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.

YSA Conference

YSA Conference couldn't have been in a better setting; mountains, trees, a small lake with croaking frogs, and wonderful people to work with. We had Elder and Sister Senkans, our Area Authority Seventy and friends from Latvia, come to speak to us. Our Supervisor, Igor Poddubny, from the Ukraine, also came and gave a wonderful presentation. President Bennett gave a scintillating talk on how Joseph Smith received the plates. With dancing in the evenings, and great workshops, the young adults had a marvelous time. John put on his bridge-building activity and everyone, adults included, were seen frantically working together to create a bridge out of newspapers strong enough to hold a 35 pound box for 10 seconds, and big enough for the box to pass under. Exhilarated and exhausted, we are now home and basking in the pleasant memories and preparing to do it all over again for the youth of our mission this weekend.

YSA Conference - Momino Resort

An Interesting Time to be in Bulgaria

Ever driven down a country road to the smell of roses? On a P-day we took a trip to the Valley of the Roses, near Kazanlak – the place where the world famous rose oil is produced. There we toured the museum and drove through the acres and acres of Damascus roses which produce more rose oil than any other kind. The picture below shows us and Elder and Sister Mace as we stopped to smell the roses. Since we last wrote we have attended 2 baptisms, which are always the highlight of any mission experience. It is too bad that we don’t seem to have more of them. Our main focus is on the seminary and institute programs. These past 3 weeks we held 2 Super Saturdays and teacher training, along with committee meetings for our YSA and Youth conferences. As we prepare for the conferences we are fearful that the numbers of those who will attend will not be anywhere near as high as the potential. Many of the young people leave the country for England and the US for work, marriage, or whatever. Hopefully they stay active, but the percentages of that are not very high. But we will have a great time, and it is occupying our efforts.














We are giving firesides in the branches every chance we get. Our message has been to keep journals using our family journals as examples. The Church has been here only about 17 years and so the members here are the Pioneers of the Church in Bulgaria. They need to write their stories for their posterity as did our ancestors. We tell a story of a man who, in 1963, felt a need to leave the country of Bulgaria, but it being communistic was not able to leave until there was a job-related opportunity in Algeria which the Government wanted someone to fill. His name was miraculously drawn for the job. When he was required to return to Bulgaria he defected to France where the missionaries found him and taught him the gospel. He later immigrated to America. He became the first mission president in Bulgaria after the government became a democracy. Recorded stories like this are great examples the Bulgarian saints need to help them understand the importance for keeping journals.

Our biggest thrill since coming here has been the CES Sr. Missionary Conference, held this year in Kaunas, Lithuania. We were so excited to return to our first mission area, even if it was only one of our cities. Our Area Supervisor, our dear friend, Henry Kosak, was the leader of the conference. He really filled us with the spirit to go back to our mission and increase our impact, and exposure, and involve the leadership of our branches. We feel we can make a difference in the numbers if we just follow the guidelines he presented to us. They even taught our husbands some self-defense tactics, the Haka. We are sure feeling a lot safer now. Along with 3 days of inspiration, we did a little exploration. In Kaunas, the place to visit is the 9th Fort, a place we had been to twice before, but still interesting. This was not a concentration camp, as we called it, but an extermination camp during the war, and a prison before and after. Here 9000 children were killed along with others totaling 37000 people in all; they were lined up against the wall and shot just because they were Jews. The monument is impressive and can be seen for miles around.

Pictures are: Kaunas 9th Fort monument. The night before the conference with Henry and Elke.

The Church here in Bulgaria is experiencing a great deal of opposition at the moment. The news media have associated the Church with the FLDS situation in Texas, and it has really caused some problems for the missionaries who proselyte. The local churches have picked up on the tempo, and this past week one of the local priests made sure two of our missionaries made the national news. An “investigator” invited two Elders to visit her church in the city of Burgas (near the Black Sea). When the Elders arrived at the church, they entered the building looking for the lady who had invited them; soon a priest approached them and they were told to leave. Whenever we enter another church, we are told to remove our name tags; the Elders involved had done so; they never mentioned to the priest they were Mormon Missionaries. Nevertheless, they did leave where they met their investigator outside. They told her they were not welcomed; she went inside the church and moments later came out and said it was OK for them to enter. They followed her inside and this time when the Priest saw them, he began yelling at them to leave the building. (He was at the pulpit yelling at them). They turned and left the building without saying anything. As they exited the building, they were met by the press asking what had happened in the church. (Who called the press?)This was obviously a set up, and the report that hit the news was the Elders had entered the church and tried taking over the meeting by preaching to the people while the priest was fighting to keep order and physically trying to throw the Elders out of his church which took 30 min. to accomplish. Maybe you have already heard of this incident, but it makes work here interesting. In another of our cities, the one in which we live, the city council is voting to see if it is legal for our missionaries to pass out tracts as they meet people. At the moment it is illegal, not a written law, but one of the Mayor’s, and the police are always stopping our missionaries and telling them to move out of the areas where they are trying to meet people. This is not true for all areas of Bulgaria, but in the areas where the Mayor of that city doesn’t like us, or has been influenced by a priest, we are finding all kinds of hurdles.

Life is good; the Lord is on our side, and no unhallowed hand will stop this work!

Love,

Elder and Sister Andersen, Peggy and John

Mission Highlights

There aren't many institute age young adults and even fewer seminary age youth in the mission. We have been seeing more people at church, and this last Sunday, we doubled our Primary attendance when a family who have been members for a long time came with their 5 children: 4 boys and a girl. The husband works in England, so the mother doesn't come often. Her twin babies keep her quite busy. The oldest boy looks like he should be Seminary age next year. That would make 2 of that age in our branch, maybe 3, and we are constantly encouraging a young man named Christian, who is a friend of a member, to come out to church. The youth are just so much fun to be around. There is a baptism scheduled for this Saturday and we are excited, as this will add to our YSA count in our branch. Our primary efforts are to increase the attendance in our seminary and institute programs. It is quite a challenge. We have asked the missionaries to concentrate on re-activating those in that age range. Most of our efforts this past week have been directed in the area of advertising our up coming YSA and Youth Conferences. We finally received the posters from our committees, and they have now been printed and are on their way to the various Branches throughout the mission. We need to have an accurate count of who is coming by the 10th of June, and so the push is on.

Curves and Potholes

CURVES AND POTHOLES

Several weeks ago as Sister Andersen and I traveled from Stara Zagora to Velico Turnovo, we couldn’t help but admire the beautiful scenery. The fruit trees were in bloom; the grape vines were shooting out green leaves, and the mountains were shrouded in living green toned colors. As our car sped along with a constant hum, I began meditating upon the blessings of the resurrection. “Spring, is to the earth, as Christ’s resurrection, is to man’s physical death, I mussed. As spring returns greenness and life to a sleeping plant world, so will the resurrection bring beauty and life to those who sleep in the grave.

The sound of the car’s engine brought me out of my trance and how beautiful the resurrection will be. The engine was beginning to labor; we had left the straight and level plain of roadway, and were ascending into the mountains. I quickly went from fifth gear to forth and as the car encountered a steeper slope and multiple curves, I was forced to gear down even more. Soon, all my attention was focused on just keeping the car on the road. As we converged upon the mountain with all its dangerous curves, we also faced numerous deep pot holes, and creeping semi trucks which, at times, brought our travel to a near stop. “How much more enjoyable our trip would be if the road was straight and without hazards”, I sighed. Without warning, the thought struck me, “It was you who chose to use this road, “my conscience was whispering. “You knew the mountains would be steep, full of obstacles, and slow traveling. You could have chosen a straighter road to get to Velico Turnovo, but you thought the shortcut over the mountains would get you there faster.”

Every elementary student knows that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The Savior taught that, “Straight is the gate and narrow the way that leads to eternal life.” Joseph Smith reminds us in D&C3:2, that, “God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round.”

It is my prayer that we be not fooled in taking shortcuts in our journey back to our heavenly Father. By keeping the commandments, we stay away from those dangerous curves and pot holes that Satan has strategically placed in our paths, in hopes we will lose control, even lose our very eternal lives.

Elder Andersen

Weeks 10, 11

Though the pictures may not indicate that we do any work, we were instructed by President Bennett to take the time to visit some places of cultural interest so that we get to know the people and their history. So on our trip to visit our class in Shumen we went to the 3 places he told us to visit. No arm twisting needed. The first is of a fortress built on a mountain overlooking the city. It is 3000 years old, first occupied by the Thrashings, then probably conquered by Alexandre the Great, then the Romans built a new wall after breaking down the old. The Byzantines built a wall around the Romans', then the Crusaders broke up those 2 walls or at least damaged them and conquered the fortress. The Poles, Lithuanians and Ukraines next conquered and then the Turks. The picture shows the Roman outlines of the city.
The monument below was built 4 km away from the fortress on the same mountain. The drive to it was through a beautiful forest with spectacular flowers covering the forest floor.

We next went to the village of Madera where on the cliffs above the town was a carving of a man on a horse with a dog at its feet. They only discovered this art work 18 years ago. We had to climb 225 steps to get to the base of the cliff. It was less than spectacular to look at until you realize what it took to carve it so high up on the cliff face. It is several hundred years old. Last week the Eastern Europe Humanitarian missionaries came to Sofia for a 4 day conference. The Sr. Couples were invited to come along on their excursion to the Bulgarian History Museum. We went specifically to see the Gold Book. This is something many people had been emailing us about. It is also the only gold book or any metal book for that matter that has been found that is older than a few hundred years old. This book dates back to 4 to 600 B.C. It is bound by gold rings and has only 6 pages. The pages have only pictures on it, no writing and they have no idea of its function. It was discovered a few decades ago and was anonymously donated by a man now living in Macedonia. It was found in his field as he was plowing. It is only 2" by 3".

Our main activity has been pushing the Enrollment program for Seminary and Institute. This can be very frustrating as the missionaries have to be the middle man between us and the Branch Presidents, and sometimes they don't have the vision of what needs to be done. We went, this last week to two District Leadership training sessions to push the program with the Br. Presidents who have the main responsibility of getting their youth and YSA signed up to take Seminary. Both of us had to speak in Plovdiv District Conference (like a Stake Conference) yesterday. John was sick with the flu but he made it through the day, but just barely. We hope he is on the mend. Today is P-day but we will be staying in until he recuperates. At District Conference, John was sustained as Mission Clerk; we really don't know what this calling means, but it does give him authority to step into any branch and act for the Mission President should the need arise.