World War 3

 Biking home for the day.

 

 The student drew super heros for the day in class. Who do you think won the competition?

 A little market on the side of the street, things were seriously everywhere.

 Riding back to Buriram on the bus in the middle of the night after a zone conference.

 Some cool Buddhist stuff.

 Some random selfies.

 We helped a lady feed her chickens. This lady was so funny. I love doing service in any way.

 I caught this butterfly out of mid air and then set it free.

 What I would look like if I wore glasses.

Look Mom, I sewed up this hole in my bag! I am having fun repairing my stuff all by myself.

Update for the week:

Dang sometimes I really forget the amazingness of being here in Thailand being a missionary. There are just so many blessings from being here. I will never be able to explain all of them. I can definitely try though! Last P-day, we rode our bikes over to a mountain that is pretty close to us. At the bottom is a staircase that goes up forever

 At the very top, there is a massive Buddha statue and an AMAZING look out at the top. We woke up at 4:30 to ride our bikes there and go up the steps. Then we watched a stunning sunset from the lookout on the mountain. Everything about it was so beautiful. I could just feel the spirit as I was thinking of all the amazing things that God has created for his children to see. 

We have an awesome investigator named ฝน.​ She is so cool. We have been teaching her for 2 months now, and she is on track to get baptized next Sunday. I am praying that everything goes well! 

I am so tired this week. We had to ride busses last week for a total of 22 hours. It was a combination of having district meeting in Surin, an emergency call to come to Bangkok to so Visa work and stuff, and a Switchoff that we had in Roy-et. The hardest part of all of it is trying to use time wisely on the bus instead of just sleeping the whole time haha. 

I got to go on a switchoff this last week with Elder Borg. He is a missionary who used to be AP, and he is currently on his last transfer. He is going home in 10 days. It was really fun being able to learn from him and talk with him throughout that day. 

This last week we were eating some lunch over at Sister หนู​ (nu)​'s house. She is an older lady in our ward who got baptized just recently. Whenever we go visit her, she makes a lot of food for us. (I love going over there.) She loves to make jokes about how much I eat. Sometimes they don't make much sense, but they are always funny. This week she told me, "I bet when the World War 3 starts, everyone will be running around going crazy and killing each other, but Elder Barron will be sitting right here when he always is just eating food the whole time." I laughed for a good while on that one. 

One strange realization that I had when I was talking to one of my Thai friends, a lot of people who speak English says Asian voices sound so high pitched. I got asked by someone this last week why all white people have such low voices. A lot of them think we are the weird ones because our voices are strangely low while a lot of us think the opposite. I thought that was funny. 

I got a call from Bishop late on Saturday night asking if I could teach Second hour of church for the relief society and priest quorum. I didn't have any time to prepare, so I woke up early Sunday morning to prepare. I tried to center the lesson half off Come Follow Me and also a really good talk given by Brad Wilcox called "His Grace is Sufficient". If you haven't listened to it, or if you have already, you should totally listen to it (again). It is an amazing talk and really helps me to put being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in perspective. (it is on

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/brad-wilcox_his-grace-is-sufficient/?M=A

I really hope I said something that touched the hearts of the members and investigators listening. 

It was a really great week! I love the gospel. I know it is all true. I know The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that through Jesus Christ's grace we will be saved. I thank you all for being such a great support to me! 

-Elder Barron 

Squeekity Sqeek Skweekers Skweekums

 We got to go to a Buriram soccer game with some of the people we are teaching and some of the members of our church!

 It was a total blast!

 I got to eat some interesting foods.

 Buriram beat Lambang 4-1 ANNIALATION

 There was a sick sunset right in front of us.

This soup is called

ก้วยเตี๋ยวน้ำตกหมู​ (geuy diaw​ Nam thok Moo) it translates to waterfall pig soup. It was so good too.

 We went to a cool night market to eat dinner and invite people to hear of Christ.

 It was way fun. 

They also had this awesome fountain.

 Today I did my first sewing that I have ever done in my life. I sewed up a hole that popped up in my sock. My mother was so proud of me.

 Ether 12: 27 in Thai. Love that verse. It has literally changed my life. Here it is in english:

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.

 On P-day, Elder Llanera and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and we hiked up this mountain to watch the sun rise. It was so so beautiful.

There was a concrete slide and I tried to ride down it, but it didn't work, so I just ran down it instead.

I got to help one of the young members when he was having a really hard day. He posted this on his Facebook story and it made me really happy.

 After watching the sun rise.

My Letter:

Just another great week in Buriram! This week was extremely busy, and I am so tired. It is all worth it though. Every time I think of all the good we are doing to help others, I am filled with energy to keep going. 

So we changed our P-day this last Monday to Wednesday so that we could go to a Buriram soccer game. It was so SO FUN! I'm so thankful that our Mission President said we are allowed to go! Buriram is also one of the best soccer teams in all of Thailand, so that makes it even better. Buriram beat Lambang 4 to 1. We also got to go to the game with a few members and investigators, so that was really fun strengthening our relationship with them. 

I was kind of sick this last Monday. It was really hard to do anything  because I had a raging headache, but I prayed and was able to work my hardest until it was night. 

So it is getting hard to write in my journal every day at the end of the day because I just keep getting more tired, and having more responsibility. I had a goal at the beginning of my mission to write in my journal every day, so every single day I have wrote a full page in it for 376 days, and I was about to change my goal to be just a half page a day. I was about to just stop at the half page in my journal, and then I just thought, "What the heck! Why would I just stop now if I haven't finished what I initially started?" I got mad at myself and repented because I want to finish the goals that I make. I wrote the whole page that day. 

I know that might sound a little bit cheesy, but I think it is not just that fact that I would be writing less in my journal, it is the fact that I wouldn't have finished my goals and things I strive for. It is honestly very hard to write in my journal every day, but I am going to do it because later on it will give me more confidence to finish those things I want to do. 

I had my last switch off with Elder Siebert that I will have on my mission. I is such a good missionary. I hope in the future I will have a strong knowledge of the scriptures as he does. He know SO much. When I was riding back to Buriram from our switch off, I think I was on the squeekiest bus I have ever been on in my life. Im sorry I can't describe it any further, but I really hope they are able to give that bus a bath in WD-40 some time in the near future. 

I was talking to a kid named Fresh who is a way cool member here in Buriram. He is about 14 years old, and he was just asking me a ton about how he can be a better son and how he can do better to follow Jesus Christ. It was a way good talk and now he keeps telling me about how excited he is to be a missionary in the future! It made me way happy when he told me his desire of doing that. 

I hope everyone's week is good one!

-Elder Barron 

Rainbows and Marshmallows

 Sweet sunset picture of Buriram.

 A screen shot of one of our district meetings. This was a special one where we did it over video chat because it was the same week as zone conference.

 Just a normal day riding our bikes down the road.

 A cool elephant in the roundabout.

 This was taken in Royet. They are building a giant monument there that will be finished in 2021.

 Eating some super delicious food 

right after zone conference.

  

 We had an awesome day at church where a ton of members who used to come here came back for a day. It was fun to see all the old faces.

 The Bishops son.

Quincey's trainer from her mission in Portugal and her new husband who served in Thailand! 
They are here on vacation!

This was a chunk of my delicious sour patch watermelons from America!

Kittens galore! They are growing slowly.

This weeks update:

The weeks just keep getting better and better. Buriram is growing so much in the church and I can truly say that my heart is growing for the ward here. This is the first time in my mission where I can feel that all the work I am doing in a week is being driven by my love for the people and the knowledge of how the gospel can help everyone individually.

Elder Llanera and I got to do some cool companionship bonding in the morning a couple times this last week.  We got to play some basketball! We went to the nearby college and shot around for a while on their courts. We got to play two on two with these two Thai guys and we whooped ‘em. Let's just say that Elder Llanera throws some pretty clean alley oops. When we were done playing with them, they invited us to come play with them at the hospital sometimes at 6 O ‘clock in the evening. They said there was a ton more people that play there. I really want to go try to play there sometime.

Maybe we will have some time on another P-day to go.

Lately in the mission, there has been a major focus on getting as many people to be baptized as possible, which is not a bad thing. Baptism is an essential part of being able to live with Heavenly Father, but as we have been doing this, we sometimes forget about helping those who are already members. The mission is changing to have more of a focus on strengthening the members and helping the family of the members to become strong. I know that when we work harder on this, the missionary work will become so much more effective and even easier! I have seen a change starting here in the Buriram Ward lately. Just last Sunday, we had the first ward council that I know of. I'm sure it has happened in the past, but not that I know of at least. I'm just so happy for this ward because there are changes happening. I really want to see it grow because as the membership grows, so does their testimonies, and so does their happiness in the church. 

This last week, my Sister, Quincey’s favorite companion on her mission in Portugal came with her husband who served here in Thailand on his mission. (did that make sense) Anyways, they brought me a present all the way from America! It was some genuine Sour Patch Kids. Not just any Sour Patch Kids... WATERMELON FLAVOR! THE BEST ONES! It was way funny because since they brought it all the way from America, it had been through some rough spots, and now the entire 2 pound bag is melted into a single massive gummy watermelon. It is like so much better because you don't just have to take little bites, you can just bite off a massive chunk. It was a tender mercy of my week. Thank you all thoughs who took part in this endeavor. 

On another basketball note, I got to play basketball with a bunch of missionaries because we had zone conference and we woke up early for it, and one of the elders, Elder Ratelle, totally skewered my eye ball with his finger on a rebound. It hurt like really bad and I didn't enjoy it. I couldn't see out of that eye for a good 10-15 minutes, and I really thought I was going to throw up because of how much it hurt. The worst part was that because of that, everyone stopped playing and we went home. That was annoying. Haha. 

This week was like jumping on rainbows and marshmallows the whole time. It was way fun. I felt the spirit so much and my testimony has indeed strengthened. I have some family members who have been distraught for the past few days because of the sudden death of a family member, and other sad events. I am praying for you all every day and I hope that you will be able to feel to the spirit, or the love of God, at all times. Just like my Grammy said ;). It will help you (everyone) in your times of need. 

Love you all! 

-Elder Barron