Christmas, Elephants and Ghosts

 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 

Hello Surin!

 Saying goodbye to Sister (Her name translates to:) Small. She has been a member of the church longer then most in Bangkapi. I was sad to say goodbye because she and I became very good friends.

 Eating at the market next to the Bangkapi church building.

 This is the last time that I saw Brother Duhie. He is a man who has Autism. I am super good friends with him and I was so sad to say goodbye.

 Our awesome neighbors in Bangkapi who love to feed us. Great people!

 My parents sent me this BYU tshirt and before I left Bangkapi I gave it to my buddy Adam. 

He loved it so much! I will miss that kid!

 A going away meal before I left.

 My new companion Elder Harding and I with some of our investigators after a lesson.

 One of my favorite members Brother Dam (means "black") He helps us teach so many lessons and is a great friend. His is great at speaking english too.

 We were helping a member cook her meat sticks and everyone kept freaking out about the white boys and wanting to take our picture. Haha (I have no idea who this girl is.) =)

 Me helping to decorate the church for Christmas.

 Someone drew this on the board. This is a monster that people believe in in Thailand. It is pronounced "soon braid". They believe that if children are evil, and do bad things to their parents, they are turned into a 30 foot tall monster who is super skinny and their mouth is so small they can only fit one grain of rice in at a time, so it is very horrible to live.

 Elder Harding riding in the back of a truck on the way to teach a lesson.

 A busy night market in Surin.

 Trying fresh coconut. 

I was surprised how sweet it was.

 A huge Buddha.

First day with Elder Harding and me.

UPDATE:

So I am now in Surin! It is in the northeast part of Thailand which called the Eisan. I more specifically went to the town Surin. =) My first thought when I got my transfer call was, YES! I was really happy. I love Bangkapi a lot but I am super excited for a change. Then, I was told that my new companion would be Elder Harding. He is from Idaho and comes from the same ward as The Loveland family! ( President Loveland was the recent Mission President in Bentonville, AR.) Elder Harding is super funny and I am having so much fun being with him. I am having more chances to practice my Thai and get better. There is a different dialect out here in the country and it’s fun to try to understand.

While I was riding the bus out to Surin, there was about 2 hours straight where we were riding on a highway  with straight rice fields as far as the eye can see. It was so beautiful and fun. At that moment, I was officially out of Bangkok and out in the rural area.

One difficult part about traveling out, was bringing all of my stuff, I had 2 giant suitcases, 2 smaller bags, my bike, and a guitar. (I got a guitar from a missionary who finished their mission and went home. She didn't want to bring it with her so she gave it to me. ) I don’t play the guitar. Dang it. Haha!

There are a few things that are, very different here in Surin than in my last area of Bangkapi. One of the biggest differences is the ward. There is only about 30 to 40 people who come to church each week. The church building is also 4 stories tall and really skinny. It is so interesting because I have never been to a church that was this small before. It is a fun change to have.

Another big difference is the amount of time we spend riding our bikes every day. There are no buses to ride everywhere like Bangkapi, so we just ride bikes to all of our appointments. We probably spend an average of 30% of our day on bikes. We go hard and far.

I love Surin because the house that we live in is the biggest missionary house in all of Thailand. We only have 2 missionaries living there too. I love all of the l space I get and I have more space to work out and write in my journal. Our house is about a 15 minute bike ride from the church. It is a solid bike ride, but definitely not too long.

One part of last week that stuck out to me, was  we went to visit an older man who hadn't been to church in a while. When we came up to his house, we heard a weird sound coming from the window, so we went and looked inside. He was laying in his bed was looking at us and invited us inside. It was really sad because he was in lots of pain and unable to get out of his bed. It was so sad to see someone who was in his condition and unable to help himself. We gave him a priesthood blessing and helped him in any way that we could. Seeing things like that in a place that is much less fortunate than how I had grown up. I am so thankful for how I have been blessed in my life and I only hope that I can show my love to God by loving his children. Right now, I am assigned to do it in Thailand, but every single place around the world deserves the love of God, no matter their circumstances.

I will definitely talk more about Surin and this wonderful area next week! Everyone keep in touch! 

-Elder Barron 

Good Bye Big City-It's Been Great!

 Leaving this area and the friends that I made will be so hard. Wonderful people live in Bangkapi!

 Update: TRANFERS!

Hello!

This week had some pretty big news. I am officially leaving my first area in Bangkapi, Bangkok. I am headed out of Bangkok to a place called Surin. I don't know much about it, but I am so excited to see how it goes! I no longer have to deal with the challenges of a big city. I am going to be riding my bike a TON more in Surin.

This last week has been so much fun, I have already lived in my area for a pretty long time now, so all of the members and I pretty much knew that I would leave Bangkapi after this transfer. All of the members have been so nice to me and helped me with speaking and learning Thai. I am so glad for the time that I have spent here.

My new companion in named Elder Harding. He is only 1.5 months older than me in the mission, so we are both relatively young missionaries. We are both going to be working on the language a lot still so we can help each other. I am so excited! 

I don't have much time to spend on my email this week because I am getting all my bags ready and saying goodbye to all the members, so I will explain everything else better next week.

Everyone have a great week! 

-Elder Barron 

December is here!

 A cool night time market.

 My missionary journal.

 Elder Thomas and I shooting a toy Thi G together.

 Our taxi drivers cool dashset.

 Eating at a members house named Golf.

 On the beaches of Chonburi

 I saw these guys trimming palm trees and I thought it was cool.

 Me and one of my best buddies.

Update:

Last P-day was a blast, we had a bunch of missionaries come to our area and we had a giant basketball tournament! We played 3 on 3 games and it was awesome. There are some pretty good basketball players out here. I love the attitude out here on the mission. All of the missionaries are so happy and encouraging about everything. It makes it so much easier to be doing service for others when we have good attitudes about it. After we were done playing basketball, we went to the beach. It was only about an hour drive. The beach was sooo fun. As missionaries, we aren't allowed to go into the water above our knees, but it still felt so good to have my feet sink into the sand. I got to eat about 50 shrimp and then take a nap. It doesn't get much better than that.

I had so much fun in teaching this past week! I love teaching with Elder Thomas because he is very good at explaining and we are good at going off of each other's teaching skills. This week in our English class we were teaching them how to read the time on a clock and say it in English, but every time before their turn, they had to do a dance. I was dying on the floor laughing because Thai people have no shame at all! 

This week we were at a college university teaching a student named Ong. We have been teaching him there for a while now and he loves learning about our religion. He wants to get baptized in the next few weeks. While we were in the middle of teaching him, a random guy named Nook walks up to us and says "I am Christian. Teach me more." It was so cool. I know that God prepares his children to hear the gospel and as a missionary, I am able to see these miracles all the time. This has been a great blessing in my life.

This week was sad because one of our sister missionaries who was serving here from New Zealand had to return home this week. She had a family member pass away and left to help out with them, so she is serving in a better way now. She was one of the nicest people I have ever met. 

I know that this is the true church and that even though we have hard times in life, we can get through anything through relying on God and his plan for us. Thank you all for reading my emails and keeping up with me! 

-Elder Barron