Transfer Time!

 This is our advanced class for English

 A creepy baby statue that I saw on the 

side of the road.

 These bush animals are 

everywhere around Bangkok.

 A guy we met while out contacting.

 On a bridge in Bangkapi.

 Our District eating together one 

more time before transfers.

 The food here is awesome

 A goodbye dinner with all of our best friends for Sister Harris because she is leaving.

 Elder Steele snapped this pic of me sleeping on the bus.

I thought this laundry detergent was funny because it looks like it says USA. But it is actually Thai and it says, "Breeze".

This is my new companion!

Elder Corban Killian and he is from Utah!

This weeks update:

Dang this week was a blast. 

Every week we teach an English class at our church to whoever wants to come. 

This is something that we like to promote throughout the day because teaching English is very fun and it is a way that we can get people familiar to our church and the friendly atmosphere that takes place at our church. Whenever I see younger kids walking by as we are traveling around Bangkok, I try to invite them to English class. The younger kids like learning English because for them, it is very important for a job in the future. This week, Elder Steele, Sister Harris, Sister Rogers, and I decided we should split the class into two classes. Now, we have an advanced class, and a beginners class. I think that was a great idea because now we can teach everyone to their own needs. 

Elder Steele and I were out walking the other day and we found this old guy who was working on some of his plants. We asked him if we could help him. He denied our help, but he was an extremely nice man. We asked if he was interested in learning about our religion, and he said yes. We chose a time to meet with him for the next day and when we got there, he was very nice to us. He fed us these tiny bananas and they are sooooo good. I have had them once before and it tastes like the same amount of flavor in a big banana just smashed into a smaller one. Anyways, we had a great talk with the man about religion. He was Buddhist (just like 99%) of Thailand, but it was interesting how we got to talk about all the things that made our religions similar. The only major difference is that we believe that God has restored his church for everyone on the earth and he is leading the church through modern revelation. We believe The Book of Mormon is only a PART of this modern day revelation. I learned a lot through talking with that man.

In one of our scripture reading classes, we read a story in The Book of Mormon about Ammon. Ammon was a prophet of the Lord and he went to go preach of God to a group of people named the Lamanites. Ammon went unto their King and told him that he would like to be his servant. The King was very surprised by his request and assigned Ammon to take care of his flocks of sheep who were being scattered and killed by robbers continuously. All of the other servants were too scared to do anything, but Ammon had faith in God and wish his sword SLICES ALL THEIR ARMS OFF! (This is my favorite story in The Book of Mormon) The king is so impressed by Ammon that he knew God was real and began an Era of righteousness throughout the Lamanites. Everyone loved reading about that story, so we played a game called ninja where you have to "cut everyone's arms off with your arms. I got some pictures of it down below. Haha!

There is this one guy named Shokoon who goes to our English class every week. He is most likely the best one at English who shows up. One day after English class, he expressed to us how grateful he was to us for teaching him English and he told us he wanted to be our Thai teachers! Now every Thursday, he gives us Thai lessons for free and it helps out sooo much. I love learning from him because he has lived in Thailand all his life. I know for sure that everything he teaches is correct. I am truly thankful for people like him!

This week, Elder Steele and I visited this family who are members of the gospel. They had a baby who was sitting in a high chair right next to me. This was one of the most cute, funny babies ever. Every time I looked at the baby, she would stare right into my eyes and not make a sound, but whenever I looked away the baby would cry. We started our scriptural thought with a prayer and in the middle the baby was crying so I opened one eye towards the baby and she immediately stopped. Her mom was laughing cause she knew I did that.

This week, my little brother was back at home and he was doing something that we do in the church called a "mini mission". To describe it briefly, it is basically a one day training experience when all of the youth in our church do a short 2-3 day mission. It is similar to what I am doing now. For his mission, he decided invite all of my friends that I have played basketball at my church twice a week since I was 12. I asked my Mission President if he would allow me to Skype call him and help my brother teach. He told me yes, so I basically got to be my brother's companion for about 45 minutes! It was so awesome!!!! I was proud of Sarger.

Last of all. The reason I am emailing late this week, is because this week we have transfers. Every 6 weeks we will have these transfers and I might move areas/companions or not. I never know until the day before an we get a call about what will be happening to us on transfer meetings. It is like New Years Eve to us cause we are waiting for a call that will tell us what we will be doing for the next 6 weeks. When I got the call, I found out that I will no longer be companions with Elder Steele. We will both be staying in Bangkapi, Bangkok, but we will both get new companions! Elder Steele is getting a new greenie (so he is getting another person who just barely came into Thailand like I used to be), and I am getting a new companion named Elder Corban Killian. I get to meet him tomorrow and I am so excited! I can't wait to meet him. 

I had an amazing week last week and I can't wait for the next one. I know that God is leading my ministries here and he is giving me blessings every day to be able to live here and speak Thai.

-Elder Barron

Never Forget (Ever)

 I gave this kid (Adam) one of those breath strips that are really minty. He was gagging and acting like he was going to throw up cause it was so much mint at once and he couldn't handle it. 

 A hilarious member of the church.

 Me, a river and I

 Me wearing a mask that tons of people in Bangkok wear because there is so much pollution.

 Awesome Area Conference.

 Lunch at the conference.

 Thai version of a KitKat.

 At a restaurant with a member of the church. Awesome guy!

 Our investigators tiny dog.

Me and some chairs.

Weekly Update:

This last week has been totally awesome! 

Elder Steele and I were teaching some gospel lessons to some people, and we got one member in our church family to help us teach them.  She just recently got her mission call to serve a mission just like I am doing now. She is in the same place I was in about two and a half months ago. She is super cool and she was already so good at teaching people. After we were done with lessons, we went back to the church to read the scriptures together and she asked us for some help with one of her school projects. She didn't know how to put captions on the video she was making and do some other things. I would have literally had no idea how to do anything, but all while I was growing up, my Mom, "Mommy" =), has been making videos on iMovie. She makes a new YouTube video for every vacation, family reunion, loose tooth, etc. She has tons of experience with it. Anyways, it is actually really awesome and I can't wait when I get older and I can watch all these videos from my childhood. But back to the point, I got to use the knowledge I have received from my Mom to help this one girl from Thailand. (Never thought that would happen did ya Mommy) It was fun!

This week one of the members in our ward asked Elder Steele and I to come help her carry something heavy up to her apartment. So we went to go help her, and the thing we needed to carry was one of those Massive box TVs. Goodness gracious that thing was heavy! We had to carry it up 4 flights of stairs, and there was a few times I thought we were gonna fall down the stairs with that thing following. I believe the Spirit of God was giving us the extra strength we needed to carry it all the way up. When we got it all the way up the stairs, she brought out a bunch of food for us and I was super thankful for that. =) It was fun to help her.

I got to eat a ton of crazy foods this week. Just some examples of food that I got to eat was, squid, eel, grasshoppers, larva, fish eggs, cockroach’s, this other strange meat that tasted like a tire, and other stuff that I have no idea how to pronounce or explain. I love eating the crazy food. People are always like, Hey! You're new in Thailand! Eat this bug! And I always just pop it with no hesitation and do my best interpretation of Tarzan or the Hulk. 

When we have free time in between lessons, we do what is called “inviting”. We do our best to invite everyone we see or meet to learn about Jesus Christ. If they aren't interested in that, we invite them to learn English from us. We have an English class that we teach every Tuesday night and it is super fun because the Thai people love learning English. For the Thai people, it is a super big advantage in life if you know English because almost every company will take someone who speaks English in Thailand. I love talking to the younger kids because they are more on my level of Thai than the adults are. They also love it when they see a falong (or a white person). They use all the English they know to speak to me and it's cute that they like trying. It makes me feel more confident in just trying to speak as much as I can.

I hope everyone who reads this has a great week! (I guess everyone who doesn't has one too, but I hope you guys have a SUPER special week compared to them)

-Elder Barron

Yes, it was freaky...

 These elephants are maaasssiiive!

 Interesting things spotted 

while walking down the road.

 These birds have chains so they won't fly away.

 An awesome bridge.

 It's about to rain.....again.

 Vietnamese food.

 Moo gra ta. We had to cook our own food.

 We are at the home of some 

members of the church.

(Above) This is the street that we live on.

 Random street on our way to a 

teaching appointment.

 This is Adam. He was hanging out with us when this rain cloud formed. It's about to dump. 
(Notice the 7-Eleven!)

 Slashing Elder Steele with a samurai sword. =) 
(I found it when helping some people move.)

 A huge rain cloud coming.

 Last p-day we went to a crocodile farm.

Update:

Hey, I think I am starting to understand stuff... psych.

I have some days when I am just doing awesome with the language! I understand what we are teaching in lessons and I am speaking too! It feels so great when I start to understand what people are saying because I am on the other side of the WORLD! It's about as different from English as I could possibly get, but anyways, whenever I have one of those really good days, the next day I don't understand a single thing anyone says. I always remember that I am a total newbie at the language. I know that I just have to have faith that I am actually learning slowly every day.

So last P-day, Elder Steele and I went to a crocodile farm here in Thailand. It is apparently the biggest crocodile farm in the world. We went to this awesome crocodile show and these guys were sitting there holding their heads and their hands in the crocodile’s mouths and they would pull out right before the crocodile snapped down on them. It was totally freaky. I also got to take a picture with a tiger. It was totally an experience I will never forget. While we were driving home Elder Steele and I were sitting on the left side of the car and the sister missionaries were sitting on the right side of the car. We had a contest to see who could see more 7-Elevens on their side of the car. It was a 45-minute drive and we saw a total of 24 7-Elevens on the way home. These Thai people are in love with their 7-Eleven!

In Thailand it is very abnormal to see a white person, so Thai people call white people Falongs. In Thai, a falong is a guava fruit. Every time I walk by little kids they start yelling at me Falong! Falong! It is pretty funny. Thai people will also think we don't understand them and call us falongs, but then when we reply to them they are super surprised. They also get a huge kick out of when they see us eating guava. They start laughing and say falong eating falong!!! hahahaha!!!

There is a lady here named May. She is such an awesome member of the church! She has had a lot of challenges about a year ago. I don't want to go into detail at all, but she has had so many more challenges in her life than I have. She has helped me so much with Thai and she loves telling her friends about the Gospel and helps us teach them in lessons about faith and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I admire her faith and she has helped me to strengthen my own faith.

Whenever it is about to rain here, I can always tell because it gets super hot. Then a wall of black clouds starts coming across the sky. Everyone starts running around because they want to get inside or get their food to a dry place so it doesn't get soaked. Everyone who is walking gets plastic bags out of their pockets and puts them over their heads because they believe if your head gets rained on at all, you will get sick. At first, I thought that was a dumb belief that they have, but I am pretty sure now that it is actually true. There is so much pollution in the air in Bangkok, that it is pretty much acid rain coming down on us. It makes me not want to get my head wet either. Also, whenever it rains, IT RAINS. It hardly ever just drizzles. It will be pouring buckets down in only 5 minutes.

This week on Monday, I had a Zone Conference with a visiting General Authority, Elder Homer. He talked a lot about how we all have our own gifts given to us by God. It is so true. Every single person I know has his or her own gifts different from everyone else. You need to use your own gifts that God has given you to do good, when you do what you can to do good, God will bless you and give you more gifts that you can use to help others with. I believe that these gifts that we have aren't something that we are supposed to use to make our own life better, they are responsibilities to help others. We will be filled with more happiness if we turn outward than if we turn inward. One of my favorite scriptures in The Book of Mormon is Ether 12:27.

It says, "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."

If we can come unto God with our weaknesses, they can become strengths through him.

I love receiving emails from anyone at boston.barron@myldsmail.net

Have a great week everyone. 

-Elder Boston Barron

Let's Get Down To Business!

Cock Cages

Holding one of the cocks (tall, skinny chickens) that I mentioned in my letter.

A normal street in Bangkapi, Bangkok, Thailand

Me doing the chicken dance with Pawma, 

one of our neighbors.

A pretty sunset

A building-Thai style

Traveling with Elder Steele to our teaching appointment on an open taxi.

How you spell ice cream in Thailand. =)

A rainbow because it rains once a day.

Our collection of empty plastic bottles 

that we need to recycle.

Ronald McDonald -n- me doing the Thai greeting.

Awesome sushi!

A cool restaurant called "Shabushi" 

mentioned in my letter.

More rainbows

Our investigators little dog.

My Letter:

This week I hit my 10% mark on my mission. It’s totally crazy because it feels like nothing at all. I know that I don't have as long as I think I do here. It will be over before I know it and I have no idea when I will ever be returning to Thailand next. Hopefully I can always maximize my output so I have no regrets. I love it here!

So last week we got to go eat this totally delicious food at this interesting place called “Shabushi”. We walked into this place and took our seats to eat and there was a conveyor belt traveling around to every seat in the restaurant and it was bringing around little plates of food to all of the seats. I looked at all the plates and they were all raw meat and uncooked mushrooms or tofu. I was a little bit confused cause I didn't really want to eat all this stuff raw, but then they brought out this pot of soup/broth stuff and set it on a burner. So basically, we had to put whatever we wanted to eat into the soup and cook it ourselves. It was an awesome experience and super fun. My favorite part of the whole restaurant was that they had a giant table of never ending sushi and I love sushi. I ate so much sushi my companion was worried he was starving me when we were back at the house. It was awesome!

Our next door neighbors are these super amazingly nice old people who love the missionaries! They aren't members of the church, but they know everything about being a missionary and they love helping us. We call them​ PawMa. One morning, they called us randomly and said "Hey, we accidentally made too much eggs and toast. Can we give some to you?" which is funny because they are a couple who have lived together for 40 years, so I think they would know how many eggs they eat by now. They are so nice to us. Yesterday, they had us over for some delicious Vietnamese style dinner and then we played some fun games where if you mess up, you have to do a funny chicken dance for everyone while they sing and laugh their heads off at you.

I have been enjoying reading a lot in The Book of Mormon lately. It is such an interesting story. It starts out when this man Lehi in Jerusalem is commanded my God through a vision to take his family and travel into the wilderness out of Jerusalem. He and his family follow the commandments by God and have faith in him, so they are led by God to the ocean. Here, they build a big boat under the direction of God and travel across the sea to the lands we know now as The Americas. Here, Lehi's descendants share stories about living in the America's and how the descendants who follow God are blessed and those who don't are cursed while they combat against each other. The Book of Mormon does not replace The Bible in any way. I believe that The Book of Mormon is true just as much as I believe The Bible is true. They just support each other and testify of Jesus Christ coming to the Earth. If you haven't read it, you should read it. I am in Thailand sharing the gospel because I know of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you want a free Book of Mormon you can get one at Mormon.org.

Elder Steele and I were walking around teaching everyone about the gospel of Jesus Christ with one of our members who likes helping us. Her name is May. We stopped by one of her friend’s houses and there was about to be a massive rainstorm, so we stopped in their backyard and just got to know them under one of their pavilions. It was fun talking to them and their dad showed us how he raises cocks (they are like tall, skinny chickens) in his yard. They were super cool and fun to feed. Their father was funny cause he kept telling me that I would make a perfect soldier for Thailand because I was tall and strong. Haha! He kept feeling my arms and telling me I was strong. It was weird, but at least all the push-ups I have been doing is making a difference.

One day last week, Elder Steele and I were walking to a mall for one of our appointments and I saw this guy walking in the opposite direction as us who stood out a ton. He stood out for two reasons, first, he was the only other person in sight who was white other than us, and second, he was 6' 8"! Anyways, we started talking to him and he seemed super interested in what we have to say because he was asking us a ton of questions about everything we believe. It seemed really fun at first but all the sudden, his questions turned into attacks and he was not interested whatsoever instead of just trying to disprove anything that we say. It made me really sad because he was so unwilling to listen and was so combative when we brought up anything we believed. The one thing about God's plan for everyone is that no matter what we do or find out, we will probably never see Jesus Christ or God the Father with our own eyes here upon the earth, but that is all part of God's plan for us. One of the hardest things to continuously have in this life is FAITH. Faith is believing without seeing. God speaks to us in many ways, and through feelings is one of the strongest of those ways. We have to be open to feel these feelings of peace and comfort from God to know what is good and right, then we have to act on faith. Faith is acting on your good feelings. This is why I am on a mission. I felt it is what I needed to do and so I acted. Every day is important to grow in faith so that when that faith is tested, we will be able to choose the good over the bad. I have a testimony that I know this is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I hope you all have a great week this week, thank you for reading my letter! I love getting emails from anyone! 

-Elder Barron