California weekend

Hola Hermana Nielsen,
 
How was your week?  The one lady who I am friends with on facebook, said that her husband saw you in the temple last week from villa el salvador.  She said her husband lost his job, so they are a little worried right now.  Last week went by super fast.  Carly had a couple of bball games and scored 1 basket in the 1st game and 2 in the 2nd.  But she is unselfish and passes the ball alot.
 
This Friday is homecoming and Cody is one of the 5 finalist for the homecoming king.  He said the only good thing about it is that he got a free lunch out of it.  That is what he told Ms. Rodgers and she said that sounds like your dad. I am not sure what she is thinking, but she does not know me.  We are guessing that Chelsea's comments on food budgets on the chorliers trips is what she is referring to.  She still talks about how Chelsea would come home from those trips Money ahead as she would stuff her purse with buffet items.  Chelsea left a lasting impression on her on how to budget and save money.
 
Cody played Truckee in football on Sat. and Carly had two indar soccer games in Reno on Sat.  Cody had to be at the school before 3 as the bus left at 3 am.  And we were planning on leaving at 6.  We left Chica with the simons in exchange for me taking him and his dad deer hunting this wednesday.  But the papers did not get here until 6:40 am, so mom and I hurried and got the papers done and we were about 2 hours late getting on the road.  Carly played at 11:30 am by Galena and we got there about 1/2 way through the 1st half.  So she played the entire 2nd half.  She did well, she is about the littlest one out there, but she battles with those big girls.  She had some good passes.  Her team won 5 - 0.  They had 3 extra players, and she was suppose to play again at 2:30 pm.  But we told Ramon that we were just going to go to Cody's game at 1:30 and continue on over the hill to Grandma & grandpa Crofts.  It was raining real hard driving over to Reno and the temperature was about 43 degrees.  Cody's team beat Truckee 46-0.  Cody did not do any thing spectacular, but played well.  It was not much of a game and Elko was up by more than 45 points early in the 3rd quarter, so they had a running clock.  The 1st string did not play much the 2nd half.  So then we went to the Crofts.
 
Grandpa, just sits in his chair all day.  He needs to get up and move or he will be less mobile.  We had a really good quick visit.  We stayed at Curtis and Betsy' cottage house next to their.  It was nice.  We went to a 9 am sacretmeeting and that ward was having their ward conference.  Every one told us we should move into their ward.  It was a good meeting.  Then we went to Grams and spent the day there hanging out and visiting.  We got home last night around 10:45 pm.
 
This next week Cody plays Fallon and that is going to be the toughest game of the year.  He is already getting pumped up now for this Friday's game.  I hope we have a great game and beat Fallon. 
 
I have this FitBit thing I wear on my wrist and I have to get in 10,000 steps a day for a challenge. And the other night I was a little short, so I was marching in place and adelaide said, "So, I see you have to go to the bathroom" since I was doing a dance.  She is a character.
 
Amber got a calling in her BYUI ward and Ward family history specialist.  So I don't know what is up with all of our family history, but it must be very important.
 
We love you and are always praying for you.  That Nisler girl (the permanent Elko fan) always asks how erin is doing when we see her.
 
Well work hard, this is a very special time in your life.  Give the Lord all you have.
 
Love
 
DAD

Crazy Kids

Hola Hermana Nielsen,

Well, this past week went by fast.  It seems like the weeks and months fly by.  On Wednesday, Cody asked Leigha Ziezler to home coming.  They were receiving alot of votes for the couple that never was.  Well he broke that for at least 1 dance.  He did the deer hunting invite.  "You would be the deer of my life, if you went to homecoming with me." And he put pictures of his big bucks on the poster board.  For her to say yes, she had to wear a hunter orange vest with a hunter orange hat.  She said yes and wore them all day long, even though it was hot that day.  Cody had a lot of fun doing that.  He was going to ask Reagan Goulding and Kyra Smith, but they both got asked by someone else.  But Leigha seems like a nice girl.  Her parents were happy that Cody asked her.

On Friday night, Cody and his football team played Fernley who was also 2-0 coming into the game.  Elko won 49-28.  Fernley was tough but Elko played well. Cody had to go up against a kid 6'5" tall and about 250 lbs, he was a big boy.  But Cody and Benton did a number on him.  Cody had about 4 unassisted tackles and 3 or 4 assisted tackles.  He is always banged up and bruised after the game.  

Summer is running track at Adobe middle school.  She is running the mile and the 100 meters.  She is the fastest girl on the team.  The only person faster than her is Alex Klekas.  She ran a 6:33 mile last week.  She improved her time by a minute.  But she missed the first track meet as we went to the SLC temple on Saturday for stake temple day.  The youth in out ward went the the SLC temple and did baptisms and confirmations.  That was Summer's first time to the temple to do those ordinances.  We had 14 youth go.  Mom did an endowment session and I went with the youth.  It was fun. When we were leaving the temple we ran into Kap, a Samoan guy from the Polynesian cultural center. I recognized him and stopped and talked to him.  He said he was doing a show over here for some convention group.  I had him flex for Cody.  He was the short little man and had calves the size of my legs.  He was in his sulu and white shirt and tie.  We left Adelaide and Carly with the Gouldings and took, Olivia Goulding with us.  After the temple, we went to Sharons to watch the BYU football game.  They won and are now 4-0.  Then we did some estate things with DeeRay and Sharon and got home around 10:00 pm.  It was a long day as we got up and did the papers and tried to leave by 6 am.

Last week, Adelaide cut her hair again, and mom asked her why she did that and she said she wanted to not have bangs like Carly and Summer.  Mom said they have long bangs. Then she told mom, that "well you should not leave scissors in places where little kids can find them."  So it was moms fault.  I got a kick out of that.

Carly is turning 10 this week and has her first bball game in PAL. 

For out mutual activity, all the youth went to the family history center to learn how to find names, so that was fun.  Last night, we had out standards night, and they brought in this girl who when she was 22 years old, was climbing rocks in St. George UT and went to jump to this rock that looked like it was right in front of her and she fell 40 feet and broke both femurs, arms, back, neck, collar bone and she was paralyzed from her chest down.  That was 10 years ago.  She is married and had a baby a year ago.  But she was very motivational.  And had a great attitude for someone that is a quadriplegic.  She said people ask her why she can still smile and that is because she knows the plan of salvation, etc.  She said she had a "dream" and she saw herself dressed in white sitting across the table from a man dressed in white with some papers on the table, etc and the man was explaining to her what she would have to go through and she said she heard herself say, I am so excited.  In the preexistence, she was excited to accept this challenge in her life.  But she had a beautiful smile and did a wonderful job.

Well, I can't think of any thing else.  Have a super week and keep working hard.  You are on the downward side and the time will even go faster now.  We love you and always pray for you.  Mom met some guy who was your zone leader in your first area and then AP.  He finished up in August and was here in Elko, selling caps and gowns.  His names is Elder Durphy.

Love,

DAD

Busy Life

Hola Hermana Nielsen,

How is every thing this past week?  We hope you had a great week.  This week you will pass your 1/2 way point.  Work hard and enjoy these next 9 months as they will go by very quickly.

Carly started PAL basketball so she has practice this past week.  Carly also went to Reno with Indar to play in a soccer tournament there with the DeArietas.  Her team won both of their games.  Elko's girls soccer team has lost its first 2 games of the year to Truckee and south Tahoe.

 

Elko football beat Sparks on Friday night 50-13 or something like that.  It was 28-6 at the end of the 1st quarter and they tried to play the 2nd string most of the 4th quarter.  Cody did well. Nothing extra ordinary.  Amber stayed to watch his football game and then she left Sat. morning to go to BYUI.  We will miss her.  It was fun having her around. We went to bed at midnight and cody and I got up at 3:15 am to go elk hunting with Bob Hayes.  We saw a few elk with a spike trying to cross the road into the conservancy - no tresspassing area, and about 150 elk on the property which we could not hunt.  We drove around and checked guzzlers in the area and a little fresh elk sign, but nothing was bugleing.  It was very hot still and I think most of the elk are where we can't hunt.  We did not see or hear anything except for where we could not hunt.  Bob had been in the areas where he took us last year and said there were all kinds of elk in those areas.  But not this year.  We hiked 15.38 miles for the day, but they were easy miles.  It is still fun just getting out and seeing new country.  His hunt ends tomorrow for elk, so I am not sure if we are going to make it out again or not.

 

Yesterday was a good day. Ozzy Moreno got baptized yesterday by Jacob Conklin, but Cody and I were out hunting, so we missed it.  Yesterday in church, I was able to confirm him a member of the church, and in our Priesthood meetings, Cody was able to ordain him to the Priesthood to an office of Priest.  There was Jacob, Cody, Brandon Jenkins and Jason Wilson and Ozzy.  We went into the bishops office and Bishop Bryce asked Ossie who he would like to ordain him, and Ossie had asked me earlier in the day to do that, but Bishop asked, "Would you like Cody to ordain you?"  Ozzy said yes and Bishop explained to Cody how to do it and those 4 priests with Cody being the voice ordained him to the priesthood.  No Melchizedek priesthood holders participated.  It was a pretty neat experience that I had never witnessed before. Cody did a really good job.  Then last night, we had our stake priesthood meeting and President Lewis kept talking about that incident the entire evening.  He said it was monumental and shows the power and ability of the youth of this church, the future leaders.  Any way, it was really neat and very special for all those young men.

 

I have about 4 tax returns I need to get out today, 3 of them are mom and dads estate returns.  So I am going to be scrambling around trying to get that all done.  I also teach my accounting class tonight.

 

This next Sat. is our stake temple day and we are going over and the youth are going to do baptisms.  Summer wants to find family names to do.

 

We love you and hope you have a great week. 

 Love

 Dad

 

Hola Hermanita Nielsen

Hola Hermanita Nielsen,
 
Just a clarrification.  It wasn't the Espinels calling you Hermanita, it was the Hermana Lopez and her family. We were wondering why they referred to you as hermanita when you tower above all of them.
 
We are excited about your new assignment.  That sounds great.  My membership number is 000-2159-6409.  Mom will give you hers.
 
We had a good, fun, exciting week.  I am feeling overwhelmed with all I have to do with my accounting class, cody's elk hunt, projects at work and, tax returns due next week.

 

Cody and the football team beat Wooster on Friday night 42-27.  Cody played offensive guard and linebacker.  He played the entire game except for special teams.  It was an 8 point game with 5 minutes to play and Elko shut them down and scored right at the end of the game.  Cody got home at 4:30am and we left to go elk hunting.  He was tired.  We hiked 14.28 miles on saturday.

 

We had a good hunt last Monday.  We did not see any thing all day.  We hiked around following elk prints and got back to the truck at just about dark.  While we were at the truck we heard an elk bugle and he was close, so we tried to call him in close in less than 5 minutes.  I was cow calling and Cody was moving in for the shot.  The elk was bugling and answering my calls.  But Cody came around an opening and their the bull was at 30 yards looking right at him.  He ran off and I cow called again and he stopped again and Cody shot but shot low and hit a branch.  But it was all fun. He was a nice bull, probably about the size of mine of larger.

 

On Sat. when we were driving to our spot a herd of about 5 elk and a nice 6 point bull crossed the road in front of us.  Cody jumped out and tried to get a shot, but the elk kept running and would not stop.  So we followed them and found about 200 elk, with about 15 large bulls running around and bugling like crazy.  We tried to put a sneak on some, but nothing was happening.  We jumped up 3 spike elk about 10 yards away, and had a shot at 116 yards, but Cody thought that was too far.  But that was one of the neatest things I have ever experienced.  Hearing all the cow elk talking and there were about 10 different herds, but they were all together.  But then we found out we were on no trespassing land.  At night we went back to that spot and they were still bugling.  But it is very hot during the day and on the 1st hour of day light and last hour at night are productive.  He only has 1 more weekend to fill his tag.

 

BYU beat Texas 41-7 on Sat. and Texas was ranked 24th in the nation.  That was at Texas, so that was a good game.

 

Well we love you and pray for you daily.  You are almost at the 1/2 way point.  Keep working as hard as you can and enjoy every minute as it will all be over before you know it.

 

Have a super week.

 

Love DAD 

 

Today is Labor Day

 Hola Hermana Nielsen,

Well you are going to have to explain the institute thing.  Is that part of your area or is that your assignment in that new area.

We are all doing fine here.  It was fair weekend so the kids had Friday off of school but Cody had football practice in the morning, and then he and I went out elk hunting on Friday and Sat.  We did not see any elk.  We did see some fresh tracks and sign, and herd 1 bull elk bugle once, but nothing else.  We are going out again this morning.  So I thought I would drop you a quick line before we head out to the field.

I hope everything is going well.  We love you and pray for you all the time.  Keep working hard.  We are in Sept. and the middle of this month is your hump month.  

Keep studying the language and being obedient and you will be blessed.  The church is true and it is all worth it.  Whitney did not go to church again, that is 6 or 7 weeks in a roll.  I had her come in and talk about FAFSA stuff last week and she said the church always talks about families and the church has driven her from her family.  So she is spending more time with her family.  She wants to go to Boise State next semester.  So keep her in your prayers.

Have a super week.  I am off to call Cody in a big bull elk.

Love Dad