Passing of Grandpa Nielsen

Landon and Mason,

My heart is full today thinking of you two and how much I love you!

I think Grandma and Grandpa have already written you to tell you that Grandpa Nielsen has passed away.  He passed away last Thursday morning.  I am sure he was so thrilled to be reunited with Grandma and his parents.  I miss him, but know I will see him again and that brings great peace.  He loved the two of you very much.  I remember when you were born he was so proud to have twins cause he hadn't known any twins.  I remember him asking to have a picture with you because he had never held twins before.

I am grateful you both go to have him in your life for as long as you did.  Not too many get to know their great grandparents like you did.  Many happy memories for a lifetime.  

Well it's been a busy, fast, fun week!  Defiantly an out of the ordinary kind of week.  I got back from Washington last Tuesday night late and then left for San Diego on Thursday.  It was kind of weird to only be home one day and then leave again.  Dad did a great job holding down the fort and juggling the kids.  

Here are a few pictures of things that happened last week: 

Zoo pictures from our last day in Seattle.  Gracie loved the statues but was scared of a few of them.  Putting her finger on the lions nose was about as close as she would get.   

Long/ busy plane ride.  We didn't have any videos on the Ipad except Newsies.  She watched about 20 minutes of it (for her 5 hour flight) and would pull off her headphones and say "that was good dancing". 

Jacob's flay football team made it to the Super Bowl.  They lost but put up a good fight.  

Gracie helping Dad get groceries at Smiths (they have kid shopping carts, perfect for her)

It was Fall break last week.  Dad took the kids to the Aquarium in Draper.  They had a lot of fun! 

They also went to Jaker's Pumpkin Patch in Springville.  

Gracie loves pumpkin patches, especially jumping in the corn. 

While I was gone Bill and Will came for Spencer's farewell.  They stayed at our house one night.  Gracie slept in Landon's bed.  She's getting too long for her playpen.  She loved it and slept in it the next night too.  She says "I sleep in Landon's bed!"

Dad and the kids went to Spencer's farewell.  I don't think they took any pictures so here is a picture of his announcement.  He leaves on Tuesday. 

Below are some pictures of me in San Diego with friends

We went to the Mormon Battalion 

(remember when we went there?  It was fun to go again, it's exactly the same)

Tracy Biddulph, Holly Flether, Tammy Summers, Barb Carman, Camille McInelly, 

Me, Kristin Lind, Nannette Roenfeldt

We rented bikes and road them around all day on the beach! 

This was where we stayed

Did a session at the beautiful San Diego Temple! 

Sat at the beach! 

Rode a rollar coaster

 On my flight coming home,  it was a full flight so I started in the middle seat.  I was looking forward to finishing "Wonder Woman" but I had ended up sitting next to a FBI agent.  He was a friendly man, an Italian New Yorker that is living in Texas.  We got talking and he told me how he was excited to retire from the FBI in 4 years (you can retire after 25).  He has three kids at home and a baby on the way and he spends more than half of the weeks through out the year traveling.  As we were talking he asked why I had been in San Diego.  I told him I was there on a girls trip with some of my mom friends from Seattle.  He asked what do we do on girl's trips?  He said "do you just drink a lot of wine?"  I said no cause we don't drink.  He said "Are you Mormon?"  "Where you a Mormon when you lived in Seattle?"  Yep!  He was pretty surprised, cause he thought Mormons mostly lived in Utah and definitely not a liberal place like Seattle.  I told him about my two boys serving missions and how there are Mormons throughout the world.   We spent the whole flight talking and much of it was about religion.  He's a  regularly attending Catholic but has been so impressed with Mormons.  As we talked he expressed to me how his job has been really hard and how he has lost faith in humanity.  I had a feeling I need to keep talking religion to him.  He knew of "Joe" Smith and how after he was killed the members of the church were persecuted and came to Utah.   I told him I didn't know much about what Catholics believe but that we believe in the same God and the same Jesus Christ.  I told him about how we have a living prophet on the earth today, and I told him about the apostasy and the Restoration.  In all my years I have never had such an open conversation on the plane.  He spoke loud so I'm sure others heard around us.   I was nervous that I might say something wrong or that I would make it sound weird, but after I told him about the Restoration, he said to me.  I am really intrigued by our converstation.  I told him, while he was in SLC this week if he had time to go to temple square and watch the movie on the Restoration and he told me he would.  I expressed to him the peace and hope the gospel brings to me in my life.  It was such a neat experience and I thought WOW, Landon and Mason get to do this every day!!  He was kind and seemed interested, which I am sure not everyone is when you are sharing the gospel message full time.  But I also felt the feeling that I didn't just sit by him by chance.  The Lord put him in my path.  Never got his name, but was grateful for that experience as it only strengthened my testimony.

So to answer Landon's question about what strengths I have in sharing the gospel I guess it is friendliness.  I do like to say hi to people and I enjoy hearing about others stories.  You never know when your friendliness can turn into sharing the gospel. We can be a light in a dark world and I am going to be better at reaching out to others, whether it be a smile, a listening ear, a simple act of service, etc.

LOVE YOU SO MUCH!