Elephant Village

 On our way to Mu Bahn Chang

 Mu Baun Chang on our P-day.

Update:

Hello faithful readers! Every week here in Surin just continues to get better. I love serving here with all these wonderful people!

Lately for our service hours, Elder Harding and I have been helping a member with her yard. About two weeks ago, there was a ton of trash everywhere and random giant piles of dirt. We threw away all of the trash in her yard, spread the dirt out, and made some pretty cool flower beds. All we have left to do is plant the flowers. Her yard looks so much better now and this lady loves making us food too. Bonus!

There is a man named Soam Kuwen that is a frequent investigator of ours that we teach. He is a security guard who just kind of sits there and does nothing for work, so we usually come and teach him while he is working, but this week he was not there. There was a different worker who had replaced him for the day, so we asked him if he was interested in learning about Jesus Christ with us. He seemed very edgy and was not interested in learning. Suddenly, he got a phone call, which turns out to be his 13 year old son. The dad said that he was talking to white people and he was busy, and we could hear the son yelling into the phone, "I want to talk to the falangs!" over and over haha. He finally just said okay and gave my companion the phone. So I just kept talking to him while my Elder Harding talked on the phone. When Elder Harding was done calling, he just said, hey, your son wants us to come over to your house next week on Thursday. It was pretty funny because he didn't want to meet with us, but his son just set up an appointment for him.

Last P-day, we got to go to a place called Mu Bahn Chang. This place was way out the way of just about everything. Being in Surin, I am already on the middle of nowhere, but out there, there are very few white people who have ever been there. It is so fun being able to think about that. So the name of this place, Mu Bahn Chang, literally translates to elephant village. It is named that for a good reason because the elephants are just swarming everywhere. It was a blast.

At the end of the day on Christmas Eve, we were about to get on a 3 hour bus ride to go home, and one lady stopped us and said she was a teacher at a school. She said that tomorrow (Christmas day) she was going to teach her class about Christmas and what it represents. Then, she asked us if we could help her, we thought that would be a great idea! On Christmas day, we woke up at 4:30 in the morning and went to the Seven Eleven. We bought about 1200 baht worth of candy so we could give it to the kids we teach. It is crazy because that much bought reverts to about 40ish dollars, but with the amount of candy we actually bought, it probably would have cost 200 dollars in America. I love how cheap everything is here in Thailand. Anyways, we got onto a bus out to the school that we were teaching at, and basically slept until we got there. We showed up at this school, and trust me, I will never have an experience like this for the rest of my life. The school was a bunch of classrooms in a big square with a big field in the center. We walked up to the school into the field so all of the kids hanging out outside their classrooms could see us. All of the kids started running away from us. They were all around age 7 to 12 and they were running into their classes, hiding behind trees, and just staring at us from far away. They were so scared of us. Every once and a while, there would be a brave soul who sees how close they can get to us, but we say hi to them and they would run back to their hiding place. It just slowly escalated from that until they were about 100 kids just slowly walking towards us. Not sure if we were scary or nice. We were just completely surrounded by these children on every side. Eventually one of the kids was brave enough to walk up to us and so I gave them a high five. From that moment, every single child at this school wanted a high five from the tall white guy. I have never given so many high fives to so many people is such a short amount of time. They started climbing all over me, wanting me to lift them really high, taking me to their class room, or just straight up punching me as hard as they can. I am not going to lie, I didn't know if I was going to accidentally step on one, or they would tackle me and trample me to death first. It was one of the most fun days of my life! This really reminded me of my little brother Sarger and all the times we wrestled and I roughed him up a bit. It was so much fun!

We finally found the lady who wanted us to help teach her class, and it turns out she was the principal of the whole school! It ended up being an entire pep rally with the whole school. So we walk into their auditorium and there are 200 kids sitting in front of a stage. The principal hands me the microphone and says "Alright, go teach them about Christmas. Speak in Thai please." I was just like uuuh yeeeah... Okay... It went great! I just felt words coming to my head that I forgot were in there. I definitely believe God was helping me while I was speaking. After we were done, we were brought to these nice chairs and we were brought hot chocolate and treats while a ton of the students did dances to Christmas songs on the stage. It was totally fun. After a while, I asked if we could go up on stage and dance with the kids. She said yes so we ran up and I started doing the worm and other dance moves in front of everyone. It was so fun.

It was sad that I wasn't with my family for Christmas, but that was one of the best Christmases I have ever had! 

This week I got to call my family. They seemed like they were doing great. It was so much fun! I can't wait until next time I get to call them. 

Some weird food I got to eat this week was pork, except there wasn't any actual meat. It was literally all just the fat and the skin. I don't understand why whoever gave that to us thought we would like it, but it was fat, the skin was rock hard on all the fat, and most of the pieces still had hair on them. I still ate as much as I could bear to be polite, but it was enduring. 

Have a great week this week! 

-Elder Barron 

Christmas, Elephants and Ghosts

 At zone conference we went hiking and found an old monk bath.

 We went to an elephant show and saw some elephants do cool stuff like basketball, soccer and painting. 

 Riding bikes at night. 

There are tons of neon lights that line the street.

 A family from America visited our branch on Sunday for church. It was so much fun visiting with them. Everyone loved them.

 Elder Harding and I at the church.

 I was helping to set up Christmas and fell asleep on the floor and they took a picture of me with my phone making fun of me.

At zone conference with my buddies.

Weekly Update:

This was a super fun week! Full of surprises! Right after last P-day, we had a zone conference combined with our zone, Roy-et, and another zone, Udon. It was one of my most fun zone conferences yet out on the mission. First of all, we went there a day early and got to spend our P-day with everyone there. There were so many missionaries from around northwest Thailand. It was a blast! We got to get on a bus and ride way up into the mountains. We went on a hike and got to see some rocks that looked really old, and an ancient monk Jacuzzi. It was a blast. 

The next day, we got to do a giant white elephant exchange with everyone. We had to bring something that was less that 100 baht, (which is about 3 dollars), so there was an interesting bunch of stuff there. I just grabbed a random thing from our house back in Surin that I didn't want because there is a ton of completely random things that I would never want, but they are just funny. I ended up bringing a wooden, 1-foot tall cat. It was surprisingly one of the hottest items there. Every one stole it so quickly and it was locked with someone instantly. I ended up with a hat that said Merry Christmas on it. It was a good gift, but I ended up trading it with a Laos elder that was there for some Laos money after it was over.

One of the things that makes the place I am serving at, Surin, so special is the amount of elephants that are here. We see about one elephant a day here just walking around randomly in the streets. Today, we had the opportunity to go to an elephant show. It was so much fun. The elephant trainers had all of the elephants playing basketball, soccer, hula hooping, doing handstands, throwing darts, etc. I am so amazed at the diversity of the ability of elephants. They can do so many things, especially with their trunk. Their trunk is just like a massive, super strong arm connected to their face. The elephants could easily just pick people up with their trunk and I don't even think they were trying yet. 

Something interesting that I learned about this week is that Thai people are very superstitious. Here are some examples of what they believe. You should never sleep with your head facing the west, or ghosts will come get you. You should never cut your hair on a Wednesday, or ghosts will come get you. They believe in a lot of different kinds of ghosts. One is a floating one that will try to eat you, but it just follows wherever the wind takes them. You have to save yourself by putting fishing nets above your door. There is another one called a soong braid. If you are a child and you steal, or do something terrible to your parents, you will become a soong braid. This monster is about 30 feet tall and super skinny. They have a tiny mouth so all they can eat is one grain of rice at a time. You can hear them coming if you hear a tiny squeal because that is the sound of them screaming. Thai people also hate it when you make loud noises like tapping your utensils on your plate or clapping in public because the spirits will follow the noises. (I have gotten in trouble for doing both of those things in public more than once on accident.) I love learning more about the Thai culture and some things that they believe. 

Christmas here in Thailand is so interesting. It is nothing like I have ever experienced before. It gets to 80 degrees every day, the only Christmas lights you see are just there all year long, and there are about 3-4 Christmas trees you can see in a day. All of those are at our church building that we go to pretty much every day. Nonetheless, it is still so fun being able to talk to people about Christmas. We teach everyone what Christmas is and how Jesus was born on this Earth to be a gift to the world. He is truly the Prince of Peace. Everyone, no matter who you are, what you have done, has the ability to find everlasting joy through him.

Have a great week everyone! 

-Elder Barron 

Hello Surin!

 Saying goodbye to Sister (Her name translates to:) Small. She has been a member of the church longer then most in Bangkapi. I was sad to say goodbye because she and I became very good friends.

 Eating at the market next to the Bangkapi church building.

 This is the last time that I saw Brother Duhie. He is a man who has Autism. I am super good friends with him and I was so sad to say goodbye.

 Our awesome neighbors in Bangkapi who love to feed us. Great people!

 My parents sent me this BYU tshirt and before I left Bangkapi I gave it to my buddy Adam. 

He loved it so much! I will miss that kid!

 A going away meal before I left.

 My new companion Elder Harding and I with some of our investigators after a lesson.

 One of my favorite members Brother Dam (means "black") He helps us teach so many lessons and is a great friend. His is great at speaking english too.

 We were helping a member cook her meat sticks and everyone kept freaking out about the white boys and wanting to take our picture. Haha (I have no idea who this girl is.) =)

 Me helping to decorate the church for Christmas.

 Someone drew this on the board. This is a monster that people believe in in Thailand. It is pronounced "soon braid". They believe that if children are evil, and do bad things to their parents, they are turned into a 30 foot tall monster who is super skinny and their mouth is so small they can only fit one grain of rice in at a time, so it is very horrible to live.

 Elder Harding riding in the back of a truck on the way to teach a lesson.

 A busy night market in Surin.

 Trying fresh coconut. 

I was surprised how sweet it was.

 A huge Buddha.

First day with Elder Harding and me.

UPDATE:

So I am now in Surin! It is in the northeast part of Thailand which called the Eisan. I more specifically went to the town Surin. =) My first thought when I got my transfer call was, YES! I was really happy. I love Bangkapi a lot but I am super excited for a change. Then, I was told that my new companion would be Elder Harding. He is from Idaho and comes from the same ward as The Loveland family! ( President Loveland was the recent Mission President in Bentonville, AR.) Elder Harding is super funny and I am having so much fun being with him. I am having more chances to practice my Thai and get better. There is a different dialect out here in the country and it’s fun to try to understand.

While I was riding the bus out to Surin, there was about 2 hours straight where we were riding on a highway  with straight rice fields as far as the eye can see. It was so beautiful and fun. At that moment, I was officially out of Bangkok and out in the rural area.

One difficult part about traveling out, was bringing all of my stuff, I had 2 giant suitcases, 2 smaller bags, my bike, and a guitar. (I got a guitar from a missionary who finished their mission and went home. She didn't want to bring it with her so she gave it to me. ) I don’t play the guitar. Dang it. Haha!

There are a few things that are, very different here in Surin than in my last area of Bangkapi. One of the biggest differences is the ward. There is only about 30 to 40 people who come to church each week. The church building is also 4 stories tall and really skinny. It is so interesting because I have never been to a church that was this small before. It is a fun change to have.

Another big difference is the amount of time we spend riding our bikes every day. There are no buses to ride everywhere like Bangkapi, so we just ride bikes to all of our appointments. We probably spend an average of 30% of our day on bikes. We go hard and far.

I love Surin because the house that we live in is the biggest missionary house in all of Thailand. We only have 2 missionaries living there too. I love all of the l space I get and I have more space to work out and write in my journal. Our house is about a 15 minute bike ride from the church. It is a solid bike ride, but definitely not too long.

One part of last week that stuck out to me, was  we went to visit an older man who hadn't been to church in a while. When we came up to his house, we heard a weird sound coming from the window, so we went and looked inside. He was laying in his bed was looking at us and invited us inside. It was really sad because he was in lots of pain and unable to get out of his bed. It was so sad to see someone who was in his condition and unable to help himself. We gave him a priesthood blessing and helped him in any way that we could. Seeing things like that in a place that is much less fortunate than how I had grown up. I am so thankful for how I have been blessed in my life and I only hope that I can show my love to God by loving his children. Right now, I am assigned to do it in Thailand, but every single place around the world deserves the love of God, no matter their circumstances.

I will definitely talk more about Surin and this wonderful area next week! Everyone keep in touch! 

-Elder Barron 

Good Bye Big City-It's Been Great!

 Leaving this area and the friends that I made will be so hard. Wonderful people live in Bangkapi!

 Update: TRANFERS!

Hello!

This week had some pretty big news. I am officially leaving my first area in Bangkapi, Bangkok. I am headed out of Bangkok to a place called Surin. I don't know much about it, but I am so excited to see how it goes! I no longer have to deal with the challenges of a big city. I am going to be riding my bike a TON more in Surin.

This last week has been so much fun, I have already lived in my area for a pretty long time now, so all of the members and I pretty much knew that I would leave Bangkapi after this transfer. All of the members have been so nice to me and helped me with speaking and learning Thai. I am so glad for the time that I have spent here.

My new companion in named Elder Harding. He is only 1.5 months older than me in the mission, so we are both relatively young missionaries. We are both going to be working on the language a lot still so we can help each other. I am so excited! 

I don't have much time to spend on my email this week because I am getting all my bags ready and saying goodbye to all the members, so I will explain everything else better next week.

Everyone have a great week! 

-Elder Barron