I have been called to serve for 2 years in the Costa Rica San Jose Mission as a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Week 11 Really wanted those Plantains....

The Story of the Plantains
We stayed in Guapilies with 2 other companionships. We were STARVING and had nothing to eat so they told us that there was this plantain tree in their neighbors’ yard but the wall is about 15 feet high, just a cement wall. I was the only one with the guts to go get em so I scaled the wall and I felt super sick doing it. I climbed like 30 feet along a wall that was about 6 inches wide and it was so freaking scary. I reached over and cut off a fatty bushel of em with a machete but they were soo heavy that they fell and I almost fell but I got caught on the tree. I didn’t even think. I jumped down into their yard to get the bananas and I hurled them up to Elder Malan who was waiting on the fence and as the house of the yard I was in turned their light on I scaled the wall and dropped. I was soo proud when I got those. I felt so sick because everyone was afraid to get em. These are the spoils.


Hellooo Mother, congrats on finishing up your classes! I know how good it feels to be done! It probably would have made me homesick to hear you went to get a Christmas tree but you said you went in the daytime and it was nice and sunny, and I don’t know if I have any memories of cutting down a Christmas tree in those conditions in my whole life so there’s really nothing to reminisce. That’s kinda why I think I’m not feeling as homesick as I thought I would this time of year because it’s not even Christmas. Christmas time is cold and raining and trips to the mountain and I’m very far from any of that so I don’t really feel like there’s anything to miss. It’s hard to picture a place that cold.

I have been soooooooooo worried about the ducks! Friday night I had a dream that the ducks lost in overtime 15-18 and I was shaking as I got on the computer today to read the news! But I can’t explain how a national championship feels to me... All I can say is I love my ducks!

That’s great that dad is giving a talk on the atonement! I would like it if he could send me a copy of his talk to read. That’s a great and very intense topic.

I don’t really want to talk about what’s happening with our investigators... Dionisio is doing really well though. He let us know that he didn’t get baptized because he was having a girl stay the night with him. But he cut that off and is looking like he should be good to go this Sunday at 8 before church! And Jaisons family.... His dad I think is a little offff. He really is bipolar. One day he loves us and the next he has crazy doubts. The last lesson ended with him telling us that we shouldn’t come over anymore because we can’t help his family because we are too young to understand his problems. I didn’t really handle it very well and kind of freaked out on him and got really mad.

But Jose and Carlos really are the greatest kids! They went to the temple last week and they’ve been the ones blessing the sacrament. They have given us a ton of references and keep asking for pamphlets to hand out to their friends and they write their testimony in them. The last time we had a lesson with José, in his prayer he said how he wants us to be proud of him and through him we can see the fruits of our labor. What he said doesn’t really translate but it’s something to that affect. I have loved seeing what they have done with their lives. Not what we´ve done.. but what they’ve done, especially for being so young.

Yeah there are two Puerto Viejo’s. The one I go to is the north one called Sarapique. Doing those crazy exchanges is the biggest headache. We’ve got to always travel with someone and it gets really confusing to explain how we do it, but we have to travel way far to drop people off and pick them up and it takes a long time and a lot of money. Its because the district leader and zone leaders need to meet and interview all our baptismal candidates, so that’s why last week was so crazy because everyone had baptisms and I had to go all over. Its crazy but I like it because I love seeing all of Costa Rica.

Last week for P Day I finished up the Christmas package and sent it out last Wednesday. Biggest headache to get it sent out! It was raining ridiculously hard and we had to try and keep it dry and it was just a headache. When I asked the lady at the post office how much it was she just kept saying that it was really expensive to send and wouldn’t give me a number and just kept saying REALLY expensive. I tried to explain I didn’t care I needed to send it, but eventually I did and it came to like 80ish dollars which is what I was expecting. I sent a bunch of my clothes in it. On one side is the presents for everyone and the other side are my clothes. You need to be very careful to not look under my clothes. That’s for you!

Last week when it was raining suuuperr hard everyone’s houses were flooding and were surrounded with like a foot of water. The draining system here for being so rainy isn’t very good. Our next door neighbor is Hermana Pasitas daughter whose family I love! Anyway Wednesday morning she called us freaking out saying we needed to come over and help her. We went over and her house was flooding like crazy. There are cracks in her house in the floor and they were spurting out water and her house was filling up. We had to take literally every single thing out of her house. Furniture, beds, cloths, kitchen stuff EVERYTHING because she was moving anyway. We changed into regular clothes and had to take everything to Hermana Pasitas house down the road. It took about 4 hours to do and when we were done there was about 8 inches of water in every room in her house. It was crazy and we were so wet. I can’t explain how hard it was raining.

Did you see the First Presidency Christmas Devotional? I loved it. I don’t know if I had a favorite part really, but just them testifying of Jesus and thinking that men so great that understand so much of the gospel and in the end it’s all centered around Jesus Christ. And I love to hear their testimonies of that.

For birthday treats… honestly they don’t have anything here that we have in the states. There is not one thing that you can get in the stores here that you can get in the stores in the states. So anything is perfect. What you sent last time was soooo perfect. Lots of sour patch watermelons and it was all good. And I would love some Nike custom shoes that are Oregon ones, green and yellow, some that say a little something like nc 2010 or something. I understand if they don’t get here by my birthday because it takes so long but I really want them. I had to sell my Rip City shoes to Elder Felipe (WHAT!?!!?) so I am in dire need of some hometown pride shoes. He doesn’t have any shoes and he loves them. I felt bad so I let him borrow them and he fell in love.

Alright I think this is goodbye... I love you and tell people to write more hand written letters so I can send them hand written responses. And did dad get his birthday card?


Elder Graham

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