Email--April 27, 2009

Hello friends and family,
I am doing pretty good here in Colombia. My mom asked me what the food was like and well to say the least it is not very good. But their big meal of the day is lunch 1 and we eat with the members everyday it just switches off. And we don’t get back to the house until 9 so we make something small for a quick dinner. So to say the least I have gotten to the point I don’t care what it is I just eat it cause I am so hungry at lunch everyday. The worst had to be the cow stomach, oh just a lovely grey sponge that is just great in your mouth. For e-mail we just go to a store on the street and pay to use the computer. About a dollar an hour to use the computer and they are like starbucks here. One or 2 on every street. As for cooking elder Williams and I do all the cooking cause well the natives just aren’t too concerned about it and the dishes too. So yeah a lot of eggs rice and potatoes in the area I am in. I am in Sogomoso, a small area at about 10,000 feet so it gets pretty cold here at night but can be pretty warm when the sun is out. Just know that I am doing great and trying to work hard. The Spanish is slowly slowing but surely coming along. We had 1 baptism this week Marta and a Tirso Cabeza a new convert of 2 months baptized her. I got to conduct the baptism, a rough but good expierence in Spanish. Ok well thank you for all the love and support and know I pray for everybody. Love nate

Hi mom
Thanks for the letter it was great and it meant a lot to hear all your advice and to know you love me. Thanks so much. I hope I answered all your questions. It is tough to get everything done needed for the week in 1 day. I wrote preston and dad so they will have more about things here but thanks for taking care of the the dog and all that stuff. It means a lot and tell dave and Maxine thank you for their help with the dog and all their love and support. Sorry it is kinda short but know I love you and am trying to work hard and be obedient. Love you very much love nate
Dear dad,
I have to write president and I am out of time, so it will be short
But thank you so very much for your letter I printed it off and will
hang it up for your encouraging words. I am glad you survived your
accident, did you let mom know about that? I am glad to hear that
Preston is a big help. I miss him a lot being able to just always
have a friend to talk to and hang out with. You realize a lot more
what you really value when you don’t have it any more. Thanks for all
your love and support dad. Know I am working hard at Spanish and
missionary work. It is hard work. I now understand hard work even
more fully. And as I sent mom the food is no longer a problem, I just
eat it and don’t even worry any more. It is just food for the day and
I will get different tomorrow. And when I get home I will get to eat
whatever I want. I laughed about your cocoa, because they drink a
drink here that is called Awapanella that is a hot drink that I didn’t
like the first few times but it is something now that I just drink and
don’t even think about it. Dad thanks for your love and support I'm
glad to be your son and for all the good things you taught me.
Love nate

President Sanchez (Branch President), Marta, & Tirso

Area

HUGE spider in the house

HUGE MOTH

Random animals in the street

E-mail April 20, 2009

Hello family and friends,
Well this week was much much harder. Having a comp that doesn’t speak a lick of English is a testing thing for me. But I am managing. No baptisms for my companionship but for the other one in the house they had one. So it is still going stong we have one set for next Saturday so hopefully it all goes through. I don’t really know what to say other then we have about 15 investigators and there is not enough time in the week to get to them all and teach because they all say that they are to busy so we end up doing a lot of Plan B stuff so hopefully it will pick up. I am happy to be in Colombia and it is sweet to hear of more missionaries coming here there is so much work to be done. Thank you for all your prayers and support. It has been nice growing up in the church. Grandma, natives are astounded when I tell them that our family has been in the church since John C. most of the natives are 1st or 2nd generation missionaries so look for some more pictures of me in white next week.

Ok mom hi
Thanks so much for all your love and support. As you can see I took some money out of my account so I should need more for awhile. But we will see. Man I have so much advice for when preston and Andrew go on their missions just with what to bring and not. So it should be good. But first I sent a letter home via pouch but it is for Victoria, cause I don’t have her home address and by the time it gets there she will be out of school so if you could get that to here either mail it or call her that would benice. Thank you
Also see if you can send a package here. Mainly with food cause most the food sucks here. But yeah I want to see if I will get one cause If I do I might have you send me more washable pants. That is the dumbest thing we did not enough washable pants cause I cant wash my suit pants so they are just dirty. So I may buy some more here I haven’t decided. So don’t send pants unless I tell you too. But yeah I will try and see if I can find those people but there are 3 areas in sogomoso so I doubt I will find them but I will ask.
Also the cabin looks pretty dang sweet. It makes me excited for 2 summers from now. It looks good. Remember grass haha also is that our swing set or not?
My companion is now tough. Haha strange how it has changed but they latin people just think in very strange ways. So it has been a really rough week for me I have wanted to come home so bad just cause he is stressful and I don’t understand anything but I am doing to endure. Pday is good to be able to relax and we cleaned our whole house today. And got money figured out what we were going to do with food and such. Stuff is pretty cheap here well that’s a lie some stuff is but yeah it is definitely a crazy experience. But yeah that is funny about parker. He is a little slow. And also about biss he said to me in an e-mail that he is going to still go. We got all sides pushing him. So I think he will go. But yeah I love you all so much hope work is good for dad and school is good for theboys and natali. Do I still have a living 4-legged creature in the backyard? I miss bear so much there are soooo sooo many dogs just running the streets here and a lotof them need to be put our of their misery it is sad. And some of the people here are just so so poor it is hard to see and I have realized so so much how blessed we are in the US and our family. But yeah I love you all so much thanks for the prayers and love. A dear elder would be nice once in while too cause we don’t get them for a long time so they are like GOLD so yeah love you all love nate

MISSIONS ARE TIGHT!!

Well I have been doing great the first few days here, I hope you opened the other email first, if not or it didn’t work I was in all white so you know what that means. I GOT TO BAPTIZE 2 PEOPLE it was so so sweet. But my new companion is Elder Torres from Ecuador, he Is great and I love being with him. He doesn’t speak any English but swear words and a little here and there so we are teaching each other. But ok First when I got to Colombia I slept with 3 other elders from my district and we got here late at night andit was just crazy being in a new country. But they next day we went to get like an ID card and such and we had to get our blood drawn and I was fine during but after like 5 minutes I started getting sick and BOOM I passed out, it was the craziest feeling ever. But I don’t know why cause I have had my blood drawn before. So don’t know why. It was crazy then I was sick for the rest of the day because of it so I had an interview with President and went back to the house with 2 elders and just relaxed until they had a dinner appt. and I ate some corn soup that wasn’t bad. So the next morning I got sent to my area and a bus ride with 4 other elders until I got to a place called TUNJA and got off and 2 other elders picked me up and walked 5 minutes and they put me on another bus alone to a place called Sogomoso. It was nuts but it was kinda cool cause I got to see a lot of country and see how fortunate we are at home. I never have realized what I took for granted. But when I got to Sogomoso I was lost for like 10 minutes before some guy said hey your companions are inside the station. So I finally found them. There are 4 of us living in a house and they just moved into it about 2 weeks ago. So it is pretty nice I guess. But it is me, Elder Torres, Elder Jimenez, and elder Williams from Las Vegas. I was pretty happy to have him here because he has been here a month and can understand Spanish and I cant so it has been way good and he is exactly like me. So I am sure you will meet him one day cause he loves to be on the lake.  but anyway I got to the house and took my jacket off and out the door we went to an appt. he wasn’t there but the neighbor next door was home and we taught her and her 2 sons lesson one. I was astounded I hadn’t been here 20 minutes and we were teaching. But it was good. Spanish is hard to understand but I pick more and more up every day. It is tight. But later that night we went and taugh Jose who I didn’t know but had a baptism Saturday and we taught him the WOW and Law of Chastity. Then we went to the Familia de Perez who also had baptism dates for Saturday. But I didn’t know cause I don’t understand much. But then it was a run home because we needed to be back on time.
Anyway we taught more and I have eaten some pretty sick food. It is not as good as everybody says but I am getting more used to it and being able to choke it down. Haha but yeah I got to baptize on Saturday and It was amazing. I baptized the mom and the youngest girl. I didn’t mess up either I just needed help with the names cause they have the name of both their mother and father and we have only our fathers last name. so it was tough but I did it. It was sweet.
Church here is sweet. My area is Bosque 1 and we share the Branch with the other elders and they need 2 more priesthood holders to become a ward so that is our goal. Church here is insane being fast Sunday yesterday tons of people bear their testimonies including me and everybody likes talking to me cause I don’t understand. The people here are so so nice if you talk to them. On the street they are rude.
Water is fine here for the most time cause I have been drinking it and haven’t gotten sick yet. But I still use my bottle I bought.
Thanks for all the prayers. P-day is Monday and so yeah look for letters that day.
Hope Hawaii was good. I am doing great it is was fun, hard, stressful and everything a mission is. We are trying for 30 contacts a day. I hope I answered all your questions. Love you all. I have come to appreciate where I am from sooooooooooooooooooooo much more you have no idea. They don’t have garbage cans here so its just a dump everywhere. Animals in the streets people drive like crazy. Stuff is way cheap I will get some cool stuff for you all. Tell the ward hi. Grandma and grandpa Naegle hi, nobody can pronounce my name it is funny. They all stare at me with my hair. But yeah pretty much it working hard. Tell grandpa and Marie hi. But yeah I am doing great.
Love you all thanks for the prayers sorry if I left something out but we will have eternity to talk about it. We taught the Perez family about temples and being sealed for eternity and they want to go way bad so in May hopefully. They have to talk to President Sanchez, the Branch President, he is way cool and nice. But yeah thank hope all is well. Love nate

Colombia arrival

Good Afternoon from Colombia,



We just wanted to inform you and let you know that all of your sons arrived safely here to Bogotá. Your sons are great young men who are really ready to serve the lord. Even though they haven’t gotten much sleep these past few days your sons are eager to put their shoulder to the will and get to work! You can really tell that they have been raised by good families and we want to thank you for all your work and your support! Colombia is a beautiful country and it is marvelous place to be and especially to do missionary work! The people here are so loving and are so grateful to have North American missionaries again! They are really humble and will give everything they have so that your sons can be comfortable even if it means sacrificing for them. The relationship that your sons make will be life long, and the missionary experience will really improve their social skills. It is really a blessing that your sons are here in Colombia and will be able to learn and speak Spanish! It will be a blessing not only to the people here in Colombia, but it will be a blessing to them throughout and after the mission as they take this with them into positions of leadership in the church, and work in the outside world! We just want you to know that your sons will always be protected and that Colombia is really a safe place. We have received more than twenty North Americans here in the mission and a lot of them have already finished their mission and we just want you to know that nothing has ever happened to them, in fact most of them didn´t even want to leave! Thanks again for everything and your support will be a great help to the Elders in their development of becoming an effective instrument in the hands of the lord.

P.S. Here below I have attached a picture of the Elders after our breakfast that we had together this morning.

Una Brazo Fuerte,

Hernando Camargo


Presidente Misión Bogotá Norte

Letter March 27, 2009

Dear Family,
First off I got my flight plans! There was great joy in the district when we got them. Parker leaves the same day 5 minutes later then I. We go to Atlanta at 8:30. Parker is flying to New York but also goes to Bogota. Kind of strange we aren't on the same flight but I guess it was cheaper for him to go to NY.
I am doing pretty well here. We taught lesson 2: the plan of salvation. It went pretty well. It is pretty amazing how well we have been to learn a language here. I bet I am humbled once I get to Colombia but that is ok. Main point here is to be able to teach so you don't just sit there in lessons for the first month you are there.
I am excited to go. I have enjoyed the MTC a lot more than I thought I would. I have such a great district. We all get along well and will remain friends forever. I also have two AWESOME teachers. Hermano Farrell and Hermano Allen. They are both so good and I got really lucky in that sense. They are both very excited and enthusiastic about missionary work. It gets me excited.
Thank you for all the letters and support. I love and miss you all but this work needs to be done. There is a sign in the health clinic that says: Missionary(noun) someone who leaves their family for a short time so that others can be with their families forever.
So no need to worry I will be back before you know it. Thank you for making me work hard Mom and Dad. You can tell some people here don't like to.
Natali, thanks for always being a good example to me in living the way your supposed to. It means alot. I encouraged the boys to re-read JS history and would encourage you to do the same.
Dad I know your super busy but I hope you take the time to thank the Lord that you are so busy. You have a brilliant mind and get to use it and with the economy you still have lots of work which is awesome. Also we have to teach tithing this week. Thank you for always making it easy to pay tithing through your example.
Mom thanks for everything. You're simply the greatest!! Thanks for keeping the dog around. I know he is a pain.
Love you all thanks for all you do.
Love,
Nathan

No Visa!!

Nate just called and did not get his visa so he will not be leaving Monday. The last group didn't get them either but they came on Monday and they sent them Tues. That is what Nate is hoping for. I will update when I hear. Thanks for your prayers in Nate's behalf. I will try to get last weeks letter on tonight as well.
Marsha