Hola Elder Nielsen,
This past week was another good week. It rained a lot and was cold again. Elko's baseball team was suppose to play Spring Creek on Tuesday, but it got rained out. They did play on Wednesday and Spring Creek beat Elko 13-8. Elko was leading 5-1 heading into the bottom of the 5th inning and S.C. scored 11 runs that inning. Elko played in Fernley over the weekend and lost 1st game on Friday. But they won the 2 games on Sat. 5-0 and 4-3. Regionals in is S.C. this year, so I would like to go watch those games. I heard that Elko will have to forfeit the 1st 3 games of league as they had those players playing who were suspended and the rules say you have to miss 2 weeks of league games not practice games.
Yesterday, on Saturday, mom and I took 5 members of the Lopez family to the Twin Falls temple to do baptism. I think there were 16 of us total (2 Mata kids, Gabriela, the Lopez girl, president Hirst, and Bro. & sister Mendez and Bro. Anderson) including the leadership that went. 3 of the Lopez kids are members, but only 1 is old enough to do baptisms. The mom is not a member but they have been attending the Spanish branch for over a year. She and her other kids just walked around the temple grounds and took pictures. Elko 5th ward was there ahead of us, and we did not know that before hand. We left at 10 am and did not get back to Elko until around 9 pm. After the temple we drove over and looked at the snake river and scenic area and there were about 6 guys there jumping off the bridge and parachuting down to the ground. A few of them would dive off head 1st and free fall for about 5 seconds before they would pull their chutes. They were making me nervous. We went to eat at Golden Corral afterwards. That reminded me of mom and dad as they would always take us to those places. The 3rd ward was having a family dance/activity at the church so we stopped in to pick up the 3 younger girls. I guess they had a dance competition and Carly and Adelaide took 2nd place. They said they were doing moves like on Dancing with the Stars.
Today was fast Sunday and we had good meetings and then had the missionaries over for dinner. They are only teaching 2 English speaking people and 2 Spanish speaking people, so we need to do a better job of finding people for them to teach. They come to dinner and they are never in a hurry to leave. We have to basically kick them out the door. I am sure that would get old if you were not teaching anyone. So mom and I are going to work harder to find someone for them to teach. It has been too long since they taught someone in our home.
Well, I can't think of much else to say. We love you and pray for you daily. Keep working hard. We are happy you are getting the language down and feel more comfortable. I had a student in my office this past week, and I asked her what nationality she was and she said asian. I said what kind of asain, she said Filipino, and that she understood it, but did not speak it so well. So I had to use my tagalog "Mabaho un kili kili mo". She laughed and said I said it perfectly. She moved her from Reno and attended Damonte Ranch high school.
Give the Lord every thing you have. Focus on the work, be exactly obedient and he will bless you. We look forward to talking to you next week. Mom turns the big 50 on Tuesday. We are getting old.
Love,
Dad
Dearest Elder Nielsen,
It's been rainy and cool all week this past week, but this week it is supposed to warm up and be quite nice. All the flowering trees have blossoms on them. You know those trees that are just solid pink with blossoms this time of year? The whole complex of the brown apts. on W. Sage is an enchanted forest of fushia trees. Our peach trees are also full of blossoms, so hopefully it will be a good year for peaches.
We had a good Sunday dinner of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and spinach salad. We had the missionaries for dinner, they don't have many people in their teaching pool so we need to step it up and get back into our missionary mode. Kyra Smith was in church today, she just finished her first year of college at Snow and she said she will be putting in her papers for her mission the end of this week. She will be a great missionary. I taught Relief Society today and we are using the Preach My Gospel manual for the first lesson of every month that the presidency teaches. I taught the lesson about the Principles of the Gospel. You kind of have to adapt the lessons a bit for your audience--being already members of the church, but it's challenging and good for all of us to study from that manual.
This week has just cruised by like they all do. There is only 6 more weeks of school--Yeah! Summer has Choralier try-outs this week and she is kind of nervous, but I don't think she has anything to worry about. She is kind of apprehensive about going into high school too (she is just like Chelsea), because just like Chelsea she doesn't have a sibling there already, looks like I'll be back in Seminary car-pool mode again.
We watched Mel, the Cocker Spaniel dog from the Smith Family. We've been trading dog-sitting with them a lot and it works out quite well. He came friday morning and we kept him over night. I think he is allowed to sleep with their kids because he is just fine when we are all awake and in the family area where he is tethered to the table chair. But , when we go to bed, he kind of wines and whimpers. I guess Dad was really tired and didn't hear him. I can tune it out until he figures he just better go to sleep. We left all the animals, kids and house the next morning and drove our Suburban up to Twin Falls to help the Spanish Branch with their temple trip. They just did baptisms. I got to be the helpful lady that handed the people the towel has soon as they exited the font. My slippers had a plastic soul on them and when I went to the area where the wet drippy people were they got kind of wet and when I went to return to my chair, I nearly slipped on the tile floor. That would have been bad! After the temple we went to an area where you can look out over the Snake River gorge. It is right to the side of the big expansion bridge. While we were just looking around we noticed some people up on the bridge and they were preparing to jump off --with parachutes. There was about 5 of them basejumping. They would jump and then pull the cord when they were about half-way to the water. It was kind of exciting to watch. They seemed to know what they were doing because each one would steer themselves with their parachute to about the same exact place on the side of the river. After that we went to Golden Corral for the traditional post-temple feast. We got home at about 8:45pm and caught the very end of a ward activity at the church. The little girls were already there, it was a family dance and fundraiser/auction to raise money for girls camp. I guess Carly and Adelaide won 2nd place in the dance-off. They did their best interpretation of "Dancing with the Stars", and won a box of Whoppers.
This is a big week for me, I will be hitting the half- century mark. I don't have any plans as of yet. Addie wants to do my make-up, so I'm not sure how I will turn out. She did paint my toenails this morning and she did a great job, I guess all that coloring within the lines is paying off, because I was surprised how accurate she was. She puts makeup on herself all the time, so maybe my worries are for not. She is quite masterful with the mascara--I wonder sometimes what they must think of her at school. And to think Amber got clear mascara to wear in 7 th grade. We are either really lazy parents now, or we realize it's more fun to laugh about it than to get mad.
I hope you are doing well, I am really looking forward to Mother's Day. Let us know what time you will be ringing-- We will be here, so whatever works best for you. Love you lots and lots, Mom
PS you look great in the pictures you sent. White is a great color on anyone !
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