October Already?!

Elder Nielsen,

Here we are in October already. I can't believe it. Carly had her birthday on Monday and now she is 12 years old. I can't believe that either. I had my class on Monday so I didn't get home until 10 pm. We had ice cream and cake when I got home.

We had Iris over for another discussion in our home on Wednesday at 2:00 pm. We all thought it went very well. She is a very sweet sincere girl. They tried to get her a firm baptismal date of Nov. 5th, but she said she would have to pray about it. Also When she closed the discussion in prayer, she was very sweet and asked Heavenly Father to be patient with her in her search for the truth. Later that afternoon, Summer had a soccer game here against Lowry and they lost 2-3. But Summer had one of the goals. She cleaned up a shot that bounced off of someone or something. But it was tied 2 to 2 and Lowry got a goal in the last 3 minutes of the game. Their main Goalie, Lauren Drake hurt her thumb and is out 10-12 weeks. So they had a sophomore girl in there who is not very good. 2 of their goals came as she dropped the ball once and they kicked it in. And the other one in the last few minutes of the game she did not get in front of it and it skipped right past her into the goal. But Summer did not start in that game as she said she did not play well in South Tahoe over the weekend.

Carly went to her first young women's on Thursday. On Friday Summer played soccer at Spring creek. And they ended up tying that game 2-2. She started but did not play much in the 1st half. They are now on the last half of the season. Friday was homecoming so Summer, mom and I went to the football game. Elko beat Fallon 30-24 in triple overtime. It was 12 to 12 at the end of regulation. Kyron Allen ran back a kickoff with about 2 minutes left in the game to tie it. Fallon has lost 3 games this year, so they are not like the state champions from last year. It was a fun game in OT. BYU beat Toledo in a come from behind game. I did not see it or hear much about it.

Saturday, we just worked on projects around the house so we could listen to conference. It was great as always. We liked most of them. Nelson's on joy was good and Oaks on missionary work was good as well. Sunday afternoon season every talk was great. President Monson only talked for about 5 minutes on the word of wisdom in the Priesthood session and 5 minutes on Sunday morning on the plan of salvation.

We were suppose to have Sierra another college student I have been working with over for dinner and a discussion with the YSA sisters again. She never showed up, so we went to look for her and found her and we rescheduled for Wed. at noon. She has an eating disorder so I told her she needed help from the spirit to overcome that issue. We will try again. I have a Spanish family we are working with and 4 other students I am working with in missionary work. It could become a full time job.

We are still trying to work out all the details for the Peru trip. I also have 4 tax returns I need to get out this week before we leave. I have so much to do, I am starting to stress out a bit. I woke up at 3 am this morning worrying about getting everything done and could not go back to sleep.

Have a great week. Enjoy conference next weekend. We love you and are happy you are serving a mission. Keep working hard and give it all you have. Be an example to all the other missionaries and invite everyone you see.

Love,

Dad

Dearest Elder Nielsen,

We just finished feasting with the sister missionaries adding to the banquet of the spiritual feast of conference.  Once again we had a super weekend of conference.  You get to watch it on Sunday? There were a lot of great talks.  I liked Elder Renlands a lot and Elder Nattress from the 70's was really touching.  Carly was asked to be the youth speaker this Sunday and she has to speak about her favorite conference talk and she liked one given during the Sat. morning session that talked about hiking in Peru to Machu Pichu.  I missed that one because I was picking Summer up from the Homecoming 5K race that the Choraliers were putting on.  She said Ms. Rogers told her a story about you and Jacob--that one year you guys were at a corner supposedly directing the runners to the correct turn and you steered them wrong because you were on your phones or something.  She never forgets stuff like that.

Carly had a good birthday on Mon.  She just had a family party. I made cake, and we ate Navajo Tacos for dinner.  Then she opened her presents which were: a big jewelry box, Island slippers (you can buy them off Amazon now), some clothes, a blow dryer (so that she and Summer stop using mine) and a new CD player (because I kept borrowing theirs).  She also got a big 2ft. x 2ft. coloring poster.  It's one of those adult coloring pages that are popular right now; and then a big pack of felt tip  markers to color with.  She is a darling little 12 year old.  She went to mutual for the first time on thurs.  They just  had a few kids and so they played "Apples to Apples." It's been Homecoming Week and the bonfire was that night.  Dad, Summer and I went to the game on Friday night.  We played defending state champion Fallon.  It was a very evenly match- ed game.  The score was 12-12 at the end of regulation, so they had to go to overtime and then it went to triple overtime and we finally won.  It was quite exciting.  The Homecoming Queen was Colline De Brae.  Ashlyn Olsen was one one the candidates too.  Erik Klekas kept the family tradition going by winning Homecoming King.  Cade Christiansen was one of the  candidates.  He's the drum major for the band this year too.

Summer had two soccer games this week.  They played Lowry and we lost 3-2.  but, Summer did score a goal.  Someone on her team took a shot and it was going wide, but Summer was right there and cleaned it up and kicked it in.  She got her picture in the paper and everything.  Then on Friday they played Spring Creek and she had kind of a quiet game.  We tied 2-2.

We have a week before we go on our Peru trip.  Our original plan was to go back with Erin, like we did with Amber.  Dad opted to be bumped from a flight last year and he received a voucher for a free flight.  He had to use it before Nov. 30, so he booked his trip to Lima.  Then he bought my flight using Skymiles, he had accumulated using a credit card for travel.  We tried to figure out how we could go with Erin and Landon, but the time Landon could go was during the summer when he had his break, but Erin was in school full time then.  She really wants to go back when  they can both go, and she being pregnant now, she didn't feel like it would be good on her digestive system.  So, it's just Dad and I, and Erin will come down and stay here and take care of the Kiddos for us.  I am excited to go, but I have a hard time leaving.  I will miss those girls.  I feel good about having them stay with a family member, other than some other situation.  I told Erin when she and Landon go to Peru, we will babysit for her.

Thats all the news.  I hope you have a great week.  We enjoyed the "Singing in the Rain" pictures. 
 Love, Mom