Elder Harding and I riding to our teaching appointment. 1 hour bike ride each way.

 On the back of an elephant

 The elephants were swimming with us on their backs. It was so cool!

It was super fun riding of the elephants bare back. The elephants skin would slide back and forth and it felt like we were going to fall like every time.

 They have a "Kids Day" here is Thailand. So fun!

 This is the outside of the church building. It is tall and skinny, 4 stories high.

 The baptismal font at our church is outside.

 This is our chapel.

 We focused on learning to read and write parts of the head this week in our language study time.

Part of my language study.

 This is my friend Ding.

 I had fun playing with this dog.

We ate out at the cool restaurant and they let me hold this snake!

 A bunch of fruit that I had never seen until I came to Thailand. 

This is my little buddy.

Above is a Thai tongue twister that I still can't say, it's hard!

My letter this week:

This last week has been totally wonderful! 

Last P-day we got to go ride elephants! We got to an elephant barn where there were about 10 of them. Elder Harding and I got to walk around and feed them bamboo. It was amazing how easily they could snap the bamboo in their mouths. I liked playing Tug of War with them before I just handed them the bamboo. I knew they were strong enough to fling me across the barn, but I think they liked playing too. The elephant would grab a bamboo pole as tall as I was and the bamboo would be gone in its mouth in 3 seconds flat. You just hear a bunch of snapping and it was gone. After we played with them for a while, they started picking us up with their trunks and tusks. People, these elephants can pick up a 190 pound 6'5" brick head with ease. It was so fun! Then we got to hop on their bare backs and go for a ride. It was weird because the skin would slide back and forth a lot and it felt like I would fall off if I didn't get into the rhythm and rock back and forth with the elephant. We rode down the side of a rode for about 30 minutes and then we got to a lake. I thought we would get off, but the told us to take our phone out and give them our bags. Then the elephants just walked straight into the water! We were riding these elephants while they were completely emerged except for their trunk like Tarzan. That was an experience I will never forget!

Every week we have a district council where everyone in our district will meet up and talk about how we can become better missionaries and what we can do to help our investigators to learn more and have a stronger relationship with God. Our district is only 4 people, so it is a lot smaller than normal. We have a fun district because every single one of us is very young in the mission. Not a single one of us is past our year mark on the mission, which is not normal. Elder Dollery is a very good district leader because he is always in tune with the spirit and I can see his striving to be the best he can be. 

One big change from coming out of the big city of Bangkok to the small city of Surin is the interest that people have in talking to us. People will be willing to talk to us a lot more often. Sure, about half the time it is parents that tell us to come sit down, and then they offer up one of their daughters for marriage, but a lot of the times, people are willing to learn about Christianity because it is new and the only places where they have learned anything is from their Buddhist teachers. We are sometimes the first Christians people they have ever seen, so they are extremely interested. I love that about Surin. Their hearts are so open to learn, and that is truly a blessing to us and to them. 

One person that I got to meet this last week is named ซาย(or Sai). She is only fifteen years old, but she has been familiar with our church and some of her friends are members. I taught her for the first time about what we believe and she already accepted a date to get baptized. I am so thankful that she sees these positive influences of friends in her life and she is brave enough to learn with us and prepare to get baptized. I know that this will bless her for the rest of her life if she continues to grow spiritually. 

Some funny things that happened, Elder Harding and I were riding our bikes to an investigators house when suddenly (I honestly have no idea how or why) the Baby Shark song popped into my head. I was about 30 feet behind Elder Harding, so he didn't hear or see me, but I just started weaving back and forth on the rode kind of humming/singing the song under my breath. There is no way he heard me, but when we got where we were going I stopped next to him and he just looked at me pinching his fingers over and over doing the baby shark dance over and over. I thought he just heard me, but he didn't hear me at all and he said the song just randomly popped into his head. I told him the same thing happened to me, and so we both started running in circles freaking out cause neither of us understood how that happened. 

Another funny one, we were having a meeting with President Arm who is the branch president of Surin, by the way, he is a way cool guy, but there was a fly that was just flying in circles around his head over and over. He was annoyed with it, but he just stopped trying to wack it because he was tired. In the middle of him speaking to us, the fly just zooms straight into his mouth. There was a second of shock where I was wondering if what I just saw actually happened, and then He just started choking on it. I couldn't stop laughing. 

I just sent home a ton of ties to my family. Every one of these ties are made of Thai fabric that I personally bought, brought to a fabric guy, and had ties made with them. I hope they like them!

One of our investigators, Brother Bank, has been loving learning with us. He is super enthusiastic about getting baptized, and he wants to make his life better. One rule about being baptized, is that you have to not be smoking. This is a very hard obstacle that I see with many people that I teach here in Thailand who want to be baptized. Bank is doing the best I have ever seen with not smoking since we told him not to. He said he used to smoke 7 a day, but in the last two weeks, he has done less than an average of 2 a day even though he has a major headache when he does. He is very strong in knowledge and I know he feels Heavenly Father's love for him. He is receiving help every day from Heavenly Father to stop smoking. I pray that he will continue to progress and eventually never smoke again. Please pray for him. 

This week, our P-day was moved from the usual Monday to Wednesday because we had a big English meeting on how to be a better English teacher. Teaching English is one of my favorite ways to serve to the Thai people. We teach for free and knowing English, is a door to unlimited jobs in Thailand. We have been focusing a lot more lately on teaching English so we can be the best teachers possible.

This week, one of our investigators named Cucumber had a grandmother die. It was very sad, so we decided to go support her at the funeral. This funeral was very different than anything I have ever experienced. The funeral was 4 days long, and on the fourth day, the body was cremated. They performed a lot of Buddhist prayers too. The important part was that we got to meet Cucumber's family for the first time and she was very happy we were able to go help any way we could.

Thank you everyone for reading my letters, I hope everyone is well and that it is not too cold. If you don't like the cold come take a trip out to Thailand! You will never be cold again! 

-Elder Barron 

I'm not in Ar "Kansas" anymore

Elder Harding and I at the school on 

Christmas day.

Out on our bikes.

This is a tiny banana and by tiny I mean tiny.

Delicious bugs that were for sale on the border of Thailand and Cambodia.

Signs warning of possible land mines lined the road when we walked to the border of Cambodia.

Some fabric that I bought to have made into some freaking cool ties. Each finished tie came to about $3.

With some chickens.

We did service for a woman that we are teaching.

We met these guys when we were out inviting. They wanted to take a picture with us.

Taking selfies while out biking the land.

We helped a member sell chicken at her food stand and she was nice enough to give us a ton of chicken when we were done. When we got home to eat them, we realized that they were all necks. Lol! Kind of strange to eat and not much meat. Haha

A family from America came to visit our ward! Their son served here.

After church we all eat dinner together every Sunday.

The young single adults in the ward keep teasing me and telling me that I look like Groot from Marvel. This picture below is the one that they used to compare. Ummm....thank you?

UPDATE:

There is this man in our ward named Brother Sack. He is a man who is unable to go to church because he is bed-ridden. He lives alone and has a sister who comes to visit him once a week, but other that that, he sees nobody all week and just lays in bed. It is very sad. We go and visit him once a week to give him the sacrament, also just give him company and serve him in any way we can. He loves seeing us and we had the opportunity last week to clean his house for him. It felt so good to be able to help him out, and it was definitely a blessing for us to be able do that for him. 

A little story about when we were cleaning: A Doo Geh is a lizard in Thailand that is called a “Doo Geh” because it makes the sound "doo geh" every time you go near it. Most Thai people are deathly afraid of these lizards because they bite. When they bite, their jaw locks and you have to break their jaw to get it off. There are stories of Doo Geh's ripping off people’s fingers and toes. I understand why Thai people are afraid of them. Usually they are about 8 inches long. While we were cleaning brother Sack's house, I lifted up a bed to clean under it, and there was a Doo Geh sitting there a foot away from my hand. One more thing, it was 18 INCHES LONG. This thing was totally massive! I flipped the bed and every one just sprints out of the house, then, we realize Brother Sack is still in there in a different room, so we run back into the house and see the lizard scuttle super fast out the window, and we ran to Brother Sack in his bedroom to see if he is okay. He was just lying their laughing at us with the dumbest grin on his face. It was hilarious. 

Last P-day, we went to the Thailand-Cambodian border. There was a giant market there that sells things for super cheap prices. It was so much fun! There is a man in Surin who takes really cool fabrics and he can make cool things with it. I had him make me a scripture case and some ties. Some of the ties turn out totally awesome because of the cool Thai fabric. 

One of my favorite parts of the Thai language is all of the words that you can put together to have new words. Here are some direct translations and what the actual meaning equals. Water room means bathroom, sun leaves means east, sun falls means west, hot heart means impatient, foot bag means sock, diamond heart means unyielding, writing tool means pencil, low heart means mean minded, fallen heart means surprised, there are so many words like this and a lot of them are super interesting.

There is a man in the Surin ward named Brother Ahn. He hasn't been to church in a while, so we were trying to think of ways to help him come more often. Elder Harding thought it would help him if he had a calling in the ward. Brother Ahn was not super interested in having a calling, so we didn’t know what to do, but then I remembered that Elder Harding told me before hand that he likes playing the guitar, so I started talking to him about it. He kind of perked up and he began to be a lot happier in our conversation. Then, I remembered that we had a guitar that had been left here by a member a few days before, so I ran and got it and asked him to play something for us. I didn't really know what to expect from that, and he was really hesitant. We got him to say yes to playing us a song, and he started playing Hotel California. I don't think this man knew English very well, but he started belting out all the words. He was so freaking good! Definitely the best guitar player I have ever heard in person. It was such a cool experience. Then, after he was done, he was super happy to accept a calling in the ward and come to church more. I know that God helped that man to come back to church and helped us in teaching him. 

This last week, we were doing service at a member’s house by helping cut down a bunch of branches on a tree. It was fun because I got to use a machete and climb up in to a tree to cut down a bunch of branches. I'm pretty sure my parents know this already, but I really love climbing trees. It is so much fun. Back at home, I used to climb high up in our giant trees and hang my hammock between to branches and sleep 30-40 feet up in the air. Nobody in my family would know where I was. Haha. Good memories. Anyways, as I was cutting this tree, there were a ton of giant ants that were crawling all over it. Every once and a while, one would get on me and their bites hurt pretty bad. As I continued cutting branches, the ants just started multiplying. I have no idea where the ants were coming from, but they were beginning to just cover the entire tree. They started biting me a ton more and I wasn't sure how much longer I could stay in the tree because of all the bites. Then I was cutting down pretty much the last branch I was gonna cut, and when it was falling down, it hit another branch and landed right on top of me on the tree. I quickly heaved it off of me. And it hit the ground, but then one of the Thai people watching me screamed and yelled (translation) "YOU HAVE A FREAK TON OF ANTS ON YOU!!!" I look down on my pants, and my pants alone had about 200 giant ants that I could see. The next 20 minutes was one of the most painful moments of my life as I tried to get them all off me as the were biting me. It took a super long time because they were just crawling around in every nook and cranny of my body. That was a very unique experience on my mission that I hope doesn't go specifically like that ever again. I found 8 ants in my hair about 5 hours later when I was showering.

I got to give a talk 2 Sundays ago in sacrament meeting. I was a little bit nervous, but it went totally awesome. My topic was the importance of Christmas, which was kind of funny because Christmas was already over, so I talked about our goal to Light the World in December. It is a great program to help us think about giving service during Christmas time, but I gave my talk about how just because Christmas time is over, we don't have to stop lighting the world. Service and trying to be like Jesus should be a year round activity. We should strive to be better people in everything we say and do 24/7. If we ever fail to do this, or we are moving in the wrong direction, there is never a better time to start than now. 

Everyone have a great week! Try to do some service for someone I your life every single day! 

-Elder Barron 

Elephant Village

 On our way to Mu Bahn Chang

 Mu Baun Chang on our P-day.

Update:

Hello faithful readers! Every week here in Surin just continues to get better. I love serving here with all these wonderful people!

Lately for our service hours, Elder Harding and I have been helping a member with her yard. About two weeks ago, there was a ton of trash everywhere and random giant piles of dirt. We threw away all of the trash in her yard, spread the dirt out, and made some pretty cool flower beds. All we have left to do is plant the flowers. Her yard looks so much better now and this lady loves making us food too. Bonus!

There is a man named Soam Kuwen that is a frequent investigator of ours that we teach. He is a security guard who just kind of sits there and does nothing for work, so we usually come and teach him while he is working, but this week he was not there. There was a different worker who had replaced him for the day, so we asked him if he was interested in learning about Jesus Christ with us. He seemed very edgy and was not interested in learning. Suddenly, he got a phone call, which turns out to be his 13 year old son. The dad said that he was talking to white people and he was busy, and we could hear the son yelling into the phone, "I want to talk to the falangs!" over and over haha. He finally just said okay and gave my companion the phone. So I just kept talking to him while my Elder Harding talked on the phone. When Elder Harding was done calling, he just said, hey, your son wants us to come over to your house next week on Thursday. It was pretty funny because he didn't want to meet with us, but his son just set up an appointment for him.

Last P-day, we got to go to a place called Mu Bahn Chang. This place was way out the way of just about everything. Being in Surin, I am already on the middle of nowhere, but out there, there are very few white people who have ever been there. It is so fun being able to think about that. So the name of this place, Mu Bahn Chang, literally translates to elephant village. It is named that for a good reason because the elephants are just swarming everywhere. It was a blast.

At the end of the day on Christmas Eve, we were about to get on a 3 hour bus ride to go home, and one lady stopped us and said she was a teacher at a school. She said that tomorrow (Christmas day) she was going to teach her class about Christmas and what it represents. Then, she asked us if we could help her, we thought that would be a great idea! On Christmas day, we woke up at 4:30 in the morning and went to the Seven Eleven. We bought about 1200 baht worth of candy so we could give it to the kids we teach. It is crazy because that much bought reverts to about 40ish dollars, but with the amount of candy we actually bought, it probably would have cost 200 dollars in America. I love how cheap everything is here in Thailand. Anyways, we got onto a bus out to the school that we were teaching at, and basically slept until we got there. We showed up at this school, and trust me, I will never have an experience like this for the rest of my life. The school was a bunch of classrooms in a big square with a big field in the center. We walked up to the school into the field so all of the kids hanging out outside their classrooms could see us. All of the kids started running away from us. They were all around age 7 to 12 and they were running into their classes, hiding behind trees, and just staring at us from far away. They were so scared of us. Every once and a while, there would be a brave soul who sees how close they can get to us, but we say hi to them and they would run back to their hiding place. It just slowly escalated from that until they were about 100 kids just slowly walking towards us. Not sure if we were scary or nice. We were just completely surrounded by these children on every side. Eventually one of the kids was brave enough to walk up to us and so I gave them a high five. From that moment, every single child at this school wanted a high five from the tall white guy. I have never given so many high fives to so many people is such a short amount of time. They started climbing all over me, wanting me to lift them really high, taking me to their class room, or just straight up punching me as hard as they can. I am not going to lie, I didn't know if I was going to accidentally step on one, or they would tackle me and trample me to death first. It was one of the most fun days of my life! This really reminded me of my little brother Sarger and all the times we wrestled and I roughed him up a bit. It was so much fun!

We finally found the lady who wanted us to help teach her class, and it turns out she was the principal of the whole school! It ended up being an entire pep rally with the whole school. So we walk into their auditorium and there are 200 kids sitting in front of a stage. The principal hands me the microphone and says "Alright, go teach them about Christmas. Speak in Thai please." I was just like uuuh yeeeah... Okay... It went great! I just felt words coming to my head that I forgot were in there. I definitely believe God was helping me while I was speaking. After we were done, we were brought to these nice chairs and we were brought hot chocolate and treats while a ton of the students did dances to Christmas songs on the stage. It was totally fun. After a while, I asked if we could go up on stage and dance with the kids. She said yes so we ran up and I started doing the worm and other dance moves in front of everyone. It was so fun.

It was sad that I wasn't with my family for Christmas, but that was one of the best Christmases I have ever had! 

This week I got to call my family. They seemed like they were doing great. It was so much fun! I can't wait until next time I get to call them. 

Some weird food I got to eat this week was pork, except there wasn't any actual meat. It was literally all just the fat and the skin. I don't understand why whoever gave that to us thought we would like it, but it was fat, the skin was rock hard on all the fat, and most of the pieces still had hair on them. I still ate as much as I could bear to be polite, but it was enduring. 

Have a great week this week! 

-Elder Barron