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
