SINGING IN THE RAIN

FAMILY!
Hey. First, please pass a CONGRATS to SISTER BRETT!!! The excitement has been building up the last couple weeks and I was thrilled/shocked to find out where she's going. Salt Lake City, Temple Sqaure is. She will be a light and share her testimony with so many people from all over the world. I got a envelope from her yesterday ith pictures of her Romania adventure-- wow it looked incredible! So many smiling faces on kids who've probably lived such hard lives. I knew that I would find out where she was going so Elder Freeman and I made predictions, but it was tough because I could seriously just picture her going everywhere! I thought the Philipines or New Jersey, Elder Freeman said Paris or Florida, but then again I could also imagine Japan, Romania or Argentina. Now people will come from all over the world to her! What a unique and amazing mission, and like I've said before every mission is the best! Especially the one you are called to. I'm continuing to enjoy life on a mission more and more every day. It helps that Elder Freeman and I get along like long lost brothers and we're having a blast.

We go running almost every morning in a forest right by our apartment building, and then go into center every day and teach the gospel. If I could do this every day for the rest of my life, I would. Alexander is making great progress, loves coming to church and reads the Book of Mormon every morning. He's way excited for baptism, and we want to make sure he's comitted to live all the commandments. He quit smoking last week so that's big time! As for now, we're thinking that June 27th will be the day, and that would be just awesome. Richard and Igor have not come to church the last couple weeks so that's a bummer. I have heard them bear their testimonies so it is seems more a committment issue. It seems a lot of people here are facing some difficult economic times right now and a little extra humility can always help! I had a long telephone conversation with Richard a few weeks ago and I told him that he has the most potential of anyone I've ever taught on on my mission (true, by far). He expressed concern about enduring all the way to the end, and he feels some kind of guilt although he didn't think he was doing anything wrong. Which is pretty much true, besides the fact he's just not getting baptized! Which would be very righteous. We've taught a few new young guys that have some big time potential.

One's named Valera who's 24 and said that he's been to other churches but doesn't feel the same there as he does here. It was a cool thing to say, especially because it was on Saturday, and we'd just taught him the for the first a day earlier! When we asked him what he thought the purpose of life was he said " to serve God." An acceptable answer. He came to church and accepted a baptismal date for the end of July-- he's going to Belarus for 2-3 weeks to help his grandmother. The good ones are always so busy! But more updates on him to come. And then there's Artiom who's 18. We taught him the first lesson yesterday and asked how much time he'd have to read the Book of Mormon before we met again today. We were expecting a usual "Well I'm busy so maybe 15-20 minutes." But he said "I don't know, 2 or 3 hours." Perfect.

Time is flying faster than ever. It's basically July. Pretty soon summer will be over. I bet Elyse would be excited. It's been raining here all week, and I love it because it totally feels like Eugene. Lithuania (Lietuva) literally means land of rain. Rain's fun because everything turns green and when you're walking on the street, you can sing with your companion and nobody can probably even hear you under your umbrella.

I love you all so much! Life is a ball.

Love, Elder Barnes #12