No letter from Christian, but...

Christian had Zone Conference today so I am subbing in a letter from his dad, who happens to be in Bulgaria on business...

Today I am in Sofia Bulgaria.  Someone forgot to tell me it is cold here.  I looked at the weather report a couple of weeks ago when I was packing for my trip to India and Bulgaria.  I distinctly remember seeing temperatures in the 50s (10-15 degrees Celsius).  I packed accordingly and brought a nice little black hoodie.  When I arrived in Sofia last night, having traveled from 35 degree Celsius weather in Cochin, India, it was a whooping 2 degrees Celsius here in Sofia.   Burr, I was definitely not expecting that.  Still, I put on my hoodie and took a walk down Vitosha Blvd to check out some of the sites in the center of the city.  It was cold, but manageable.

I also decided that today I could walk to Church.  It was only about a 20 minute walk I figured, and it would save me having to pay for a taxi on the Sabbath.  I enjoyed the brisk walk to the church, and managed to stay warm through creativity.  I put my hoodie on under my suit coat.  I am sure I was quite the sight wearing a nice suit with a black hoodie coming up and out of the suit over my head.  I went to the Sofia 2^nd branch at the direction of the mission president here, President Wilstead, and apart from having a little bit of a hard time finding the entrance once I was at the address—I finally ended up following someone else dressed in a white shirt and a tie that I figured was probably a member—I had a great time at Church.  Elder Maxwell was not there, since he is assigned to the 1^st branch, but just about everyone I talked with, knew Elder Maxwell.  And, amazingly enough, they had great things to say about him.  : )    Actually, I was not surprised at all, the Elder Maxwells of the world are great missionaries!   

There were 4 missionaries at the branch.  Two were in the same district with Elder Maxwell at the MTC, a third has actually worked with Elder Maxwell on splits and knows him from those experiences.  The family that had the missionaries over for Thanksgiving complimented Elder Maxwell on being quick to jump up and help with dishes.  That is always a sure sign of a good person—right Opa?  A couple persons took their picture with me so they could share it with Elder Maxwell when they next saw him.  I have to say that I was really impressed with the kindness and goodness of the Saints.  I was very glad to be there.  Not knowing any Bulgarian was not an issue either.  Because a couple families in the branch also don’t speak Bulgarian, they already had interpreters set up for each of the meetings.  They even asked me to say the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting.  I also picked up my first words in Bulgarian.  I can now say thank you.

The Church was cold.  The heaters weren’t working so all they had were a couple small electric space heaters to try and warm the place.  By the end of the 3 hours I was really cold.  I walked back to the hotel after Church with another member who lives near where I am staying.  She speaks pretty good English so I was able to learn more about Bulgaria and the Church in Bulgaria from her.  She walked very slowly though and the wind had really picked up so by the time I was back to the hotel, I was frozen.  We passed a thermometer display on the way back and it read -5 degrees Celsius.  With the frigid wind it felt even colder.

I warmed up for an hour or so in my hotel room (it is a very warm room), and then decided to venture out again on one more walk.  To ensure I stayed warm, I put on two pair of socks, and a pair of pajamas underneath my clothes.  It worked great!  I took a walk over to the Vasil Levski National Stadium.  I know Elder Maxwell had once commented that his apartment was near the stadium, so while I knew I couldn’t seek him out to see him (since it is against Church guidance), I figured I could at least walk some of the same streets and see some of the same sights.  I am glad I got to do it.  Sofia is a beautiful city.  It is almost like I am walking down a city street in Germany or France.  Except for everything being written in Cyrillic and me not being able to read any of it, it feels very much the same.  It started snowing while I was out and there was probably a half inch on the sidewalks by the time I returned. 

Elder Maxwell, the elder, returns home in just over a week!  It is impossible for me to believe that it has already been two years!!!  The time passes so quickly.  It really reinforces the point that we need to live every day to the fullest.  There is not a moment to waste.  It is so easy to let a day pass with idle or unimportant work, we just can’t afford to do it.  Every day we need to strive to learn a little more, live a little better, and love and serve a little more completely.  Perfection can only be reached with a lot of diligent effort, and of course an amazing portion of God’s grace.  How thankful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for His restored Church, and for a family that embraces light and love as we help each other and those around us, down the path towards perfection.  Nothing gives me greater joy than the promise of an eternal family.

Love,

Elden

Elden was also able to meet with the Mission President today and deliver our Christmas gifts for Christian.  He had some fun experiences teaching Christian's investigator in French, with Christian's companion and also meeting many members and missionaries at the mission office.  (All while working carefully to NOT run into Christian!) 

This week was pretty good, it had a lot of ups and downs.

This week was pretty good, it had a lot of ups and downs.  One of the senior missionaries passed away but fortunately they had just gone home for one of their sons sealings and that weekend before they came back he passed away in his sleep which was a tender mercy to his wife to not have to worry about getting him back home and being able to be home with family. We also had a few really cool people that we got to meet with this week and we have some sweet new investigators!

 

Oh and this week - crazy story - we were heading home for dinner and it was pretty dark and I saw this rat run past and a cat was chasing it so... we followed them!   The cat cornered the rat but then the rat jumped up and attacked the cats face and totally scared it off! So then... I went over and stomped kinda close to the rat to try and scare it off and it jumped at me and was all hissing and growling at me, then it ran off it was pretty cool! But otherwise the week has been good a little bit rainy but the work is going well!

Love to everyone!
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Have a mnogo dobre sedmitsa!

So I get to write again and it's only been a few days!

The baptism was actually quite exciting because there was another girl from the other branches missionaries who was also getting baptized.  We were having it in the evening so she would be able to get there in time from work but then she ended up having to stay at work a bit late so she got there way late.  The speaker basically had to stall until she could get ready but she got there in time so that's all that is really important.  When we went down to the font (Elder Babbitt and I had filled it up at lunch), it was only half full because the plug was a little loose or something so that was a bit scary and it took a few tries for both of them on the baptism because they basically had to lay them down to get them all the way under but it worked out. It definitely wasn't the smoothest baptism but it all worked out!

We had some good lessons and such too.  I found this way cool guy too.  He is pretty interested and he teaches fencing!  We also had a lesson with a couple of African guys, one of them only speaks French and the other speaks very little English.  There is a member here who speaks basically every single language fluently, so he was able to translate for us and we should be meeting with them again this week! I wish I remembered more French, I could understand a bit of the words but I can't remember any grammar at all!  Austin you are crazy learning two languages on your mission, every time I would try to think of a word in French all I would get is Bulgarian!

I did get a coat, finally!  We had tried three weeks in a row already but we never had time and it was getting pretty cold out. But it is all good! I have a coat so there is no need for dad to get one.
Have a mnogo dobre sedmitsa!

Love from,
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Happy Thanksgiving!

So, sorry I couldn't write on Monday but we got to have a pretty good Thanksgiving! We got to play some American football this morning and we had an awesome meal with all the good Thanksgiving stuff: turkey, potatoes, gravy, rolls, pie and tons of other good food, at the Schultz's and we had basically everyone that is American and LDS in Sofia there. It was really good and sorry to everyone else but I probably won't have any time to write you, I have very little time before we have to go and meet someone for a lesson but I still love you all!

So we are super busy all the time!  We have had tons of people who we would try to set up appointments with that wouldn't show up but we also were able to meet with a lot of really cool people! We have our investigator getting baptized this week.  He is so cool and so prepared! He knows so much already and he is so humble and awesome I am way excited for him!

Lets see it's gotten a lot colder this week but still no snow.  I really need to get a coat for winter -though it is hard finding time though to do that.

Also, this week, we did some tracting - knocking on doors when it gets darker and colder but it is pretty interesting although I don't think it is as effective as just talking to people on the streets but we found some pretty cool blocks to tract. Here in Sofia everyone basically lives in an apartment and they have big concrete buildings or the older ones are sometimes brick and each has a couple vhodes ( "fodes") that have a number of apartments on each floor usually they are locked so we just walk till we find one that is open and then work our way down from the top. It's pretty cool but it's hard to get people to listen.

Overall it's been a pretty good week. I'm so tired all the time though but it's okay. I'm doing work and having a good time!

But yeah I've got to run now, off to more work! I love you all have a super week!
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Thanksgiving in Bulgaria!

At this season of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for members that love and care for my sons as they serve the Lord and I am thankful for mission presidents and leaders that not only care for my son but also care about mothers who worry!

The mission office sent this note to us this morning:

Dear Parents,

     Due to Thanksgiving Day this week, Preparation day has been changed to Thursday.  A wonderful America family in the Sofia 2 branch has invited all of the missionaries in Sofia to enjoy a traditional home cooked holiday dinner with them.  Although they will not be with their families, they will be well fed.

Unfortunately they will be not be emailing home until Thursday this week.  We did not want any parents to be worrying when your usual email was not received today!  Sorry for the short notice.

       Sister Segeberg

Bulgaria Sofia Mission

I don't feel so lost...

The week has been really good, we had a good number of lessons and a lot of first lessons with some very interesting people.  We had two different people who say the see like the auras of people or something and they kept saying how we are like lighter and things like that it was pretty interesting meeting with them. Although, it is always tough when we teach people who notice the difference the gospel can make for them but they are to afraid to give up things in their lives to fully accept it, especially when they are in a culture where that is all they have ever known. But it has been really good.

I had some exchanges at the beginning and end of this week while Elder Babbitt was doing some zone leader stuff and it has been a bit colder but otherwise it was just the usual stuff. The language is coming along really well, I don't feel so lost all the time when people talk anymore but there still is plenty for me to learn!

Have an awesome week! I love you all!

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We met with a few really awesome people!

I'm glad to hear that you all are fine, a few of my investigators were asking about my family and I would just say you were fine because you were pretty far from the coast and I'm glad that I was right!

So this week was really good, we met with a few really awesome people.  One guy that I found, turns out he has had a Book of  Mormon for a number of years and has read it a few times and so in our first lesson we committed him to baptism! It was really cool so we will have that in a few weeks and he already knows so much, it is very easy to teach him and he is very willing to do whatever he needs to to prepare for baptism!  We have a couple other younger people that are pretty interested and we will get to meet with them some more! So the work is going really well.

It was a bit colder at the beginning of this week but there are still a good number of people out. Yesterday afternoon we were contacting at НДК which is a big cultural something or other building and they had some big Red Bull biking event there where they had a course through the building (you can probably check on YouTube the next couple weeks and they will probably have it on the redbull channel there!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOh2zkisk1c

We have a good number of people that we are teaching and when I contact I like to use a survey which is just five questions I can ask people and then from that go off into something else and see if there is anything they would be interested in learning about. It works really well and it is a lot easier to get them to stop and listen to us.

The Halloween party was good we had some fun games and we had a pretty good turnout mostly it was just a few members (I don't know why most didn't come), some investigators and then a few people we just had met and invited. But it was good and it all turned out well! Halloween isn't too big here mostly just younger kids know about it.
Have a great week!
Love you all
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