We met these 12 year old boys that were playing soccer and played with them for a few minutes. The next day they had left this note on our door to invite us to come play again. It was cute.
An amazing sunset.
"Song Kran" is a holiday in Thailand and it is a 3 day water fight. Everything shuts down and everyone participates. It's a blast!
"Song Kran" ready to battle with our water guns.
The district
English Class
Letter:
Letter:
It is starting to get pretty stinking
hot these days. The heat is starting to smother and squeeze sweat out of me
every day. I love it! I am really here in Thailand riding my bike many miles a
day trying to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone who accepts it.
This last week, my companion Elder
Body and I saw many miracles. I just want to try to talk about a few of them.
Youtana is a person that we met in this past week. We were riding
our bikes and saw Youtana sitting on the ground watching some grazing Buffalo.
We tried to start talking to him, and instantly we knew that he had autism.
That made me even more excited to talk to him. I love people with autism. They
are the nicest, most angelic people on earth. It was difficult to understand
him, but I would just ask him questions and let him talk for a while. Every
once and a while I would crack a little joke and he would laugh his head off.
(I wish everyone laughed at my jokes like he did) I think the best part about
talking to him was how much he reminded me of my older brother Briggs. All of
the sudden, Youtana said he had to go, and instantly started riding away. We
decided to just get on our bikes and keep following him around. Youtana ended
up going to his house, which was the house of a lady who we had talked to
before. Last time, this lady wanted nothing to do with us. She just told us to
go away and she never wanted to see us again. (probably one of the hardest turn
downs I have had on my mission) This time we met with her, she saw us with her
son. (I had no idea this was going to be her son) She asked us what we were
doing with her son, so I just told her we were friends. Then Youtana said,
"yeah we are friends!" I think that kind of melted her heart a little
bit because nobody ever hangs out with her son, but now we were. It was just a
few small things trying to show love to people and now this lady's heart was
able to change and she was way more accepting of what we were talking about to
her.
One day this last week it was
starting to get late at night. The sun had barely dropped under the horizon,
and we had just got home. We were winding down, about to start studying in the
scriptures when we heard a bunch of voices coming from outside. We looked out
the window and saw a ton of little kids riding their bikes around. I decided to
open the window and start talking to them. (at this point I was on the second
floor, so I was on a little balcony yelling at them) they thought it was funny
talking to a white guy who spoke Thai, so they stayed for a while. They started
saying jokes to me in Thai. I had no idea what the answers were because they
were Thai puns, but the little kids didn't know that I had Elder Body, who is
Thai, right behind me still inside the house. He kept whispering to me all the
answers, and then giving me some other Thai jokes to say to the kids. It was
dang funny when I would answer their jokes and come back with better ones. They
were so confused who this white person even was. After that, I got out my
guitar and played them all a song in Thai called "never". We had to
go, so I told them we should play soccer sometime together and kind of expected
to never see them again. I thought this little star was over, but 2 days later,
we were riding on our bikes out of our neighborhood, and there was a small
street that I had never gone on before. I decided to just turn down it and see
what happens, and we ended up seeing those exact same kids! We stopped and
played some soccer with them for a while and then one of them asked why we were
Christian, so we sat down with them for a little bit and told them about Jesus
Christ. It was awesome! Since they knew where our house was, we told them if
they are going to play soccer, to put a note on our gate at the house. The very
next day, we walked out of our house and they had written a note that said,
"we are playing at the park at 5 pm. Come play with us" it was way
cute.
So out in the Eisan of Thailand, or
country side, most people have a water man who will come around and give jugs
of water to them, and they have a machine that you just put the jug upside down
on it and it gives you cold water. It's not too hard once you get used to it.
We have to call the water man and switch out our jugs every 2ish weeks.
Okay, so for those of you who don't
know about Thailand. It is time to learn about Songkran! This is the holiday
for New Year here in Thailand. To make a long story short, it is a nation wide water
party all day for three days where everyone is getting everyone as wet as
possible. For three days straight, every hose in every hose in Thailand is
running and people are filling up their buckets and water guns. There are
numberless trucks packed full of people drenching every person who comes within
10 feet. There are some roads where the streets are packed like sardines full
of people. People have a goo thing made up of baby powder, food coloring, and
water called bang. Everyone will get bang and rub it all over your face and
throw it on your clothes. Luckily, it all comes out of the clothes pretty
easily. There was this one part where there was about 10 fire trucks lined up
and they were completely drenching everyone with water. It was so much fun.
Literally everyone in Thai land plays Song Gran these 3 days, so it is
impossible to do missionary work. We get to play with some of the members
instead and it was sooo fun.
This last week was one of the most
crazy weeks of my entire mission. There was just so many things to worry about,
but it also doubled as one of my most fun weeks of my mission. I love serving
in Thailand so much! It is SO hot but it's all getting better every day! This
was the last week before transfers. I do T know yet if I am moving or not, but
I'm pretty sure I will stay since I have been here the least amount of time
than anyone else serving here in Buriram. I will be able to say what will
happen for transfers in one more day, but not yet!
Everyone have a great week!
-Elder Barron
