Rainbows and Marshmallows

 Sweet sunset picture of Buriram.

 A screen shot of one of our district meetings. This was a special one where we did it over video chat because it was the same week as zone conference.

 Just a normal day riding our bikes down the road.

 A cool elephant in the roundabout.

 This was taken in Royet. They are building a giant monument there that will be finished in 2021.

 Eating some super delicious food 

right after zone conference.

  

 We had an awesome day at church where a ton of members who used to come here came back for a day. It was fun to see all the old faces.

 The Bishops son.

Quincey's trainer from her mission in Portugal and her new husband who served in Thailand! 
They are here on vacation!

This was a chunk of my delicious sour patch watermelons from America!

Kittens galore! They are growing slowly.

This weeks update:

The weeks just keep getting better and better. Buriram is growing so much in the church and I can truly say that my heart is growing for the ward here. This is the first time in my mission where I can feel that all the work I am doing in a week is being driven by my love for the people and the knowledge of how the gospel can help everyone individually.

Elder Llanera and I got to do some cool companionship bonding in the morning a couple times this last week.  We got to play some basketball! We went to the nearby college and shot around for a while on their courts. We got to play two on two with these two Thai guys and we whooped ‘em. Let's just say that Elder Llanera throws some pretty clean alley oops. When we were done playing with them, they invited us to come play with them at the hospital sometimes at 6 O ‘clock in the evening. They said there was a ton more people that play there. I really want to go try to play there sometime.

Maybe we will have some time on another P-day to go.

Lately in the mission, there has been a major focus on getting as many people to be baptized as possible, which is not a bad thing. Baptism is an essential part of being able to live with Heavenly Father, but as we have been doing this, we sometimes forget about helping those who are already members. The mission is changing to have more of a focus on strengthening the members and helping the family of the members to become strong. I know that when we work harder on this, the missionary work will become so much more effective and even easier! I have seen a change starting here in the Buriram Ward lately. Just last Sunday, we had the first ward council that I know of. I'm sure it has happened in the past, but not that I know of at least. I'm just so happy for this ward because there are changes happening. I really want to see it grow because as the membership grows, so does their testimonies, and so does their happiness in the church. 

This last week, my Sister, Quincey’s favorite companion on her mission in Portugal came with her husband who served here in Thailand on his mission. (did that make sense) Anyways, they brought me a present all the way from America! It was some genuine Sour Patch Kids. Not just any Sour Patch Kids... WATERMELON FLAVOR! THE BEST ONES! It was way funny because since they brought it all the way from America, it had been through some rough spots, and now the entire 2 pound bag is melted into a single massive gummy watermelon. It is like so much better because you don't just have to take little bites, you can just bite off a massive chunk. It was a tender mercy of my week. Thank you all thoughs who took part in this endeavor. 

On another basketball note, I got to play basketball with a bunch of missionaries because we had zone conference and we woke up early for it, and one of the elders, Elder Ratelle, totally skewered my eye ball with his finger on a rebound. It hurt like really bad and I didn't enjoy it. I couldn't see out of that eye for a good 10-15 minutes, and I really thought I was going to throw up because of how much it hurt. The worst part was that because of that, everyone stopped playing and we went home. That was annoying. Haha. 

This week was like jumping on rainbows and marshmallows the whole time. It was way fun. I felt the spirit so much and my testimony has indeed strengthened. I have some family members who have been distraught for the past few days because of the sudden death of a family member, and other sad events. I am praying for you all every day and I hope that you will be able to feel to the spirit, or the love of God, at all times. Just like my Grammy said ;). It will help you (everyone) in your times of need. 

Love you all! 

-Elder Barron 

One Year In The Books

I got to see my companion from the MTC, Elder Benteti. He's one of my best friends.

Holding the smallest cat I've ever seen.

We got to have a fun family Home Evening at the Bishops house and we ate some pork.

For English class, the students made ultimate foods and voted on who's foods were the best, they voted for the ice cream.

This is my Myanmar mens skirt 

and my Chang Rai jacket.

"Chang" is how you say elephant in Thai.

Talking to some members and investigators.

We did some service on a VERY hot day. It was so hard, these pictures don't give it justice on just how hard and hot it was.

 Still maintaining our elephant bush 

for a sister in the ward. 

Elder Llanera was having so much fun!

Update:

It's that good ole half way mark in the mission! At this point in time, I have been away from my family, my sweet ole home in Arkansas and my friends, for one year! It has been a wonderful journey and I have learned so much. I can't even remember how many fun and unforgettable experiences I have had in this last year, but that’s why I write each week! I am writing to tell everyone about things that I have learned and experienced (including telling myself in the future). Thank you to all have supported me through all that has happened, and don't stop now! There is another year coming!

This last week we got to have a fun family home evening with a lot of the members because one of the elders who used to serve here came back to Buriram for a little bit. It was way fun to be there because all of the members love it so much when someone comes back to visit them. Elder Brown and his whole family came to visit and we all ate some good ole rice together. Thai people are not shy with using the little bit of English that they know. They are very good at just not being shy when they speak, so they have a lot of fun when they meet a new person who can't speak Thai. That is their time to practice some English.

In this last week, we have been trying to do a lot of member work. First of all, we have gotten a list of all the members here in Buriram. Then we are going through that list of members with other members who have been here for a long time and know them. We are trying to do some ministering to all of the members who have previously been strong in the church and consequently have some good friends in the church as well. We believe that doing this will strengthen those members who are less active and will also strengthen the ones who are coming to church regularly as well.

One of our recent investigators named Bee has had some dramatic things happen lately. She has finished learning all the lessons which are needed to get baptized, but she is still having troubles keeping one commandment. We have concluded that it would probably be better off if we give her some time to think about it where we just don't visit her for a while. We told her that she is still completely welcome to come to church, but since we have nothing left to teach, it is up to her whether she wants to get baptized. She still came to church though, which made me way happy. I hope that God can touch her heart in these next few weeks to help her know what she should do. 

We have been teaching a girl named ฝน​ (Fon)​ lately. She is one of June's friends and she is totally awesome! Fon has been learning with us for only a few weeks, but she hasn't missed coming to church in like 5 Sundays now. This last Sunday, I didn't even know Fon would bring her, but she brought her Mom to church with her! It was awesome how she told her Mom about it and she was willing to come with her. I love it when missionary work is happening and we didn't even do it! It helps us so much in the work. 

It was too bad this last week because Elder Llanera got sick. He had a huge headache and I think he threw up some. I totally understand because I didn't feel too good in my first week in Thailand either. He is all better now though and is working harder than ever! Elder Llanera is way good at the language for his first week in Thailand. He definitely knows more vocabulary in Thai that I initially knew and he speaks very flowingly. (does that make sense???) 

Elder Llanera and I got 2 more baptismal daters in this past week. Right now we have three people that have goals to get baptized in the future, and (I didn't do this on purpose at all) they all set up the day on the exact same day haha. I usually let people that are getting baptized choose what day they will feel comfortable with, and all three of them chose July 7th. I don't know what happened, but maybe that is just going to be a special day or something. 

We got to do some great service this last week. We were pulling up grass and cutting down some trees. It was at 2 O clock in the middle of the Thailand heat, so it was pretty much so hot that we almost drowned in our own sweat, but it was still fun. I love getting to do some physical labor service. Last night, we were coming home from visiting the Bishop and his family, and a lightning struck the ground about 30 feet in front of us. It was SO LOUD. My ears were ringing for the next few minutes. It was scary, but it was pretty fun too. 

Thank you for reading my letters! I'm gonna keep em coming every week, so don't forget to read! 

-Elder Barron 

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