We met the Bott Family

Hola Hermana Nielsen,
 
Last week was kind of a blur.  Cody started baseball on Monday, (the others had been practicing for 3 weeks) and he left on Thursday for Reno.  They had 5 games.  They won 3 and lost 2.  Cody said he did okay for not having practiced any more than that.
 
I taught my class on Monday night.
 
We had PAL basketball practice every night this week.  I will be glad when this is done, there are way too many practices for PAL.  On Tuesday I drove down to Ely to visit the seniors at White Pine High School.  I did not get back until 11:30 pm.  I worked for 7 hours before I left and I left at 2:30 pm.  That was a long day. 
 
On Friday, we had the Elders over for dinner at 5 pm and then they came back at 7:30 and we taught a new member lesson to Amber Gibson and her family.  They got baptized back in Oct. 2014.
 
On Saturday, Summer had 2 Adobe volleyball games.  We went to the first one, and she did pretty well.  She bumps the ball very well.  Then we drove out to Spring Creek for our PAL game without 3 of our best players who were playing volleyball and we got beat by Owyhee 46-11.  It was an old fashion spanking.  Saturday evening, the Harris family had extra tickets to the Elko High School crab feed and Mom and I went to that.  The crab was good, but it was too loud and too long.  We got home at 9:30 pm. 
 
We sprang forward our clocks for daylight savings and went to  bed about 11:30 pm.  Cody got home from his baseball trip at 12:30 and we had to get up at 3 am to drive to Utah to hear Joseph Nielsen's farewell address.  I did not sleep after Cody came home as I was afraid I would over sleep.  But we got up, none of us showered and we left and made it at 8:55 am Utah time for his sacret meeting.  Then we all went over to Darhls and had a bite to eat and I tried to sleep for a few hours, but it was too noisy.  We picked up Cody's glasses at Costco, WE bought them 2 months ago, and had never made it back. 
 
We then drove up to Kaysville, Ut to visit the Bott family and pick up your package.  They are a very nice family and it was good to see them.  Thank you for all the goodies in your box.  We headed back to Elko and got home around 9 pm.  Another very long day.
 
Keep working hard, a little over 3 months left. Sprint to the finish line.  We love you and always pray for you.
 
Love,
 
Dad

Dearest Hermanita Nielsen,

Well, I will start there and maybe work my way back through the week.  We had planned to go to Utah with weekend and go to Cousin Joe's mission farewell on Sun.(yesterday), but then we found out Cody had a baseball preseason tune-up kind of tournament in Reno and wouldn't be home until late Sat. night.  We thought we would still make a quick trip and leave early sun. morning and just go for the day.  Joe's Sac. mtg started at 9am and there was the time zone change, plus it was the night to turn the clocks forward for day light savings, therefore we were losing 2 hrs of time.  Cody got home at 12am and then Dad said he didn't really get back in a deep sleep after that, so when the alarm went off at 3:25 am, he was tired, but we decided we would do it anyway (since Chica was already spending the night with the Simons too).  We roused everyone and got on the road.  We had just gotten the Suburban back from the body shop the day before and it looks like new, they did a great job.  We made it with 5 min. to spare to the Sac. mtg. and then there was a lunch at Daryl's house afterward and everyone went to that.  There were a lot of cousins there, and many people asked how you were doing.  Dad tried to take a nap there, but he said it was too noisy.  Then we went over to Charlene's which is Gram and Gramps house and Dad and Cody got some more "animal stuff" from the basement.  She and Timmy live there now.  We picked up Cody's glasses at Costco.  He was amazed at how much better he could see with them.  He looks pretty preppy, he will have to send you a pic, Amber helped him pick out the frames. Then it was off to Kaysville and to the Botts house, to meet them and pick up your package.  That was fun, they were very nice.  Emily looks a lot like her mom.  Ruth was there too, but she seemed really shy.  We were just happy to meet each other and have that connection with our little Hermanitas.  We opened the package on the way home.  It was like Christmas.  Everything was really unique and colorful--very Peruvian for sure.  Carly and Ads played with the puppets on the way home.  Thank you for everything, we will be sampling the candy over the next few days.

Saturday night we went to the EHS boys' basketball annual crabfeed.  Klekas' jaw dropped when he saw us.  He should have figured we were given free tickets.  Suzy Harris bought a table of tickets and her family decided not to come, so she offered them to us and told her family since they bailed out that they had  just made a contribution to the basketball program.  It was all you could eat crab with sides of baked potato, rolls and salad.   Oh, and all you could drink, but I only had one bottle of water ;)  They had gift baskets that you could put your 5 free raffle tickets that came with your entry ticket into a pot and you had a chance to win.  We didn't win anything. Coach Larson won 4 baskets!  You could buy more tickets and she most have had a lot.  It was fun, we sat with the Harris' Madsens and Baumanns.  The Boys  from Varsity served.  Cole Smith burned his foot really badly earlier in the day when they were boiling the crab legs.  Some of the water got poured on his foot, and it soaked through his shoe and sock and burned the top of his foot.  He went to the emergency room and had 2nd and 3rd degree burns!  The Smiths showed us a picture and the skin was peeling right off.  Like a peach  when you blanch it in boiling water to get the skin off.  Ouch!  It made me think of that poor Hermana that you had pictures of that had gotten badly burned.  Earlier that day Summer had AMS Volleybal games.  She only plays backrow but she did well--nothing to embarrass herself over.  She had to miss her PAL game that was going on at the same time, but we went to still coach.  3 of our players were unable to come because of VB, and they were the good ones.  We played Owyihee with 7 players, and they stomped us 11-46, lots of native "ballers" that like to run and gun, and some good ol' fashion cherry picken '.   Our practices have been a little more productive, since Dad and I scrimmage with them and they get alittle more competitive with we old people out there working them over.  But, the "Rez Girls" as they refer to themselves are really quite lazy and they admit it.  (that's the Indian girls that live on the reservation up there by the Indian Colony Gym.

Friday we had the missionaries for dinner and then a new member discussion following that.  Dad taught it on The Law of Chastity and W. of Wisdom.  It was really good.

Addie had her immunizations for kindergarten last week.  She was kind of excited about it actually.  She had 2 shots in each leg.  She didn't cry or scream, which she will boastfully tell you, but she did contort and grimace her face in the most funny ways.  I wish I had been able to record it, but I had to hold her hands down on her chest.

We had our RS Birthday dinner last tues. and it went well.  We had as our theme "The Seasons" , and I had 3 sisters in different stages of their lives talk about "How RS blessed me in this season of my life" and we had steak -mango salad. Chelsea and given me the recipe.   Really great turn out and response to the food.

Well, this has been really quite a week, so I will end here.  I love you and love that you love being a missionary.  Keep doing what you are doing.  Love, Mom