Final Moments Of My Mission

 The baptism of Aping.

 The baptism of Sister Syeloam. She was the last baptism of my mission. It happened during the quarantine and we got special permission to make it happen.

Me and Elder Benteti played Sudoku together online during our month quarantine. He's one of my best friends in the mission and will be my roommate at BYU.

Having our last Zone Conference online.

 Visiting Aping in the hospital.

 About to cross the border into Thailand and leave Laos for the last time. 

 Headed to Bangkok on the bus. 

It was a 12 hour ride.

 At the mission office for the last time.

 In an elevator with the Mission President's son.

 At the airport sending off the Elder on the left who lives in Australia. He was first to leave.

 A blanket of clouds. At this time I couldn't believe I was headed home.

 American soil

 Landing in Chicago.

 I saw lots of missionaries coming home from all over the world.

 Seeing my Mom.

 I made it home!

Coming home has been amazing. 

I missed my family so much.

I served close to 22 months on my mission 

and it was the best experience. 

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The moment I was being released online by my Stake President.

Last Letter:

This last month has been crazy. We started quarantine at the end of February, and since then, missionaries have been trickling out of the mission slowly.  Some went from having health problems, and they didn't want to risk getting coronavirus, the senior missionaries went home, and all who only had a little bit of time left in the mission went home early. Every day we would hear about other missions around the world that were getting sent home. We had been in quarantine for 4 weeks when we got a call from President Hammond saying "We just got word that Thailand is about to shut down the border between Thailand and Laos, so you guys need to get out of there as quickly as possible. Don't even finish cleaning your house. Just pack all your stuff and get out right now. You will be flying home soon. " The crazy flood of emotion that happened at that point was a lot. Luckily, we had felt this coming for a while now, so we had most of our stuff packed already. We called up a member and he drove us out to the border. We were gone just like that. We took a 12 hour bus ride down to Bangkok and got our tickets to go home. I got to meet with President and have a good talk with him. He has helped me a ton on my mission.

Right now, I am waiting in an apartment with a few other elders. My flight to go to Japan, Chicago, and Bentonville is tomorrow morning, and then I will be released as a missionary.

This has been the hardest thing I have ever done. I know it has helped me grow into the man that I need to be. I will forever look back on my experiences in this time and know I tried my best to serve the Lord our God. For those of you who read my emails thank you for bearing with me. Signing off,

I love you all, 

Elder Boston Barron 

Corona Virus

This was our last zone conference before the lockdown. We knew some of the missionaries would be going home after this. It was sad. These two Sister are Hmong and Lao. They are serving in Thailand right now.

Two of my buddies Elder Benteti and Elder Hodson. They will both be in my apartment at BYU in the fall.

This is at the hospital that we teach english at.

This is Sister Kowalis. She and her husband were the Sr. Missionaries serving in Laos. They were sent home due to the Corona Virus. I miss them and love them so much.

Dancing at the Lao festival.

The mission nurse bought us a new cloths rack and it is so awesome.

This was our last english class before we were quarantined. So we took some pictures. 

A guy working on construction.

The view from the Kowalis's apartment. You can see how much grass they burned by the river. A controlled burn.

We had to teach our investigators over the phone even though we live in the same building.

A few of the meals that we had while being confined.

Elder Coombs giving his final testimony as a missionary.

Eating pizza together.

This is a pic of all of the Lao missionaries. 

Only 3 of us remain.

Playing Settlers of Catan.

More food.

We had to go to the border and back for Chris to get his reentry visa. There were doctors there checking everyone for the corona virus before crossing the border. We passed!

On the bus.

Latest news:

There was one night I was writing in my journal and I totally fell asleep. The next morning I went to finish writing in it for the day before, but I was surprised to find out I already finished. I had no recollection of writing in it and everything I wrote was really random and changed thought every sentence. I wrote, "it's a lot more fun to intentionally affect and change the future than to sit there, let it happen to you, and record it down." I don't know where in the back of my mind this came from but unconscious me should be a motivational speaker.

We went down to Thailand. We planned to have a normal Zone Conference, but just hours before this conference the church presidency said our mission needs to stay quarantined in our houses for the next while.

So the corona virus, (yeah you knew it was coming.) It has been getting bad in China and I think a lot of people are scared because of the vast lack of knowledge we have on it. Yes, more people have died from the flu, but the flu was discovered over a century ago. The problem is things that we don't know about scare us, and media love drama. Nobody knows what's going to happen  in these next few weeks, but being too careful doesn't hurt. It could blow up and be worse than the flu or it could burn off.

In Laos, we had a senior couple and 5 young missionaries. So far they have sent everyone with less than 90 days home and senior couples. We have 3/7 missionaries left in Laos now.

We have just been staying home all day everyday for about 3 weeks now. It's sad when we can't do anything. The church leaders have said we are only allowed to do our teaching over technology.  Missionaries in Thailand can still teach people over video or text them, but in Lao we follow the law of the land. The only place we can teach religious things are inside the church. The only way we can follow the rules is by teaching our investigators on Sunday, in different rooms, during the 1 hour of Sunday school that is also canceled for coronavirus on a switch off because I have no companion with me in my branch(the other two elders are in branch 1 and I'm in branch 2). It's rough haha, but it just show how the Lords work cannot be stopped.
 I beat my record for how many eggs I ate for breakfast. I ate 8 eggs, 3 strips of bacon, 2 pieces of toast, and a cup of chocolate milk. As I crack these 8 eggs into the pan, other elders would jokingly sing "When I was a lad I at 4 dozen eggs everyday to help me get large. Now I'm a man, I eat 5 dozen eggs and I'm roughly the size of a barge!" Then we have to have a early lunch because of our english teaching schedule. At 10:30 I ate 5 big soft tacos for taco Tuesday. I was about to internally explode, but it was way good.
The members have been extremely amazing during our quarantine. There has been 4 meals given to us in this last week alone and we are getting another one tonight. I will be eternally grateful for the strength and care of the members here in Laos.

The Book of Mormon

Jacob 1:8

8 Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world...

-Elder​ ​Barron

I love Laos

Baptism for these three kids, 

Ck, Pudsedee and Boopei.

 We got a new missionary in Laos. He is Elder Luangrath. He will replace one of the other Elders who is about to go home.

 All of us in front of the "Victory Monument."

 I opened up our air conditioner and about 70 mosquitos dead bodies fell out.

 This guy sent me this picture. 

I thought it was cool.

 This is a really nice mall that just opened up.

 Taco Tuesday. I ordered 5 and they were amazing.

 A missionary valentines day. Haha

 Goats running free.

 Update this week:

We got a new Elder up in Laos. It has been a while since we had a new face. The new guys name is Chris Luangrath. We got to pick him up at the airport. 

We got to go up north to the 2nd branch members and visit them one day. When we got there, all the young women together practicing fawning. Fawning is a type of Lao dance. It is very slow and controlled and most of it is flowing your hands and arms in a peaceful motion. I got some of them to teach me how to dance. I'm not very good at the flowing motion, but I can get by haha.

There is a museum here in Laos called the COPE Center. It is about the history of The Vietnam War, and the damage it held on Laos. It is pretty sad to see how much Laos was hurt by the war even though Laos wasn't fighting. There are tons and tons of unexploded bombs which are scattered all over the eastern and southern section of Laos. Many people die yearly from accidentally setting off a bomb. 

A new semester started in our english classes. Instead of teaching at just three places, we are teaching at five places. Mondays and Wednesdays are our longest days. We teach five and a half hours of English a day. All of the students are adults. In some ways, it is better teaching adults because they are responsible and we don't have to do any baby sitting, but it also has to be a lot more serious with less playing games and such. 

Right now I have 101 students who I have to memorize the names of.  We will see how it goes haha.

There were three more baptisms last Sunday. One boy and two girls. They are all 12 years old or younger. It always feels amazing to attend a baptismal service in Laos. We are planning to have 3 or 4 more coming up next month.

-Elder Barron