REMEMBERING RIGA

Dearest Family!

It's been so good to be back in Riga, so many familiar sounds and smells and faces. And miracles! The highlight of this last week has been teaching Gatis, an 18 year old kid we talked to last week while contacting with one of the new Estonian Elders. He's very humble and listening, came to church on Sunday, has been reading the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized! He also does karate, which is now one of my new favorite hobbies for other people to have. He's leaving this week-end to do a month trip around Europe, so he won't be able to baptized till September 12th which is a bummer, but the 12th is always a solid day.

Also being back in Riga has brought back memories from the beginning of the mission,at some points is feels like starting over again, haha. More than half of our investigators are Latvian, so I don't understand much in lessons or at church, but we also went to Russian sacrament meeting and it was so fun to see the members. Elder Eddington and Elder Brown baptized a young Russian family and their friend, and there are doing incredible, passed the sacrament for the first time and just love coming to church. The husband told me that if he could, he would live in the church because there's just such a good feeling there. We're actually going to visit them today in an hour, their working schedule is really busy and are rarely all home together. But there's seriously nothing better than teaching people who have such a big desire to live the gospel and help others. It's just the best.

Speaking of which, we had another great lesson yesterday with a man named Marian, who's been investigating the church for the past 5 years. He's had lessons with missionaries in Ireland and Riga but lives in a small town 140 km outside of Riga (jekovpils, I think...) and has 6 or 7 friends there who believe in the Book of Mormon and want to start a church in their city. He's a really good and sincere man, so I'm excited to work with him. He's also leaving this week-end to work in Sweden for 3 weeks so nothing will happen too soon but I think eventually we'll make a trip down to his city with President Dance.

President Dance is incredible. He knows the scriptures so well and cares a lot about these people. Next week's preparation day will be on Tuesday because of Zone conferences, so I hope that won't be a problem! If you forget, you'll just be surprised to already have an e-mail for you when you go to write Tuesday, and in that case, it would be a longer one because I'd have nothing to read. But you don't have to forget, I LOVE reading your e-mails. Oh you'll be in Mexico next week! Mucho Bueno... Have a riot and give all the cuzzies my love! And eat some nachos for me. Mhmm... we had nachos this week! Elder Brown is a master chef. More on him next week. I really really like serving with him, this is going to be a fun and busy transfer. Welp love you much!

Love, Elder Barnes #12