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