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 

Faith In The One Who Has Sight

Helping a member make some food..

We made waterfall pig and it was SOOOO good!

Someone gave us seaweed as a present. 

It was pretty good.

This is the house of Kun, 

the guy that runs the parking lot.

I wrote about him last week.

A monk that we talked to.

Spent the day with Elder Siebert!

 Just like old times!

A family doing their business of 

washing cloths and folding them.

Delicious food.

Brother Suk, he is my buddy in Surin.

I forgot my raincoat and used a trashbag. 

Buying food in Seven 11.

A giant dragon head outside of the Buriram Soccer Stadium. I have no idea why it was there, but it was still dang cool and realistic.

I got a little friend on my shoulder. It was sitting there for a few minutes before someone else flicked him off.

The professional soccer game that we went to.

SOOOOOO fun!!!!

My update:

Every time we have P-day here in Buriram, we are getting into the habit of going to the board game place. It is pretty fun playing some old fashion board games, but sometimes, it is very difficult to understand what is going on because there are 8 Thai people yelling the whole time and I can't translate the instructions until we are halfway through the game. Then at the end of the game I lay out all of my cards and think I won, but then I realize I got in last place because I was trying to do the wrong thing the whole game. It's okay though haha. It is fun. The best part is just hanging out with all the young people that come play. This last Monday was the four year anniversary of that board game place, and the guy who owns it let us all play there for free. (This guy is literally just so cool)

This week I have been working on goals. I love goals so much. They are literally so important. If you have no goals, you will sit there waiting for something to come change your life (News Flash: IT’S NOT COMING). I see a lot of people doing this every single day. When I was a child, I loved setting goals. Goals that were difficult, and random. Three of the first that pop into my head are: I wanted to ride a unicycle, I wanted to get good at origami, I wanted to get my Eagle Scout award and I wanted to run a marathon. At the time I was doing each of these goals, I worked super hard on completing them. I was very determined. When I would reach these goals, I would think, "whew, I'm done!" I would then create another random goal. Some of those goals like riding a unicycle or doing origami have taken me nowhere other then the fun to learn it. Now, I realize that is not the most effective way. Everyone can do amazing things when they set goals to get there, but when you can align those goals to have a purpose and meaning, the result is better than you at first imagined! Now you just gotta get up and do it!

Elder Lemone and I went to visit one of our recent converts to the church named อั้ม (um). She has one of the most hyper little girls of all time named Indie. She just goes crazy all the time haha. It is pretty cute most of the time, but have to try to calm her down during the lessons. In our last lesson with her, we were teaching about Jesus Christ. We were showing Sister Um a video (Because of Him, which is like one the most awesome videos ever), and Indie was running around eating chips. All the sudden, Indie just pees all over the floor. The grandma comes running in with a mop while yelling, "you gotta mop it fast or it will be sticky!" I guess that wasn't her first rodeo. It kind of made the spirit leave the lesson for a little bit, but I don't think I will forget that experience. 

We got to go to a Buriram soccer game for P-day! It was so much fun! The Thai people get into the game BIG TIME. There were nonstop cheering the whole time and massive drums that would shake the stadium. Buriram's stadium is called the thunder stadium, and they are really good at making the drums sound like thunder strikes. Buriram beat Corad 2 - 0. I hope I can go to another game before I leave Buriram.

We got a new investigator named ท็อป​ (Taub) We got him to come to the church for our lesson, and it was way good. We got to know him more and talk a lot about his life. Overall it went way well. We taught him about prayer with his Heavenly Father and he said he would pray every day from now on! He also said he would try to bring his friend who is interested next time!

I got to go on a switch off back to the good ole' Surin. It was fun being able to see all of my old friends. I also got to be on the switchoff with elder Siebert, so it felt just like old times. We got to have sports night at the church with some of the same people as when I was there and also some new people! Elder Siebert brought some rubber chickens to sports night, so we decided to play dodge ball with rubber chickens. It was so funny running around throwing chickens at each other. Afterwards we watched a video for the spiritual thought. The video was about 6 blind men who found an elephant and they were all feeling the elephant. They all grabbed a different part of the elephant and were trying to explain what they were feeling, but none of them agreed because they all grabbed different parts. The guy who grabbed the trunk thought it was a snake, the guy who grabbed the tusk thought it was a spear, the guy who grabbed the leg thought it was a tree, and so on. They couldn't see the entire truth, so they used what they knew and came up with their answer. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that, but they weren't open to receiving other people's thoughts because they thought they were wrong. Then a person who could see came and showed them that it was an elephant. This is so much like us in life because we can't see everything that happens, and we can't come up with all the truth ourselves, but so many people think they have all the truth through what they have experienced. The only one who actually has all the truth is God, so we need to follow him and have faith that we will have everything we need through his leading us. 

I hope all of your weeks are sappy dappy fantastic! 

-Elder Barron