Semi-Finals

Hola querida hermana Nielsen,
 
How is every thing going?  This past week again passed by very quickly.  As mom said, Cody passed his Eagle scout board of review, so now he has completed everything but the dancing.  (2 weeks before his 18th b-day, nothing like waiting for the last moment).  But it will be good to have and a great accomplishment.  Now he can concentrate on a football state championship.  As mom said, we played Fernley here on Friday, and Fernley is a good team.  He had to go up against a 6'7" 275 pound kid.   That kid kept complaining that Cody was punching him in the gut the entire game.  After the game, he told Cody, you were punching me in the gut the entire game and Cody told him, that he only came up to his belly, so that is all he could block.  Elko played well.  We should have shut them out, they had a long pass play in the 2nd half that got them into scoring position.  We also got inside the 10 yard line 3 times and could not score.  We need to improve on that to win state.  Cody had a quiet game.  He had 16 tackles against Spring Creek and got defensive player of the week, and he said they were double teaming him all game long against Fernley.  So he hopes Moapa watches that film and over looks him.  Mom told you we play Moapa Valley, and coach Sellers told Cody that they are all Mormon down there and that the town paints their barns and gets into the football season.  So it should be a fun game.  I think we will match up great again them.  Cody hopes they keep playing in football so he can miss the basketball tryouts.  That starts a week from today.  He is not looking forward to Klekas and the bball year.
 
I was trying to get Summers deer all cut up last week.  It is mostly done now, just some little clean up work.  I worked on it all day on Saturday.  The Elko girls and boys soccer team did not make it to the playoffs.  Spring Creek girls made it and lost to Truckee in the 1st round.  Elko boys and girls cross country teams took 3rd place each at state.  The spring creek boys team won state, with their highest kid only placing 12th.  But their entire team were only 37 seconds separating them all.  So they got lots of middle points.  The elko volleyball team won the district tournament, so now they are going to state this weekend as the number 1 team from the north.
 
I saw the Woo (sp??) from Spring Creek, the one you went to EFY with, and she just got home from her mission to Guatamala.  She said she loved it.  Also, some Knight boy from Spring Creek got home about 6 months ago from El salvador was in my office last week.  Lots of spanish speakers.  They asked me to speak in the spanish branch on Nov. 30th.  We have stake conference this weekend, but we might miss most of it as we will be traveling home from the football game. 
 
We are having really nice weather.  It warmed back up and it gets into the low 60's during the day, which is really nice for November.
 
Well I can't think of too much more to say.  We love you and pray for you daily.  Keep working hard and the time goes by extremely fast.  There is no other time in your life that you can dedicate 100% of your time to the Lord.  Take advantage of it and love every minute of it.  It always ends too fast.
 
So do you have an Argentine companion now?  If you do you will need to tell her hola, and have her teach you some argentine spanish.  I would love to hear her argentine accent if you two are still together during the Christmas skype conversation.
 
Have a super week!!
 
Love
 
Dad

Dearest Hermanita Nielsen,

Well, we are going to Vegas Baby!  Well, not quite Vegas yet (that will be where state will be played the following weekend), but we are headed south this weekend to Logandale to play Moapa Valley in the state semi finals.  We have never been there or played any team from there before so it will be a new experience.  We have heard that it is a Mormon settled farming community and that the kids are a lot like us--not real big and pretty much all white.  They are said to big strong farm boys down there, so it should be a good match up.  We played Fernley friday night and it was a real physical game, but we were pretty much in control, we won 23-8. Jason Wilson broke the high school rushing record that night.  Fallon beat Lowry so they will play Desert Pines and then we will play the winner at state.  It's fun and exciting.  They boys would really like another chance to play Fallon.  The state game is Nov 22, Cody's bday.  Cody said they have started a prayer circle before the games.  It started with Cody, Jacob Conklin, and Jason Wilson, and then expanded to more of the Mormon kids and now there is like 15 of them now that gather together and someone offers  a prayer before each game.  Kind of cool huh?
On Wed. night Cody had his Board of Review for his Eagle.  He met with some of the higher leadership in the area, I know Pres. Alleman was one of them and they go over his project and discuss his journey is scouting.  So, now he will have his Eagle court of Honor and then I think we are Pau! (that's a little Hawaiian lingo we picked up from Amber, it means "done!")  I'm so glad he did it.
The Elko Volleyball team is going to the state semis this weekend too.  They beat Truckee in 5 sets on Sat.  Josalynn Harris is back and playing well.  So, that is exciting as well.  The paper mentioned that Sabrina Welch had a couple of crucial kills.

The holidays will be here soon.  Chelsea and Brian are coming for Thanksgiving, we are excited about that.  They are going to go to the Alumni game.

We had the sisters over for dinner yesterday.  iOur family was being normal-crazy and they seemed to get a kick out of that.  Dad had the new sister, serving here for her field experience from Temple Square VC pray in her native language, which was French.  She is from Tahiti and will hopefully give us a dance lesson.  She is really sweet.

We are glad things are going well for you, keep working hard. We love you, Mom

P.S.  I am going to meet with Jamie Norton's husband who works at Wells Fargo and see if we can get you a new card.  We shouldn't have to pay to get you money... that's why we got you a card, so we need to find a way for it to work.  I'm on my way there now after I drop Addie off to preschool.  Is the mission office the address it should be sent to ?  This is the address I have:  Peru Lima South Mission

                           Av. Jorge Basadre 592 Officina 604-A

                           Edifico Torre Azul, San Isidro, Lima 27, Peru