When President Dance called Elder Mattee to ask him to come back to serve in Riga (this will be his third time serving here) he said that we would all be together for a week in a “big happy foursome.” As always, President Dance was right on! That's a lot of bodies, but it's worked out well because of driving the van and in our apartment because we have two sets of bunk beds and enough space to spread around. But it’s definitely been busy, exciting and very fun.
Elder Mattee played football at Air force for two years before the mission, and he’s just solid. And he can eat a lot. We worked together on Wednesday, and I was impressed with his Russian—he’d been serving in Daugavpils, which is the 95% Russian city on the east side of Latvia. We taught a few good lessons, one with Igor to our investigator Roman (more on him in a bit), a new guy we met on the streets, and a part member family. Meanwhile in the evening Elders McLaren and Hatch knocked into a family with 7 kids, who have a Latvian mother and Lithuanian father who recently passed away. All of the kids are within the ages of 8-18, speak Latvian and Lithuanian fluently and were apparently really attentive and interested! It’s just a miracle—especially because that is the only Latvian/Lithuanian speaking missionary companionship working together, in the whole world. As far as I know.
We had a few exchanges this week in Riga, I went with Elder Hansen and then Elder Palmer, both are very cool, solid missionaries who went to Lone Peak and knew Caden and Fred, two of my good buddies from freshman year at the Y. Elder Hansen and I served together a year ago in Riga and he is continuing to grow and LOVES talking to people. It was really fun to be back together with him in the same apartment we served in. It blows my mind how time flies so quickly, and last year felt like yesterday.
The most exciting moments happened this week-end with some great lessons and a family (husband and wife) that got baptized here in the Latvian Riga branch. The mission goal for this year is 12 families joining the church, so we’re right on track! Dad asked and the mission average number of people baptized a month (for the last 3 months) has been 12. In order to get the year goal of 150 people to be baptized and confirmed, we’ll need to have 3 baptisms every weekend. I know I’m kind of wacky about those numbers, but I love it when it works out like that.
On Saturday we had a lesson with Roman who’s been coming to church the last few weeks and reading a little bit in the book of Mormon. The thing with him is that he’ll read exactly what we ask him to, and nothing more. I guess it seems logical that we should just assign him the whole book, but we’ve asked him to read daily and he does but not very much, and then we invited him to read 1 Nephi 1-6 in 2 days and he did and really like it but didn’t keep going. He’s a very kind man whose okay with being alone but enjoys coming to church and lessons. We felt prompted to invite Sister Valiolova on a lesson, she’s the single woman who cleans the church and whom Elder Glauser and I taught a lot—a very sweet person whose name “Lubov” means love, which suits her perfectly. She really understand Roman well and asked him great questions like “what do you want from life?” To which he replied, "I don’t know." That’s just a question I never would’ve thought of! The spirit was really strong and he committed to read daily and seriously prepare for baptism. He had a date for February 6th but we all felt that he wasn’t ready, and when we read Moroni 6:1, he said, “I think this is talking to me.” We reset his date for the end of February and I think he can do what it takes to prepare. I’ll be calling down to Riga to get the updates and I’ll try and keep you filled in!
Yesterday both Roman and his mother came to church for the Russian branch, and Rollands came with Andris, his 13 year old Brother who we’ve been teaching for a while and he’s a good, smart kid (we found out that he does math competition things and often helps Rollands with his math homework). Rollands is doing great and is mingling really well with the branch, and Andris came for the third time yesterday and has read over 200 pages in the book of Mormon. For a 13 year old kid all on his own, that’s incredible! The only reason he wasn’t baptized with Rollands is because he hadn’t been to church enough times because of the one way hour commute and cost of bus tickets to and from Riga—I think it’s over 5$ a person which adds up quickly when there’s 8 mouths to feed, money is tight and both parents are already working two jobs more or less around the clock. If we had a church by their home, there is no doubt that all 6 of the children would come. But we taught Andris after church yesterday and we were trying to figure out what day he could be baptized. The only problem is Saturdays work best for their family because of work/school schedules, and there are zone conferences this Saturday (in Riga) and next Saturday (in Lithuania) so my companions will be busy/not here. So I just asked Andris, when would you like to be baptized, and he said “this Saturday” with a huge smile on his face. There’s no way you can say no to that, and he’s really ready, so we had his interview within 15 minutes and it’s going to happen! Rollands will be able to baptize too, which is way way cool. Ah man I just love it when new converts bring others into the gospel. Dad asked, and it’s a rule in the mission to have members perform the baptismal ordinances and it’s been really good for the branches. I think it helps retain new converts, plus gives the members the chance to fulfill their responsibilities. There will be a lot of things I’ll miss about Riga, but the people we’ve been able to teach and watch accept the gospel will definitely be the ones I’ll miss most. I’m so glad that heaven will just be one big reunion. I’m excited for that.
At zone leader’s council today, I’ll head up to Tallinn with Elders Patterson and Plothow. I’m not even sure that they know yet (the mission transfer is on Wednesday so we didn’t call them just not to bring up more questions, “transfer talk” than already happens) but I think they might figure it out when I hop on the bus with my luggage. I’m looking forward to serving there; especially for the new adventures and miracles I know will come. Till next week!
Love, Elder Barnes #12
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