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Elder Nelson - Snow in Virginia

Dear Family,

Mission News
Elder Randall K. Bennett toured the mission. Mom and I were responsible for feeding 130 missionaries
on Tuesday. I got to listen to about 4 hours of the training on Wednesday. Among other things he
talked about ways to help friends (they are not called investigators any more) keep commitments by
asking the friend how the missionaries can help keep the commitment and exactly how they want the
missionaries to help. Helping friends to learn to keep commitments prepares them to make the
baptismal covenant.

He told some good stories about when he was the mission president in Russia and other stories. Stories
are the best.

The mission president asked me to re-write the welcome letter that the mission president sends to the
newly called missionaries and a letter he sends to the recently baptized. I re-wrote them and sent them
to him yesterday. He has not gotten back with me on the letters. I can’t imagine him liking everything
(or perhaps anything). We will see.

We got our first snow on Thursday. They closed the schools. By Friday the roads were mostly dry. The weather was very nice yesterday and today. This picture was taken from out bedroom window in the morning. It snowed most of the day.


Saturday P (Play) Day
I worked on the letters mentioned above and we ran errands. We bought monitors and keyboards for
our laptops. Mom and I have trouble with the laptops because we accidently push or bump things on
the mouse pad. The computer does wild things. So now that problem is solved, and we have 24”
monitors for our old eyes.

We went to a baptism about 30 miles away to do something “fun”. As expected it was a very nice
service. The sister getting baptized was in her 20s. She was cheerful and vivacious. She has lots of
friends in the ward. The fellow that did the baptism (Grant Smith) just returned from serving a mission
in Finland. He knew Taylor Pugmire and said nice things about her. Of course, we had to call the Pugmires and tell them. They are doing well. He had business in New York and Sister Pugmire came to NY to spend time on the weekend. All of the Pugmires are reported to be doing well.

WES
Not much news from WES this week. My engineer friend was busy, and we did not get a chance to talk much. Sales for the month are looking strong. We upgraded our ERP software and our finance software and got a new server. Of course there we some snags, but we are about 95% back.

Family News
Derek and Jessica and Tyler went house hunting yesterday and found one they like. They will go out
tomorrow and look at some more. They plan to make an offer before they come back on Tuesday.
Tyler’s favorite house has a swing on a tree in the back yard. We asked him if he was going to like living in Florida. He said, “Yes!”. Why? “I made friends with the kids in Primary today.”

Chelsea is at Jamie’s and then she will meet Kent in St. George and drive to San Diego to have
Thanksgiving with Derek.

Keri and family had a super fun and safe trip to Oregon. Details are on Facebook.

Love,
Dad

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