Minnesota Here He comes!

Ryan left today for Minnesota.  I am sure he was excited to get on his journey.  We were excited because hopefully he would be able to call us from Atlanta.

Well call he did and it was not what we were excepting.  Sometime in the middle of the night he got extremely ill.  He was flying and just felt awful.  When he talked to me briefly he could barely speak or stand up.  He was very worried about getting to his connecting flight.  We weren't able to discuss anything really about his experience thus far.  We said goodbye and it left me feeling very uneasy.

Ryan rarely gets sick so this was something significant.  Here is an interchange of emails that passed between us and the Mission President.

Hello Minneapolis Minnesota mission!

Our son Elder Pickering is in route to you right now and we are excited for him to get there.  We just wanted to give you a heads up that he is very sick.  He called home for a few minutes from the airport and was dizzy, feeling terrible and not sure what to do.  He said it had started about 4am at the Mexico City MTC.   We hope he is able to navigate the rest of way there.  My wife is very concerned at this point, but he is a capable traveler.  Just know that he is incoming but not very well at this time.

Regards,

Roger Pickering

Thank you for your note, Brother Pickering.  We will do everything we can to assist him as soon as he arrives here.  Fortunately, he is not traveling alone, so I do not anticipate difficulties getting him here safely.  We will keep you closely advised as to his health situation when he gets here.

Best personal regards,

Pres. Barney

Carey S. Barney

Minnesota Minneapolis Mission

I know that our missionaries coming from Mexico City basically have to get up in the middle of the night on the day of their departure, so I am sure he didn’t get much sleep either.  We will be tracking his flight on the Atlanta leg and will be there to meet him and his two traveling companions.

Thank you so very much President.  We have every faith in you and have heard such wonderful things about you and your wife and the mission as a whole.  Ryan almost never gets sick and I cannot remember him taking a sick day in high school at all, so we know he isn't feeling great.  Of course with the nerves and everything else, who knows.  Thank you for replying.

Roger

Well we knew Ryan would be in good hands.  That evening we actually got a call from the Barneys letting us know that Ryan made it safely.  We would learn later that this was one of the longest and hardest days of his life.  He had a fever and felt awful and so they gave him Gatorade and a Priesthood blessing and then sent him to bed.  They told us they would keep us apprised of any further complications.  We assumed that would be the end of the communication and that Ryan would be up in a day or two after kicking whatever bug was ailing him.  We had no idea what was yet to come.