Birthday Greetings from the Philippines!!

Hey! You had a birthday party without me. It is kind of cool that Dad got made bishop on my birthday! I will try to get you a letter to the ward. Well I am glad that you were able to have a nice big party out there. I am a bit sad though. Those birthday greeting videos you tried to send me won't open on my computer for some reason. Oh well, I will just have to live with it. 

How is everyone doing back at home. Well, I am doing fine out here. I actually had kind of a birthday party. A member found out that it was my birthday and they ended up preparing a huge feast for me. I feel kind of bad though because I know that they are not all that well off. I made sure to thank them a billion times. I will send some pictures of the feast. Because we just watched General Conference yesterday and not last week, the whole zone was down in our area for the weekend. That was really fun as well. Some of the elders even came to the little birthday party that the member had set up for me. 

Well conference was awesome. I really liked the talk by Elder Holland. One thing that I learned, coming out of his talk was how in order to be saved, we first have to exert every ounce of energy to leap as high as we can and only then will the saving hands of the Savior reach out and rescue us. Those of us who give up will just fall and even more interesting, those who don’t wish to fall but aren't willing to exercise their faith will eventually fall as well. 

Well it was a really good weekend and I had good time. To top it all off one of our investigators out here just passed his baptismal interview and he will be baptized next weekend. 

Well Love you all lots. I will remember all of you in my prayers. Good luck with your new calling Dad! Take good care of Grandma Pat and send her my love.

Elder Nielson

 No idea what's going on here!

 My birthday party!

 The birthday boy!!

Birthday spread!! Yum!!