The girl that our baby Gabbie was named after.

To our great surprise, I got a letter this week from the family in the Czech Republic whose daughter is the one that we are naming Gabbie after. They sent us some pictures of them, and I've decided to include some of the pictures of Gabi (the way that they shorten her longer name Gabriela) that they sent to us so that you can all see what she is like:

This is how I remember her: (she's the older one)

This is a more recent picture of her with her Mom (Lenka) in France:

This is her with her Dad (Erik): They are standing on a bridge in Paris.

There were a few things that really impressed me about Gabi when I met her and her family. The first was that she really loved animals.

Another thing that really impressed me about Gabi was that, although her family was not religious at all and she had not been raised in any church, at only about 9 years old she seemed to be very interested in spiritual things. Whenever we would go over to their house as missionaries, it was generally Gabi who would instigate the discussion about what our church believed. She seemed to be really curious about the general religious questions like "why we are here on earth" or "what happens when someone dies." It really impressed me that at such a young age she would be as interested in these questions as she was.

Another thing that I really liked about her was her family. They were so good to me and my mission companions while we were there.

Lastly, I just really liked the name. Gabriela was such a beautiful name.