The Church is SO True

FAMILY!!!

Go Ducks!

We had a miraculous lesson last night with Roman. We've been teaching him for two weeks and he's come to church twice and loves meeting up and is just a friendly, responsible guy. He accepted a baptismal date for Oct 4th last week, and he's really excited. He started believing in God the last couple years because of a book that he's been reading that's written by this author who's an angel or something and speaks through a Californian. So I don't know everything about it, but it seems to have some correct ideas, and some non-correct ones. Well we gave him a "strength of the youth" and he came to the lesson yesterday saying he found two different views on the same issue and he agreed more with the one written in the other book. We've been teaching him with members, which is just the way to go, and the member that helped yesterday is named Yuri Kovalevski, (he just moved from Russia a few months ago, been a member for 12 years, and his son and daughter have served missions) who's by far one of the more solid and understanding-doctrinal members of the branch. We talked about the definition of truth and how God teaches true doctrine through prophets, etc. But Roman explained that sometimes when he reads the Book of Mormon he feels like a sinner, although this green Book (has a green cover) makes him feel better like everything will be alright and there will be no punishment for our sins in the next life. Brother Yuri basically just threw it down and said, do you think it's a good thing that this book is helping you live with your sins? He kept talking and was speaking very well and the spirit was strong. Roman said that there's been moments when he's tried to do everything right but realized that he couldn't get rid of all of his sins by himself. Which is exactly right! We told him that that's more or less the purpose of the Gospel, without the Savior we'd have no hope of becoming what we need to become. I wish I could give the play by play of the whole lesson but it was one of the best ones I've ever been on, and everything just came together and we really understood each other and his heart was changed and I was feeling pretty sick before hand but felt like I was floating on clouds afterwards and we hugged each other after Roman said a ten minute prayer. Just one of those moments that I hope to never forget.

The other great miracle is a 23 year old guy named Janis Feldmanis. I was on exchanges with an elder from Vilnius last week and we were in center for a few hours talking to people. It had been pretty successful in that people would listen or give their number but we'd yet to find/teach someone really solid. Welp, as we were walking back to the church, we stopped this sharp basketball player looking business guy who had no problem with coming back to the church. He said he didn't really believe so much that God answered prayers because he's had a tough life and prayed for 2 hours on a beach a few months ago and never got an answer. I said Janis, this is probably your answer. He kinda smiled, and I did too, but I think he understood that I wasn't joking. He didn't speak English or Russian really well, but he could get the gist of everything we were saying and accepted the doctrine. It was straight out of preach my gospel, which is so fun. We taught him again this week and we were on exchanges with some Latvian elders so Elder Brown just popped his head in the door to say hi and Janis introduced himself as Brother Feldmanis. Haha that's what I'm talking about.

Transfers are next week, so we'll write e-mails on Thursday. Sorry to make you wait but that'll just give you more to time to think about me and miss me. HA just kidding. But seriously, I do miss you and love you and pray for you and daily feel the power of your prayers.

Love, Elder Barnes #12

GO DAD!

Dear Family,

On monday we walked out of district meeting onto the crowded and busy brivibas street. It's about a 3 min walk to the bus stop but takes at least 15 with all the people to talk to along the way. While Elder Brown was talking to a latvian kid, a member walked by who hadn't been to church for the last month or so (he's the one Elder Hansen and I went to McDonalds with last Christmas, older, almost all there and LOVES to speak english). He'd been in the hospital for the last week or two and was pretty down with problems at work and things. We went back to the church and taught him a quick lesson about building our foundation on Christ by regularly reading the Book of Mormon-- our district meeting had been on “Rescuing Less Active Members” so it kind of worked out just perfectly. He left the lesson so much happier and said his mood was up to the sky.

We've had a few other lessons this week where investigators have come in somewhat depressed with things at work-- whether not being paid what was promised, or finding out they will lose their job all together. And after every one, they commented about how they felt so much better. I realize that sometimes the “spiritual highs” don't last forever but I really believe that if people would pray, read the Book of Mormon, and try to find ways to serve others every day, they would be a lot happier no matter what's going on in their lives. I guess that's a little easier to say as a missionary because that IS all that's going on in my life, but I still think it's true no matter what.

And the best part is, we have a few investigators that get that and are doing great! I mentioned Raman last week and he's doing super. He even brought his friend, Leega who met with missionaries a year ago and she's great. I've been blessed to teach a lot of cool people and these are definitely some of the coolest. They started reading the Book of Mormon last week and Raman is in Jacob and Leega is at the beginning of 2nd Nephi. They came to the ward activity last week and then church and just loved it, they just look like members and understand what it's all about. Elder Mattee (a russian zone leader in our branch who played football at airforce) asked him at church how he's doing and he said I'm great! Got a new family, a new life. Haha Perfect.

We also taught a new kid named Matis who's 18 and way interested and at the end we asked him about anyone else he knows who'd be interested and he said, well I have a friend a named Gatis. Haha it was the same Gatis that we've been teaching! He had no idea that we'd been meeting up and now we'll teach them together tomorrow. Marek is still doing well (he wanted me to tell Elder Glauser hi!), he's not been reading a ton but wants to keep the commandments so once he understands that reading the scriptures is a commandment, everything will be alright.

Welp this is a little longer and more detailed than last week, but times up and I don't know what else to say other than that I love you I love you I love you!

Love, Elder Barnes #12

P.s.I was very impressed with Dad's story, Go ducks~!

Because i love you!

Hey, I was feeling bad after writing such a rushed and short email today. I especially appreciate the time you all take to write me each week and I even have a specific given time to write so I have no excuse for writing lame-os! I don't think it was a horrible e-mail, I can't even remember exactly what I said now, but I felt at the time like it was rushed,(because it was) so I just wanted to say sorry and send a few pictures because that's worth a couple thousand words, right? Plus we had to stop by the office tonight because we're heading to Tallin tomorrow and had to grab some things. We missed out on some "preparation day" because of a lesson so this is ok, don't worry we're not breaking rules:)

These pictures are from our morning work-outs, and after a district meeting in Kaunus, hence the picture of Grandma in the primary room with all the children!

I love you all so much! I'm so grateful for your prayers, and I know they are answered. We taught an absolutely amazing lesson this evening to a new man named Roman. He's about 25 and just SO excited about the Book of Mormon and church. We've only taught him twice but the spirit is really strong in the lessons because he comes to learn. We asked for a referral the first lesson and so he brought a friend (Liga) who lives by him, and she was really interested too! There will be more update on him next week! We're just so blessed.

Love, Elder Barnes #12

Dearest Family,

What a week! Started off with zone conference last week in Latvia, and our presentation was more or less a review from the things that were taught at the mission conference the previous week. President Dance pointed out how special it was to have the president of the missionary committee, the senior president of the seventy and the area president in the same meeting; it's a pretty big deal. I love that this church is led by God and it was really neat to meet three general authorities, one of whom being an apostle! I'm a wucky guy. General conference is in 24 days! So excited.

We got back from Kaunus yesterday where we were on exchanges for a day and had zone conference. I really love exchanges because miracles always happen. We started out with a pretty “empty” day but in both companionships we ended up teaching 5 new lessons to young males or couples. My favorite was a kid named Gleb, who's 23 and really good friends with a daughter of a member family (she's not a member but comes to church occasionally.) He spoke russian and lithuanian which was perfect, and I just love the fact that you can meet somone, within 3 minutes sit down on a bench, say a prayer, teach, give them a commitment, and then find a time to meet up again. It's a different approach than knocking doors but it seems like we meet a lot of prepared people that way. I know that the spirit is a real part of this work, and even though his promptings are sometimes very small, they are definitely there, whether or not you realize it at that time.

Ah three minutes left! Sorry this is such a dinky e-mail. We're heading to teach Gatis soon (the 18 year old latvian) so hopefully it'll go well. Marek didn't make it to church, bummer, but he'll come this week. He's just got to! I love you all, a lot, a lot. Happy Birthday Tigey! Watch out Eugene!

Love, Elder Barnes #12

Peter the Great!

FAMILY,

I'm setting aside some time to write an extra long e-mail because it's been an especially exciting week! The fun started last Thursday when Elder Brown and I bused to Tallinn for exchanges and to pick up the van. We saw everyone early on Thursday morning, everyone being the 15 Mission Presidents from the East Europe Area, President Wolfgang Paul, Elder Rasband and Elder Perry and their lovely wives. The wives were seriously so nice, Sister Perry gave us a bag of fruit/chocolate for the car ride home and in general we felt like royalty because I think everyone was just so excited to see missionaries again. We were only with them for about 15 minutes, but interacted a little bit with Elders Perry and Rasband while loading their luggage into the car. I was impressed by how kind, caring and funny they are. It seems like everything Elder Perry said was a joke, from making fun of Oregon to telling us we better not lose his computer because that's where his brain is.

We got back to Riga Thursday afternoon and were trying to finish up the preparation for the Saturday missionary meeting when President Dance called from the Helsinki temple and said that they had decided to invite the whole mission! We were way excited. But the meeting started at 9:30 Saturday morning, which created some complication for those missionaries that would have to travel from far away (most cities in Lithuania/Estonia are about 3-4 hours away, but you can't always take a direct route...) but in the end it all worked out whether people came in the night before and stayed with missionaries, or woke up at 2:00 A.M. to take a bus. It was awesome to see everyone together, but the best part was the talks which were powerfully practical. President Paul, who opened the East German Mission after the Berlin Wall fell, understands this part of the world so well and spoke on using the Book of Mormon as a finder and sifter. He quoted Elder McConkie who said that it's the “power of the book of Mormon that will gather the elect in the last days,” which is true because there's no way someone will become a member of the church unless they first accept the Book of Mormon. Elder Rasband spoke on our responsibility to be always finding and asking everyone for names because “Heavenly Father saves his children by name.”

And Elder Perry spoke on the power of companionships, how to make one strong by listening, loving and serving, and then practicing teaching every day. The Brethren loved the Baltics, and mentioned their strong impressions that “the Lord has many elect in these countries to be gathered by members and missionaries.”

One of my favorite parts was when Elder Perry read from Exodus 3:12 and said “don't worry, just go teach doctrine.” The gospel is just so cool.

Saturday Evening was the meeting for members and it was even awesomer seeing the members from the three countries gathered together. I re-united with the members from Vilnius and they were so excited and happy, especially about the recent converts in the branch (a man named Igor was baptized the previous day). It was so exciting to see Artiom. I'm glad you all met Elder Freeman and I'm sure he told you about Artiom, but he really is just the coolest kid I've ever met.

After the meeting I asked him how he liked it and he said “oh I could just listen to that all day,” and I said Artiom, you gotta go on a mission! I think he's really think about it. He just moved into his own apartment and is starting university, but he's had a few lessons with the Elders and some of his friends and he said he's given away a lot of copies of the Book of Mormon. When he got confirmed, the branch president said that he “would be an instrument in the Lord's hands to bring many into the gospel.” Ha, there's just nothing better.

Marek (former Giorgi) is doing really well, reads daily and should be able to come to church on Sunday! Unfortunately Gennadi (the Russian man with the Latvian wife) has moved out of town for work and will be gone for a while. Gatis, the 18 year old Latvian, returned from Romania but we've yet to meet up with him so hopefully that'll happen soon. So our teaching pool of progressing investigators is dropping, but it's good to know there's still many more still out there!

All in all life is just good. I really enjoyed seeing the brethren up close this week, they definitely are people who live the gospel, as opposed to just do gospel things. Elder Perry said that when he can't fall asleep at night (which was “every night” on their 12 day trip through Europe), he recites the articles of faith from 1 to 13 on odd days, and 13 to 1 on even days. During his talk he compared the articles of faith, which they used to use for teaching, to the preach my gospel lesson we have today- Articles 1 through 3 are the plan of Salvation, 4 and 5 are the gospel, and 6 through 9 are the Restoration. When he recited the 13th, he flew through it and his 25-year old granddaughter (who accompanied them on the trip) couldn't keep up. It was hilarious.

I've been really blessed to have companions also really live the gospel and love missionary work-- it was fun to hear you got to meet some of them and I hope you told them all that they're my heroes. I'm really enjoying serving with Elder Brown, he's just the man. He's especially talented at getting things done in crunch time (which was a big help this week) and he loves these people and sharing the gospel. He's spent nearly his whole mission is Riga so he knows the city well and almost always drives. Maybe that's also because when I drive I slow down to let people in which is not a very common thing to do in Riga and I think scares him... Haha but life is very good and is just one big blessing.

Thanks for your support!

Keep on keeping on, i love you!

Love, Elder Barnes #12

ON THE RUN

FAMILY!

It's been a fun and exciting week preparing for Elder Perry's arrival this week-end. The missionaries and members are really excited and I am three! Elder Brown and I spent a good three hours detailing the van last week, because President Dance drove it up to Tallin for a mission president conference. I guess when Elder Perry got in the car he immediately made a comment about how nice the van was. So Elder Brown and I patted ourselves on the back. Haha no but it's been fun this week teaching members and investigators that an apostle will be here. They have all been really excited, even if they don't exactly understand how special it is. He'll be doing a missionary meeting in the morning, and then a member meeting in the evening, when some members will be traveling in from all three countries. It'll be awesome.

We've also had some exciting new lessons this week- one from a man who was contacted by the Sisters in a stairwell on July 17th. He wrote it is his planner, and then just lost contact and we talked to him on the streets, he came to a lesson a few days later and it was great. In the middle of the lesson he paused and said “wonderful.” I love those kind. We also taught Marek (formally known as Giorgi) last evening with a member his age and he's progressing really well. The deal with him is he still works on sundays but we talked about fasting and prayer last night and so we picked a day next week to fast and pray to help him get sundays off-- because he works for the army I guess it's really tough to get time off when you want. But he's loving the book of mormon and always prays that he can find more time to give to God. That's just a very cool thing for a 19 year old to say. At the end of yesterday's lesson he also gave me a soviet belt, which is 30 years old and I was pretty excited about, haha.

Our time is low today because we're heading up to Tallin in less than an hour to do an exchange and pick up the mission van-- the mission president took a ferry trip to Helsinki with Elders Perry and Rasband. Lucky! I was very excited to hear about Grandma and Grandpa Sager seeing Sarah Z, in the temple in Tennessee. She was my hometeachee! And she'll be such a dominant missionary. If they see her again pass a big hello!

All is well! I feel healthy and happy and love every day. Elder Brown and I have started to run and meet up with Elders Pratt and Mattee in the morning in a neighborhood playground to do pull-up contests and stuff. That's been good to run around a bit. Although it feels like we're always on the run sometimes, but that's the way I like it.

Sorry I didn't respond to all the family e-mails today, but I promise I will sometime. I feel your love, and I'm just a wucky guy.

Love, Elder Barnes #12

P.s. I was so happy to hear everything went well with Megan's wedding. It sounds like she's very happy and picked a good one. Wow does that mean she's changing her last name? So I can no longer call her Barnzey? Well I guess I never did anyone, so it's all good.