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

My Head Is Spinning

Cute!

My buddy Elder Body was transfered. =(

Elder Dollery (He's from Australia.) 

was also transfered from the area. 

Elder LeMone is my new companion!

 (On the right.)

He's way cool!

A storm is rolling in!

Getting ready for Songkran.

Songkran was great this year!

My letter home:

This last week was extremely busy. I am very tired and my head feels like it is thinking about a ton of things at the same time, but I still know that I am doing an important work of teaching people about Jesus Christ. I have seen so many changes in people that I can tell will affect their lives forever. As I help others, I can feel the spirit of God running through me helping me to work hard, even when I am tired.

We had transfers this last week. I am going to have to say goodbye with Elder Body. =( He was such a good companion and he helped me so much in Thai and also just in general. He was always so nice and funny. Elder Body will be heading out to Mahasarakam. Here in Buriram, we usually have two sets of companionships, so four elders in total, but during transfers we got a call that Buriram would be changing to have only one companionship and two elders. So what happened was one elder from the other companionship left, one elder from my companionship left, and the two elders left just made a new companionship. My new companion will be Elder LeMone. He is from Utah. From everything I have heard about Elder LeMone’s Mom, I'm pretty sure my Mom and her will be getting along great.

Our English classes have been doing good lately. Every week we get some new people to come because people are starting to bring their friends and family. Lately we have been teaching through a new English program, and in this program, we teach 5 weeks a different topic a week and then on week 6, we have a game day. We play games that get the students talking a lot, but are also fun. It is a good way to get the students having a good time and coming back.

It is going to me a little bit hard because when we put together our two companionships, we also put together all of the people that we were each teaching. Basically, we have a ton of people we are teaching now. Which is great! It is going to be super confusing keeping track of all of them, but it will also be fun. I think one of the most important parts of this transfer will be our planning so we don’t get lost in all the different people we have during the week. 

Elder LeMone and I have been cleaning the house hardcore. It was super dirty. It is actually starting to look kinda good. =)

So here in Thailand we drive on the left side of the road instead other right. I was thinking about how I drove back in high school in my memories and I remember driving on the left side of the road, but I didn’t. I don't know why, but my mind is rewired to thinking that I drove on the left side of the road my whole life. Haha!

All of the members found my mom's YouTube channel, and now they keep telling me about what weird things they saw me do from my childhood. It is a little weird. 

I gotta go. I don't have much time because it is about to start storming outside big time.

Love you guys,

-Elder Barron 

Song Kran!!!! 2019

 We met these 12 year old boys that were playing soccer and played with them for a few minutes. The next day they had left this note on our door to invite us to come play again. It was cute.

 An amazing sunset.

"Song Kran" is a holiday in Thailand and it is a 3 day water fight. Everything shuts down and everyone participates. It's a blast!

 "Song Kran" ready to battle with our water guns.

 The district

 English Class
Letter:

It is starting to get pretty stinking hot these days. The heat is starting to smother and squeeze sweat out of me every day. I love it! I am really here in Thailand riding my bike many miles a day trying to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone who accepts it.

This last week, my companion Elder Body and I saw many miracles. I just want to try to talk about a few of them.

Youtana is a person that we met in this past week. We were riding our bikes and saw Youtana sitting on the ground watching some grazing Buffalo. We tried to start talking to him, and instantly we knew that he had autism. That made me even more excited to talk to him. I love people with autism. They are the nicest, most angelic people on earth. It was difficult to understand him, but I would just ask him questions and let him talk for a while. Every once and a while I would crack a little joke and he would laugh his head off. (I wish everyone laughed at my jokes like he did) I think the best part about talking to him was how much he reminded me of my older brother Briggs. All of the sudden, Youtana said he had to go, and instantly started riding away. We decided to just get on our bikes and keep following him around. Youtana ended up going to his house, which was the house of a lady who we had talked to before. Last time, this lady wanted nothing to do with us. She just told us to go away and she never wanted to see us again. (probably one of the hardest turn downs I have had on my mission) This time we met with her, she saw us with her son. (I had no idea this was going to be her son) She asked us what we were doing with her son, so I just told her we were friends. Then Youtana said, "yeah we are friends!" I think that kind of melted her heart a little bit because nobody ever hangs out with her son, but now we were. It was just a few small things trying to show love to people and now this lady's heart was able to change and she was way more accepting of what we were talking about to her.

One day this last week it was starting to get late at night. The sun had barely dropped under the horizon, and we had just got home. We were winding down, about to start studying in the scriptures when we heard a bunch of voices coming from outside. We looked out the window and saw a ton of little kids riding their bikes around. I decided to open the window and start talking to them. (at this point I was on the second floor, so I was on a little balcony yelling at them) they thought it was funny talking to a white guy who spoke Thai, so they stayed for a while. They started saying jokes to me in Thai. I had no idea what the answers were because they were Thai puns, but the little kids didn't know that I had Elder Body, who is Thai, right behind me still inside the house. He kept whispering to me all the answers, and then giving me some other Thai jokes to say to the kids. It was dang funny when I would answer their jokes and come back with better ones. They were so confused who this white person even was. After that, I got out my guitar and played them all a song in Thai called "never". We had to go, so I told them we should play soccer sometime together and kind of expected to never see them again. I thought this little star was over, but 2 days later, we were riding on our bikes out of our neighborhood, and there was a small street that I had never gone on before. I decided to just turn down it and see what happens, and we ended up seeing those exact same kids! We stopped and played some soccer with them for a while and then one of them asked why we were Christian, so we sat down with them for a little bit and told them about Jesus Christ. It was awesome! Since they knew where our house was, we told them if they are going to play soccer, to put a note on our gate at the house. The very next day, we walked out of our house and they had written a note that said, "we are playing at the park at 5 pm. Come play with us" it was way cute.

So out in the Eisan of Thailand, or country side, most people have a water man who will come around and give jugs of water to them, and they have a machine that you just put the jug upside down on it and it gives you cold water. It's not too hard once you get used to it. We have to call the water man and switch out our jugs every 2ish weeks.

Okay, so for those of you who don't know about Thailand. It is time to learn about Songkran! This is the holiday for New Year here in Thailand. To make a long story short, it is a nation wide water party all day for three days where everyone is getting everyone as wet as possible. For three days straight, every hose in every hose in Thailand is running and people are filling up their buckets and water guns. There are numberless trucks packed full of people drenching every person who comes within 10 feet. There are some roads where the streets are packed like sardines full of people. People have a goo thing made up of baby powder, food coloring, and water called bang. Everyone will get bang and rub it all over your face and throw it on your clothes. Luckily, it all comes out of the clothes pretty easily. There was this one part where there was about 10 fire trucks lined up and they were completely drenching everyone with water. It was so much fun. Literally everyone in Thai land plays Song Gran these 3 days, so it is impossible to do missionary work. We get to play with some of the members instead and it was sooo fun.

This last week was one of the most crazy weeks of my entire mission. There was just so many things to worry about, but it also doubled as one of my most fun weeks of my mission. I love serving in Thailand so much! It is SO hot but it's all getting better every day! This was the last week before transfers. I do T know yet if I am moving or not, but I'm pretty sure I will stay since I have been here the least amount of time than anyone else serving here in Buriram. I will be able to say what will happen for transfers in one more day, but not yet!

Everyone have a great week!

-Elder Barron