Missionary transfers in the mind of a 7 year old

So we had a phone call Thursday from an Elder that had served here 2 years ago. He was coming back to Fallon for the weekend and wanted to come by sometime. We have had some great missionaries come thru here, he being one of them, and always love to see them again! Anyhow, I was telling the kids that Elder Fugate was going to come over for dinner Sunday and visit a little bit, asked if they remembered who he was, etc.
Nathan looks at me with this very puzzled look on his face. After a minute he says, "Isn't he dead?"
I never expected that to come out of his mouth! After a little bit of talking, apparently Nathan thinks that when missionaries 'leave Fallon' or are 'transferred' or 'go home'....they die.
So we had a nice teaching moment and now (hopefully) understands that none of our missionaries are dead.

On a side note, I have learned that when a missionary goes home from an area, they say that he died there and also that their companion killed them. So I guess in a small, unknown way, Nathan was right! We do seem to send a lot of missionaries home that serve here. (Their 2 years are up, not that they get in trouble and go home!)