Happy Thanksgiving

Elder Nielsen,

We hope you had a very happy birthday. We celebrated it here without you by having a missionary discussion in our home. This was a very fast week. Monday I taught my accounting class and got home around 10 pm. 

Tuesday was very busy. I went to work as usual. Then at 5 pm we had the 4th wards missionaries come over to teach Isabel Martinez a discussion in our home. She is another student I met at the college in Battle mountain that now lives in Elko and we have been trying to get this set up for a while now. She was the one that was going to go to church with us last Sunday but had to work. But a few minutes before 5 I texted her out address and she asked if she could bring 2 friends with her. I said of course. So we had the Elders, Isabel and her 2 or 3 year old daughter and her two friends over for dinner. One of her friends named Lizett said she knew who you were from middle school when she saw your picture in the entry. The other friend was a boy name Chris who has been attending the Living Stones church here in town. So we ate beef layered Florentine and they all loved it. Then we had a good discussion. Chris was asking most of the questions and had good things to say. We taught them about the Restoration and the BOM. Isabel said the more she hears about the church the more she believes it. So we will see. We did not set up a return appointment as our schedules are crazy for the next 2 weeks.  We will have to follow up with them when I get back in town.

We have had a flu / cold bug going around our family. Addie stayed home from school Monday and Tuesday. Carly was sick on Tuesday and Summer and mom were catching it on Wednesday. After our discussion, Carly was asleep during the discussion and I thought she was too sick to go to her bball game out in Spring Creek, but she woke up and wanted to go. So I drove her and Danielle out to their game in SC. They won and Carly had 6 points. She had a chance to make an and 1, but missed her free throw. Mom had to stay in town and go the Summer's JV bball parent meeting and pick Summer up from practice at 8:30 pm.

Wednesday, the girls got out of town at mid day. Summer still had bball from 7-8:30 pm at night. Uncle Ken was driving through to California that day, so mom did not want to go any where to miss him. Come to find out he went right through Elko and did not stop. I went out and did the newspapers at 10 pm as they came at 9 pm. I did all the route except for the upper route around Northside school. I got back at 11 pm and we went to bed. Mom was busy baking food to take to California for Thanksgiving.

Thursday morning we got up at 4 am, mom went and finished the paper route on the upper section. We got all packed and left around 6 am to go to California. We drove straight to Curtis and Betsy' home for the dinner. We got there around 12:15 pm and we were eating at 1 pm. So we were the first to arrive. Betsy or Elizabeth had decorated the table very elegantly, just like a wedding or fancy restaurant.  Rebecca Croft and her family were there and they had also invited a inactive friend who Elizabeth had met his father on an airplane. There were 21 or 22 of us there. The food was good. We did not eat breakfast that morning and they had some nuts and cheese and crackers as appetizers and I think I ate too much of those as I did not or could not eat much of the thanksgiving meal. But it was good to see all of them and Grandpa and Grandma Croft. They are still doing well, Grandpa just moves around very slowly.

We had a good time in California. We did not go out and try and hit any of the sales as it is too crazy in California. So we hung out there at their place. Friday afternoon, grandma and grandpa took us out to a Chinese buffet. It was ok, nothing too special. Grandma does not cook much any more, so that was her way of feeding us as we did not have to eat any thing again that evening. 

Saturday morning, mom and I got up early and went to the Sacramento temple. We went in and did initiatory work for some of the names I have found doing family history. I thought I had printed out some girl names for mom, but they were all males. So mom went in and did temple names. It was raining very hard in the valley all morning and a winter storm was suppose to hit Sat. afternoon and through Sunday and they were going to get 3 feet of snow over Donner Summit. I did not want to fight bad weather all the way home, so we decided to leave sat. afternoon around 1 pm and get ahead of the storm. We ended hitting it head on going over the summit. It took us over 4 hours to go over the summit. Chains or snow tires were mandatory and the speed limit was 30 mph. At one point going through the check point, it took us 49 minutes to go 1 mile. There were cars that had slid off the roads and a few wrecks. People always try to go too fast in those conditions.

We got home around 11 pm. It took us about 9 or 10 hours to get home. But I am glad we are home. The roads were good after we got into Nevada. Somebody in Reno told us he had heard that they closed the roads over the summit, so I was glad we got through. It was a very intense and slow drive over the summit and I was tired when I got home.

It was snowing here in Elko throughout the night and this morning. We had a robo call saying the we were going to have a stake fast for Landon Howe. He was riding his bike in Louisiana and got hit by a car. I guess he is in critical condition, collapsed lung, broken ribs, his brain is swelling and bleeding in 3 spots, so they had to cut open his skull to relief the pressure. They have in in an induced coma, so he can try and heal. He is on a respirator, as he can't breath on his own. When they are able to take him off the respirator, they will fly him to SLC to a hospital closer to his family. I guess the younger Howe kids are having a hard time with that.

We had a great Sabbath. Church was good. We went to tithing settlement. And the sister missionaries stopped by our house. Sister Kyle is going home this week and they wanted to say goodbye. I did not know they felt that close to our family, but I guess they like us.

I have to fly to Atlanta Georgia tomorrow morning at 5 am, so I need to get packed. I listened to the BYU vs UTah state football game last night on the way home. BYU won by 18 points or so. Taysom Hill got hurt again with about 3 minutes to go in the game. Out of the 4 times Taysom got hurt and out for the season. 3 of them were against Utah State. He got tackled out of bounds and landed on his elbow and they took him immediately to the locker room. He will have an MRI on his elbow today to see what the problem was.

We love you. We are very thankful for our family. We are thankful that you are serving a mission. Keep working hard. The time is flying by too quickly. Romney Goulding comes home in 10 days.  

We hope you have a great week.

Love,

Dad

Happy Birthday on Tuesday

Hello Elder Nielsen,

First things first. We hope you have a great birthday on Tuesday. The big 20, you are getting old. I can't believe that little 5 year old boy who use to follow me around in the mountains in now 20 years old. We love you and are happy you are part of our family.

Spring Creek lost to Desert Pines yesterday 39-6. That is all I know as I looked it up on the internet. BYU beat UMass 56-9 or something like that yesterday. I watched part of the 1st half yesterday, but UMass is not very good this year. The BYU basketball team is 3-0 and off to a good start. They have the 3 from Lone Peak back from their missions, Haws, Mika, and Emry. They are all playing very well. It could be a good year for them.

Summer made the JV basketball team. She is happy about that and so are we. Chief Nutting is her coach and he does a great job teaching the fundamentals. Also, Summer asked about Thanksgiving weekend and he said Family comes first, then school, then basketball. So we like that as well. We are going to go to California to visit Con's parents. Grandpa is 89 and we don't know how many more chances we will have to visit him. Hopefully we have good weather.

Wednesday we had the sister missionaries over for dinner. Our warm weather has left and it is starting to get cold. We had not turned on our furnace yet and the sisters, 1 from southern Utah and the other from Puerto Rico were freezing in our home. 

Thursday, we had the harvest festival the the YM/YW put on at the church. It was basically a dud. We only have 4 families show up that were not part of YMYW. So we ate lots of donuts and candy. Our ward is hurting as far as activity goes. We only get about 100 people to church on Sundays.

Friday night I was working late grading homework for my class and mom called about 7:30 pm and said an airplane had crashed in the barrick parking lot next to us and she could see the flames from our kitchen window. So I came home, she wanted to go look at it, but when I got home, there was a ton of traffic on our road. And they had blocked off the road over in front of the Post Office. They had also blocked off Mountain City Hwy, so I think all the lookers and people trying to get past the freeway were trying to find another road North. When mom went to go pick up Summer from bball practice at Adobe, it was a parking lot in front of our house and she could not even back out of our drive way. It took her 1/2 hour to get to Adobe by way of 5th street. I did not go over as Addie and Carly were scared. I guess after it crashed, there was a big explosion and that shook our house and it started a bunch of parked vehicles in the lot on fire as well. Also, one of the pickups there had ammunition in it, and bullets were going off as well. So I did not think it was safe to go over, but Mom went over to Lois' to see it. Saturday morning as I was doing the paper route, I could see the results of the plane and it was right next to the fence across from # 17 in the brown apartments. It looked like the pilot tried to take it down where the least amount of damage would be done. It was a medical plane taking a guy with heart problems to Utah. All 4 people aboard were killed. Tiffany Urresti 29 years old from Elko was a nurse was killed. Mom coached her sister in PAL volleyball Jamie. I think she is Amber's age. But it was less than 200 yards from our place. Lots of excitement in Elko. The crash got national exposure.

Erin just told us that John Carpenter died yesterday. Nick Meo had called me last week and told me he was not doing too well. He was a big part of Elko.

Saturday, mom and I were going around trying to get our yard winterized. Mom was trying to put on the C-mas lights as it might be out last nice day before winter. I washed the truck and 4-wheeler to get all the mud off from out hunting trip. We could not get the rotor tiller going so I had to use a shovel and turn over all the dirt in the garden. Carly had a pal bball game. Her team lost by 2 points. She played well, and her team was depending on her a lot, but she missed a few wide open shots. They were close but she could not get them to go down.

Today, We were suppose to have a girl from college over for a missionary discussion that I met in Battle Mtn. She lives in Elko now. She was going to go to church with us and we were going to have the Elders from the 4th ward come teach her, but she had to work. So we rescheduled for Tuesday. We will have them all over for dinner and then a discussion afterwards. So that will be good.

Addie was not feeling well today and threw up a couple times this morning. So I went to church with the 4th ward to take the sacrament and went to ward council. Then I came home and stayed with her. I rocked her and she slept for most of the time. She is sleeping again now, so she is not feeling well as she never sleeps that much.

Mom and I are going to go home teaching tonight.

We hope you have a great week. Keep working hard and being exactly obedient in all things. Have a great day on your birthday. Make it the best by teaching the gospel.

We love you,

DAD 

Veteran's Day/ Joe's Wedding

Dear Elder Nielsen,

We had stake conference this weekend and it was great. President Eardley was released as Patriarch which he has been serving in that position for 43 years. John Elwood was released as 1st counselor in the Stake presidency and was called as our new stake Patriarch.  Val Esplin was the 2nd counselor and now he is the 1st counselor and David Pulley has been called as the 2nd counselor in the stake presidency. So those are all great men.

A little story from our mission president President Chestnut which he shared with us. He said recently they had all the new missionaries assigned to their trainers and a day before the transfers, he received a call from the church saying they were going to send him another missionary.  He said he replied that is great, send him to us in 6 weeks at the next transfer. However, they told him he had already served part of his mission and was coming out again, so he told them to send the new missionary to them now.  I guess the APs got an email from the church saying they were going to send a new missionary to their mission. So they called the President and said what are we going to to with him. The president told the APs to let him think about it for a while and he would get back to them.  After 2 hours, he called the APs and told them to assign the new missionary to two zone leaders serving in the Reno area. The zone leaders could be in a 3-some and train this new missionary. Well on the day of the arrival and assignment of all the new missionaries, everyone new of their assignments except for the zone leaders and the new missionary. One of the zone leaders asked the mission president if the new missionary they were going to be training was named Elder Anderson? The mission president told him yes and the zone leader just wept. The president did not understand why and did not ask. After they had assigned all the new missionaries to their trainers (except for Elder Anderson) and they had exited the chapel and got their picture taken to send to their parents, the president announced who would be Elder Anderson's trainers. When Elder Anderson heard the name of his trainers, he went back and hugged one of the zone leaders and cried for at least 5 minutes. The zone leader's name started with an L and I can't remember it, so I will call him Elder L. I guess the mission president was now very curious now and the other missionaries who had left the chapel were now coming back in to the chapel to see what was going on.  Elder Anderson opened up his suit coat and pulled out a missionary name badge with Elder L's name on it. They came to find out that Elder L was Elder Anderson's trainer 17.5 months earlier and  Elder Anderson served for 2 weeks and had to go home to clear up a few things.  Elder L gave him his name badge and said, I want you to use this as your motivation to come back and finish your mission and give it back to me. Elder Anderson had been carrying Elder L's name badge with him for 17.5 months.

Another interesting thing about that story is that Elder L had extended for 6 weeks his mission or he would have been on his way home.  President Chestnut testified that the Lord knows who we are, and he is in charge of his children.  I thought that was a great story. 

President Eardley talked and he said he asks the youth if they know what patriarch means? He said it means chief father. So when we receive our patriarchal blessing we are receiving a blessing from our chief father or our father in heaven as if directly from him. I found that interesting and personalizes our patriarchal blessing a little more. All the meetings were 

great.

On Friday, it was veterans day so I was off work and the kids were out of school, so we got up at 3 am and drove to Utah to Joe Nielsen's wedding. He married a girl named Shannon in the SLC temple. We had to be there by 9 am utah time and we made it by 8:30.  The sealer did a great job. It was simple but very powerful. After pictures, we went to see the new museum and walked around temple square. Then we ate lunch at the Joseph smith memorial building on the 10th floor over looking the temple. It was nice. We had time to kill and no place to go, so afterwards, we got a tour of the conference center. We went to costco and then to the reception in Draper. It was all nice. We were very tired. Summer had to be back for bball tryouts at 9 am in Elko on Saturday.

Sharon and Brian were heading to Boise for their granddaughters baptism but gave us the code to their house and we went there Friday night and crashed. Got up at 3 am again to head back to Elko. 

We worked around the house on Saturday. Mom cut my hair.  BYU played So utah University and won 37 to 7 or something like that, so they are going to the poinsettia bowl in San Diego. They are 6-4 now. Spring Creek was playing Chaparral at home in the state semis.  And I had not watched them all year so I drove out to watch them play. I got their at half time and SC was up 14-0. But SC dominated and beat them 36-7. The 1st drive of the 2nd half, Chaparral drove down the field and was 1st and goal at the 5 yard line and they threw a interception and SC ran it back to the 50. That was a heart breaker instead of being 14-7, SC scored and now it was 21-0. They did not put up much of an effort after that. Desert Pines was up over So Tahoe 42-7 at half. So I am sure it will be SC vs Desert Pines in the final.

I went to the priesthood leadership meeting in the afternoon and then the adult session in the evening.

Tuesday we had the elections, and Trump pulled out a huge upset and beat Hilary Clinton, which we were glad. We don't like trump that much but he was the lesser of too evils. There has been a lot of protest and rioting across the country as he is a loose cannon. 

Not too much else to report. We have been having beautiful weather still for the middle of November.

Wednesday, I had to go to the church and go over a financial budget with a lady who was baptized at 11 and not been back to church since she was about 17 years old.  She was down and out. Her husband and beaten her up broke her collar bone and cleaned out her bank accounts and left. She was left not able to work, no money and had to pay rent, and other bills and did not know where to turn and the sister missionaries appeared in her area. She is seeking help from the church. She has been on Meth and other drugs, struggles with the word of wisdom etc. As I was visiting with her I told her to compare her life now vs what it was like when she was attending church. I am sure it is night and day. I also told her that I was glad she was here in the church, but more than financial assistance, she needs help from the Savior. She needs his atonement in her life to heal her wounds.   I could feel the Saviors love for her as I visited with her. It was a special experience, I felt a ton of love for this lady. I noticed she was at stake conference today with the sisters. It is amazing how the atonement changes lives.

Your cousin Braiden Nielsen is doing very well in Guatemala. He went to the MTC in Guatamala for 6 weeks and studied spanish, and his 1st day in the field when he got off the bus, they told him he was going to have to learn some indian language that they speak in the mountains. They could not remember what it was called. But only 10,000 people speak that language in the world. So he will spend his entire mission in that area. They don't know how to say Elder Nielsen, so they call him "White wolf" since he is white and has blue eyes. Perhaps Kevin knows what language he would be speaking.

Keep working hard. The gospel is true! Give the Lord every thing you have. You are in the 2nd half (game time) and it is when you need to step up and be the best you can be. Before you know it you will be back home. The time is flying fast. But make sure you stop and realize how important your calling is and who you represent.  Don't take it for granted. Be the best representative of Him that you can be.  Teach with His spirit and follow the spirit is all that you do. We love that talk from conference about the Inca trail since we have been there. Follow his spirit. Learn from your president and apply what you learn to your life.

We love you and are so happy you are serving the Lord. Have a great week.

Love

Dad

The Month of Gratitude

Elder Nielsen,

Another fast week. We had something going on every night except for Friday & Saturday. Monday was Halloween, so when I got home from work I changed my clothes and took Carly and Adelaide and the 2 little Filipino girls (carly's friend) out trick or treating. We hit all of our block on Dotta and then we did the loop around where the Simons live. They got tons of candy. Addie had her pumpkin full of candy so I had brought a plastic bag and dumped her candy into it, so she could get more. It was a pleasant evening so lots of kids were out running around trick or treating. Summer and Mom stayed home to give out candy.

Tuesday I had Elko high schools FAFSA night. So I had to go help parents and students fill out their FAFSAs. We had a pretty good turn out and filled up one of the computer rooms in the high tech center.

Wednesday, I took off work at noon and to take my lunch and come home and work on cutting up the Summers buck. It is freezing during the nights below 32 degrees but gets up to 65 during the days. We have been having beautiful weather for the 1st week in November. Then at 3 pm I had to drive to Winnemucca to do a FAFSA night at Lowry high school. But we only had 4 or 5 people show up. I did not get back to Elko until around 9:30 pm. It was game 7 of the world series so I was listening to it on the radio. It went into extra innings and the Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians to win the world series. The last time the cubs won it was 108 years ago. So I was happy for the cubs. They were down 3 games to 1 and came back and won it.

On Thursday, the BYU vocal point group was here so we went to their concert. They are 9 men that sing and they are very good. We did not get home until after 9 pm again.

On Friday, mom and I went and voted. This election between Hilary Clinton vs Donald Trump has been ugly and we do not like either candidate. I think we are voting against the one vs voting for someone. It is pretty sad that those 2 are the best we could do for president. We will find out on Tuesday who won.

Spring Creek played Fallon in football in SC and they won 38-8. That Jon Jund is their quarterback and I guess he is the real deal. I have not seen him play this year, but SC seems to be very solid this year.

Saturday, I spent all day cutting up the deer, except for a few hours during the middle of the day. We went to a ladies' baptism in the Elko spanish branch. It was very nice. She is in her 60's and I guess all her kids said they would disown her if she got baptized. But she did it any way. Afterwards, mom and I went by Donna White's house. She is selling her house and had a few tax questions for me. It was a very nice visit. She is going to move to Utah to be closer to family.

BYU beat Cincinnati 20-3 in football.

Sunday was fast sunday. We had good meetings. Adelaide lost her tooth today after church. We went over to the Halls house after church and they emptied out all their candy dishes and gave them to kids.

A funny story about Addie. Yesterday she was eating her breakfast and out of the blue, she said, "We can pray any where. On the play ground at school we can just close our eyes and fold our arms and pray all the time." But then she said, do we have to knell down? I said, no, we can say a prayer any time, just by closing our eyes and saying a pray. I told her President Monson prays all the time, when he is fishing, etc. I thought that was funny, right out of the blue with that comment.

That is about it. We hope you have a great week. We love you and pray for you daily. Keep working hard.

Love 

DAD and Addie (she wanted me to tell you about her tooth)