Amber's Home!

Hola,
 
We hope everything is going well for you in Peru.  This past week was a fun one.  We were gearing up for Amber to get home.  We have had lots of car issues.  At one point, the only cars that worked were the bug and the trooper.  The suburban worked but we could not get it out of the garage and the other cars were blocking it in.  I put new batteries in the van and the camry and that got them working.  Then when it rained real hard last week, mom went through a puddle of water and it must of knocked off the serpentine belt as it was over heating and we lost the power steering.  I told brother Hiles about it and he said it sounded like a belt.  Well I looked underneath and the belt was hanging on the ground.  So I watched a few videos on youtube and I was able to replace the belt and it works fine now.  The truck had 2 dead batteries and I took them and got them charged and it works fine now.  So we are up and running with all our vehicles and they work fine now.  But I spent all my spear time last week working on cars.
 
Tuesday night Elko played spring creek in bball. The boys won by 21, but spring creek played hard and tough.  The girls lost again by about 10 points.  It was tied with 2 1/2 minutes to go in the game and Elko missed a shot and spring creek made it and then we started fouling and lost by 10.  So Spring creek was in 1st place.  Friday SC played Lowry and they girls team lost, so that put Elko girls back in 1st place. We went to  Play Lowry at Lowry on Sat.  If both teams won they would both take 1st place.  But both the girls and boys Elko teams lost on Sat.  The girls lost by 8 and the boys lost by 5.  So both Elko teams tied for 1st but Lowry girls and boys will be seated 1st in the regional tourny this weekend as they won the last head to  head game.  The boys team did not play very well.  They only had 4 points at the end of the 1st quarter.  There was a winn. ref. one of the 2 brothers that Chris had banned from referreeing his games and he made so questionable calls in the last 2 minutes all against Elko that made a big difference.  We were tied and Nate stole the ball and was going in for the layup and he called him for double dribble.  Coach Klekas got a technical foul called on him.  But it is better that we lose that game and win the next 4 to get the lose out of our system.  Elko host regionals this weekend, so it will be a totally different ball game.  We need 4 more wins and we will be state champs.
 
Cody played well against spring creek, he was 2 for 2 3 pointers and 1 for 1 2 pointers but missed his free throw 0-1.  He shot 100% from the field and 0% from free throw line for 8 points.  Against Lowry, he did not have any points, shot 3-4 times, 2 of them were over a 6'10" and he had to adjust his shot and he missed.  But he went in 4 minutes into the 1st quarter and played the entire game after that.  He was guarding Calvin Conors and did a good job.  Calvin did not score on him, he only scored when other players were guarding him.
 
And Friday, I Amber got home.  The 3 younger girls were very excited to see her.  We all were excited to see her.  She was suppose to get in at 11:25, but the plane was about 20 minutes late.  We had Kylee olsen there to take pictures.  I took the day off of work.  But she looked really good and was a very effective missionary.  I did not realize that sister missionaries change and mature as well.  She has changed from the inside out.  It was a hard day for her, she loved her mission and loved being a missionary and did not want that to end.  We came home and hung out and visited for about 4 hours and then we went over to the Olsens to watch Kylee open up her mission call.  She is going to Rochester New York mission on April 30th and will be serving in the Hill Cumorah Visiting center.  That sounds like a fun mission and I am sure she will be great.  Then we met President Lewis at 6 at the stake center for him to release Amber.  He visited with her for about 1.5 hours, that was extremelly hard for amber to be released.  He called  mom and I into his office after he met with her and he asked me to give her a father's blessing to help her with her adjustment.
 
After that, the 2nd ward was having a ward party and we went in to say hi to all of them.  When Amber walked through the gym door, there was a polynesian couple sitting in there and her eyes immediately zero in on that family.  I am sure she will love all the islanders just like I love all the south americans.
 
It was fun, we were all tired that night.  Sunday we had a good day at church.  It was the high councilman talking and it was Brother David Pulley, and He talked in Dec. when you were giving your farewell talk.. He said he must have to talk every time the Nielsen family had a missionary going or coming.  Amber will give her report next week in church.  About 8 of her missionary buddies are going to come over and stay with us for that.  I know sharon and Brian and Cameron are going to come over as well.  I believe DeeRay and Charlene want to come as well.  So it should be a great weekend.  Bob Peppin is getting baptized next Sat. at 3 pm.  And I talked to Serima Thompson from SC and she is getting baptized on March 8th.  So there is a lot of good things happening here.  Elder MIller is going home this week as well, He has served in the Elko 3rd ward for 9 months.
 
Well we love you and are happy you are on a mission.  You need to write you family more so we know what is going on with you and more of your experiences.  We hope you are learning the language better and you are getting more fluent.
 
Have a super week,
 
Love DAD 

Dearest Hermana Nielsen,

Well, what a week it has been, the highlight of course being the triumphant return of Sister Nielsen!  I got all the kids out of school and we went over to the airport about 11am.  It was only our family and Kylee Olsen who came and took pictures of the event.  We didn't invite anyone or announce it/facebook post it because the handbook says you shouldn't have big groups of  people at the airport when a missionary comes home.  So, we obeyed.  It was so great.  She walked through those doors and I was the first one to hug her.  She looked so good.  Happy and a little sad at the same time.  She had a bag of leis that she was carrying and so she gave Dad and I flowered lei that members had given her before she left and she gave the kids kukui nut necklaces.  When we walked out of the airport the first thing she said was, "It's so brown here".  We don't  have any snow so it is kind of dull looking outside.  She is freezing too, and it was a record 60 degrees over the weekend.  We went straight to Papa Murphys and got heart shaped pizzas for lunch.  It was funny when we were going back to the car she stopped behind the car and said to Dad,  "I'll back ya".  Hard habits to break.  She didn't get released until 6pm that night, which I think was kind of a blessing because she had a hard time letting go of that name tag, so I think those extra hours she got to keep it on were appreciated.  Pres. Lewis had us come in after meeting with her first, which took nearly an hour.  He had already released her because her name badge was sitting there on the table and she was obviously emotional about it.  Sooo, hard this transition to post mission life, especially when the missionary gave so much and really left it all out there.  We talk a lot and she shares with us a lot more about Hawaiian culture than we ever got from letters.  I gave her her phone back :(  so she has been calling a lot of former missionaries and looking on facebook.  Sister Wright was actually visiting HI with her parents when she was leaving and met her at the airport.  She will be coming out next week with a bunch of other Sisters and Elders from the mission for Amber's homecoming talk.  I think we are having some of the family come too.  I don't know where we will put everyone, but we will make it work.

I didn't  get the Lamby room all cleaned out, so that is what we are doing today, so she can get her stuff put away in there.  I wanted to have that all done before she got here, but it's OK, it will keep her busy for a while.  She has been checking out your Ipod, since she never used one before, so between her and the little girls sneaking it, I got nothin'!

Here's how the rest of the week went:  Tues. was the SC game.  Girls lost by 8 or so.  Dad and I both agree Shay plays too much and doesn't do enough to justify it.  Boys won pretty easily.

Saturday we went over to Lowry.  We thought we were leaving early enough; we got there at the end of the JV and there were no seats.  They don't have't have a very big gym and it was already packed.  We had to sit on the stage next to the band, and so we had drums banging in our ears.  The girls lost, they should have won.  We beat them in Elko convincingly.  They made 12 out of 34 free throws-- pathetic.  The boys lost too!  We just never got our offence going.  We had 4 pts the first quarter.  They only had 7, but it was like that the whole game.  Cody played nearly the whole game because he matched up well against  Calvin Connors.  He said they were going at it a lot.  We didn't notice, but he said they were always giving each other "the shoulder".  That gym sure erupted when it was over.  Klekas said something to their coach after the game that he didn't like.  I think it had something to do with one of the refs who was from Winnemucca who made some bad calls against Nate (cody got a couple too) that could have been the difference in the game.

Oh well, we will play SC in Elko for regionals and then most likely rematch with Lowry on Sat. night.

We will welcome them back to Elko.  

Have a great week,  here's some questions:

What do you eat?

How is your Spanish?

What do you think of Kylee's mission call?

Love, Mom