New Missionary!

 The first picture with my new companion.

 Elder Llanera, he is from the Philippines. We are on the bus trying to make it home from Bangkok at 3 in the morning.

Me preaching repentance. 

 Elder Llanera at the dentist, 

he had a tooth bothering him.

Having some fun at the Bishops house. His family is the main reason that there is a ward here in Buriram.

Update:

I am training a brand new missionary out of the MTC! I always thought that training would be the most fun and most fulfilling part of a mission because the trainer of a missionary can affect the rest of that missionaries mission. They can be a massive influence on the future, and this is the reason I wanted to train. I think another thing I love about training is that you get a new missionary who has no idea what is going on, and they have that feeling of everything is amazing and new. I miss having that feeling when I first came into Thailand, and I think it might reignit that feeling for me a little bit when my companion feels like that. 

The new missionary I will be training is named Elder Llanera. Apparently you have to say it like "yanera" because his Dad is a quarter Spanish. It was way funny when we first figured out we would be together because I was the tallest out of all the trainers and new missionaries, and Elder Llanera was the shortest. They all said he was a baller though, so we are definitely gonna go play some basketball sometime! Elder Llanera is from the Philippines.

After I picked him up, we headed back to Buriram. I have taken 6 different bus rides in the last two weeks. 2 of them were 3 hours long, and the other 4 were 6 hours long. All of those bus rides were in the middle of the night. I am so dang tired of riding busses. I just want to stay in Buriram and do some missionary work.

It was sad having to leave Elder LeMone. He was here for a long time and he is such a good missionary. A lot of members were sad to see him go. He is one of my favorite companions. 

At transfers, we got to receive a training meeting for all the trainers. It was a meeting training us on how to train. It was fun being in that meeting with President, the APs, and also 3 of the 5 trainers had previously been APs before. They were all such good trainers, it was just fun being in the same room as all of them to learn and feel the spirit.

Then we went to the meeting where we met our companion. That was so fun! Everyone was so happy and excited to find their new companion. I was the second to last companionship to be called, so the tension was building up big time haha. I got paired up with Elder Llanera. He is from the Philippines. His English is was good and he loves basketball! That was enough for me to be happy haha. He is already pretty good at Thai for only learning two months. I was impressed!

I don't know what happened this last week, but my bike tires were having some major issues. I got 4 flat tires in 3 days. 2 of them were the same tire within 30 minutes. Now I am worried all the time that I'm going to get flat tires.

We got to teach a school of kids some English in this past week. There were about 40 kids from the age of 7 to 12. It was way fun. Half the time none of them were listening because they were just whispering to their friends that there is a massive white guy in front of them. Also, every time I would try to get the kids to say anything for instance, "I am seven years old" the teacher of the class would hurry and interrupt them and say "Come on class say what he says! " and then she would say it, but with incorrect pronunciation. She would say something like, "ah em sefen yeahs ord". Then all the kids would try to repeat what she says instead of me. So they would say it wrong too haha.

We got to throw a birthday party for one of the members this last week during sports night. We told her we were going to do sports night over at the soccer arena a few kilometers away, but really we were doing it at the church to give us some time to prepare for the surprise. It was a good surprise. She was a little bit mad that we made her go all the way to the soccer arena, but she was still happy haha. 

We have been helping a recent convert named Brother Nai lately. He is one of the most funny old guys I know here in Thailand. He just barely got the Aaronic and Melchezedek priesthood lately, so we are having a good time teaching him about the responsibilities and power that comes with it. He just got to help prepare the sacrament this last week, so that was way good for him. He did great. Next Sunday he is going to bless the sacrament for the first time. He is neither excited, nor scared. He is just like... Okay. We also asked him if he could share his testimony to the congregation to the 30ish people at church, but he said "the only way you will get me to speak in front of everyone like that is if you put a cup of beer up there." (We talked to him about that and it is confirmed that he still is not drinking at all, and he has no desire to.) It was funny though. We told him is would probably be better if he waited till he was ready instead.

This last week was fun and I am super excited for next week because we finally get a full week of missionary work and we are going to be able to get so much done!

Love you guys, สู้ๆน่ะ​ (fight on!)

-Elder Barron 

Call of a Lifetime #2!!!

I got to see all of my best friends that I was in the MTC with! 

We are standing on a Bangkok Temple lot. 

They break ground TOMORROW!!!

All three of us are from Bentonville, Arkansas!

Having fun helping out at a school.

This is the principal of the school.

We were cutting down a massive jackfruit and I caught it.

The number of chairs that we are sitting on is how many transfers we have left!

The principal of the school came to church with us.

This is the entire Bangkok Thailand Mission with Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the 12 Apostles sitting on the front middle. It was incredible to meet him.

A creepy lizard that had strangely large legs.

I got a big cup.

We got to eat Shabushi before Elder LeMone left.

Elder LeMone leaving Buriram.

Big News!!!

Dang this week was so busy! Today for P-day, Elder LeMone and I have been getting ready all day because transfers came and he is out of here! He will no longer be serving here in Buriram, but he is going to Rangsit. I had so much fun with Elder LeMone! He was truly a really amazing missionary. He always tried to be the best that he could, and he is very diligent in language study. Elder LeMone us also very funny! We have a very similar sense of humor. It is a humor that a lot of people probably don't understand, but we meshed way well by always having fun and working hard.

My new companion is someone I don't know yet. I will be picking up a new missionary out of the Missionary Training Center. Tonight we will take a bus back to Bangkok and I will go find out who he is, and bring him back to Buriram in about 14 total hours haha. I'm gonna be so tired, but whatever.

I am not going to be able to write a lot  this week because I have a LOT to do. During transfers, I also received a call from the Mission President that I will be going  go to Laos. Laos is a country bordering the northeastern part of Thailand. It is a lot like Thailand, but just not as developed. I will be going there and will start speaking an entire new language called Laotian. I'm way excited to go, but I have 3 more months in Thailand before I head out and during that time, I will do my very best to learn Laotian as much as possible. I will spend the rest of my mission in Laos. Everyone who reads my emails will definitely hear more on this in the future!

I love you guys! 

-Elder Barron 

Back In Buriram

 Us with some people that we are teaching.

 While out finding we came across this body building competition and I got a pick for Elder Siebert who was a body builder before his mission and sent it to him. 

His response, "They're so small!" 

Haha! I love that guy!

 An old Buddhist Temple that we visited called Phanom Rung. I talk about it in my letter.

It was dropping buckets on us but we bought ponchos and still had a blast.

 I found this little sculpture thing and thought it was cool.

 Me and friends from Surin.

 Us and some friends from Roy Et.

 This kid is the cutest thing alive. I was playing with him and got him laughing his head off. His family said that he usually doesn't like playing with people, but for some reason he was loving playing with me.

More Surin friends.

My Letter:

This last week was PACKED full of way fun things to do. I feel very tired, but I also feel like we got so much done lately and my testimony of Jesus Christ has grown immensely. We were teaching one of our recent converts named Bee this last week. She is a really awesome person because she is so energetic and enthusiastic all the time. At one point, I asked her a question and she was just talking a million miles an hour. After a while of her talking, she gasped really big and said, "OH MY GOODNESS, I FORGOT TO BREATH, YOU HAVE TO REMIND ME TO BREATHE, I ALMOST DIED!" It was so funny.

Elder Lemone and I have been progressing the missionary work with the members very well lately. We have been getting referrals for people that might be interested to learn like crazy and it is so much fun. Getting referrals as a missionary is just like getting Christmas presents because it is a new person who we can teach. One of our recent referrals is named Fraud. He is very unsure about learning with us, but today he opened up and we got him to say his first prayer with us. It was awesome.

We were riding our bikes coming from an appointment, and Elder Lemone said, "Ever since I've been with you, I've had a feeling that we should go down this little road when we ride by it" , so we went down it. It was a tiny street that a car couldn't go down, but we saw this really old guy at the end of the street when we made a turn. He saw us and started to make a run for it inside. We tried to say hi to him, but he didn't respond and went inside, but then his daughter came out of the house and we talked to her for a while. She said she was interested and we are going to go see her again in a few days. Cool tender mercies.

Last P-day, we really wanted to go to go visit this Buddhist temple which was about an hour drive out of the city. We had no way to get out there, and as we were looking, the only way we could go was a way too expensive taxi. We were about to give up and not go, but then one of the members called us and said they could take us, so we were like, "THANKYOU!" That was definitely a tender mercy. On our way traveling out there, the clouds started enveloping the sky in darkness and about 5 minutes before we got there, the rains were unleashed upon us. It was coming DOWN big time. At first it was sad that it was raining because we came so far to come out here, and we didn't know if we should go walk up the huge hill to see the temple, but then we just decided why not? So we grabbed some cheap ponchos, (I actually ripped mine getting it on, so I had to buy another one.) and then we went on an adventure. We got soaked pretty fast, but it didn't matter. It was way fun. I think it actually made it more fun since it was raining and we decided to do it anyways.

We had switch-offs this last week with the zone leaders. I got to go with Elder Sudekum. He is one of my best friends in my mission because he is the only one who has been able to serve with me in every one of my areas at one point or another. That was probably the last time I will serve with him though because he is going to be finishing his mission very soon.

We also had Stake Conference this week too. All of the members who live in our stake came to a giant meeting. It was way fun because I got to see all of my friends from Surin. I had a ton of fun being able to talk to them. The speakers were very good. I think a big focus in the talks were about preparing for the temple by making learning more family centered and church supported. I have been thinking a lot lately about how we can try to help some of the families in Buriram to be like that.

Right after Stake Conference, we had Zone Conference with all of the missionaries in our Zone. President Hammond had some wonderful teachings about Jesus Christ and the Atonement. I always knew the importance of the Atonement in every single life of every individual who has ever lived, but President really opened my eyes to understand the importance of teaching that to our investigators. They need to understand the Atonement, or it is difficult to see the point to all of the commitments that we give out. I am definitely going to focus more on that while I am teaching about the gospel.

We were out of Buriram for over half of last week. It is finally good to be back. I am ready to progress this work and apply the things we learned during. Hopefully this last week of this transfer will be good and we can work hard!

I hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Barron