Playing hilarious games with church members.
We got to do service by cutting
thorns in a members bamboo patch.
Tarzan has a sick tan line.
We saved this baby birds life!
(Until it died.)
This was the electric box that was struck by lightning right by us.
Weekly Update:
Being out here on
the mission, there are definitely fast weeks that zip by and then there are
slow weeks that inch past you. This was one of those weeks where I felt like
instead of the week zooming by, it had a flat tire and flubbed by. There was
still a ton of miracles and experiences that were amazing and I wouldn't
trade them for anything though. I also am having a wonderful time being with
Elder LeMone. He is way good at being a missionary and super funny. We are
having fun together.
Last week, we got
to go do some service over at Sister หนู's house. She is a way cute, old lady in the Buriram
ward. She has a strong testimony. For our service, we were cutting out masses
of thorns around her bamboo stock things. Those thorns were totally ruthless.
All we had was a machete and out bare hands. I'm also pretty sure the machete
was as dull as a spoon. When we were done, I had a ton of blood on my hands,
but I was totally fine with that. I love doing physical work as a missionary
because most of the time it is riding bikes and talking to people, but when
we can get dirty and work hard, I totally love it.
Whenever we have
our P-day on Mondays, a lot of the younger members in the ward ask us to go
play at this one place called Level Up. At this place, there is pretty much
every board game/party game that has ever existed. There is also a ton of
instruments we can try to play, and to do all of it just costs a dollar an
hour. Way cheap. I'm convinced that the guy who works there has the best job
of all time. He just gets to play board games with young adults all day.
Also, if he ever goes to a party, he will destroy anyone in the party games
because his entire life is playing them. He is a master at all of them by
now.
I watched a video
this week that some of you have probably heard of or watched before. It is a
talk from this military guy about the importance of making your bed. If you
can wake up every morning and make your bed, you have already accomplished
your first task of the day and so you have something to be proud of. That one
accomplished task can lead to many others throughout your day, and you will
have a good day! If by chance your day was horrible and you didn't accomplish
anything, you will come back home to a bed that is made by you and you can
have hope for the next day. I believe that this analogy can be used with just
about any part of life. There are so many tasks throughout the day: things
that we need to do, want to do, have goals to do, are expected by others to
do, etc. There are your big tasks and your small tasks. Usually the small
tasks will always come first. If you weren't able to complete the small tasks
throughout the day, there is no way you would be able to do the big ones. If
you are a child who wants a dog, but you don't do your home work, don't clean
your room, don't clean your dishes... How are your parents supposed to trust
you to take care of a dog? You have to prove that you can do the small
things. I have started to make my bed every single day since I listened to
that, and I challenge everyone who reads this to do the same! Also to think
of other small things we might not be doing in our life and try to do that
too.
There is this 14
year old kid that I am pretty good friends with. His name is Fresh. Fresh
walked into English class this last week and he was just acting like he was
in a slump. I asked what was wrong and said one of his best friends was on
his death bed in the hospital from getting in a motorcycle accident. It was
sad that he had to deal with that, so we challenged him to fast for his
friend the next day. He did and about 2 days later Fresh said his friend had
made an amazing recovery and was going to be okay again. That was an awesome
miracle.
So my current
companion Elder LeMone is good at playing the piano, and I have been wanting
to try playing a few times. We found this piano in one room that nobody has
ever used and everyone just forgot it was there. We asked the Bishop if we
could take it to the missionary house to practice the piano and he said yes.
Our house is probably about a solid kilometer from the church, so I decided
it would be easiest to just carry it home. This piano was electric, so it
wasn't like crazy heavy, but it was still over 100 pounds for sure and just
awkward to carry. Let's just say when you have faith anything is possible,
but you might have a sore back for the rest of the week.
One hard thing
about being the senior companion, is letting your companion speak and have
just as much of a say in everything as you do. I know a lot of missionaries
who know that they are the senior companion, and they know they are better at
Thai, so they just start taking over anything and they don't let their
companion do anything. I need to step back some times and let my companion do
planning and lead in the lessons. I think Elder LeMone and I are doing great
though! He is way ahead of where I was when I was out at the time he is out
now. He’s awesome!
We are teaching a
lady called แตน (Dan) She has had a very deep ancestry in Buddhism, so we
can't jump into the big beliefs in Christianity too quickly. We are taking it
slow. She is doing way good though. Dan has a lot of faith.
We got a way cool referral from some sister missionaries in
Salt Lake City. There are a lot of things that the church will post on social
media, and sometimes, people who aren't members will reply and be interested
in learning more, so there was someone in Buriram who was interested to a
post on Facebook, and he replied to it. There were missionaries back in Utah
who answered his questions, and then they found out that he lived in Buriram
where I was! The missionaries talking to him gave us his information, and we
were able to meet and teach him more. He is a way cool guy named Bia.
This week there
were a few storms that were starting up. We were walking to the church after
eating some dinner, and we could see some dark clouds starting to form above
us. We were right in front of the church about to go in, and we heard a
sound. It was louder than a gun shot, and it sounded like a ton of metal
falling over, and then a zap. About 30 feet behind us, a lightning bolt
zapped an electric box. It was exactly what we walked past about 10 seconds
earlier. We were soooo close to it. The electric box also exploded into
flames and it was crazy. A ton of Thai people were running around like crazy
and grabbed buckets of dirt to quench the fire. It looked way funny watching
them throw dirt on the fire, but it worked, so that was cool. It was a huge
blessing that we didn't get hit right there.
It was a
wonderful week! I love you all and I hope you have a great week! I love
getting emails from everyone, and I do my very best to answer every single
one!
-Elder
Barron
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