Dear Elder Nielsen,
I can't believe Christmas is next week. Where in the world has the time gone. 4:30 pm our time will be good for the phone call on Sunday and Monday your time.
This was another good week. The Choralier's concert was on Monday, Summer's 1st Christmas concert. It was good and I love all the songs. I could listen to them for ever. Kate Shumway is a senior now and that was her last C-mas concert and Sister Shumway was pretty emotional afterwards.
Landon Howe is doing a lot better now. I guess he is standing up now and eating solid foods. And can walk 40 steps with the help from the nurse. So it sounds like he is steady improving which is good.
We were watching the girl on Carly's PAL bball team and on Monday, and her mom called and said they needed to stay another day, so we had her until Tuesday. She is a nice girl. Very quiet and did not eat a lot.
Summer had a JV game on Monday against Wells varsity. They lost, Summer shot 2 or 3 times and missed. She is very timid and needs to play with more confidence. She wants to get rid of the ball right after she catches it. Then she played again on Wednesday against Carlin and they won, but she is still not playing with any confidence. Again I think she was 0-2 or something. She only shoots a couple times a game, but half of her shots she should not take and she should shot more when she is open. She left at half time on the game Monday to go to the choraliers concert.
Carly had PAL games on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. She is really improving. These were tournament games, so she started playing very intensely. They won on Wednesday. She had probably 6 points. In Friday and Saturday's games, the best player on their team was gone to a AAU Tournament, so Carly had to step up big time. The girl that was gone was one of their taller girls, but Carly played the entire game and was all over the court, dribbling in and around girls. She had 11 points, but they lost to an Owyhee team who had a bunch of big tall girls. She was dead tired after the game. Carly's team played again on Sat. and won and took 3rd place. But she has improved a ton on her aggressiveness and assertiveness. We took her off of Bailey's team so she could be used more and that was a great decision.
The kids had their last day of school on Friday for the year. We had our adult white elephant party for the 3rd ward on Friday night. That is always fun. On Saturday we had our ward C-mas dinner. It was good, but nothing out of the ordinary. It has been getting down to single digits here at night, so not a lot of the older members in our ward venture out on those cold nights.
Yesterday, I worked on the van. We had a front headlight out and a rear brake light that I replaced. I also replaced the window wipers on the van. The clutch on the trooper has not been working well since I got home from Georgia, so I had to drive the truck all week. I need to work on a bunch of issues with the cars, but it is bitter cold out there.
This morning I gathered up 5 of the young men in our ward and we took the sacrament to the manor. It was good. I saw Iris, the girl the YSA sisters have been teaching in our home there, and I talked to her. It was good to see her again. We need to have another discussion with her in our home while all the kids are home.
Church was good today. We only had about 90 members show up to our ward today. We were very scarce.
We are excited to talk to you next week. All the kids should be here, so that will be great. We are excited to have all the kids here for Christmas. This is a very special time of year. We love you and are extremely happy you are serving a mission. Keep working hard. Only 6 months left to give it all you got and sprint to the finish line.
Have a super week!! We will be on skype next Sunday around 4:30 pm our time.
Love,
Dad
Dearest Elder Nielsen,
Yes, we have hit the single digits this week. Erin said it is super cold in Rexburg, -16 the other morning! Enjoy your sweating while you can. This past week was a lot of fun. We had basketball games, Choralier stuff and Christmas Parties.
Monday, we went to the Christmas Choralier Concert. It was a packed house as usual. It was weird for me to see Summer down there singing on stage, when for so many years she was next to me watching and listening. She was right on the front row, so we had a good view of her, in kind of the usual Nielsen position. It was as expected a very good concert. There were a few new songs, and Peter Neff had a solo in one of them. He has a very nice bass voice. Those Neffs just are so pleasant to listen to. When they had all the Alumni go down to sing their songs, AJ Jordan was there and he went down and sat at the piano bench as the alumnus page turner. It was fun to see him again, he is such a good kid. Summer had a basketball game earlier that night against Wells. She had to leave at half time to go to her concert. She did OK, she plays too much inside her head. Dad tells her to just relax and play to win. She thinks about the plays and where she is supposed to be too much.
She had another game on Wed. against Carlin and she didn't think she played well in that game. She had two blocked shots, but Dad had a list of "constructive" or instructive criticisms... "Don't leave your feet-- watch the ball, not their eyes when you're guarding them--square up-- move your feet!" I'm sure those sound kind of familiar to you
Carly had a game that night too. It was the first game of the tournament round in PAL. She has really improved and they beat a team that was ranked ahead of them, so they advanced to the second round. The next game they played was Friday and the best girl on their team had a AAU tournament in Boise, so it was up to our little Car-Car to lead the team and boy did she! She came alive, and played like an animal! She scored 9 out of their 12 points. She has a sweet little shot, and plays really good defense. She will be guarding a girl and then the next thing I'll see her grabbing the rebound and charging down court. She's not quite the bull out their that Erin was, but Dad says she doesn't have the body to blast through people. Her poor little knees were all bruised afterwards. They lost that game against Owyhee, but played again on Sat. for 3rd or 4th place. That game wasn't quite as good. They played at 10am, and they seemed kind of asleep the first half. Carly was still high scorer for her team(6 or 8 pts.) They ended up winning and that placed them in 3rd for the tournament.
We had one of the girls from her team stay with us Sunday and Monday night. The coach's other daughter had a Dr. appt. in Reno so she farmed out a couple of the girls and we got the 6th grader that is friends with Carly. She seemed to enjoy it.
Friday was our Adult Ward Party, the one where we bring the white elephant gift. It was a fun party as usual. Jeannie Baumman opened up her gift that was a box of ammo--22 shells, but it was just the box, inside was a bunch of nuts and bolts. I stole a popcorn bucket with a movie theater gift card for 15.00, but that got stolen from me. I then stole a gift from Mandy Simons that was a homemade titanium band (ring) that Pres. Esplin had made in his shop. It was really pretty and fit my finger perfectly! Then a few minutes later here comes Mason Simons sauntering over to steal my ring! He was a little too eager, because it wasn't quite his turn yet, but I knew he'd be coming back for it, so I said to Jeannie Baumman, sitting next to me, "Hey, is there a washer in that box of bolts?" She found one, so I put the washer in the box that the ring was in and so when he came to get it, I had pulled the switch! It was so funny to watch his puzzled face when he opened up the box and found this thick old rusty washer in there instead of the ring. It was a good gag. I gave back the ring.
School got out friday for Christmas Break. It will be fun when all the kids come and spend Christmas with us. We will try and squeeze all our faces in on the computer screen when you call and Skype. We are sure looking forward to it! Keep up the good work, we sure love you and hope you enjoy your last Christmas in the Philippines. Love, Mom
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