Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Dear Elder Nielsen,

Another crazy week in the books. These weeks are blowing by too quickly. Monday, Summer had her Track Meet banquet and she received her varsity letter in track. So she lettered in Soccer and track as a freshman. Not too bad.  Krenka does a good job of getting us in and out.

On Tuesday, that Mexican family was suppose to come in and visit with me, but they called and postponed until next week. So I will have to ask them if they want to hear the discussions this week.

Wednesday, I had to go to a meeting at the church for our Aaronic Priesthood encampment that we are having in June.  I took Thursday and Friday off so I could work in the basement, but I still am not getting too much done. I need help down there and I don't get too much help from your mother. She had book club on Thursday, so I helped her get the house clean and then on Friday she went out for a couple of hours visiting teaching. So we keep getting curve balls thrown at us. On Friday and Sat. I cut a whole in the garage ceiling to get access into the attic to put support for that shelf that you and I built before your mission. The left side is pulling out as there are no studs up there in that area.  After I got the whole cut out, I got up there, and I can't see or get access to the area where the shelf attaches. So I do not know what I am going to do.

Saturday, I went and helped the Doug and Corine Sills move out to Spring Creek for 3 hours. I was sweating like a pig. I did not plan on going as we were meeting at 9:30 am, but we got the robo call reminding us of the move at 10 am, so I figured there were not too many people that showed up. They are struggling right now with church activity, so I went over to show my support for them.

We also had a service activity on Thursday night Young men spreading new bark around the church, but we only had 4 young men show up. And they are as lazy as an old tired dog. I did most the work myself. We are lucky we had brother hirst and a few other adults or we would have been there all night.

But Saturday, we were going and working all day long. I was dead tired around 8 pm at night. 

Sunday we had our fast and testimony meeting. It was good. I helped Nick Mierins with the shut ins. Then we had the sister missionaries over for dinner. They are very sweet sisters.  We told them we would have to have them over for dinner when you get home, and one of them said, oh no, I don't want to be giving the spiritual thought in front of an AP.

I went to the Dentist office for teeth cleaning on Monday and I visited with that lady for about 1.5 hours in a very natural way about the church and you on your mission etc. She said that her and her husband saw 2 missionaries crossing the street in front of them in Reno, and she said to her husband, " I think every young man should serve a mission or go into the military."  Little does she know how true she is.  We had a great discussion about the Book of Mormon, families, etc. I scheduled you and Amber an appointment with her the day after you get home. I thought we could tag team this effort. Mom has an appointment with her this week.  I was hoping the 3 of you could seal the deal on what I started.

The Simons dropped Maybelle  their dog off for the 3 day weekend, so we are watching her for 3 days.

Keep working hard, sprinting to the finish line. We love you and pray for your continued success. 

Have a super week!!

Love,

Dad

Spring, finally!

Dear Elder Nielsen,

It was great to see you and talk to you. You look great. I hope you are surviving the heat ok over there. It is starting to warm up here now. It usually goes from winter to summer in a week. It was cold at the beginning of the week and the Ruby Mtns got about 1.5 feet of snow. We received grapple down here in the valleys. 

Monday was Summer's Choraliers concert. It was good, and Ms. Rodgers is enjoying things a lot more every since Erin's grade graduated. There was a lot of contention with her and that group. Summer wanted to go out to Denny's afterwards, but it was too late. They did not go over there until 9:30 pm and we get up early around 4 am. So to go pick her up later was not good for us. Summer has to get up early and do her paper route any way. I know you kids the older you got, the less desirable that was. (Except for Amber, she wanted to go out afterwards every year)

On Tuesday, I had the nicest family come in to see me about there FAFSA. They are a Mexican family with twin daughters that are seniors. The mom and dad do not speak any English, so we were talking the entire time in Spanish. It was very fun and we hit it off together very well. We both enjoyed the visit and I told them we would have to have them over for dinner some time. You know what that means..... An invitation to listen to the missionaries. They told me they were Catholic and attend church every week. I did not invite them that first night, but they are coming in to see me with the other twin tomorrow, so I will make that invitation then. They are an awesome family and would make great members of the church.

On Wednesday, I had to drive to Reno for meetings. I left around 2 or 3 pm and got to Reno about 7 pm. The wind was blowing badly the entire drive over there. I was hoping to make it over there to go to the temple and do some work, but the last session ended at 7 pm. They only have about 5 sessions a day.

I had meetings all day Thursday and a half a day on Friday for the NSHE retirement advisory board committee that I serve on.  I was hoping to make it to the temple on Thursday night, but we all went out to dinner and did not get done in time for me to make the 7 pm session.

So on Friday, we got done at noon with out meetings and I went to the temple and the next session did not start until 1 pm. So I did some initiatory's for an hour and then I did a session. So I left Reno about 3 pm and got home about 7:45 pm.

On Saturday, mom, the kids and I worked on the house all day. I put another shelf in the fruit room. Mom has filled that thing up already with food and storage.

Sunday, I had to give a talk on "Using the Book of Mormon to get answer to prayer".  It was kind of a specific topic, but I worked on that Saturday evening.

They talk went well. Mom and I went out and did some home teaching tonight. I also went with Brother Hiles to give Sister Gurr a blessing. She fell and hit her head and had spent some time in the hospital.

Elko lost the 1st 2 games at state in baseball to Boulder City and Moapa Valley. Spring Creek made it to the championship game but had to beat Boulder City 2 to win, but lost the first game 9-8.

The Cavs are blowing out the Celtics in the Eastern finals and the warriors are blowing out the spurs in the Western finals. On Friday, the Cavs were up by 41 points at half time. Largest lead ever in a play off game at half time.

Well, keep working hard. Sprint to that finish line and give it all you got. Don't be waving at the fans until you cross the finish line. You might pull a hammy or something like that.

We love you and pray for you daily. Missionary work is the best thing ever. Enjoy it while you can. I can't wait to make that invitation to that Spanish speaking family tomorrow evening.  Ma bajo un kili kili mo if you are working as  hard as you should be.

Love,

Dad

Happy Mother's Day

Hello Elder  Nielsen,

We are having a wonderful Mother's Day today. I got up early and made mom breakfast, Torta de Papa, = potato cake. With eggs, potatoes, bacon, cheese, onions, etc. Mom liked it and gave some to the kids and they wanted me to make it for them. So I had to make them a batch as well. Addie said, this is really good, I want this in my lunch. But I spent about 2.5 hours in the kitchen. After church, mom had thawed out one of grandpa Nielsen's old chickens, so I made fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, green peas, and spinach salad. The chicken was great, but the gravy was not as good as mom's. It lacked some flavor. Addie said, this is really good, maybe you should cook every day. I said, "Not so fast girl".  But it was fun serving mom. Then we cleaned up and did the dishes and mom did not have to lift a finger today.  Mom said, so this is what Sunday's feel like for you. Again, not so fast Trigger.

This week, went by quickly. On Monday, I taught my last class for the semester. We went right up until 10 pm as they were all getting ready for the final exam.  Monday afternoon, mom and I went over to hear Summer sing with the Choraliers. We sat by the Shumways and had a nice visit with them. 

Thursday for mutual we were going to do indexing but ended up looking up relative finder. All the boys had a good time seeing who they were related to.

Friday, I took the day off to work in the basement. But mom and I ended up cleaning and going through old boxes. We were busy all day, but did not make much progress on the basement. Friday evening we went to a spanish branch cinco de mayo celebrations combined with the 2nd ward. It was really good. They had a live band and the Young Mexican dancers performing live for us. We had about 200-250 people. It was really nice and fun. I enjoy visiting and talking with all those spanish speaking people.

On Saturday, we got up at 4 am, did the paper route. Then Carly and I had to be at the church at 7 am. We went to the Bountiful temple. It was a great experience. Carly got to be baptized and confirmed for the 3 ladies that she found all by herself.  They have changed a lot of things in the baptistery. Now if you are confirming you do not need to be dressed in white. But I did not know that and I had my white clothing on. One of the gentlemen working at the temple asked me if I was going to do baptisms and I said, I don't think so. And he said so why are you dressed in white. I said I thought I  had to. Any way, I thought, (well I'm in white and had about 11 more male names that I had found to do), are there any youth that want to be baptized, and they were all done, so Brother Mason Simons said I will baptize you for them. So I went in and was baptized and confirmed for all of those names. That is the 1st time I have every done that. Being raised in Nebraska, I never had that opportunity as a youth. After my mission, I always did the baptizing and confirming. So it was a fun special day. We went to Chuck o Rama afterwards. Then we came home. Got back about 6:30 pm.  I was pretty tired from driving and getting up early. They asked me to take the suburban and I only ended up taking the 2 Bauman boys and their mom. We had about 15 youth from our ward and 5 adults and 2 youth from the Spanish ward with 3 of their leaders.

Elko ended up taking 3 in league in baseball, so they did not get a bye game. They played South Tahoe and beat them 3-1, and then they played Dayton and beat them. So they ended up playing Spring Creek, and SC beat them by 1 and Elko went down and beat Fallon in the loser's bracket. They then had to beat SC 2 for the regional champ. They beat them the first game by two and ended up losing the final by 1 point. But both SC and Elko will go to state. So that is good. But all the games were really close. Elko had to play 5 games and SC only played 3.

Summer went to the regionals for track as an alternate, but the 4x400 relay took 4 and will not be going to state. So she left Thursday after school and got home late Saturday night. But she said Krenka told her she will earn her varsity letter in track as freshman. So that is 2 varsity letters for her as a freshman, which is great. 

Well we look forward to talking to you today. It should be any time now. We love you and pray for your success. Keep sprinting to the finish line.

We love you,

Dad

Your Mother is a year older this past week!

Hello Elder Nielsen,

Another good week. Mom had her birthday on Wednesday. We did not do too much special. We all went to the Red Lion for the buffet on the football pickers that I had won. We had to pay for Adelaide and a tip. Summer was not too impressed and likes mom's cooking better.

Summer went on a track meet to Fallon for regionals. She ran the 400 but did not qualify for the event. So she will go with the varsity team next weekend to regionals as an alternate in the 400. The boys bus broke down in Winnemucca on the way back and she did not get home until 11:30 pm last night.

We had combined YMYW activity Thursday at mutual and played glow in the dark dodge ball. It was pretty fun. Addie had gone with us and she wanted to play. So she was out there in the middle of things playing dodge ball. Addie lost another tooth this week.

On Saturday, we had big plans to get a lot done. Mom and I did the paper route early. And I came home and tried to fix the dead bolt on the front door. It was getting sticky lately and Carly had broken off her key in the door, so we could not lock it from the outside. I had bought a replacement which was the very same brand and kind, but I could not get it to line up. I had to drill a bigger hole in the side of the door and then I had to chip away part of the door to get it to work. I worked on it for about 3-4 hours. You would think that the same company and some lock would work the same way, but they had changed them all up. Any way it is fixed now and locks nicely. 

I also charged the bug battery, so we have been driving the bug around all week. It was really hot on Friday, low 80's or high 70's. We basically go from winter to summer, with very few spring like days.

Saturday afternoon, Merrick Simon's had a birthday party and we all went over for pizza. They had 3 or 4 families over there and it was fun visiting with all of them. But we kind of left on a down note. They were talking about people were are becoming inactive and things that had happened to certain members in the area and it was sad. I am not sure how people can serve missions and have been through the temple and give that all up for worldly desires. It was bothersome to hear that news. We came home and watched the Kentucky Derby and then we went to the church for a going away party for the Shumways. They are selling their house and probably will not be coming back to Elko after their mission. He said they might go back to Arizona to take care of their parents. Anyway, it was sad saying our goodbyes.  They will make great mission president and wife. He has already been in contact with the mission president and is getting information and getting up to speed. Sister Shumway said she thought the timing was a little early, but when they met with President Uchtdorf, and mentioned their daughter Kate, he told them you watch and see, that she will be blessed and be better off than if they were here with her for their service. The enabling power of the atonement at work. But we had fun visiting with other people that we rarely see any more as they are in different wards.

Today was fast Sunday and it is always a delight. Had good meetings. Came home had a simple dinner. The church wants everyone to have a user ID and password to log into LDS.org and family search. So I set one up for Carly and then she and I and Summer went to work finding family names. Carly found 4 names, 3 of which she can take to the temple this Saturday to do baptisms for. Summer found 1 name and I found 3. So not a bad 2 hours work. Carly and Summer both said, this is fun. I also helped mom upload a picture of her Grandpa and Grandma Croft in 1925 canoeing at Bear Lake. It is a cool picture. I guess they were engaged at the time.

We hope you have a great week. We were talking to I believe Emily Anderson and she said she was in Winnemucca and heard Elder Grays home coming and knew that you and he had met up in the MTC. It is a crazy small world. We love you and pray for you daily. Like you said in your last email, enjoy every second you have serving as a missionary and representing Jesus Christ. This is truly a very special time in your life and it will all be over before you know it.  Keep being an awesome missionary.  

Mom thinks we should do the phone call around 6 pm Sunday night our time and what ever time you suggested. That would be Monday morning for you. But she will firm up the details from your letter.

Love,

DAD