Forever Improving

Random dogs are all over the place in Thailand.

Some people that we are teaching.

A huge buddha statue that we saw on Prep Day.

People here hide from the sun a lot.

The mangos here are sooo good.

Riding on the bus.

Wearing my friends glasses. =)

Salted egg flavored potato chips!

How my week went:

I've never been much of a writer. It has been a challenge to write these weekly emails because of that. When I send these on P-day, we are already super full of other things to do like visiting some cool Thai historical sites, eating food, washing clothes, buying groceries, and whatever other special thing we do that day. But the more I am writing, the more I like it. It's getting better!

There was a little bit of disappointment with our investigators this week. There was a few who told us they were not interested to continue learning, or they just weren't progressing as we taught them. It is hard because we are trying to do our best to bring others unto Christ through baptism, and we do this all day every day. It can get difficult to remember our role and the faith that we need to have. A lot of times I just wish I could make people listen, and I can tell that they have been sitting on their front porch for the past few hours every day not doing anything whatsoever. There are so many people that I don't understand how they are alive because they literally just sit in the same spot all day every day. I don't know how they get money or food. Then, I try to say hello to them and they refuse to speak or say they are busy and can't talk. It is so sad to just walk away from these people because I know I can help.

So on a happier note, I have been able to practice the piano a bit in my free time before I go to bed. I remember when I was in kindergarten/first grade ish and my parents tried to get me to play the piano. I hardcore refused and the harder they push for me to do it, so did I to not play it. I don't know I guess they gave up on making me play or something because I have no idea how to play. I don't blame them though, I was stubborn. It's okay because it is never too late to learn. I might take a video of me playing my song when I have mastered it and maybe you will all see it somehow I don't know.

There is a recent convert into the church who Elder Lemone and I are pretty good friends with. Her name is บี​ (Bee). She is way awesome! Bee invited us to go eat at her house this last week, and this was my first time over there. When we got there, I saw that she has 9 dogs! So many! These dogs seemed as though they were all circling around the house, and whenever someone would walk by or ride by on their motorcycle, the dogs would go on attack mode. The only reason we survived was because we were with Bee. It was way cool. 

So we found this new investigator named คัน​ (Kun). This guy probably has the longest hair I have ever seen on a man. He runs a parking lot, so he just sits there and waits for people to want to park their car. It looks like a pretty boring job, and Kun seemed very lonely. He really wanted us to come back and be friends with him. So we did. We came back a few days later, and it was getting dark outside. We didn't find Kun where he was sitting before, so we started walking around to find him. There was a shack over on the other side of this parking lot, so we went to check it out. It sounded like a band was playing inside. I knocked on the door, and out walks Kun. I could tell he had been jamming out. Kun invited us into his shed. There was a giant speaker. I want everyone to imagine the life of this man for a second. First of all, he has not cut his hair for years. He runs a parking lot so he works 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. He works whenever a car drives up. His house is a shed beside the parking lot. When I say shed, I mean I could probably lay down inside like a star and touch each corner of the shed with my hands and feet. This is his living space. Kun decides to have a massive speaker in one corner and a disco light. He also has a ton of rolls of colorful sticky paper where he makes stickers and bumper stickers. How does he get food? Well, on the other side of his parking lot, there are some street vendors who sell during the day. That's all he eats. Kun never leaves the parking lot for anything. So we went inside his shed and he starts jamming out to some tunes. It was very different. I asked him if I could play a song on his phone, so I looked up "I am a Child of God" by the Bonner family. It was way fun! He loved it!

I am definitely getting better at eating spicy food. I can start eating some of the stuff that all the Thai people eat and the spice is starting to taste way good too. 

One of our recent converts to the church asked us to give her son a blessing. It is cool to give blessings in Thai. It just feels so different, but then I realize it is the same power being used. It all depends on the faith of the receiver. I love being here in Thailand having these opportunities to help the children of God in Thailand. 

One thing on my mission that I think is important is realizing where your weaknesses are. I think almost every missionary hits the point where they feel like, wow I am doing so good, I'm not sure I can get much better than this. But in reality, they are just blinding themselves from the truth. That is why some missionaries get depressed, the feeling of not being able to improve. In reality, that is the definition of damnation. If you are damned, it doesn’t mean you are thrust down to hell, it means you are in a state of no improvement. You will stay the same forever. We have to always remember that WE ARE NOT DAMNED! God has made if for us so that no matter what, we can ALWAYS IMPROVE! If we can find our weaknesses and work on making them strengths, we will improve, and we all have weaknesses. You know what they are deep inside. 

My favorite scripture

Ether 12:27 

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them

Everyone be humble and have faith! 

Have a great week, I love you all! 

-Elder Barron 

An Electrifying Experience!

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