Corona Virus

This was our last zone conference before the lockdown. We knew some of the missionaries would be going home after this. It was sad. These two Sister are Hmong and Lao. They are serving in Thailand right now.

Two of my buddies Elder Benteti and Elder Hodson. They will both be in my apartment at BYU in the fall.

This is at the hospital that we teach english at.

This is Sister Kowalis. She and her husband were the Sr. Missionaries serving in Laos. They were sent home due to the Corona Virus. I miss them and love them so much.

Dancing at the Lao festival.

The mission nurse bought us a new cloths rack and it is so awesome.

This was our last english class before we were quarantined. So we took some pictures. 

A guy working on construction.

The view from the Kowalis's apartment. You can see how much grass they burned by the river. A controlled burn.

We had to teach our investigators over the phone even though we live in the same building.

A few of the meals that we had while being confined.

Elder Coombs giving his final testimony as a missionary.

Eating pizza together.

This is a pic of all of the Lao missionaries. 

Only 3 of us remain.

Playing Settlers of Catan.

More food.

We had to go to the border and back for Chris to get his reentry visa. There were doctors there checking everyone for the corona virus before crossing the border. We passed!

On the bus.

Latest news:

There was one night I was writing in my journal and I totally fell asleep. The next morning I went to finish writing in it for the day before, but I was surprised to find out I already finished. I had no recollection of writing in it and everything I wrote was really random and changed thought every sentence. I wrote, "it's a lot more fun to intentionally affect and change the future than to sit there, let it happen to you, and record it down." I don't know where in the back of my mind this came from but unconscious me should be a motivational speaker.

We went down to Thailand. We planned to have a normal Zone Conference, but just hours before this conference the church presidency said our mission needs to stay quarantined in our houses for the next while.

So the corona virus, (yeah you knew it was coming.) It has been getting bad in China and I think a lot of people are scared because of the vast lack of knowledge we have on it. Yes, more people have died from the flu, but the flu was discovered over a century ago. The problem is things that we don't know about scare us, and media love drama. Nobody knows what's going to happen  in these next few weeks, but being too careful doesn't hurt. It could blow up and be worse than the flu or it could burn off.

In Laos, we had a senior couple and 5 young missionaries. So far they have sent everyone with less than 90 days home and senior couples. We have 3/7 missionaries left in Laos now.

We have just been staying home all day everyday for about 3 weeks now. It's sad when we can't do anything. The church leaders have said we are only allowed to do our teaching over technology.  Missionaries in Thailand can still teach people over video or text them, but in Lao we follow the law of the land. The only place we can teach religious things are inside the church. The only way we can follow the rules is by teaching our investigators on Sunday, in different rooms, during the 1 hour of Sunday school that is also canceled for coronavirus on a switch off because I have no companion with me in my branch(the other two elders are in branch 1 and I'm in branch 2). It's rough haha, but it just show how the Lords work cannot be stopped.
 I beat my record for how many eggs I ate for breakfast. I ate 8 eggs, 3 strips of bacon, 2 pieces of toast, and a cup of chocolate milk. As I crack these 8 eggs into the pan, other elders would jokingly sing "When I was a lad I at 4 dozen eggs everyday to help me get large. Now I'm a man, I eat 5 dozen eggs and I'm roughly the size of a barge!" Then we have to have a early lunch because of our english teaching schedule. At 10:30 I ate 5 big soft tacos for taco Tuesday. I was about to internally explode, but it was way good.
The members have been extremely amazing during our quarantine. There has been 4 meals given to us in this last week alone and we are getting another one tonight. I will be eternally grateful for the strength and care of the members here in Laos.

The Book of Mormon

Jacob 1:8

8 Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world...

-Elder​ ​Barron