Nate's Letter Home - March 26, 2018

March has flown by. It´s hard to believe it´s already the Final Four. I see that my boys in Kansas are still in it. They´re probably going to choke though. It´s classic Kansas to get a number 1 seed every year and then choke. I also hear the Jazz are doing good, I think I heard they´re in 5th place in the West, which is pretty cool. Also somebody told me about some school shootings? I still don´t really know what happened. It´s kinda weird to have no idea what´s going on in the States. We get asked about Trump like everyday and what we think about him and what he´s doing, and we have to tell them we have no idea what´s going on over there, but they never believe us. People here definitely do not like Trump, to say the least.

So last Monday we moved and it was a huge pain. We only moved like 3 blocks away but it still sucked. The new pensh is pretty nice though. It´s pretty big and we even have a pool out back haha. We don´t know if it works though. We´re thinking about cleaning it out and having a baptism in it haha, we think that would be pretty dope.


So the family of 9 we found are amazing. The 14 year old, Kevin, and the 11 year old, Uriel, are capos. They are some of the smartest kids I´ve ever met. When we went by last Tuesday, they had both already read 15 chapters in the book of mormon, and they had a lot of good questions for us. They also know a ton about the Bible, probably more than I do. They are a really humble family. Their house is made out of wooden crates, boards, and garbage bags and with thin sheets of tin for their roof. It´s just one room and is really small. They have 4 mattresses crammed together on one half where they all sleep and the other half is a kitchen area. They used to go to a Evangelista church and they told us that one time the pastor came to visit them and once he saw how the house was he refused to go in and never came back. Obviously that made them feel really bad and so they´re really grateful that we´re willing to visit them. Friday night we were visiting them and it started to rain really hard. Pretty much everything was getting wet because water was coming through the spaces in the roof and walls. They have a dirt floor too so it became really muddy. We were all sitting on the beds, which was the most dry part of the house. Then out of nowhere one of the sheets of metal on the roof snapped and this huge wave of water came down and landed right on the baby who was asleep on one of the mattresses. The baby started crying like crazy and the mom tried to dry him off while we tried to help the dad fix the roof. There wasn´t really anything we could do though so we all just huddled in the part of the house that was still relatively dry. It was very sad to see because this is what they go through everytime it rains. It was a very humbling experience.

Then on Sunday it was like 9:15 and they still hadn´t showed up to church so we were pretty bummed. But then the stake president overheard us talking with the other elders about them and he instantly was like ¨Vamos a buscarlos¨. So Elder Nash went with him in his car to look for them. When they came back Elder Nash told me that they´re weren´t able to come because all of their clothes and everything got completely soaked from the rain saturday night. The stake president talked with the family for a little bit though and he seems determined to help them. He said this family will be a blessing for our ward. So after church he went and talked to our bishopric about them, and now the relief society presidency is going to go visit them to see what they need. The elders quorom is going to visit as well and help out however they can. We´re pretty excited.

So to answer your question, the other two elders in our area are Elder Pierce and Elder Bizama. Elder Pierce is from California and he was in my group in the MTC. Elder Bizama is from Chile. They are actually a lot of Latino missionaries in our mission. This is my first time living with one, and it´s really cool because I get a lot more spanish practice in.

As for my new address, I have no clue. I don´t know any of the addresses here haha. I´ll have to get that for you next week.

Oh and for mom, my comp´s first name is Peter.

Have a good week,
-Elder Shelton

Nate's Letter Home - March 19, 2018

Well to start out, Francicso Álvarez is amazing. There are four elders here and the area is split into 2 parts, A and B. I`m in A with Elder Nash. He´s an awesome dude from Utah. He went to Cottonwood. It was funny because when I told him I was from Cache Valley and that I went to Mountain Crest he asked me if I knew Jake Clark and Josh Allen. I told him I´ve been good friends with them for a long time. Apparently he met them at this thing called Boys State and he thought they were awesome. I thought it was pretty funny that he happened to know them.

Before I go on though I want to talk a little about my last day in Mariano. At the end of the day we tried to go by all the converts one last time. We tried Gaston first but unfortunately he wasn´t there so I didn´t get to say goodbye to him. Then we went by Martin and talked with him for a bit. That one wasn´t that hard for me, he was in the park playing soccer so basically I just took a picture with him and that was it. Then we called Karina to see if she was home. She wasn´t so I just told her that I was leaving in the morning and wanted to say goodbye. When I said I was leaving she told me that she would hurry home right then and to meet her in her house in half an hour. We got there and she made us eat dinner with her. At the end I tried to share a scripture but it turned out to be pretty hard. She read the scripture and I got about 6 words in before I started to cry. I had definitely not planned on crying (it was the first time i´ve cried on the mission). I pretty much had lost the ability to talk so luckily Elder Abrams helped me out and did the talking. After that we had to go to familia Flores. I was determined not to cry again but they made it really hard on me. We sat down in there house and the mom started going off about how much me and Elder Pietz helped them and how we were persistent with them even though they were going through a lot of challenges and that we will always have a special connection because I baptized their daughter. She said a lot more stuff to which was not making it easy for me haha. I was able to keep it under control tho until Gabriela started crying and that was what finally did me in. We kinda just sat there for several minutes while everyone cried and the mom and Gabriela made me promise about 10 times that I wouldn´t forget them and that I would come back to see them. Luckily Elder Abrams helped me out again and shared the scripture this time. They also gave me a gift bag with a bottle of lotion and socks in it haha. It was all they had and it is now my favorite gift I´ve ever gotten. I also gave them a photo from the baptism and signed the back of it and they immediately went and framed it. So basically it was kinda a rough night.

Luckily I`ve already met a ton of amazing people in my new area. I would say overall this area is even more poor than my last one, and the people here are really friendly. We´re on bikes by the way, because the area is huge. It was really weird for me at first because I was used to walking all day, and I haven´t rode a bike in a few years. I also found out that riding a bike uses some different muscles than walking because my legs are pretty sore. The bikes are pieces of crap and I´ve already had to spend a lot on repairs haha. In fact, after this I have to go buy a new chain because mine snapped last night. That was an adventure because it was already dark and we were about an hour walk from the pensh. So basically I had to skateboard push my bike all the way back, it was very tiring. There was an added level of difficulty because we got hammered by rain all saturday night and sunday morning, so most of the streets were basically rivers. That reminds me that I got absolutely soaked on the way to church yesterday because I rode through what I thought was just a big puddle but it turned out to be a huge ditch and I fell off and ended up standing in water up past my knees. The bikes are definitely a work out because most of the roads are dirt, and have a ton of rocks and holes. 

So saturday night we had a cool experience. We got a text from president for everyone to go by old investigators that had attended church in the past that could be baptized this next saturday. So we were trying to go buy this one family but we ended up getting kinda lost and it was already getting dark. We tried asking this lady that was standing outside her house where we were. She didn´t say anything and just went inside. A few seconds later this guy walks out, and says that he had been waiting for us. We were really confused because we didn´t know this guy at all. It turns out he talked with elders in Moreno over a month ago and that they told him they would send some other elders to his house. Well, we went along with it and asked if we could come in and visit with him. He was like yeah, come meet my family, I´ve got 7 kids. That definitely perked our interest. The second we walked in the door we got swarmed by little kids hugging us and going crazy. To make a long story short, we taught a really good lesson and now have a baptismal date with the 3 kids that are old enough to be baptized. (Turns out the dad was baptized when he was really yound and hasn´t been active since.)

Well I gotta go. We´re moving to a different pensh so we gotta go pack up everything...again. Oh btw, apparently our mission baptized the most people in February out of all the south american missions, so that´s pretty cool. Anyway, have a good week everybody.

-Elder Shelton

Nate's Letter Home - March 12, 2018

Me Voy

Well, my time in Mariano Acosta has come to an end. Tomorrow I´ll be going to Francisco Álvarez which is in the stake of Luján. My new comp will be Elder Nash. He´s from Utah too, I´ve met him once before and he seems like a pretty cool dude. I´m going to miss Mariano Acosta so much though. It´s really hard to leave. I can´t believe I´ve spent over 4 months here, it really flew by. Last night I visited la familia Flores (my first baptism). I told them I was leaving and they were pretty upset. Gabriela and her younger sisters drew a picture for me, it was pretty cool. They reminded me that I need to print off the picture from the baptism for them, so I´m going to do that today, which means I get to see them at least one last time. I think it´s going to be really hard. The older sister Sofia asked me if I had Facebook or Instagram that she could follow but unfortunately I don´t. I told her I´ll be sure to do that when I get back. I´m going to try and visit my other 3 converts today also.



I´m also going to really miss Elder Abrams. He´s one of the coolest dudes ever and we´ve had a good time this transfer. He´s going to be training someone new. We have a lot of great investigators and I´m sure he´ll be baptizing a lot in Mariano. He´ll be going to Utah State after the mission so we´ve decided we will meet again in the Taco Bell in Logan.

So yesterday for lunch we had an asado with familia Garcete for my last sunday and it was amazing. I don´t know if I´m mentioned this family before, but I´ve eaten lunch with them every sunday here. Anyway, we a TON of meat and it was amazing. I probably ate enough protien for the entire week. I´ll try to send some pictures of it.

Well, I´m sorry this is so short, but I honestly don´t know much more to say. It feels really weird to be leaving, this place feels like home. I´m sure I´ll have a lot more to tell you about next week about my new area and everything. 

Until then, disfruten su semana.

¨Don´t worry, Be happy.¨ - Bob Marley


-Elder Shelton​

Nate's Letter Home - March 5, 2018

Los Susurros del Espìritu

Well it´s been another week. I guess I´ll get right to it and start off with one of the coolest experiences I´ve had so far.

It was wednesday night, about 7:30 and already starting to get dark. It was also raining. We had just left a house of an investigator and were about to go down this one road but then my comp said we should go down a different road. For some reason that sounded like a good idea to me, so we did. We were walking really fast because we were trying to get to Karina´s house for dinner at 8, and we were trying not to get completely soaked. After a while of walking we suddenly heard somebody say something to us as we walked by. My first thought was that it was just another drunk guy and I was pretty tired of talking with them and we didn´t have time. But when we turned around and saw the guy sitting on the ground by his gate, I instantly knew this guy needed help. We crouched down next to him and we listened. We learned his name is Juan. He is struggling to know his purpose. He asked us ¨¿Qué es la vida?¨. He said he goes to work, pulls out money from the bank, spends money, and repeat. He wanted to know the purpose of it. He said he has everything he needs, a job, money, etc, but he felt so empty inside and thinks there must be something more. He said he was tired, but not physically, he was tired in his alma. Like there was a hole inside of him that needed to be filled. He was sitting outside because he had just had a fight with his family and was told to leave and not come back until he calmed down. Turns out he was seriously thinking about killing himself, but while he was sitting there he saw us walk by and cried out to us in one last desperate hope. We talked to him a lot about the plan of salvation and shared a bit of our testimonies with him. He kept apologizing for keeping us out in the rain and getting our stuff wet, but we assured him that this is what we´re here for. He was overcome with emotion after we talked with him for a bit, and we could some happiness in his eyes. We gave him a book of mormon and a plan of salvation pamphlet and he said he is excited to read them. He was so grateful that we stopped to talk with him. It was an amazing experience. We stopped by the pensh on the way to dinner and we immediately went upstairs and wrote about it in our journals. On the way to dinner we talked about how many tiny little decisions we had to make that day to end up in that one street at that exact time. It´s pretty unbelievable. Well long story short, we weren´t able to find him again until last night. We had another great lesson with him. He says he can feel peace when we talk with him and he has already read quite a bit in the book of mormon. I think he´ll definitely get baptized but I probably won´t be here to see it.

So on thursday our zone had a competition to see who could do the most baptismal invitations that day. (The invitation has to include a specific date). Well pretty much all of our citas fell that day so we spent most of the day inviting people to be baptized the 17 of march. Long story short we ended up doing 32 invitations. The daily goal is to do 12, so 32 was quite a bit. Well we ended up winning and our reward was we got to pick our own hashtag that the zone leaders would put at the end of every text message that they sent to the zone. We chose

#InvitenaTodosaSerBautizadosParaQueUstedesPuedanLlegarASerComoAbramsyShelton. 

Well, the zone leaders told us that was too long so we had to choose a shorter one haha.

I forgot to mention that on tuesday we had a party in Ramós Mejía with almost the whole mission to celebrate our 93 baptisms in February. There was a lot of games, like volleyball, soccer, basketball, and ping pong. It turns out I still have my ping pong skills. After we ate lunch and we watched Kung Fu Panda 3. It was in english for some reason, which was kinda weird, but I´m not complaining.

Alrighty I could say a lot more but I´m about out of time. Have a good week everybody!

-Elder Shelton

PS:  I forgot to mention that yesterday for lunch we ate with a family and the mom is from Mexico. Last time we ate with her we dropped a lot of hints that we love mexican food and that we miss it. So yesterday she made us some food that she and her family would eat all the time in mexico. It was amazing! I can´t remember the name of it though. Also I realized that it was the first time I´d eaten beans my whole time in Argentina. I´ve missed them a lot. She also had some spicy salsa that was really good.