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

Dearest Elder Nielsen,

We had a fast, but fun trip over the weekend to Utah to attend Joe's sealing in the Salt Lake Temple.  We got up at 3:30 am on Friday.  The kids didn't have school that day because they had Veterans' Day off, so it worked out well.  We got there in plenty of time.  We were supposed to be there are 9:10 (30 min. before the sealing) and I think we were 10 min. early in fact.  Joanne didn't even know we were going to be there, so she was quite surprised and so was everyone else that we got there before they did.  The sealer was really good.  He didn't say anything really unusual or amazing, just good doctrine about families and the sanctity of temples.  The little girls just stayed in the temple waiting room in the lobby area while we were at the sealing.  We took the obligatory family pictures and then Adelaide posed for some pictures for Carly to take of her.  She is practicing her "bridales" for the future.  We had some time to kill so we went to the Church History Museum right there across from temple square.  On the way there we passed by some temple square sisters so of course Dad has to chat with everyone of them.  We spent about 40 min. in the museum.  It had been renovated and there is a theatre room that plays a video of Joseph Smith's vision on a surround screen, it's not quite 360 degrees, but close.  It made you feel like you were right there in the grove.  We had the wedding breakfast in the Joseph Smith Building up on the 10th floor in the Garden Restaurant.  Adelaide was funny, she would raise her hand and ask our waitress for more fry sauce or the doggy bag.  Carly won't even do that.  We were going back to the Conference Center after lunch to where our car was parked and one of the bridesmaids was in the elevator with us, and she and Ads just clicked.  Addie told her she looked beautiful and that girl walked with us ( holding Ads hand) all the way to the Conference Center.  We weren't in any hurry so we went to look inside to see the huge conference room, since the girls hadn't seen it.  We ended up having a full tour and that young gal, Amanda was her name came along with us.   She was super nice.  She said she had met Shannon, Joe's wife at Snow College and they had quickly become good friends.  She told us that Joe and Shannon had been ballroom dance partners at Bingham, but not until after his mission did they really start dating.  We stayed for the reception that night and then stayed at Sharon's house that night and then did the same thing all over again the next morning--getting up at 3am ish and hitting the road for home because Summer had basketball try-outs that morning at 9am.

Summer won't know until tomorrow what team she will be placed on. She's quite sure it won't be varsity; she just doesn't feel like she is at that level.  We would like to go to California this year for Thanksgiving, but it kind of depends on where she is placed, so tune in next week!

I got a promotion in my little cross guarding job.  I am now the CG coordinator, woo hoo!  That means that I am the communication between the transportation supervisor/schools and all the crossing guards.  I got a pay raise, and a cell phone (can you believe it?)  don't get too excited, it's a flip phone, and I had to figure out how to even use the thing the first few days.  Texting is the old number pad, where you have to push one or two times depending on the letter you need.  Very archaic but, hey, you take what you can get.

I hope you are having a wonderful time,  everyone always asks how you are doing and we always report very positive things.  You are rounding the final turn, its amazing how fast its gone.  Have a great week. 

Love , Mom

PS  I asked the girls if they knew where any bean bags were, for the mutual to use in a game for the Harvest Festival this week and Adelaide knew right where one was and her comment to that was."I was born to be fabulous!"