Pickett, Mason PT

Family and friends, it has been quite the week. Loving life, let's get straight to it. Inspection of Paraguayan healthcare At the beginning of this week, I started off feeling weird. Basically, I was having these crazy stomach cramps, then that turned into this crazy fever, and then in the end, your boy blacked out. Not fainted, because blacking out sounds way gnarlier. At that point, my comp said, "Brother, we're going to a hospital." For reference, there are two hospitals in Oviedo. The first is nicer but only accepts Paraguayans. Now, believe it or not, I don't really look very Paraguayan because I am white, 6’5”, and barely speak Spanish. When I walk in the streets, people already look at me like I am a reincarnated urban myth or mythological creature or something. So there's no way I'm passing as a Paraguayan at the nice hospital. This left us with the free one. As you can imagine, free healthcare in Paraguay is top of the line, and they spoiled me th...

Fam and friends, it's been another beautiful week in the heart of South America. You know the drill; let's get straight to what's been going down. Splits: Took a little day trip over to Caaguazu so we could do splits with the zone leaders. My companion for the day was E. Valerdi from México, and he's an absolute dawg. In only one day, I learned a lot from him, and we were having very successful spiritual lessons. We were straight pounding Caaguazu with the gospel. I'm also convinced that E. Valerdi is like a church-issued conversion machine or robot because homie does not eat. I swear he only feeds off of the scriptures and giving people baptismal dates. So by the end of the day, I was starving and absolutely devoured two of the greatest sandwiches I've ever had. What a blessed day it was. Gnarly petting zoo: In Paraguay, there's just about every domesticated animal you could possibly imagine roaming the streets here. I mean, they've got everything. The ...

Fam, friends, and various acquaintances, it's been a hot, rainy, yet blessed week here in Paraguay. Let's get straight into it. Straight kicked The people of Paraguay are some of the chillest people to walk the earth. They might be a little too chill if you know what I mean; sometimes it's tough to get them to church, but we're working on that, trustttt. Anyway, they have this drink called “tereré,” which is like a tea, and they fill this little cup with dried herbs and plants. And all day, they pour water into these cups, drink it, refill, and repeat this process all day, and everybody does it. To be honest, the first time I saw one of these, I was slightly concerned because I thought it was a little bong or some other smoking device. And I kept seeing them in every house, and I thought, these people are nottt gonna rock with the Word of Wisdom lesson. Anyway, I was very happy to find out that it is, in fact, not weed in these little metal cups but tea, so blessed was ...

Family and friends, miss you all a little extra today. Thank you for all the tender birthday messages that you guys sent me. They truly made my week. Let's get into what's going down. Arrived in PARAGUAY So we're out here now. Traveling here was a fun time and all went smoothly for the most part. We did have a couple of little problems in Lima when we were leaving, but they were dealt with swiftly. We got here pretty late and headed to the mission office, kicked back for the night there, and then the next day we got our comps (new comp Elder Radcliffe, he's a stud) and our assignments, met the mission prez, and we even got to go out and do a little contacting, it was dope. Then the next day we headed out to the first area, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, they sent me to the boonies for my first area. Colonel Oviedo. I'm about 4 hours outside of Asuncion in an area where they haven't had a lot of success. I'm gonna keep it real with you guys, when we first got...