Trios, Splits and Pharyngitis

Ok, this was a really weird week. It all started on Monday night when we received a call from our district leader. He said that some elders were coming up from Rio Gallegos and Ushuaia, and we would need to keep one elder with us for a little bit. So we said, ok, why aren't they staying with the APs? (Because the AP's have like a thousand beds in their apartment.) The DL didn't know, so we said, cool, we'll take an extra elder for a few days. Turns out there was this leadership conference with literally every leader in the mission that week coming to Comodoro, so that's why we got our elder for three days. His name is Elder Gallegos, and he was from Tooele. I asked him if he knew Erda, and he was absolutely floored. That's exactly where he was from, and he said no one knows about Erda. Dad, he was asking me about the people that live in the big red house that we went to a few times, but I don't remember anything about it. So if you could brush me up on our family members that live there, that would be cool :)

So we were on splits from Tuesday night until Thursday afternoon. We just kinda went about our day like normal. Nothing really crazy happened- except we made buttermilk syrup for pancakes on Wednesday. There is a picture down below, it's the brown glop. We're not sure what we did wrong. It still tasted good though x)

And then on Thursday Elder Peterson was feeling kinda sick, but we figured he would be ok. And then he progressively got worse, so we decided to call Hermana Camejo, wife of our mission president. She told him to go to the doctors the next day, so he did. However, we had planned splits that day, so Elder Hyatt took him to the medico while Elder Swindle and I tried our best to be missionaries for twenty four hours.

Elder Barrus and Elder Swindle figuring out how to mission

And let me tell you, the gift of tongues is so incredibly real!! Elder Swindle has the same amount of time as me (we were in the Mexico MTC together and we both finish our first transfer next week) and understanding is still super hard for us. And we had two lessons with two of our best investigators that day. I said so many prayers that day, basically just begging for the gift of tongues to be able to understand what everyone was saying to me. And in those lessons I could understand probably ninety percent of what they were saying, which honestly never happens. Gifts of the Spirit are so real, not only for prophets and apostles but for those of us who are honestly trying to live the gospel. That was such a big testimony builder for me, that God is aware of each of us and will do everything he can to help us out when we need it.

And then Elder Peterson came back from splits with Elder Hyatt and we found out his has pharyngitis! Hooray! Basically his throat is swollen and super scratchy all the time and he gets really tired super easily. Hermana Camejo said that it runs its course over about seven days, so we might just be visiting our investigators this week. The doctor said that pharyngitis can be caused by a fluctuation in the weather, which happened this week. It was like forty degrees Thursday through Saturday, so I finally got to break out the sweaters.

And that's kind of it! This is the last week of the transfer, which is crazy! These last six weeks absolutely flew by. I get transfers Saturday night, which probably won't be big. I'm still in my training, so most likely I'll stay here in Standard with Elder Peterson for another six weeks.

Also kind of a big deal, they are changing P-days to Tuesdays in the mission! So next Monday if you're waiting for a special Elder Barrus email, you'll be waiting for a very long time. So look for that next week :)

Love you guys! Hope you all have an inspiring week!

The buttermilk syrup that went terribly wrong somehow

Elder Peterson holding the mashed bananas for
our banana bread that we make every Sunday night

Sandwiches de Milanesa. Yes, that is only half of the sandwich.
And yes, they are only 280 pesos. ($4.60)