Life is great!

A bunch of missionaries on p-day in Thailand.

We went on a hike in Laos and saw this beautiful waterhole on the way up the mountain.

Inside a cave on our day off.

There was this cool Buddha statue in the cave.

We got the chance to help out this school with new bathrooms and a well.

We got a new missionary in Laos! 

He is the one on the right of me. That makes 5.

The kids at the school we went to.

These bracelets are part of a ceremony that they do to say thanks.

On the top of a mountain with an epic view.

Someone dragged this motorcycle up this huge mountain to provide photo opps for people. Haha! It was so funny.

It actually was pretty scary.

We ate these. 

Update:

Some highlights from this week:

- We have had 3 baptisms in our branch in the last month. Their names are Gong, Noy, and Poang. They are all 16-18 years old.

-We have a lot of certificate ceremonies for the students that passed the classes going on. We have to do assessments for the next classes, where we test them to see what classes they should be in next term. Then we have to have signing ceremonies for the new ministries we are teaching English at next term.

- We went to Buddha Park. This park had a ton of different statues. It was really fun because we got to go with some Lao members, and all of the statues had a different story that they told us about. 

- I traveled back to Thailand like 3 times in the last month. We were supposed to meet Elder Andersen (One of the 12 Apostles) in our zone, but when he was visiting the other half of the mission, his wife injured her back, so they didn't end up coming to visit us. We just had a small zone conference instead. We also went to Thailand to do interviews with President Hammond, and for the last time, we got a plane down to Bangkok for Elder Flakes visa work. 

- Interesting fact about Buddhism. Funerals. At the funeral of someone who dies, you all sit around the casket while a monk says a chant kind of song. Then everyone puts a lower on the casket. After that, they light the casket which has little popper things and fireworks on it. The fire gets pretty dang massive, and there are a few little explosions while it burns. Then the relatives start throwing candy all over the place while the guests try to catch it. Once the casket burns away you can see parts of the dead body inside burning. They also have a second funeral 100 days after the death of that person. I'm not sure what the importance is of the second funeral, but there is no fire in the second one. 

- Here's a little story. My bike broke lately. I was just riding it and then the pedaling stopped working. It pedals, but that doesn't turn the wheels. Apparently, the piece that broke is a really expensive and rare piece for the bike. I went to two different shops and they both said I had to go to Thailand to buy the piece, so I went there and it turns out (bike pun) I could buy just that piece, but I had to buy the whole hub that spins tires and connects spokes. It costed 1500 baht (50 dollars). That was really expensive. I wanted to make sure that I didn't go back to Laos without the piece and then not have a bike, so I just bought it. Then I went back to Laos and went to 5 different bike shops and none of them had the piece to fix it. I asked around a lot and our apartment manager said he knew a good place, so we followed him over there and there was a small old man who said, "yeah, I can fix it." He didn't need a new piece or anything, he just fixed it for 50,000 kip (5-6 dollars). Now I'm just gonna return that expensive piece and I'll get my money back when I get the chance to go the Thailand again.This was a fun month. Next Monday, we are starting to teach English again, so I am very excited for that. 

Have a good week. Love,

-Elder Barron