I will DUNK on you someday.

This is at a Birthday party for a guy in my ward named Butter.

A boat that rides on the canal 
called the Klang Monster.

 This was a really tall Thai person that I saw. I asked if I could take a picture with him  and as you can see by the look on his face, he thought it was weird.

 A giant Croc that was on display.

 Celebrating Sister Rogers and 

Elder Steele's birthdays!

 A really cool sunset.

A pretty street.

Weekly Update:

This was an interesting week. It was a first for me because this weekend was our churches worldwide General Conference. General Conference is like New Years Eve for all of us missionaries. We were so excited to hear about what our prophets were going to teach us. I haven't been able to see the second half of it yet, but I have already learned a lot and I love the messages our General Authorities have shared. My favorite speaker of General Conference so far was by Dallin H. Oaks. He gave a talk about the where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints stands on some of the biggest controversial topics in the world today. Elder Oaks explained very specifically and simply. If anyone is interested in watching it, you can go to lds.org and watch it for free. There are plenty more things on lds.org that can answer many questions you have about what our church believes.

This week had a lot of rain. There was a pretty big rainstorm about every other day. One day, we were going to a members house to eat dinner and it was storming super hard. We arrived there super soaked and we had to eat some of the spiciest soam dam I have ever had. (soam dam is like a kind of salad made out of unripe papaya and you put in a ton of peppers to make it super spicy.) I have eaten soam dam with 7 peppers before and even that was really spicy, but this member fed us 20 pepper soam dam. DANG it was spicy! I ate a ton of it and afterwards my companion said I would have stomach trouble, but I never ended up having it. He was surprised. Anyways, after we finished eating and shared a personal thought with the family, we caught a bus ride, but the whole street was flooded. There were cars that were stalled and the motorcycles were all on sidewalks trying to avoid the flooding. It was really fun. 

This week we celebrated my old companion, Elder Steele’s birthday. He got a bunch of really good presents. The sister missionaries gave him a bar of soap, and I gave him all of my half and quarter baht coins that I had. (the only time you get them is when you buy milk or use the bus. They are so worthless that nobody wants them.) Then we sprayed him down with silly string and gave him a cake. It was probably his best birthday yet. 

I had the opportunity to have an interview with my Mission President, President Hammond this week. He started talking to me about basketball and how he used to play way too much basketball, so God gave him a blessing in disguise by hurting his back so now he spends more time on work instead of basketball. One of my favorite quotes from him was, "Just remember Elder Barron, I'm going to DUNK on you after the resurrection!" It was really funny. We believe that every person will be resurrected after death with their body and everyone will become the perfect version of themselves.

I have made some massive strides in the language in the last few weeks. I am able to have conversations with people on the street. There is still a lot when I don't understand a word here and there, but I can understand what they were saying and respond most of the time. It feels amazing actually being able to speak Thai. I love it.

This week Elder Killian and I met this woman and her son named Krystal and Conor. They were very interesting people. The mom, Krystal, has been going to learn English with the missionaries since she was 12 years old, and she became interested in leading about Jesus Christ and learned for a while. She stopped learning in though because she didn't like how one of the Elders acted hypocritical with what he taught, but lately she decided to give learning about our church another shot. Now, she brings her son to learn with us too. 

I give a challenge to everyone; if you haven't ever tried learning about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just give it a shot. You shouldn't believe only what other people say about things that require straight opinion. You must take it upon yourself to find the answer and then act upon the answers you receive from God in every way you can. God knows your abilities and He expects us to use them to help ourselves and when you can support yourself, you can support others. That is my favorite thing about being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It takes some personal growth to have a testimony and believe it is true, but everyone can help you. When everyone has a strong testimony of this church, they support each other and multiply in spiritual strength. 

I hope everyone has a great week! Please tell me about it! I love getting emails from everyone.

-Elder Barron 

Blessings In Disguise

Our church congregation threw a 

party for the new missionaries. 

This is our scripture study class.

This is also our scripture study class....playing NINJA!

This is our church building.

Some of the Sisters in our Ward.

Our District got lunch after bowling on preparation day. It was way fun.

 I was so happy to see my best buds from the MTC when we all had to renew our Visa's.

Cool beetle I found.

After my epic bowling victory.

My Letter this week:

Last Monday, (Every Monday is our Preparation day), I got to go bowling with my district. I have never been good at bowling at all. I have taken two girls on dates and they beat me both times. It has never been my sport, but this time, I don't know what happened. I got 4 strikes in a row and everyone was freaking out. (Including me) I ended up getting 165 which is like double the best I have ever gotten in bowling. It was really fun.

This transfer, there are now 4 Elders living in my house instead of just 2 like last transfer. It is so much more fun because we can wake up early for our exercise time and go play basketball at our church. I love working with these Elders because they are all very different, but effective in being missionaries.

Elder Killian and I have had to start from scratch searching for people to teach about the Gospel because we are an added companionship in the area. So we spend a lot of time doing what we call "finding". It is where we basically walk around neighborhoods, parks, mall, streets, and wherever trying to talk to everyone and invite them to learn about Jesus Christ and His gospel. Finding is probably the most infamous parts of being a missionary because it is very hard to talk to people who look busy and get them interested in learning about religion. It is also very hard because of the language barrier. There are sometimes I don't know what people are saying, so I just have to guess and keep talking. It is a leap of faith that God will help me speak the language and that the person who I talk to will have a softened heart and listen to our message. 

This week I had to travel to this government building and renew my Visa, so I could stay in Thailand, and I got to see all my friends from the MTC there. They are all so much fun and I had so much fun seeing them again. We also got to be with each other for like 5 hours because we were waiting in a ton of lines. They are all so funny and smart, when I'm with them, they make me want to be better.

The brand new Elder in our house that came straight from the training center is named Elder Thomas. He tried to fix one of our showers that wouldn't shoot out any hot water. He started taking apart all the electrical stuff and from the next room over I just heard him yell because he got shocked by this thing. He was just sticking this screwdriver into the electrical box trying to tighten things and he ended up getting shocked really hard 4 different times. I was just lying on my bed laughing my head off because he wouldn't stop sticking his screwdriver in there.

While I was sitting on a bus this week, I was trying to talk to someone and ask them some questions, but he wouldn't respond to me or even make eye contact. I was just having a one way conversation with him for a while, and he didn't respond, so I told him a joke in Thai. I said, "what has no beginning, no middle, and no end?" he didn't respond so I told him. "It's a donut." He didn't respond again so I just got off the bus. Haha...life of a missionary.

I get the question a lot about why would God let bad things happen to good people and that has always been a hard question to answer. One of my favorite quotes to answer this question is by George W. Cannon. He says, "That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good that we may know ourselves; for it is most important that a man should know for himself." Tests that we have in life are blessings in disguise. After this life, our glory will be added upon as we fulfill goodness and faith in this life. I know this to be true and thank you all for reading my letters.

-Elder Barron 

Welcome Elder Killian!

 Elder Killian is a great guy. 

This will be a fun transfer. 

Sister Pimsawan is new to our district. I'm still taller with no shoes when she stands on a chair.

 These are the 4 guys that live in 

our apartment right now.

 This is our district.

 A dog we found while out inviting.

 A big tire

 I got to see one of my good friends Elder Lowe 

at the transfer meeting.

This is a bridge that goes over the road. 

They are everywhere.

Weekly Update:

This week was crazy. Every six weeks, we have transfers, where we have the opportunity to either change companions in our area, or go to a new area. It is basically one of the most exciting times for missionaries because we just wait for a call to come that will tell us where we are going or what we are doing for the next month and a half. So last week, Elder Steele and I got a call that Elder Steele was staying in his area and training a new missionary that just barely came into Thailand just like I did 6 weeks ago. So, I basically knew I wasn't going to be companions with Elder Steele for the next transfer. Then we got another call, that I was staying in Bangkapi, the same area that I was already in, but my new companion was going to be Elder Killian! It was a funny experience for the first time I met him. We were both at the mission office just doing busy things that we were supposed to do, and we just bumped into each other and said, "Oh hey!" and we kept walking doing what we were doing. Haha!

It was interesting being in my area with someone who had never been there before. I had to remember where everyone's house is and which bus's to take around Bangkok to get places. There was one time we were going to an investigators house and we were on a pretty long bus ride, so it was hard for me to pay attention to where we needed to get off the bus. I accidentally missed the bus stop we were supposed to get off at, so we got off at the next stop and walk about a mile to the investigators house. Luckily I had a feeling that would happen so we would have been about 30 minutes early, but we ended up using every minute of it walking. I guess that's a good lesson learned.

One thing that Elder Killian introduced to me that he liked was soy milk. For some reason I didn't like soy milk that much the first time I had it, but I actually really like it now. It is fairly cheap too so that is a good plus. 

Elder Killian and I were out teaching people we found about the gospel of Jesus Christ and we were walking through a neighborhood that was kind of hidden from the main road. I had gone down most of the streets around where we live, but I just had a random feeling to go down this small street. When we walked down it for a while, there turned out to be this really big neighborhood. I thought it was so cool how we just walked past it every day and we never knew it was there. While we were walking around, I saw some children playing badminton outside and I really wanted to go play. (Ever since I was young I dreamed of being on my mission and playing sports with random kids. It's kind of a weird dream I had, but I just wanted to really bad) Anyways, I asked them if I could play and they kind of freaked out and started laughing because this massive, white guy walks up and wants to play with these kids. Then one of them ran up to me and handed me a racket. We had tons of fun playing with them. After we played for a while we invited them all to come learn English with us at the church. I hope some of them decide to go.

It is interesting being with a new companion in an area that is new to him because I seem to get a lot of more opportunities to speak up and practice my language more. I am thankful that I get this opportunity because I know it will help me be better. It is pushing me.

There is a new Sister Missionary here in my area, Bangkapi. Her name is Sister Pimsawan. She is originally from Thailand and everyone makes fun of us because she is super short and I am super tall. She is literally like a little more 4 feet. WE had fun taking pics together. 

Lately, I have been doing my personal studies in the scriptures. I finished reading The Book of Mormon a while ago, so I have started studying in The Old Testament of The Bible. I love reading about the stories of both of these books because I know they are both true. I was very interested about the story of Noah and his ark. In this story, the earth is covered with sinful people and God chooses to have Noah build a boat and get all the righteous people upon the boat while God floods the entire earth to get rid of the evil people. When the Earth was flooded, everything was completely covered in water, even the tallest mountains. This represents the baptism of the Earth. The Earth had sin and evil upon it, just as every single person who has ever lived, except Jesus Christ. When we are baptized, we completely go under water to signify all of our sins being completely washed away, just as the Earth did, but when we are baptized, we still do sin. None of us are perfect. It is sad but true. Sin can continue to be in our lives. So after we are baptized, we are blessed with "baptism by fire." this is where someone who holds the priesthood, or power of God, places their hands on your head and gives you the Gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift helps us to choose the right and repent throughout our lives so throughout our lives, we can continue to become more perfect as God is. When Jesus Christ returns to the Earth, all it is said in the Bible, that all of the wicked of the world will be burned (As is speaks of throughout Isaiah 24). This symbolizes the "baptism by fire" which I just spoke of. As the Earth will eventually become perfect and sinless, we can do this personally as well through baptism.

Thanks everyone who reads my emails. I hope you have great weeks.

-Elder Barron