Dropped the (basket)ball last week

Dear Sister Nielsen,
 
Hello, how is every thing going with your 2 companions and 2 areas? We had another busy week.  It seemed like every thing was gearing up for last weekends basketball games. 
 
We went to Vegas on Friday, Cody played at 4:30 pm and Erin played after that.  Spring Creek girls played before the Elko boys and they beat their opponent handedly, so they were playing on Sat. for the State Championship game.  Cody's team played Clark a school from Vegas that was just dropped down this year to compete in the 3a or now 1A division with Elko.  Their record was 28-2.  The only games they lost were to a team from Arizona and last weekend in the Regional Championship games to Desert Pines another team who played in the 4a regional championship last year.  Clark had alot of big tall black players.  I think they only had one white guy on the team and he was a good shooter.  The Reno newspaper game Elko less than a 5% chance of getting into the championship game.  Before the game before the refs got on the court, almost everyone of the Clark players were slam dunking the ball.  It was like a slam dunk contest.  But Elko came out and played pretty well. I think we were a little hesitant at 1st and only had a couple of baskets in the 1st quarter and we were behind by I think 6 points.  But then we started to play with more confidence and we were tied at 15 a piece and also at 23 points each.  Clark made a small run at the end of the 1st half and was up by 6 points I believe.  But Elko played well and did not back down.  I believe we were close through out the rest of the game.  We were down by 2 points with 1 or 2 minutes left and we had the ball.  I believe Nathan Klekas got fouled and missed both free throws.  And then we got the ball back with 30 seconds, still down by 2 and Elko called time out.  They drew up a play and Brandon Jenkins had it down by the base line and they stole the ball from him.  We had to foul them and they made both their free throws and we missed a shot on the other end.  Cody got called for an intentional foul at the end with 1.3 seconds to go, and the guy hit 1 out of 2 and we lost by 5 points.  But it was alot closer than 5 points.  But Elko played well, and Cody played well defensively.  He only took 2 shots, his first running jumper was blocked and then he about banked in a 3 pointer from the top of the key.  But he was guarding a senior on their team and did a good job shutting him down.  He looked a little quicker and the knee did not bother him too much.
 
Erin's game, they played faith Lutheran from Vegas who was another 4a school that got dropped down to 3a this year.  Erin had the 1st 3 points of the game and did not score again.  Her shooting has been off every since she injured her shoulder.  But Elko basically got out coached and out played by the other team.  Elko let one girl hit like 4 3-pointers and did not know where she was on the court.  Faith had 3 players who were pretty good and could play bball.  But Elko lost by 11 points.
 
So we picked up the 2 kids from the hotel and drove home on sat.  I thought the Rocky Mtn Elk Foundation was in vegas, and stopped into a hotel to check it out, but it was next week and at a different hotel.  So I was all mixed up.  We left vegas around 10:30 and got back to elko about 6:30 pm.  We had stake conference and mom and I went to stake conference at 7 and we had the entire state of NV on Sunday and M. Russell Ballard spoke to us from SLC.
 
Pres. Shumway said we usually have 20 missionaries out in the stake and in the last 3 week 11 have got their calls.  Landon Welch is going to Florida, Cameron Steflik to England, the Patten boy from SC to Paraguay and Scott Nisbet to Mexico.  So they are all excited.  He also said Elko is going to have 18 missionaries in Elko serving this area.  1 set for each branch and ward and 1 ward will get 2 sets.  Owyhee and Eureka will also have their own set. 
 
The church announced FRiday that 58 new missions will be created in countries where we are already serving.
 
The work is hastening.
 
We love you and are grateful you are on a mission.  May the Lord bless all your efforts.
 
Love Dad.

My Dear Sweet, Amazing, Aloha Girl,

   Hey, sorry I really dropped the ball, last week.  We had New Beginnings last Sun. night, which Erin did most of the planning for as part of her 10 hr. project for Divine Nature, and so I didn't get my letter written that night.  On monday I was digging out after the LV weekend and by the time Dad came home for lunch, he had a print out of your letter already in hand.  I thought, (using a quote from Sis. N.) "What the heck?"  'Already? I haven't written yet!'  So, that's my lame-o excuse. You will just have two letters from me this week.  Ok, I know you want to hear about Vegas.  Well to get straight to the point--we lost.  Both teams lost in the friday night semi-finals game.  Girls played first, Erin came out shooting and scored the first 3 pts., and didn't score again.  She played well and didn't seem affected by the shoulder at all.  We played Faith Lutheran, the same team that beat us down there in soccer.  They were good, but we could have done better.  I'm sure Dad explains in his game analysis why we don't win.  He says we don't have an offense that creates open looks, we don't sub to our teams advantage and we get out-coached every time. That's about it.  We lost by 11pts but we hung with them through most of the game.  The boys played Clark, a big black team.  They were dunking during the warm-ups before the refs came in.  We played right with them, even leading, but in the final minutes we were down 2 pts and we had a turn over and then we had  to foul them in desperation.  Cody played really great defense.  He was all over Sir Washington, that's the name of the point guard he shut down-- he's going to a D-1 college next year.  Code didn't score, that could have been the difference but, I think he lacks some confidence in that department.  There was a lot of 

Elko support there-- lots of fans, the band, cheerleaders and dance team.  It was a great atmosphere.

     Choke miracle!  our fridge is working again!  They quoted us  $500. something to fix it.  They said it was all froze up inside the control board, and would need to be replaced.  Well, we totally thawed it out and then plugged it back in and BAM it worked, I love blessings!  I forgot to tell you that when we were in Calif. and we were talking to the missionaries serving there and we asked if they knew an Elder Sandall and they said, yea, he's actually AP right now, in Rocklin(mission office) That's the exit we take when we go to Grams.  He goes home in June.
     Addie story:  She had been watching Little Rascals yesterday and so she kept quoting all evening, "I hate your stinkin' guts".  I told her that didn't sound like a very nice thing to say, you shouldn't say
 that, so then she said "I hate your stinkin'... goodness".   (she'll always say, "we don't say,'oh, my gosh,'  we say 'oh, my goodness' ")  

   I'll have to let Erin tell you the details of how Landon asked her to Prom and how she answered him.  We will be doing some dress shopping, since she's been saving her "Prom dress purchase" for this occasion.  Oh, and bummer-- she didn't make all-state choir, she said none of the altos did.  Hope your new recruits have arrived and that you can get back to one zone.  Have a fabulous week!

Love, Mom

PS thanks for the sweet little personal email message.