Welcome to the Year 2016

Elder Nielsen,

It was great seeing you the other day and being able to talk to you.  Even though there was a lot of Tagalog going on in the back ground.  We hope you had a very enjoyable day and a happy New Year.  As mom said, it has been snowing here almost every day.  I think the paper said last week we had already received 25 inches of snow in the month of December and that did not include this week's accumulation.  It has been super cold as well. 2 or 3 days ago the high for the day was 7.  It broke a record set in 1924 where the high temperature was 10 degrees.  Today the high is suppose to get up to a whopping 10 degrees. The lows are -11 degrees.  In Deeth last week it was -22 degrees in the morning, so Elko had to be close to that as Deeth is 20 miles away.

Elko boys bball team played Truckee and Sparks this week.  We beat Truckee by about 40 points.  Kyron had 3 slam dunks. Last night we played Sparks and they beat Spring Creek the night before.  We won 47-37, but it was a back and forth game the entire game.  Eric Klekas is averaging 26 points a game and he only had 13. Baum had the high with 14. I guess we could not put the ball in the hoop.  It seems like everyone on the team this year is casting up 3's. I told mom, it is probably because they have not been coached by Klekas before and he has not had time to tear them down yet.

This Sat. we play Lowry at Lowry and next Tuesday we play at Spring Creek.  So this next week will be the test.

I have been fighting off a cold.  About a week ago my ribs hurt so badly that I could not cough or sleep etc. I could hardly breath, so I get up and try to sleep in the rocking chair but couldn't.  It wasn't until mom woke up at 5 and gave me some pain medication that I was able to sleep for a couple of hours. I am not sure why my ribs hurt with these colds, but it is so painful that I can't hardly breathe.

It was good to have Amber and Erin home for a few days.  I think these girls are trying to break the bank with all these wedding plans.  But we are happy they all have good guys.  All 3 of them have guys that are perfect for them.

Christmas was nice.  I got a -15 degree sleeping bag to try and replace the one we lost at girls camp.  That was a -30, so hopefully, it does the job.  Mom's Kitchen aide broke so I spent the entire weekend pulling it a part and watching you tube videos to fix it.  I have some parts ordered, they should get here today, so we will see if it gets fixed.

We love you. We were happy to see you last week.  Keep being obedient and working as hard as you can.  Trust in the Lord and he will bless you.  Did you have any of those baptisms you were planning.

We will probably write you again on Sunday, but it will be a quick up-date, since these 2 emails are so close together.

Have a super  week.

Love

Dad

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Dear Elder Nielsen,

We were glad to hear that you were not affect by the Typhoon that hit last week. Monday night was the Choraliers concert.  It was good, but I think we have had better years or better concerts. On Tuesday I had to drive down to Pahrump and the road from Carlin to Eureka was snow packed but I went during the day and went about 35 miles an hour.  They had a flashing sign saying chains or snow tires required, but I did not put any chains on the vehicle. I left around 11 and got to pahrump around 6 pm.  

I watched the republican presidential debate for 2 hours and I was not impressed.  Just a lot of arguing and political nonsense to me. Donald Trump is leading in the polls now as he speaks his mind and does not dance around all the political correctness issues, which is appealing to people.  I was in Pahrump from Tuesday night to Thursday night.  While I was down there, I was meeting with a young mother and in the course of our conversation she asked me, "are you LDS?"  And I said yes, why are you? And she said, no I could just tell your were. And she said she has been studying about the LDS faith. She goes to a Christian non denominational church now, but she really liked our family values in the Mormon church. So we had a really good visit and I showed her the The Family a proclamation to the world which she had never seen before.  She said she had lots of questions that the missionaries who knocked on her door could not answer and I told her she could ask me all her questions and I would do my best to answer them.  She did ask about how we believe that Satan and Jesus were brothers, etc. I explained that we were all spirit children of our heavenly parents, and she thought that made sense.  I explained to her about modern day prophets and apostles and she liked that.  She said she thought we believe in different Christs, that ours was different than the Christ she believed in.  She also asked why there were so many people against our religion. She said some churches teach their members how to argue against our church etc.  So I explained that Satan knows the truth and that he was against all truth and that he and his angles fight against the truth. I pointed out that even Jesus himself had a lot of opposition to his teachings and was not popular for the same reasons.  She agreed. We had a great conversation, but needed more time, so I hope she will call me back with all her questions.  She even mentioned that all her kids teachers in school were LDS and that she had pointed that out to her husband before.  I told her that it is not by coincidence that her kids teachers are LDS and that she and I had met that day.  I told her Heavenly Father is in charge of our lives and puts people in our paths to help them along the way.  It was a neat experience.  I love meeting people who are prepared and searching for the truth and inviting them to find out more about Christ's church and his gospel.

The ride home was and interesting one.  I left around 11 am, but when I was about 120 outside of Elko I hit a heavy snow storm.  It was getting dark and I could not hardly see any thing in front of me.  It was snowing so hard when I had my lights on bright all I could see was snow and on dim, I could barely see the road.  The roads were covered in snow and I would try to drive down the middle of the road and her the tire strips sound in the middle to make sure I was in the middle.  I could only go about 25 miles per hour.  Luckily there was not a lot of traffic on the road from Eureka to Carlin.  When I got to Carlin, my hands ached as I guess I was squeezing the steering wheel so hard and did not realize it.  But from Carlin to Elko was the worst as there was lots of traffic and the big rigs were going so fast and spraying (covering me) in snow.  I could not see any thing, even when I did not have the big rigs passing me.  The lights in the school car, must be covered in hard water or with snow as I had a very difficult time seeing any thing. I was exhausted when I got home and did not want to go any where. We got about 4-6 more inches in snow here in Elko.  There is more snow to come this week. Utah news said the mountains are to get 3-6 feet of snow with the storms this week.

Elko was in Utah playing at East high.  They lost to East on Thursday and lost to Christian Layton on Friday.  On Sat. they were down 45-35 at half time to Unitah high and ended up coming back and winning that game.  I turned it off at half time as the BYU-UTah games was on TV.  And that was a disaster. 

BYU had 5 turnovers on their 1st 5 possessions which all led to Utah touchdowns.  Utah had 2 pic 6's and another interception ran back to the 1 yard line.  The 1st possession, they hit BYU's QB's arm and he fumbled and they got the ball on our 25 yard line.  They scored and on the next possession BYU was throwing a pass on a slant route and the Utah guy had BYU's guys arms rapped up, and the pass hit the byu guys shoulder pads and bounced up in the air 10 feet, Utah caught it and ran it back for a touchdown.  The next possession BYU threw a pass and the Utah end tipped it up in the air, Utah caught it and ran it back to the 1 yard line. Utah scores on the  next play. 21-0 Utah in the 1st 3 minutes. Next possession BYU drove the ball to the 45 and fumbled. Utah got the ball and scored soon after.  28-0 utah. Next possession, BYU passes the ball and the utah lineman hits the QB's arm and the pass goes off to his right not where he was throwing it and Utah intercepts it and runs it back for a TD. 35-0 in the 1st 7 minutes of the game. I thought what a disaster.  This was Bronco Mendenhall's last game as he accepted a 5 year deal to coach at University of Virginia for 3.25 million per year. The team really wanted to win for Bronco and give him his 100 wins. So after that point.  It was all BYU.  Utah's offense could not do any thing.  BYU ended up coming back but lost 35-28.  We needed one more possession.  BYU had total offense of 398 and Utah's total offense was 192 or something like that.  We scored with 3 minutes to go in the game, down by 1 TD, but we elected not to kick and onside kick, and they ended up getting 2 1st downs and ran the clock out.  At least it was respectable.  BYU hired Sitahke as their new coach an assistant coach at oregon state who played for BYU in the 1996-2000. They wanted the LDS Navy coach, but he decided to stay at Navy.  We probably could not pay him what he needed.

We also had my GBC C-mas party, but they just had finger food and talking to people. Then we had the white elephant party for the ward.  I tried to be the good Samaritan and steal Lois Gurr's dump gift for her to steal someone's good gift and she ended up getting a worse gift that she started with. Mom got a fishing reel toilet paper dispenser we thought we could give to Russel for the cabin in Highland park.

Had a good Sunday.  Amber came home from school yesterday.  We had tithing settlement and then mom and I went out and saw 2 of our home teaching families. Amy Grubaugh got home from her mission last week and she is just glowing.  She looks wonderful. So did the Lemmon kid who went to Argentina, he got home a couple weeks ago.  We ran into the Johnson's (our neighbors) at the GBC party and they asked how you were doing.  Lorie said she was sure you would be wonderful at what ever you did as you were a very nice boy.  She said you visited with her last summer or sometime when you went over there to their house for 1/2 hour.  And she thought what teenager would visit like that for 1/2 hour.  Mr. Melcher we saw him there and he always asks about Erin.

Have a super week. We will talk to you this weekend.  We decided for you to talk to us on the 26th your time. If you are between 9-11 your time that is 7-9 at night our time. Hopefully we will still be awake at that time. You can skype with wapiti7x7 which is my account.

Keep working hard.  Keep being obedient.  We look forward to visiting with you this next week.  Have a very merry Christmas.

Love

Dad

Cheese Galore

Elder Nielsen,

This past week was kind of a blur.  It flew by.  I had my class on Monday night and I am trying to get every thing caught up before finals week this week. I am still way behind.  I also had a ton of things to get done at work, being gone last week to Vegas and this week I am heading to Pahrump, so I have a lot to get done before that.

Carly had her Pal basketball playoff games on Wednesday, Friday and Sat. They won the 1st 2 games big and lost in the finals on Saturday to the Marin's team who had beaten them previously in league play.  Carly did not get to play very much only about a few minutes each half as they were going with their best players trying to win.

On Saturday, Summer had her last Adobe games where they play the boys and other girls team as well as the faculty for like 1/2 each.  She made points in each game and did pretty well.  But we were there from 8:30 to 11:00 am then we went to Carly's game until 1:00 pm.  I had to go over to the Cornelius' to help them sign up for health insurance.  I got home and Summer had to go to the snow flake festival to sing so I dropped her off and went to my office to finish some grading. I picked up Summer and we went to the ward Christmas party.  Mom and Sister Harris were cooking 20-25 lb roast beef.  Mom had cooked hers for 6 hours but when we took it to the church, it looked like it was done on the outside, but it was bloody rare on the inside.  The harris' had cooked 2 of those, one was done and the one they cooked for 8 hours was still raw. 

Somehow I got roped into helping in the Kitchen and I was trying to make the potatoes and gravy in 5 gallon pots.  The dinner started at 6, but we did not have the food ready until about 6:45. Sister Harris had forgotten the salad dressings and had to run home and get them.  We were cutting off slices of the raw roast and putting them in the microwave to cook.  Then we helped clean up afterward and we were the last to get home around 9:30 pm. Mom had been there since about 2:30 setting up etc.  So it was a long day.  Mom and I fell asleep after scriptures and did not wake up until 1 am to go to bed.

I guess last week, while I was in Vegas there was a big rig going up mountain city highway loaded with 5 lb bricks of mozzarella cheese and some how got in an accident and rolled the truck.  Someone put out on facebook that there was free cheese up there and everyone was going up there and loading up their trucks.  So we got about 4 bricks of 5 lb cheese.  We have been having lots of cheese and crackers and have already downed 2 bricks. I guess Bishop asked Mason Simons to take his truck up there and get more and while he was up there a police officer showed up and took everyones ID's and said this was not theirs to take and they had to unload everything they had in their trucks before he would give them back their ID's.  I guess Mason was pretty scared as that could look very bad, Elko Justice of the peace arrested for stealing cheese.  He said luckily, the guy did not recognize him.

On Friday night, the simons girl had a birthday and invited our family over for dinner.  I could not get the hood of the tropper open to jiggle the battery cable as it was so cold and frozen and I was sqeezing the lever and it would not open. I was trying for 30 minutes and finally called mom to come get me and when I went out and tried again I got it open so I could drive home.  I had to speak at a stake family history conference at the church, so I did not go to the Simons. I read that story about that temple worker and his visions that I got from my mom.

Last week while I was in Vegas, I did not do much but attend training sessions.  I did not leave the hotel until Thursday night to go to Costco for dinner (1.50 hot dog and drink).  When I got home on Friday I had to do the clock for the Elko game against Reno.  It was the red lion tournament.  Elko went 3-0.  We beat Reno and Damonte on Friday and Sat. and East on Thursday.  Eric Klekas as mom said was shooting the ball well. He had 25, 34 and 37 points in those games.  But the entire team was shooting pretty well. Baum played well as well as Kyron Allen.  The team was suppose to travel to Truckee and sparks this past weekend, but those games got canceled due to a snow storm that was hitting Truckee.  We got a few dustings of snow, but the all melted during the day.  It was a lot nicer this week than the week we were hunting elk.

I am happy to hear you are doing well. Keep working hard and relying on the Lord for his direction and you will be blessed. I guess we will be skyping on Christmas day for you and Christmas eve for us. I am not sure how the arrangements will be made as I believe you are 14 or 15 hours ahead of us. The gospel is true and we need to invite everyone to come unto Christ.  Especially during this special time of year.  We love you and pray for you always.  Have a super week.

Love

Dad

Christmas Prep in Full Swing

Dear Elder Nielsen,

So we got up at 3:30 and no papers.  Got up at 4 still no papers.  Got up at 4:30 and they were here, so we hurried and delivered them and headed out hunting.  These papers sure throw a kink in our hunting plans.  So sense we were getting a later start than anticipated, we decided to go to the Moore exit area as it was closer. Bob said he and Gary Powell hunted that area on thanksgiving and that is when they had all the snow, so I was a little nervous. But he said they had seen about 40 elk, nothing real big for them.  I thought mom would shoot any thing at this point, we just wanted elk steaks.  The snow was still about 18 inches, but light an fluffy.  We were heading to that area where I called in your bull, but before we got there, we stopped and glasses and on the left hand side over in the grassy areas with no trees or bushes, we spotted 2 bulls walking/ running.  I also spotted a herd of about 8 bedded down, right in the open, nothing to hide them or us.  They were about 3 miles away.  We spotted 2 other hunters hiking down the mountain (the left part of Black Mtn with no trees or bushes).  They were pushing the bulls. I told connie, let just follow their tracks to their bedding area and we will shoot them. So we got on their tracks and followed them for about 5-6 miles and we never did see them in their beds or see them again for that matter. But as we were hiking we kept spotting other elk.  So we would start trying to sneak on them, but they could see you coming for miles away.  We saw 3-4 snow shoe hares. They were cool. Some were all white, some were half grey and half white. I know where we need to go to get your snow shoe hares. At one point I was glassing and spotted this thing on the ridge that looked like a burnt bush.  It had a dark middle area and 2 black things sticking up.  It looked like it could be a bull elk as well. I kept watching about ready to get my spotting scope out and I saw it move its head. It was a bull. A 6 point on 1 side and broken off on the other, but a nice bull.  We were about 1 mile away.  So I thought if we could cut the distance in half mom could get a shot.  So we dropped down into the bottom of a ravine and moved up towards the bull. We cut the distance in half, and popped up over the top to look and a cow was standing there looking to her right.  So I thought the bull probably booked it out of there down another ravine.  So we started moving to look down the other ravine and the bull stood up.  I said that is the bull shoot him.  It was still about 400 yards or better away. But mom sat down and I got the shooting stick ready and I said shoot it.  I am glassing waiting for the shot, and the bull walks over the hill out of sight.  I asked mom why she did not shoot and she said she could not keep the cross hairs on it.  So I told her at this point you need to squeeze the trigger as soon as you have him in your cross hairs.  So they all disappeared and about 5 minutes later they appeared further up the mountain.  There were about 8-9 elk the big bull and 1 spike and the rest cows and calves. I started cow calling and all of them stopped and looked at us.  I could not range them as they were farther than 400 yards.  But she shot 4 times. When I walked it off it was over 800 yards, so I am sure mom was shooting short... We followed their tracks for 4 miles back and they crossed the road 200 yards from where we parked the truck.

It was probably a blessing we did not get him that far back up the mountain. But over all it was fun when you are seeing elk all over the place.

I will send this and write about this week later.

Love 

Dad