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.

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

SHORT BUT SWEET(?)

FAMILY!

Happy 12th!

We had a few lessons this week from investigators who've been taught before and they were awesome. The first was with a kid named Giorgi, (or George). I'm pretty sure I told you about him, but he's a cool 19 year old that LOVES serving in the army. Well I called him up last week and said “Privyet!” and immediately he responds “Wow...Barnes!” He was really happy to hear from us and had just recently gotten back from France where he served in their legion. We met up on monday and first thing he does is pull out his I.D. Card-- and it turns out his real name is Marek! I was like, you've had two names this whole time? And he goes, yeah, I'm in the army. That's not exactly how the conversation went but basically he had to live by a different name for a year and just couldn't say anything, but it's been so weird now talking to him because I always call him Giorgi at first. He still works a ton, every sunday, but believes in the book of mormon, and really wants to be baptized so that is awesome! He should get sundays off in september so we'll see from there.

I was reading in 2nd Nephi 25 during studies and read verse 5 about how Jewish people understand the things of the prophets more than everyone else. It made me feel not so guilty at first, because although I appreciate them more and more each time, the Isaiah chapters still seem like references to people and places that I've never heard of. But I also realized that Artiom, the 18 year old karate kid in Vilnius whose mother is Jewish understood all of 2nd Nephi so clearly. So the book of mormon prophecies are true, which is neat. Also he's getting baptized next week! I've talked to Elder Freeman a few times and he said he's doing incredibly, on his last karate trip he gave a friend a book of mormon and said that now she wants to be baptized too! That's what I'm talking about.

We actually have to run because there's the monthly council today with all of the zone leaders which starts soon. But know that I love you, pray for you, and am always smiling when I think of you!

Thanks for your support,

Love, Elder Barnes #12

ITS AUGUST 5TH. WOAH.

We’ve had a few neat experiences the last several days and we continue to be blessed with miracles. Last night we were walking out of a dome after teaching a new lesson to a nice old bobka (the affectionate term for grandmother in russian) and we came across a cool kid who was riding his bike. We flagged him down and found a nearby bench and taught a clear and powerful first lesson. His name is Roman; he'š 23 and had read a little bit about the church before. Unfortunately we had just given away a book of mormon a few minutes before so we didn’t have a russian one to give him but gave him a pamphlet and got his number. He eneded up getting a call at the end and had to leave real quick. Russian people love to do that for some reason—when ever you call a wrong phone number they just say you didn’t get to the right place and then hang up. Hopefully it will work out for the best! Thinking back I’ve seen A LOT of miracles that don’t result in huge ”success” or baptisms. But itš cool to know that God is always willing to make things happen, even if he knows we'ŗe going to use our agency poorly anyway. I love that the gospel is perfect.

I’m trying to think of other good experiences. OH! Elder Patterson, (my buddy from the MTC who served in the army and was in Afganhistan and is one of my heros) and I went on an exchange last Saturday. He'š also serving in Riga right now but it was so good to be reunite for the day. We can also communicate with each other a lot less worse than we did in the MTC which was fun, MTC ”SpeakYourLanguage” is so classic. Elder Brown and I try SMyL, but it usually results in confusion and then English. But anyway Elder Patterson works in the area where I did at the beginning of my mission and so it was fun to teach some of the same members I’ve taught before. The first is a 14 year old kid named Misha who acts like he'š 25 until he'ļl break out in song and dance during the middle of lessons because "he knows everything”. Another one is Olga, an OLD lady who was baptized over 5 years ago but is somehow convinced she'š still a member of the Russian orthadox church and closes her prayers in the name of the father, son and holy ghost because “that’s the way she was baptized.” People are so interesting. But the cool/spiritual part of these stories is as we were teaching Olga, we both had a clear feeling like we should go back to center for the rest of the evening, instead of staying and knocking like we had planned. I remember the thought came to my mind and was so random/clear but I didn’t think much of it until we got out and he said he’d had the exact same feeling. Well, we went back and a few hours later ended up teaching a cool group of 24 year old-ish students and then later another man who had known the missionaries in Liepaja but was kind of stranded in Riga. We didn’t think about it much until the day was all over but it was clear that we were led where to go and what to do, while at the time we didn’t feel like we were doing anything special. Like Elder Bednar said (quoting, although not so directly from the email cami sent) ‘’Štop analyzing it, quit worrying about it, move on. Keep your convenants, keep the commandments, Be a good boy…and you will be guided. ‘’ I agree with him. Well I’ve got to go and sorry these stories today are kind of open-ended but that’s okay because it'ļl hopefully give something to write about next week!

I love you all, a lot!
Love, Elder Barnes #12