Carly is a big 9 yr old!

Aloha Sister Nielsen,
 
How is everything going?  I hope you are getting that fire back in you for these last 4 months.  This is your sprint to the finish.  We had a pretty good week.  I went hunting elk on Wed. but did not see any thing and again on Sat. with Cody.  We heard a cow and bull but we were not sure if they were hunters or not.  My season for elk ends today so I will probably have tag soup for lunch.  I was really looking forward to this hunt, but with my truck problems, I only made it out 4 days.  Not enough to find a bull elk in the Ruby mountains.  It is all good though.  A bad day of hunting is still better than a good day at work.  Cody and I love getting out and seeing new mountains and new areas and enjoying the great outdoors.
 
We facetimed with Whitney last night and I guess Tricia is now having second thoughts about being baptized.  When Satan gets a person away from the spirit, he gets his claws in there and starts putting in doubts, etc.  Tricia was wondering if she could just go to church when she wants to and have God in her life, but not get baptized and make all those commitments and changes to her life.  Sounds like a easy way of life and the Father of all lies talking in her ear.  But we will see.  She has only had 1 lesson and been to church 4 or 5 times.  Perhaps general conference will inspire some more spiritual moments and the desire to change.  We asked Whitney if she ever had doubts, and she said yes she did, but Tricia does not have the support group like she did with us.  Whit said, Tricia only gets that support group 1 a week on Sundays with the Owens, where as Whit got her support group every day with us.  It is very interesting how the opposition works.  He separates the individual from the light of this world and then starts pouring in doubts, etc.  But Whit had a great day at the Oklahoma temple and enjoyed it very much.  While we were talking, Erin said , she has to keep reminding herself that Whit has only been a member for less that 2 months as she talks and her language is as if she has been a member her entire life.  She really has grasped this gospel like every new convert should.  We had family scriptures with her and family prayer over face time.  It  is neat how she feels like part of our family.  Adelaide asked her last night if she would come to her house again some day.  Addie really likes her.
 
Well Cody's team went to Fallon on Friday to play Fallon in football and Elko got crushed.  Both teams were undefeated and Fallon won 48-20, but they had  or 3 more touchdowns called back due to penalties.  Cody played decent, but their defensive backs got torn up.  They made all their touchdowns on long pass plays mostly down the sidelines.  They exposed our weaknesses.  Now we have Lowry this week who is also undefeated.  So we need to win this game at home this Friday.  He got home at 3:30 am and we got up at 4 to leave to go hunting at 4:30am.  We were both so tired Sat. night that we kneeled down to have family prayer and he and I did not wake up.  Connie said she tried to wake us up,  but I did not hear a word.  I woke up at around 10:30 or 11:00 pm and everyone else including Cody had gone to bed.  That was a long prayer, almost 1.5 hours. 
 
Carly had her b-day on Thurs. and is now 9 years old.   She had her bday party on Sat. 
 
Mom is not doing too well.  I don't know if I told you or not, but she fell a couple weeks ago and her sodium level was low and now she is in one of those assisted living places.  She can't get up on her own and has to have help now with  everything.  I believe she will be 87 on Oct. 19.   The other day I guess she was a little confused and told sharon that every one of her boys had visited her except for Cleon (but I didn't make it over there) and that she had an interview with the mission president.  I guess in her mind she is still on a mission.
 
I believe that is all the news I can think of for now.  Erin only has like 82 more days until she leaves for Peru.  We love you and always pray for you.  The Jensens said they were going to go to Hawaii some time and take you and your comp out for lunch.  They were going to get permission from your mission president.  I don't remember when they were going to do that as they are waiting for their own mission call.
 
Have a super week.  We are really looking forward to general conference this weekend. 
 
Love you,
 
Dad

My Dearest Sis. Nielsen,

Aloha!  It's been a fun week.  In Adelaide's preschool group this week, the mom that was the teacher for the week is married to a police officer, so they learned about the letter "p" and got to have a police car come to their  house and they got to look/sit inside it. She will be turning 4 years old soon, but she still likes to rub her Mom's tummy-- silly girl.

Carly  had a couple of basketball games this week and she gets better in each game.  She now steals the ball.  She is a very unselfish player and passes the ball a lot, mostly to the selfish player on the team, so we told her not to do that anymore.  She reminds me a lot of you when I watch her play.  

She had fun on her birthday, she requested Chinese Coleslaw for dinner, another similarity.  I think I made that on a few of your B-days as I recall.  We had her party of  Saturday afternoon and she really looked forward to it, she had been making plans and lists of who she was going to invite for the last 3 wks.  The party didn't have a real theme except pink and black zebra stripes.  She wanted a pinata, but I didn't have time to make one, and you can only find them now at Roys and the Mexican markets, and they are really fancy and cost 20.00.  I didn't want to spend that much money, I told Carly I would rather spend that money on her.  So, we improvised... we used a paper gift bag, filled it with the candy, hung it from some string, dangled it from the tetherball pole and let the girls bash the heck out of it.  It was perfect!

Dad told you about Cody's football game.  We considered going over to Fallon to watch it, but we would have gotten home at 2 am, and Dad was going hunting early the next day, so we listened to it on the radio.

Elder Sanft stopped in to see us.  He and his companion were here for zone conference.  He enjoyed talking football with Cody.  We showed him the video of Erin reading her call and Dad's reaction.  He thought that was so funny, he had to watch it twice.  I asked them if watching that brought back memories of when they opened up their calls and Elder Sanft said yes, but his Dad didn't give him a high five.

Did you enjoy the RS General Broadcast?  Erin got time off work and went with me.  The brethren on the high council served us dinner after.  

How are things on your island?

Erin talked to her boss at Spoon Me and I think you have a job when you get home.  Yeah, keep the free yogurt flowing!

I love you,

Mom