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Show Calvin Clyde Tells Of L 1). S 1 Conference In Berlin Remarks On (iernian Situation Th following interesting letter was sent by Elder Calvin Clyde to his family reeently and we believe that not only members of the L. U. S. church, but everyone interested in conditions in Germany, will enjoy reading it. Berlin, (jermany s June 30, 1948 DEAR FAMILY: Our big conference is over. For the world and for our church this has been an important 10 days in Berlin. Let me tell you a bit about it- . Berlin, all of Germany in fact, is in an uproar. You have read in your papers about the new money that has been introduced in Western Germany by U. S., France and England. To keep the old money from entering their zone, the Russians have closed the borders. Even the highway is closed. June 25, I flew out to Frankfurt Frank-furt via American Overseas Airliner. Air-liner. The weather was bad and the flight rough, but I enjoyed it simply because I like to fly. After .spending a few hours-at the mission mis-sion home in Frankfurt I took a train for Belgium. Wednesday afternoon I arrived in Ostene. Belgium Bel-gium where I was to meet President Presi-dent Alma Sonne. Pres. Sonne and party were not due to arrive until the next day so I had a very relaxing and enjoyable day there. Ostende is a combination fishing port and resort city. It has a i sence on the streets of American armored cars and jeeps mounted with loaded machine guns. The American army was showing its teeth in the face of Russian threats. The first of our conference meetings was Saturday night. The special trains had arrived on schedule from the Russian Zone bringing 2,700 L. D. S. members. Due to the travel restrictions imposed, im-posed, members from the Western Zone could not come as planned. As I have told you before we had rented Reichssportfeld for the occasion oc-casion because there are no halls left standing in Berlin large enough to hold the crowd we had reason to expect. Reichssportfeld is a stadium which will hold 15,-000 15,-000 people. The first part of the Saturday evening program consisted of talks, stories, and music given by the winners of the speech, poetry, and musical contests in the mission. mis-sion. It was very good. Brother Bennett and President Sonne spoke. With the people from Berlin Ber-lin and the 2,700 from the Russian Zone we had a total attendance of 4,500. After the meeting we went Dcauurui Deacn anu scores ui nailing nail-ing ships. I arrived just as the fishing ships were coming in. I watched them unload tons of fresh shrimps. I bought some and spent the afternoon strolling around the town and eating shrimp. Belgium is a lovely little land. It has recovered better perhaps than any other country that was hard hit by the war. The shops are full of merchandise that does not cost too much. Everything is clean and well cared for quite different than Germany. I found that the language was close enough to German so that I could understand most of what the people said if they spoke their dialect. The next day President and Mrs. Alma Sonne, secretary Bennett and Archibald F. Bennett of the Genealogical Society arrived on the boat. By evening we were in Brussels where we stayed for the night. Friday we drove to Frankfurt. Frank-furt. Saturday, President Wunder-lich Wunder-lich of the West German Mission with our party, flew to Berlin which was the only way we could get into Berlin. The Tempelhof air base was buzzing with activity as the Americans are making the supreme su-preme attempt to supply Berlin by air. As we drove out of the airport air-port area the first thing we noticed was the conspicuous pre- out to Brother Merrill s home tor supper. , Sunday morning the weather was lovely. The meeting began an hour late because of lack of electricity elec-tricity for the loudspeaker system. The morning meeting was the high point of the whole conference. confer-ence. After the talk by Elder Bennett, Ben-nett, the mission choir of 200 voices sang "The Vision" an oratorio by Evan Stephens with orchestra . accompaniment. You probably remember that you sent the music for it to me months ago. The choir did a wonderful job and the soloist, Brother Schade was very good. The concluding speakers were Sister Sonne and President Wunderlich. There were 6,000 people present. During the afternoon meeting we had a little trouble with the weather. It was quite a sight to see the audience blossom forth with umbrellas when it started to rain. The rain soon passed and the meeting was undisturbed. President Walter Stover of our East German Mission spoke first followed by President Sonne, A. F. Bennett and Francis R. Gasser. Monday morning I took the visiting guests to the airport then got back to the Reichssportfeld just in time for the Monday morning morn-ing program. Each district had something to present. It was a -varied and interesting program. Ten minutes before the end of the program the rain came and didn't stop the rest of the day. The rain spoiled part of our sports activities. The football games went off as planned but we canceled can-celed the other events. The dance and steamboat rides on Wannsee Lake were crowded. The rain stopped stop-ped in the evening just before the trains were ready to leave to take the members back to the Russian Zone. The choir got together in the railroad station and sang: "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." The train left with everyone every-one in good spirits. Wf in thp mission office are all very much relieved for we know now the chances we took in bringing bring-ing the people here. You have undoubtedly un-doubtedly heard of the Russian blockade of Berlin. Hardly any trains are running no supply trains for the Western sector of the city. Berlin is in a state of siege. So far it has not been so bad for us but soon the food and fuel and electricity will begin to run out, then the crisis will come. If the Russians do not back down it -is hard to tell what will happen. A steady stream of transport planes are over the city. Quite a parade of American power. A plane lands every 8 minutes from dawn nutil midnight, but even that is not enough to supply a city of 2,500,000. The German mail has been stopped. Your packages are not coming in now because of the blockade, so stop sending packages pack-ages until the trouble is over. I have a good reserve on hand which you have sent. Thanks to the Saints at home we have welfare supplies on hand to fall back on if the trouble don't last too long. Everyone is hoping there will soon be some kind of agreement to stabilize the situation. situa-tion. As usual I am in the best of health and spirits and am enjoying en-joying my work. I hope that you are not unduly worried over the situation here. There is no denying deny-ing that it is serious, but I do not believe that the Russians are so dumb that they will turn Berlin into a grand scale Pearl Harbor because nothing would do more to unite the world against Russia than for them to do just that to Berlin. God bless you all, CALVIN. |