Happy Birthday to Dad! Another year older

Hola mi querida hermana Nielsen,
 
Well I am another year older today.  I have a busy day today, teaching my class tonight, and we have our 1st PAL playoff game tonight at 5:30 pm.  So Mom made me a cake and they sang happy birthday to me yesterday.  This morning, when Addie woke up, she came out into the kitchen and I said, Addie, guess what today is?  And she said, Friday?  I said, no, it is my birthday.  And she said, "AGAIN???  No more, you are not going to have more birthdays."  I guess she thought yesterday was good enough.
 
This was another busy week.  On Monday evening, Daniel Sills, Greg Sills' brother took his own life.  And Brother Sills is really having a hard time with it.  He does not want to come back to church and questions the eternal plan of happiness, as he said if you believe in the Bible, Danny is going to heck. His testimony is rocked pretty good. I am very grateful for the testimony of the plan of salvation that we have been blessed with.  Life would be very difficult if we did not have that.
 
Cody played South Tahoe on Friday and Sat.  Elko won all 3 games, but Cody only was the designated hitter, so he did not play any defense.  He was surprised by that, he thought it was only for 1 or 2 games.  He hit the ball pretty well, I think he went 3 for 8.
 
We lost 2 more Pal games last week, we are 2 and 8.  On Thursday's game, we played the number 2 team in the league and only lost by 3 points.  We were right there and had a few opportunities to win.  Summer played really well.  She had 4 points all in the 4th quarter and was 2 for 2 from the line.  We are getting better if I could just get these girls to play hard all the time.
 
3 months today is all you have left.  Have you decided about extending or not.  Cody wants to put in his papers this week or some time soon and we are going to put July 1st as his availability date.  Let us know.
 
We love you and pray for you daily.  Keep working hard.  It will all be over so quickly.
 
Love
 
Dad

Dearest Hermanita Nielsen,

We have been enjoying the Peruvian sweets you sent.  I thought all your little notes and stuff on each and every package and item was really cute, and made it so personal.  I thought it was funny how so many of the candies were "your favorite".
We had a visit from Sis. Anderson( (former missionary) and her parents on Mon. night.  She served here for about 6 mos. and was just released about 2 weeks ago now.  They were on their way to Calif. and were going through Reno so she could visit people there as well.  She was one of our favorites, such a sweet  farm girl from Washington State.  Amber went out on lessons with her when she was here.   Her parents had been to Peru on a mini service mission (?) more of a volunteer trip for about 3 weeks where they gave out blankets and needed humanitarian supplies to the people.  They loved it and went up to Machu Pichu and everything.  They said that if you get a  chance to go there "do it".  They said they could even  help us get in touch with the group that organizes the service trip and that they would be going again in Nov.  Hmmmm, that would be fun, but still not in that faze of life yet.

Your cousin Joe sprained his ankle really bad and was in a boot when we went there last weekend and now it has been determined that he will push his MTC start date back for a transfer.  He is to report to the Mexico MTC.  They said he needed to be able to walk 6 miles a day before he could really begin his mission.  We kind of thought that might happen.  He hurt it playing volleyball with his young adult ward.  His YA bishop came over to Daryl's house that afternoon when we were there and I recognized him from something and it turns out he is the actor on The Best Two Years who plays the American Investigator guy.  

Cody had his physical for the mission papers, so we are moving right along on that progress.  He will probably get his dental done this week.  He asked Becca Eardley to Prom-- officially.  He did an Easter egg hunt for her in her yard with notes  and candy inside the eggs.
Summer had two PAL games this week.  The first game we barely lost by 3 pts.  they were a good team, but Dad seems to get a lot out of our girls when we play; he is constantly coaching and encouraging them to get after it.  The other game we played on Sat.  I was the sole coach and we were beat 19-29.  We were missing our better girls because of the AMS Volleyball games, and only had 6 players and they were tired most of the time.  We still have a chance to be the "Cinderella team", we have our first game of the tourney tonight.  We practice with the basketball you received as the "PAL MVP 2009", its written on the ball.  You were quite the PAL girl weren't you?

Cody had 3 baseball games against So. Tahoe this past weekend.  He hasn't quite earned his spot in Center field yet.  Weston Warrick is out there and Cody is just a designated hitter right now.  He bats, but that's all.  We just thought the first game that he wasn't  out there because he was so late coming into the season with basketball going so late.  But, by the 3rd game and he still isn't playing out there it's got us scratching our heads.  Weston is good, but not any better than Cody, so we will see,  he is determined to get his starting position back.  We beat So. Tahoe pretty easily in each game, and Cody got some RBI's-- one hit, he almost got a triple, but was tagged out sliding into 3rd. :(

We celebrated Dad's bday last night with his favorite chinese casserole and I made a carmel cake.  We had the missionaries over.  I had everything ready to eat right when we got home from church, but they couldn't come until 6pm, we were starving!

I forgot to tell you this "hart" warming story:  Sadie called to see if Adelaide could come over and play, because Hartman missed her and since they moved to first ward they don't really ever see each other.  So, I told her about the play date and she was really excited and said, "Should I put on make-up?"  I said we didn't have time.  I told that to Sadie and she laughed--" because, beside the point your only 5 yrs old, there just isn't time."  She said Hartman combed his hair all on his own, without being told.

We had a tragedy in our ward this past week.  Doug and Corinne Sills oldest son Danny killed himself on Mon. evening. The funeral was Sat. and his dad is taking it really hard.  He says he isn't coming back to church, he is angry at God.  It's a sad situation.  Danny had been inactive for years and had some mental health issues he was dealing with.

Caden Gunnell got his mission call to Louisville, Kentucky.  He goes into the MTC the later part of June.

Well, thats all the news I remember,  I love you, Mom

PS  I enjoyed your last letter, even though your temple trip was a bit disappointing, I thought you had great perspective!