It's finally Elder Nielsen's turn! Alan Hugh; named after both of his Grandpa's is this week's "Family Friday" feature. Alan is my sister Lilian's second son and he is currently serving in the Florida, Tallahassee Mission.I love this picture of little Alan. His life was a miracle before he was even born, and as I look at the photograph of this beautiful,
innocent, little boy I feel so grateful for the faith of his parents and that he is here and a part of our family.Alan is a patient nephew. During his early teenage years before his voice changed, I often mistook him for his mother on the phone. In fact it wasn't often... it was pretty much always. I was so happy when the day finally arrived that I actually called Alan, "Alan" and not "Lilian". Unfortunately I am now doing the same thing with his brother Jacob.
I have mentioned before that our family have a lot of nicknames, one day I'll do a post about them; in the meantime I'll just say that our nicknames have nicknames as well as Jr's., Sr's., mini's, etc. hence... I call Alan, Little Lala and he calls me Auntie Lelu. I love Little Lala. He is a good nephew.
Alan is a very talented young man. Several years ago he decided to create things with... duct tape? I'm not kidding. He has created some amazing things including swords with cartoon characters, a scripture tote, and the most amazing thing of all, a Wonder Bread suit. The neighbor kids wanted his creations so badly that their parents would pay Alan to create things for them.
Alan is also the creator of "Clyde". Clyde is an ant. I'm not sure how many "Clyde's" that Alan has drawn, but his mother has featured 100 of them on her blog while he has been on his mission, in a series that she calls "Clyde Friday". I admit that I am probably one of the "Clyde impaired" but as you can see Alan is a very talented and creative artist.
Alan is a big Disney fan, huge Disney fan. His favorite character is Donald Duck and he can do Donald's voice very well. He is also a fan of another Disney character... Hannah Montana, aka Miley Cyrus. Alan has been to Disneyland countless times and will be heading there within weeks of his return from his mission and I get to go with him.
Things to know about Alan: He is a good missionary. He loves his family. He's tenderhearted. He's handsome. He loves movies. He's a good friend. He's a good son to his mother. When Alan was a baby I baby-sat him overnight while his parents and Russell went on a trip, he was a good baby. He was just an infant when he went to the beach house for the first time, he ended up going to the hospital with pneumonia. He loves his family. Prior to leaving on his mission he was able to go and serve as a "missionary" in his brother Russell's mission for a few days. A couple from WB served in the mission office in Tallahassee; while there they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and Alan made sure that they had a cake, they said that Alan is a good missionary. Alan is loyal. Alan has determination. He has a great smile. He is faithful. We all love Alan and are grateful that he is in our family. We're looking forward to seeing him in a couple of months and hearing his report on his mission. Love you Little Lala.
Alan's family: Taylor, Cory, Jacob, Lilian, Michael, Jessica, and Russell
12 comments:
Alan has some amazing talent. I look forward to seeing him again. It's been more than two years for me. He's been a great cousin to Tara. He even skipped out on watching King Kong with the whole extended family in order to keep an eye on her and another boy who shall remain nameless. What a good cousin.
I'm excited for Alan to come back from his mission and hear all he's done and see him grow. He is a great guy (I was about to say kid but that is what he was when he left two years ago). He cracks me up and I had a ton of fun working with him and hanging out at Legers. Like Uncle Alan said: He's a good cousin :)
I call him my miracle. Words cannot describe the joy I have for my boy. He's a wonderful son and has had to deal with a lot of stupidity in his life. His mission has been a miracle and we are sooooo looking forward to having him home again.
He loves the entire family and I know he is looking forward to seeing everyone again. Twelve weeks from now he'll be here and the days can't go fast enough for me.
Funny thing about that duct tape jacket - he made it so he could win $20 tickets to the prom that year. He spent way more time and money on creating the jacket than the tickets would have cost. However, to him it wasn't about winning the tickets, it was about WINNING! The jacket was inspired by the jacket that Rick Bobby (Will Ferrell) wears in Talladega Nights - The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Alan took his motto to use as his own - "If you're not first, you're last"
He definitely LOVES all things Disney and we are looking forward to spending time there with him again!
In that last picture you showed with the family, it is actually ALAN's birthday last year. Of course he wasn't here, but we celebrated with cake anyway. We'll probably do it again in a couple of weeks!
I love my Alan!
Lilian-I saw that family picture on your blog and thought that it was perfect... all of Alan's family celebrating him.
The last picture on the post stuck me of how incomplete the family looks without Alan in the picture. It will be nice for the whole family to have Alan home.
Alan is a good cousin and a good nephew. I am proud of him for working hard and for serving a mission.
Alan is also very artistically talented. This is something I really admire because I lack big time in this area :). It just goes to show how patient Alan is waiting all of these months for his turn for FFF!
See you soon Little Lala!
I don't know any ALAN in this family that I don't just love. Alan Sr, Alan Jr, Alan Jesse and of course Alan Hugh! Yes, Alan is a very good cousin. I'm grateful Alan was there for a certain daughter in all the "drama" of boyfriends past :-)He can come visit us in Northern Cali anytime if he wants.
Alan is a great cousin for a million reasons, even if my parents like to focus on something SO FIVE YEARS AGO.
Anyway, he's hilarious, talented, and a great listener and friend. I can't wait for him to come home. Family get-togethers just aren't the same without him!
Alan would be a fun missionary to go tracting with. I'm looking forward to seeing him in a few months.
Donald Duck is my favorite Disney character too. Alan always cracks me up when he does the impression.
Alan is great. Always fun to be around.
I'm very impressed with and proud of Alan for serving a mission and pray the lord continues to bless him in this important service.
It will be great to see him again in a couple of months.
Alan is a good sport, and let Melissa (Leger) and me come and get him and his friend ready for Prom. We "dolled" ha ha them up and got them looking great, and he EVEN let me put a LITTLE cover up on a few zits! I think Alan is very thoughtful and observant and cares a lot about other people.
He's a great cousin and keeps us all laughing!
It makes me smile to think that Elder Nielsen has probably met some of the investigators that only Elder Nielsen can get through to.
I remember the "dodgy" start he had to life. He hung on tenaciously.
He is a good man with a great sense of humor and loves to tease his G'ma. as a result I took in recent years to calling him a "brat" not a BRAT brat but a loving brat. Then I heard a talk that referred to the labels we give our families and decided to quit referring to him as a brat loving or otherwise. Now it is his or at least one of his desires in life to hear me call him a brat. You can't refer to one of the Lord's missionaries as a brat!
But he sure is a "TEASE"
Either way, love you Elder!!!!
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