Welcome to the World Baby Emma!

Dear Elder Nielsen,

 This past week was a very busy one. With mom up in Rexburg helping Erin, I was here in Elko taking care of the kids. On Monday, I had my class and did not get home until after 10 pm. Then it takes me a while to wind down and I did not get to bed until after 11 pm. Erin had baby Emma Jean on Monday around 8:15 pm Elko time, but I was in class and did not find out about it until after my class.

Tuesday I got up at 4:15 am to do the paper route before I went to bball, but the papers were not here yet. So I tried to go back and sleep for a while, but I was not able to sleep. The papers finally got here about 4:45 am but it takes me over an hour to do it, so I was not able to go to bball that morning. I have to take Summer to seminary by 6:15 am and then shower and pick up the Filipino kids and take them and addie and drop them off at northside, by 8 and then I would take Carly and Danielle and drop them off at flagview around 8:15 am. It interrupted my morning trading. Then I would not take my lunch until about 3 pm so I would go pick up addie, then Summer at the high school then Carly and Danielle at 3:20 pm. My entire day was interrupted with chasing kids to and from School. On Wednesday, they have early out, but they get out at different times by about 1.5 hours. So that afternoon was shot as well.

The regional tournaments were held this past weekend. Elko was the host of the 1A schools, so I had to do the clock for 2 and a half games at Adobe middle school. Eureka and Wells were playing. Clancy Talbot and his dad were there watching Makayla. I talked with them a little, but not much. Then we had young mens and young women, so I had to come home and pick up the 3 younger girls and take them to the church. All of the young men except for the 2 deacons were gone to winnemucca for the girls varsity game. Elko girls played South Tahoe on Thursday and won. But then Elko girls played Winnemucca on Friday and got beat 55-40. Lowry was hitting 3's all night and made a lot of them. Lowry had 6 3's in the first half. So the girls are done. The boys played Fallon on Friday night (they had a bye the 1st round) and won by about 18-20 points. Fallon had upset Spring Creek boys on Thursday night. 

On Saturday, Elko boys beat Fernley by about 18-20 points again, and Fernley had upset So. Tahoe the #2 seed on Friday. So both Elko and Fernley will go to state in Las Vegas next week. Eric had about 23-28 points in each game. The Fallon girls beat Lowry in the regional championship game 50-15 or something crazy like that. The Fallon girls are awesome. Elko boys plays Cheyanne, a team they beat by 20 points in Vegas in January, but Cheyanne had beaten Desert Pines twice during the year, but Desert Pines beat them by 30 points in the So. regional final. So we will see what happens next week.

I had to do the books for the 1A regional finals game for the girls and boys on Saturday. They were fun games. The owyhee girls and boys were both in the finals, and the Elko gym was packed. I think all of Owyhee was there at the games. Mom got home on Sat. around 7:30 pm. It was suppose to rain again here for the next 5 days so we are under flood watch again.

Today at church, after sacrament meeting, they asked all the men and young men to meet in a room. And they asked us all to go home and change our clothes and go help a company Rincon with all the flood damage on the South side of town by southside school. So I came home and went over there and spent 5 hours hauling out clothing, and everything in the basement of 3 different houses and throwing everything in big dumpsters to take to the dump. Then we had to tear down all the dry wall and insulation to the studs as every thing was wet and mildew was setting in. Some of those home flooded clear up to the top stair all the way to the ceiling in the basement so we had to tear out all the sheet rock including the ceiling. It was pretty devastating all the water they got down there. In many places the sewage had backed up so every thing was contaminated. We had to wear gloves, masks, googles and boots to work down there. The stake president asked us to all go down and every ward in Elko was down there helping. My crew cleaned out 3 homes, but there are sill over 100 homes that have damage. And 90% of the volunteers were LDS. One little Mexican lady was hauling sand bags away from her house, so obviously I wanted to go over there and help and talk to her. So Dwaine Hiles and Randy Jenkins and I were over there helping her with her sand bags, but I was talking to her the entire time in spanish. After we had finished helping her, about 1/2 hour later, she came over to me at the next house where were working and brought 2 big bags of tomales she had made. She was a very sweet lady. I told mom, I would like to go back later this week with our family and take her some cookies or something and help her with the other sand bags around her house. We left them there as I told her it was suppose to rain more this week.  It could be a great missionary experience. And those bags of sand are heavy.

It felt like all I did was chasing kids to and from activities all week. 

We love you and hope you have a great week. Keep working hard and being the best missionary you possibly can be. Rely on the Lord and his spirit and then go work as hard as you can.

Love,

Dad

Dearest Elder Nielsen,

I spent the last week in Rexburg, ID helping Erin and Landon out after the birth of their baby girl.  I left last Sunday evening and headed toward Salt Lake to stay overnight with Sharon and Brian because the road was closed on Hyw(through Twin) 93 due to flooding.  I was just about to Wendover when Dad called me to tell me the road was open, but by then I was too far committed to my original plan.  I got and finished my travels to Rexburg the next morning.  I drove straight to the hospital where Erin was already hooked up to the IV, dripping the the Oxytocin which will kick her into labor.  They predicted it would be about 5 or 6pm before she'd have the baby.  The Welches were also there, so we went to their apartment and did some cleaning and then went back to the hospital to w a i t.  We were all in the waiting room, and Landon would come out and give us updates periodically. Sabrina and her husband came up from Utah too.  We'd been waiting for hours when Mathew said exasperatedly, "I'm bored out of my mind!"  At about 9:20pm Landon came out and said that their little girl was born. She was 7 lbs. 3 oz.   They named her Emma Jean.  Both Suzanne and I have "Jean" as our middle name, so that works out quite conveniently.  Everything went really well (Epidurals are wonderful)  She has a lot of dark thick hair and she is really a cute baby with a little dimple in each cheek.  They didn't check out to of the hospital until wednesday afternoon, so I didn't really get to work until then.  I went to the BYU-I tuesday devotional on campus and that was really good.  Elder Anderson spoke, and since it was Valentine's Day part of his talk was directed toward the singles and finding their "Eternal Valentine".  I went to the temple on Wed. morning.  I really liked Rexburg.  I found a radio station that was BYU-I Radio that plays church music and devotions and conference talks 24/7.

Amber and Kevin came up a few times to visit and that was fun to be with them.  Kylee (Olsen) Sumner came to visit on the 14th when Erin was still in the hospital and held Emma for 2 whole hours while Erin and Landon got to eat their hospital dinner trays together (special steak dinner for Valentines Day) Erin joked that that was their "date" for valentines and that Kylee was their babysitter.

I enjoyed the time I got to spend with them.  Landon is sure a cute little Dad.  He has jumped right into fatherhood and has been right there helping and super involved with the baby.  I enjoyed the time I spent there; I cooked and also made some meals for their freezer.  I got home last night about 6:30.  I missed my little girls, and my boy.  Things went pretty well while I was gone.  Adelaide got moved up into the highest reading group.  She and two other kids from her class go to another teachers class for their reading group.

Elko Basketball Update:

The girls beat South Tahoe and then lost the next night to Lowry, so they are out.  They took 3rd in League.  The boys won on friday against Fallon by about 20  and then played Fernley on Sat. and beat them by about the same.  So, they are Regional Champs for the 6th year in a row.  It's off to Vegas next weekend.  We hope they can accomplish what the Fab 5 couldn't.  Having Clark move up to 4A should help the situation. 

Its always good to hear how you are doing, I hope you had a good week and that you'll continue to work hard. 

 I love you son, Mom