Young Adults in Bulgaria Find Service and Friendship Beyond Words

This past August, eager volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints arrived at a school in Rusalya, Bulgaria, prepared to dig post holes for a new awning. To their surprise, they found a more urgent need.

The water main serving the school’s dormitory had broken. Until it could be repaired, the school was supplying water to the residence through a garden hose stretched across the property.

Without skipping a beat, the young adults pivoted, picked up shovels and pickaxes, and began searching for the broken pipe.

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A Place of Safety and Opportunity

The school provides a home and education for 30 children from difficult circumstances, many from the Roma community, ages 4 to 18. It is led by Animari Kirilova Dimitrova and Zlatko Nakov Zlatkov, former Bulgarian stage actors who sold what they had to create a place of safety, education and opportunity for children in need. They said it is especially meaningful for the children to see young people serve, learn from their example and form connections with them.

“The owners are the mom and dad for all of these children,” said Elder Boyd Anderson, a humanitarian missionary for the Church who helped organize the service event.

The Church is also supporting plans for a new dormitory that would allow the school to serve twice as many children. Young adults had worked at the property the previous year, helping with landscaping, cleanup and beautification as construction plans continued to develop.

Among those who returned was Bryan Sigcha, an Ecuadorian young adult living in Germany who helped organize this year’s conference. He said giving his time and abilities to others is something he has always wanted to do. “It feels as if I was born for this,” he said.

This year’s work changed immediately when the broken water line was discovered. “We literally dug holes looking for the water main,” Elder Anderson said. “Once we found it, we dug farther until we found the leak.”

The volunteers dug trenches as deep as three feet, sometimes widening them when the pipe was not where they expected it to be. Their work enabled the school to replace the damaged line shortly after the conference ended.

More Than a Repair

As the volunteers prepared to leave, one of the school’s owners took Elder Anderson by the shoulders and expressed gratitude. “If you hadn’t have come up,” he said, “I don’t know what we would have done.” For Animari and Zlatko, the volunteers’ return for a second year also offered hope for a continuing partnership. “All this gives us the feeling of happiness and peace that we are not alone,” they said.

At a devotional on their final evening, Elder Anderson noticed that none of the young adults spoke about the difficulty of the labor; their memories centered instead on the children.

That was true for Ivan Georgiev, 20, one of two Bulgarian young adults who participated. A member of the Church for 11 months, Ivan had been eager to attend his first Young Single Adult gathering and meet people his age. When he heard about the project, his only question was, “When are we leaving?”

He expected the physical work. The children surprised him. “The kids were just shining,” he said. Though some were shy, they approached the young adults with interest. “You can see the love they receive in their smiles and the way they talk to you.”

At times, older students joined the volunteers in digging. Younger children stayed nearby and occasionally picked up a shovel to help. On the final day, after the work was completed, the group spent several hours playing with the children—blowing bubbles, squirting water and laughing together.

Service That Endures

Although most of the young adults and children did not share a common language, friendships still grew. “Even with the language barrier, wonderful bonds of friendship were built,” Elder Anderson said.

President Nikolai Danev, president of the Bulgaria District, said the experience gave young adults an opportunity to learn charity in practice. “By taking small steps of charity, we can become more sensitive to the needs of others,” he said.

Elder Yves Weidmann, an Area Seventy who attended the project, said the personal connection between the young adults and children is what has made the past two Bulgaria service conferences meaningful. The conference week also included a visit to neighboring Veliko Tarnovo, an evening of karaoke and a concluding devotional meeting.

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Elder Weidmann said the conference brought lasting change. “In our testimony meeting and in our conversations, we could feel the transformational power this service conference had on every one of us and how it had brought us closer to Jesus Christ,” he said.

In Bulgaria, that need was unexpectedly simple and immediate: water for a dormitory full of children.

The young adults came prepared to dig holes for an awning. They left having helped restore a vital water line—and having found that service, even across differences of language and background, can create bonds that need no translation.