From: Peter Barnes Sent: Thu, Aug 20, 2009

Whew life doesn't slow down! It sounds like things are only getting crazier in Eugene too. Perfect.

Today is transfers so we drove around some of the Elders leaving to the bus station and brought in those coming home (among which are Elders Freeman, Eddington and Jensen--three stellar Russian elders I've served around/with.) I'm sure all missionaries around the world are great, but I REALLY love the ones there. I'm going to miss these Elders like crazy, but I bet their families are pretty excited so they'll be happy.

We reunited with Gatis, the 18 year old who was in Europe for a month. He's safe and home and had an interesting experience sleeping on people's couches(couchsurfing.com--crazy idea), in random hotels or airports. But he kept reading the Book of Mormon and still wants to be baptized Sept 12th! He had a few questions but the members there really helped (a man from Australia who's parents were latvian and he's just so cool. His name is Petris, which is Latvian for Peter. I think it just sounds like a combination of Peter and Tetris.) But he helped Gatis understand that you have to just go forward and act in order to get answers sometimes.

Speaking of cool 18 year olds, ARTIOM GOT BAPTISED! I've been taking to Elder Freeman about him very frequently since I left but Monday night was his Baptism and I guess it was just wonderful. There were 40-50 members there, which is above average sacrament meeting attendance. I might have told you but his nanny 4 or 5 years back is the wife of the Lithuanian branch president (who's actually a Russian man), and the first day she was nannying them they sat down to dinner and she said-- wait, you don't pray before you have dinner? And she taught them how to pray. Haha this was right after serving a mission in Russia, and I'm sure her example was big for Artiom. But he's just so prepared. 18 years old, never smoke or drank, loves to read and study and play and laugh. He's just one of the coolest people I've ever met. I'd totally let him marry one of my 18 year old relatives, someday. He's planning on coming up to Riga next saturday because Elder Perry will be here to speak to the missionaries/members! I forgot to tell you about that but yeah, Elder Perry is coming. I'm excited, it'll be the first time an apostle has been to Latvia in 15 years (since the dedication)! Elder Rasband will be coming as well, which is a bonus. They've been traveling through East Europe and have a Mission President's conference in Tallin and then will be in Riga for a day and fly out on Sunday. So he won't be here very long but hopefully we'll get to accidentally bump into a few times as much as possible.

Final miracle: Gennadi, who has been taught by missionaries since last transfer, came to church for the first time on Sunday and brought his 7 year old son! Gennadi is russian, but his wife is Latvian, so they speak to each other in their languages and the kids speak both. So it's perfect for them when Elder Brown and I teach them, although we don't understand half of what's going on. But his son is just a future apostle. Maybe that's an early prediction but he sat silent at church and smiled and sang the hymns and had a suit and a part in his hair and loved it! We taught them again last night and Gennadi accepted a baptismal date for the end of September so that's awesome. Elder Brown had to help President Dance on a neighborhood association meeting or something so I went with a 23 year old member of the Russian branch and it was just a riot.

Hopefully I'll send a picture of them next week. And thanks for the pictures/package from Mazatlan! the all-sorts are gone, but I'm still enjoying everything else. I love you!

Love, Elder Barnes #12

Big Congrats to Meggerz! And Matterz! And good luck to Lysee at the Y! LUCKY