had been dug into by grave robbers. Some of the tombs were found untouched and the precious items sent to museums. We went into one of the tombs that was open to the public. We also went to one of the Orthodox cathedrals. The picture shows how elaborate the cathedral is on the outside, the inside, though dark is also elaborate, but not our favorite tourist attraction.

Elder and Sister Westbroek at the water distribution center.

Looking down the main street of Etar where we bought souveniers and enjoyed a nice Bulgarian meal.

At the thracian tomb a bust of the ruler was found. Everything within the tomb had been taken out to a museum. It was small and consisted of only 2 small rooms and a hallway between.This cathedral sits high on a hill in the town of Shipka. It can be seen for miles around, not only because of its location, but because of the bright gold leafing and tall spire to its. left. It is truly beautiful outside. We also visited their freedom monument which is on the top of a mountain. Thankfully we were able to drive to the base of the monument and only had 200 + steps to get to it. No problem. But the weather was cold, which helped us make it to the top.

Weeks 6 and 7

Our assignment takes us to all the branches of the mission; therefore, we are crisscrossing the country what seems like every other week. During this past month we have driven more than 3,000 kilomoters, that's about 1,860 miles in a country that is only half the size of Utah; and this is not freeway driving. Bulgaria is surrounded by mountains, some as high as 10,000 feet. Most of the roadway is narrow, winding, up and down, two lane full, and checkered with deep chuck holes. Last week we hit one of these car eating pits and lost a hubcap along with puting a small dent in the rim. This past week we were in Sofia for two occasions: a Senior Couple's conference on Friday, put on by President and Sister Bennett, and Super Saturday, put on for the Seminary aged youth in the Sofia area by Peggy and me, the following day. Both of these events took place at the Mission Office/Chapel/Mission Home.

There are many conveniences that appear missing from Bulgaria when we compare the country to America, but there is one landmark that is common now throughout the world. As the picture shows, I met my old friend, Ron, at the world shrine.
There are some interesting cultural traditions that we thought you would be interested in. 1). The first one is impossible for us to get into the habit of; it is the shaking of the head to say no or yes. Their heads go side to side to say yes, to us that means no. Up and down is no to them, so we always have to think when we ask a yes or no question what it means when they shake or nod their heads. We do a lot of laughing because of our mistaken thinking. 2.) For those of you who don't like tomatoes, or possibly cucumbers you won't be ordering salads in Bulgaria. I asked for a cucumber salad once and got a huge plate of sliced cucumbers. Their famous salad is mainly tomatoes and cucumbers with some kind of red pepper. It is smothered in a cheese phonetically pronounced seirinaise. we hate seirinaise, but it tastes great on the salad. 3.) Everywhere we drive we see herds, big and small, of sheep, cows, and goats. Once in a while the sheep and goats are together. Every one of them has a shepherd or two and dogs that stay with the herd all day long. I've seen the herd being led, as in the picture below, and the sheep follow, just like in the Bible that Jesus teaches about. Even the cows have herders. We have seen herds as small as 4 and as large as 30 or 40. This one has goats with the sheep.

4.) We have seen 6 storks, heralding the coming of spring. This means that we can take our martinitzas off and hang them on a budding tree. A rite of spring, a symbol or omen of good luck, whatever. The storks are beautiful and big. White with black wing tips the size of a swan, but the neck is not so long, the beaks are longer and more pointed. They build their nests on man made objects often provided by the farmer such as a tall pole. Often they are built on chimneys, light posts, or other sort of support for their huge nests. Our favorite is in the picture below where it is hanging onto the cross of an orthodox church. When the cross bends far enough it will definitely slid to the ground.

We have yet to get a picture of 5.) the horse drawn cart with the horse wearing a red tassel hanging in front of his eyes. Usually it is the gypsies who have these carts. Those without the tassels are probably farmers or other workers. Gypsies, we have been told do not like to have their picture taken. Too bad, you will see one some day. and 6.) Easter hasn't happened here yet. So we did not miss it like we thought. Easter weekend is April 26th-27th.

Bulgaria is an ancient country. They have historical sights as old as 700 b.c. In the heart of Plovdiv is a Roman Amphitheatre. They are in the process of excavating it or they are uncovering enough to make it an attraction in the heart of the city. There is a bigger one not far from here they did not discover until they dug a tunnel through a hill in the center of town. That one is used today for operas and plays in the summer.

If any of you retired couples reading this informer would like a similar terrific experience as what we are having, let us know, and we'll tell our Mission President who seems to know some people in SL who have a magic wand in getting couples called to serve here. We have six couples serving here now, and he has indicated to us he is needing several more.

Weeks 4 & 5

Traveling is as exciting as it is tiring. The past two weeks found us visiting the seminary and institute classes in the cities of Stara Zagora and Sliven. These cities are NE of where we live some two/three hours drive away. It was a real treat to meet these young people and see how hard they try to live up to the standards of the church. The teacher in Stara Zagora is a young 20 year old single sister. (The one in white in the middle.) They don't have a lot of experience being members of the church, let alone being the teachers, but they try so hard. Our job really is a challenge to strengthen the teaching skills of the people in this beautiful country. Because the branches are so spread out, we will be lucky to see each class once every six weeks; if they met on all days of the week, it would be easier, but we have to visit when they teach class. The best hope we have of training the teachers is if they all show up to the Super Saturday activity. These activities are held quarterly; our first SS will be held this weekend in Plovdiv. Because the mission is split up into three districts, we hold a SS in each district four times per year. So the next three weekends will be very busy for us. In addition to the next three weekends being SS, we get to pick up the E. European director of CES services, Henry Kosak, who resides in Moscow, this coming week. We worked under Henry when we served in the Baltics and love the man.

















Our supervisor for Bulgaria and Ukraine came to visit us for a couple of days and visit classes with us. His name is Igor Poddodny and the man on the left is Ivan our teacher in Plovdiv.



















Between our visits to Stara Zagora and Sliven, we traveled to Velico Turnovo. In this lovely city we are scheduled to have our summer Youth and YSA Conferences; two separate weekends. We met the missionaries in Velico Turnovo, and drove to the mountain resort where the Conferences are to be held. The hotel where we are to stay is under renovation, but is to be finished by first of June. (We hope they work faster here than they do in the states) Upon talking to the manager, we learned that the dates for the YSA conference could not be guaranteed as a wedding was also scheduled for that weekend even though we had tentatively reserved the place six months ago. The Bulgarians have a way of doing this stressful type of scheduling--if something comes along that pays them more, they just bump the lower paying party. We hope we have things nailed down now for two different weekends.

On Thursday, we traveled to Sofia for a duel purpose. We scheduled visits to three branches to observe the seminary and institute classes, and for Peggy to attend the Sisters' Gathering under the invitation of the Mission President's wife. I'll let Peggy tell you of the events of the "Gathering".

The Sisters Gathering was nothing more than an opportunity for Sister missionaries and Sr. sisters a chance to mingle and feel of the spirits of each of us. We attending a play on Thursday night, ate at a Italian restaurant for lunch on Friday, and then shared spiritual experiences in the afternoon.

Sadly, we will be losing one of our Sr. Couples in 3 weeks. They will be leaving several months early due to health problems of the Sister's parents. We have really learned to love our fellow senior couples. They do add much to the success of our mission.


Bulgaria has some different, maybe even strange traditions. The current one is called Baba Martinitza. On the first day of March, and until the storks arrive, people give out and wear red and white yarn made into dolls or just as yarn with a bead on it that is tied on the wrist. Storks are supposed to bring prosperity to the land ownders where the storks nest. We see these huge nests in all of the villages we pass through.














We have had the privilege of hosting for dinner a remarkable young woman who was recently baptized. Her name is Radis, and I am sure I spelled it wrong. But it means Joy and so we often call her that. When we first met her she really looked angry. As she was being taught she mentioned that the sisters glowed and she wanted to glow like that. As she came out of the water she asked if she was glowing like the sisters, and said that she felt so light on the inside. We were not able to attend the baptism because we were travelling, but we could see and did tell her that she had a very happy countenance that was remarkable. She has been such a joy to be around we hope that she can keep this same countenance and introduce her friends to the church as well. She is full of hugs and love talented and smart. She wants to go with us to some of the plays that are held in the summer at the ancient Roman ampitheatre here in Plovdiv.

We cross our fingers hoping to hear from all of you who read this blog.
Love, Elder and Sister Andersen, mom and dad.

Our 3rd week in Bulgaria

Zone Conference for Plovdiv district was held on Monday and was a great treat for us as we got to meet all of the Elders and Sisters in our district. It was also our first zone conference in Bulgaria. The mission Pres. asks each of us to come to Z. Conf. with a 3 minute talk on an assigned topic. This month it was "Has Miracles ceased?" John was one of the missionaries asked to give his 3 minute talk. The Pres. was so impressed he wants to have it submitted to the Liahona. Who knows. We could have gone back to Varna for their Z. Conf. but we had a lot of catch-up work to do, so the middle of the week was spent taking care of some important CES work. But on Friday we went to Sofia to the Sofia Dist. Z. Conf. and Sr. Couple Conf. This was another spiritual feast, and Sr. Couple Conference turned out to be only a dinner,because the Pres. had other events taking place that took most of his time. We had hoped to visit 3 classes this week-end, but the two Sat. classes were cancelled, the one on Fri. night happened while we were in Sr. Couple Conf. However, we stepped in at the end of class and met quite a few of the students and the teacher. This was impressive as there were about 12 YSA there.

With Saturday free we went to the Bulgaria Museum of History to see the gold plates so many have emailed us a notice and picture about. Unfortunately it was on tour and we missed out seeing it.

Yesterday, Sunday, we were invited to the District President's home for dinner. Elders Ingebretsen and New came along to interpret. This was a very nice opportunity for us as the President is the one who is supposed to be in charge of Super Saturdays for the Plovdiv district and the Plovdiv district is in charge of organizing YSA conference. We really enjoyed getting to know this family. He is a very talented wood carver, and she is studying to get her Dr.'s degree in music.

President Georgiev and his wife. The young man on the left is one of the teachers of the class that got cancelled on Saturday, named Ivailo. We had a good chance to talk to him about his class. On the right is Elder New. Elder Ingebretsen, below is our district leader.

We have learned to put up with a lot of things different from what we are used to in the states. However, I doubt that I can deal successfully with the stove/oven that we have here. 2 out of 4 burners are electric. The other 2 are gas and don't work, or there is no gas. The oven dial has no temperature gage on it, so we assume that straight down is 350 degrees, but it is not certain, and we have to watch it carefully. On top of that there are no racks except a tray on the bottom that cannot be moved. So all the food in their pans are placed on a upsidedown bread tin I put in there to get the food a little bit off the bottom. Along with the not very fine sugar the brownies I baked today turned out alright, but not great. Plus, when the oven is on, the dials and the door are so hot I have to use a hotpad to open the door or turn the dials of the oven. Ouch.

During my 3 a.m. insomnia I usually get up and read the scriptures. Last night, as I lay awake worrying about the quanty of work we have to catch up on and complete during the next few weeks, I thought to myself that this is the time when I usually receive inspiration. So, I said, "What inspiration do you have for me tonight." and immediately the thought came to me to check the computer files and hard copies to see what needs to be done with the attendance and other areas. I got up, looked at the files and became concerned that we could not possibly do all of this, it is overwhelming. Then I received an answer to the problem as to how to do all of this, with the help of the Zone Leaders and other missionaries. It is amazing what happens when you ask for inspiration and you are in a position to pay attention to what is given. The promise is there, we just have to be willing to ask, and it will be given to us.

Car parking throughout Bulgaria is a premium. As we mentioned before, they park their cars on the sidewalks as well as on the sides of the streets. Several days ago we went to the postoffice to mail a letter and when we came back to the car, it was not to be seen. For what ever the reason, instead of giving us a ticket (they don't do that here) they just impound your car and tow it off to a large parking lot near the football stadium. It cost us about $25 to get it back, plus another $5 for the taxi. We still don't know why they chose our car as we were not in a 'no parking' zone to our knowledge. It was a real challenge communicating with a policeman standing on the sidewalk near where our car had been parked. We finally had to call the missionaries who talked to the police on our cell phone. He wrote on a piece of paper where we could get our car. We gave the paper to a taxi driver and presto, we were soon at the lot showing our passports to the impounding officer and after paying the fine, we were driving again.

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.

First week in Bulgaria

Dear Family and Friends,

We have been here for 9 days and are making our way around the place. Our home is on a hill in the center of the city (600,000+ pop.) and the road to get there is very winding and narrow. We thought the driving in Riga was crazy but here it is much worse. And parking is strickly by luck. This is the narrow road to our place. It is worse than it looks, it is a joke when another car is coming our way. One of us has to pull over onto the curb/walkway/parking area. Pedestrians beware.

We spent the first week going through the masive amount of files that the previous couple had left for us. We feel that we know what is going on and are ready to start our work. We plan on starting visiting the branch seminary and institute classes this week and will be on the road for 5 days visiting 4 of the classes in one of the districts. This is the fun part of the work; getting to know the youth and ysa and their teachers. We visited the Plovdiv branch Wednesday and had a wonderful visit. The teacher, Ivan Baev, is an excellent teacher and has a wonderful relationship with his class. The only problem: there are no seminary students, only YSA. This is Ivan below in front of the only chapel built by the church in Bulgaria.

We work with a wonderful group of missionaries. Our first district meeting was just 3 days after arriving in Plovdiv. To our surprise, Elder Orton was aware of our coming as his aunt is the R.S. Pres. in our St. George ward. He is a great missionary as are they all. The sisters took us shopping on Tuesday, so we fed them lunch. Shopping in Bulgaria will not be as intimidating as it was in Latvia, our first mission. Many of the products are the same or similar. We just have to figure out a few items such as sour cream. Thankfully our apartment has all the spices we need. Peanut butter may be a problem here where it wasn't so much in Latvia. I kind of wish we had taken up Elder Gregory's suggestion in Latvia and learned a bit of Russian, then we would not have had any problems with pronouncing the Bulgarian words. I think the best way for us to learn any of the language here is to concentrate on the Hymns. This way we will learn the pronounciation and a few of the words.

Our computer is a good one, but the internet would not come up. We tried all we knew how to do so we called on the real experts, the Elders. Elders Ingebretson and New came over to get our internet working on Wednesday, so we fed them dinner. We know how to win their hearts. The other missionaries in Plovdiv are Elder Griffith and Orton. We had 2 others at our district meeting, but they live in a town 20 km away. So I guess we will only see Elders Marianno and Wooley on Mondays and when we visit the sem/inst. class.

Sister Larkin and Sister Thompson with Sister Andersen in our apartment

Elders Orton, Andersen, New, Ingebretsen, Griffith, Woolley, and Marianno; Sisters Larkin and Thompson

LILLY ANDERSEN BLOWING OUT HER CANDLES

For those who have experienced the MTC, you know that there are not many words that can describe it. Wonderful, inspiring, are just a couple of words to start the long list. We would like to add a new term: 'Spirit Prison'. The spirit is so strong at the MTC, but we can't really escape to share the feelings we have with the people in Bulgaria until we're released on the 7th of this month. We certainly had a full week of work, study, and gorging ourselves spiritually and physically on the food of the happiest place on earth. As seniors we have our evenings free so
when John's mom turned 98 on February 1, we went to Salt Lake to wish her well and sing happy birthday along with the rest of the family. We feel strongly that she will still be here and doing well when we return. She has a large family that loves her and tries to follow her good example.

When we went to the Baltic mission, we failed to get our picture taken in front of the large world map. So, we corrected that mistake and also had our picture taken there again for our current mission to Bulgaria.
First mission was to the Baltic States mission office in Riga, Lativa


Second mission is to Bulgaria, Sofia mission. We will live in Plovdiv


To you, our dear and favorite Baltic missionaries, we want to assure that none of the Elders and Sisters will be able to replace you in our hearts and minds. We love you and honor you for all you stood for in the Baltics and your friendships there and afterwards. We hope you don't forget about us and keep us in your mind and prayers. However, I am sure that there will be lots of love for the Bulgarian missionaries as well; I am sure we have love enough to go around. If you do not want these frequent updates, we will not be hurt, but sad; so just let us know, and we will take care of that.

May we also add that you need to set a goal to serve another mission with your eternal companions when the time is right. It will be a cementing bond to your marriage that cannot be attained anywhere else. Our love for each other just seems to grow stronger as time passes. We would not be able to replace these experiences in any other way.