Our church congregation threw a
party for the new missionaries.
This is our scripture study class.
This is also our scripture study class....playing NINJA!
This is our church building.
Some of the Sisters in our Ward.
Our District got lunch after bowling on preparation day. It was way fun.
I was so happy to see my best buds from the MTC when we all had to renew our Visa's.
Cool beetle I found.
After my epic bowling victory.
My Letter this week:
Last Monday, (Every Monday is our Preparation day), I got to go bowling with my district. I have never been good at bowling at all. I have taken two girls on dates and they beat me both times. It has never been my sport, but this time, I don't know what happened. I got 4 strikes in a row and everyone was freaking out. (Including me) I ended up getting 165 which is like double the best I have ever gotten in bowling. It was really fun.
This transfer, there are now 4 Elders living in my house instead of just 2 like last transfer. It is so much more fun because we can wake up early for our exercise time and go play basketball at our church. I love working with these Elders because they are all very different, but effective in being missionaries.
Elder Killian and I have had to start from scratch searching for people to teach about the Gospel because we are an added companionship in the area. So we spend a lot of time doing what we call "finding". It is where we basically walk around neighborhoods, parks, mall, streets, and wherever trying to talk to everyone and invite them to learn about Jesus Christ and His gospel. Finding is probably the most infamous parts of being a missionary because it is very hard to talk to people who look busy and get them interested in learning about religion. It is also very hard because of the language barrier. There are sometimes I don't know what people are saying, so I just have to guess and keep talking. It is a leap of faith that God will help me speak the language and that the person who I talk to will have a softened heart and listen to our message.
This week I had to travel to this government building and renew my Visa, so I could stay in Thailand, and I got to see all my friends from the MTC there. They are all so much fun and I had so much fun seeing them again. We also got to be with each other for like 5 hours because we were waiting in a ton of lines. They are all so funny and smart, when I'm with them, they make me want to be better.
The brand new Elder in our house that came straight from the training center is named Elder Thomas. He tried to fix one of our showers that wouldn't shoot out any hot water. He started taking apart all the electrical stuff and from the next room over I just heard him yell because he got shocked by this thing. He was just sticking this screwdriver into the electrical box trying to tighten things and he ended up getting shocked really hard 4 different times. I was just lying on my bed laughing my head off because he wouldn't stop sticking his screwdriver in there.
While I was sitting on a bus this week, I was trying to talk to someone and ask them some questions, but he wouldn't respond to me or even make eye contact. I was just having a one way conversation with him for a while, and he didn't respond, so I told him a joke in Thai. I said, "what has no beginning, no middle, and no end?" he didn't respond so I told him. "It's a donut." He didn't respond again so I just got off the bus. Haha...life of a missionary.
I get the question a lot about why would God let bad things happen to good people and that has always been a hard question to answer. One of my favorite quotes to answer this question is by George W. Cannon. He says, "That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good that we may know ourselves; for it is most important that a man should know for himself." Tests that we have in life are blessings in disguise. After this life, our glory will be added upon as we fulfill goodness and faith in this life. I know this to be true and thank you all for reading my letters.
-Elder Barron
