Dear Family & Friends,

Nate will be finishing his mission in just 3 weeks and arriving home on Wednesday, August 21!  We are so excited to see him!  He will be giving his homecoming report at 9 am on Sunday, August 25, in our ward building located at 12993 S. 1300 W., Riverton.

Nate is currently serving in the small town of Laboulayé, Argentina, a place Nate describes as "way out in the middle of nowhere."  Nate and his companion are the first missionaries ever to serve in this town, and they had to start building a church presence from the ground up.  They rented a space in which to hold church meetings and then went to work finding people to teach and invite to the meetings.  Nate has loved the work.

Here are some photos he sent us recently:

Nate has been a dedicated, hard-working missionary, and we are so proud of him.  Thank you all for your love and prayers on his behalf!

Dear Family & Friends,

I wanted to share an update on Nate and some recent photos. 

Nate has only 4 months of his mission left!  He is currently serving as a Zone Leader in the town of San Nicolás, Argentina.  His current companion is Elder Gibby, the same young man he had as his companion at the Provo MTC!  They get along really well together. 

Nate also loves his mission president, President Allred, and his wife.  Below is a photo Sister Allred posted yesterday on the Rosario Argentina Mission Facebook page:

President & Sister Allred are at the back on the far left.  Elder Gibby is standing
next to President Allred.  Nate is on the far right.

Below is a picture of all the missionaries in Nate's zone:

Nate is on the back row, 6th person from the right.

Earlier this month (April 8), Nate sent us the following photo.  We love seeing Nate so happy!

We really appreciate all of your love and support for Nate! 

Dear Family & Friends,

I haven't posted an update on Nate for a few months, so I think it's time!  Besides, I found some recent pictures of Nate on his mission president's Facebook page (thank goodness that he shares pictures of Nate since Nate is so disinclined to!!! ;), and I want to pass them along.

At the end of June, Nate was transferred from Las Delicias (near Rosario), to Carcaraña, a small town of approximately 16,000 people, located about 30 miles west of Rosario.  He has been serving as the district leader there.  Carcaraña is surrounded by fields and a train runs through the center of town.  Here is what Nate wrote to us after his first week there:

i love the vibe of the town and i think its just a special place. we live right next to the train tracks that run though the middle of town and the house trembles when it comes passing by. and the horn is very loud in the middle of the night, but i like trains.

Satellite photo showing Carcaraña on the left and Rosario on the right

On July 16, Nate shared this about the church and members in Carcaraña:

we do have a real church and it is nice. they have had robbery problems here, but in the last 2 weeks i think im about the only one that has tripped the alarm. (and they keep changing the code and dont tell me) i think there are 500 people baptized here but 4 or 5 families come to church regularly. 30-40 people in total. 

The following week (July 25), Nate added:

we dont have youth here. in las delicias we doubled the young mens group in my time, but here there is one 18 year old that is with the elders of 40 years old. we baptized an 11 year old, and 9 year old this week, and they are about the closest thing we have to a future youth program. 

About a month later, Peter asked Nate how the missionary work was going in Carcaraña, and Nate sent this reply on August 20th:

i contact every day and we do teach a lot, but the lessons we have set often fall though. i feel like there are lots of people progressing but its hard to get them to church, but that isnt anything new. there will be baptisms this next month for sure. 

On September 10th, Nate reported that the weather in Argentina was heating up (they are moving into their summer months).  He also told us a little about Argentina's current economic struggles:

something you should google is the value of the argentine peso. they are falling into an economic crisis and it causes a lot of havoc here. in the last 15 years it has gone from 3 to 1, and now is 38 to 1. when i got here it was 17 to 1.

On Tuesday, September 18th, Nate went to the mission home in Rosario to pick up a new 
companion--Elder Maco from Peru.

President Allred, Nate, Elder Maco, Sister Allred

The following Saturday they held a baptism for a young man and a 10-year-old girl (photo below).  Nate has been training Elder Maco for about two weeks now and says he is a good elder who will have a great mission.

These last 3 pictures are from a zone conference held about a week ago.

Zone Conference (Nate is on far left side)

Nate and Elder Maco are on the right.  I don't know what they are holding in their hands.

This photo was taken September 29th during an open house.  Nate is 5th from the left.

Thank you all for you prayers and love for Nate!