Huge Changes!!

The family that owns the house from Don Bosco

my friends

Marvin the area drunk..
Every area has tons of drunks. But there is always THEE area drunk.

Me saying goodbye to marvin


Heyyy sorry I couldn’t write yesterday.. But you’ll never guess where i am. Look at the map and put your finger on where i was in san jose and slide your finger down... and down.... and further down till you get to panama. Then go north a tiny bit and you will see a little town called ciudad neily. (Nay-lee) There i am. It was a 9 hour bus ride so we didnt get home untill midnight last night. Im in the area furthest away and it is soo sickkk.

My companion is Elder Bertrand. He is from honduras and was my DL when i came into the mission. He´s been here 2 and a half changes. We’re getting along really well. He goes home a change before i do. Theres no senior comp. We both just tear things up.

My zone has 7 areas and only us and one other area has elders and they live 5 hours away. The rest are sister missionaries. Its completely different then any other zone because basically all the sister missionaries are here. Im coming in Elder Palmers spot. He just left here and gave me the low down. He went to Puntarenas as a ZL still.

But there are soo many sick things to see here. IF you look at puerto jimenez on that little peninsula it has a little branch there that doesnt have missionaries on it. So we work there sometimes and i guess its the coolest place every. absolutely paradise. Elder Palmer described it well yesterday when he said if you want to do a trick you should close your eyes in the bus and when you open them in neily you will be in 1980.

We have a super silly old lady that everyone calls abuela.. grandma.. that cooks for us. She lives in a little shack out in the middle of nowhere. Our house smells and is really hot. nothin special.

Everyone I’ve met so far is completely nuts. (that’s a compliment) They’re just crazy jungle people which is soooo cool. complete night and day difference from where i was. But what my comp explains to me we do everything in the branch. There’s a branch president but we are his counselors and there is a district president for all the branches around here and we are his counselors too. So we have to go work and not only be in charge of the missionary work but go visit all the branches and help them out. We are the Zone leaders so we are in charge of everything in every branch especially since almost all of them only have sister missionaries.

There should be much better pictures next week from my wildlife adventures. Its soo hot here. Everything reminds me of cariari. The bad smell in the house, the heat. The crazy people.

I guess there’s one family that they took to church last week but haven’t really taught so that may be one investigator. Today we’re going on like an hour hike to go meet the branch president and swinging down to the panama border because theres a bunch of markets and stuff dirt cheap and there's a few things we need. our phone broke. I dont have a pillow ect.

I’m out. I love you

Elder Graham

Christmas 2011

Everyone from the gift exchange Christmas Eve

We gave Gael a little lego lightning mcqueen

My desk for Christmas

Sister Mena with her gift

Kevin's Baptism

Kevin's Baptism

Ohlayyy

ohlay oh lay oh layyy

TICOOOOSS TICOOOSSSS.

Hey thanks mom for the jersey!

This is Gael. He is the cutest little boy and loves us so much. His mom says that in every prayer he says he blesses “Gren” and “Chempington.”
And he says he wants to be a missionary, so in church he came to sit next to me
and I put my name tag on his little white shirt and he looked up at me with the
biggest smile ever and just stared at it.

I can’t believe that Brandon (Roy) retired.... That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Does that
mean we don’t have to pay out his contract? Who are we gonna sign? Who can do even a tenth of what he did for us??

Well today we went up on a hike into Santa Ana which is just south west of San Jose. We went up a mountain to a soccer field that was way up there in the middle of nowhere and we played Ssccer. It was pretty good. It’s such a sweet field.

On Saturday Kevin, Damaris’s son got baptized. He showed up 2 hours late to his baptism. I
wanted to kill the kid. He had to work late. It was pretty good though when he did get there. He’s a good kid. The water in the font is always freezzzing cold. It’s just hose water basically.

Google Mormon message create Uchtorf and watch the video. It’s so sick. You have to watch that mormon message. I have watched it like 50 times and it gives me goosebumps. The most epic thing ever. Tell dad that for a present I want him to burn a dvd with as many Mormon messages as he can.

I heard today that any package that has food in it we have to go get it from customs ourselves. So the secretaries will call me when it comes in because I’ll have to go get it. Or if for some reason it gets through without me having to get it I will get it next Tuesday at zone conference.

The Christmas call is actually gonna be at 1 my time. So figure out for sure what time that is your time because it changes with daylight savings. I will probably get 90 minutes so you can figure out how the calls gonna be.

Didn’t Jacob go in before Christmas? And gets back after it? So he is gonna spend 3 Christmases on the mish??

Here’s an example of why it’s great to have elder Stevens in the house...So there’s a kid that is dating one of the girls that lives on the 2nd floor of our house and she’s 18 and he’s a 27 year old American and the weirdest kid ever. He served his mission in Iowa and said that he baptized 10 people and his Mission president called him John the Baptist so we always call him john the Baptist. Last week he came upstairs because they needed to borrow our chairs and so he came up to get them. When he came into our room he stopped and with 100% seriousness said “Wow, nice bunk beds.” Our bunk beds are the most standard thing you can have and he said it in the most serious taken back way. It was honestly the funniest thing I have heard in my mission and when he left I died laughing. And then when Elder Stevens came home I was dying of
laughter telling him the story and when I told him he died of laughter too. Other kids don’t find that kind of stuff funny but it really was maybe the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. So it’s great to have kids like that in the house.

I’m out.
Love you, Elder Graham

Damaris's Testimony

Last week we went knocking doors and contacting alll night and ended up getting lost wandering around. We ended up at 8:30 next to a baseball stadium and we went and looked to see if we could get in. The guard guy let us right in and we watched a professional baseball team practice. We figured out on a map later that night where we were, and not only had we left our area, but we left our zone!

Hello, I also mailed your Christmas package last Tuesday and they said that it would get there in 2-3 weeks so it should be all good before Christmas.

Instructions..
When you get it don’t open it. Just set it under the Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve when everyone’s there open it and give everyone their presents. They’re all more or less wrapped. Everyone can open them together and then read the letter that I put in there. Luke and Jenny and Jeffer and Gwen’s presents are in there so I don’t know what to do to get them to them. But there’s also a present for dads birthday as well as his Christmas present but he can wait till Christmas Eve to get it. Any questions?

Did you guys watch the Christmas devotional last night? So amazing….

Sooo mommm I did decide on one thing that I really want for Christmas... I really want the new Costa Rica jersey. But it’s like 60 bucks. And it would be way easier for me to just buy it since they sell it right here in San Jose.. :-)

On Saturday we had our ward mission Christmas activity. We planned for our whole district to come and sing but everyone bailed last minute so just me and elder Cherrington sang. It was decent. The biggest turn out we’ve ever had at an activity here.

Saturday Damaris's son is getting baptized. Her daughter and husband live in the area right next to ours and we started teaching them then sent the reference to the
other missionaries. But they say that they don’t like them so they want to come
to church in Paso Ancho and get married and baptized here. So maybe we will baptize them in the next few weeks but we will have to get special permission.

On Sunday Damaris stood up and bore her testimony, that was the first time I’ve seen a convert bear their testimony at a testimony meeting but she was crying and talked about when we first came to her house and didn’t understand how we could be so sure when we said the church is true. But she said that she stands before us testifying with all her heart and soul that she knows that it’s all true.

Thank you very much for the gift for Hermana Mena she will be very very happy.

Also on Sunday a less active member that we have been working with blessed her baby and asked me to bless it. So I blessed my first baby.

And I need to plan out with you guys this week or next the phone call on Christmas. I just got an email from President Galvez. I’m pretty sure it will be in the afternoon like 3ish my time. But I’ll have to plan with the elders in my house this week.

But I gotta go! Love you thanks for everything! Elder Graham

Carl's Jr. comes to San Jose! Happy Day!

A decent gist of Costa Rica. Beautiful but full of
trash.

SO HAPPY! NEW CARL'S JR!

The outside of my house.
The bottom floor is a restaurant. The 2nd floor is where we used to live and
the top is where we now live. Yepp a supperrr haggard part of town. All
night we get woken up by gangs fighting outside.

Hello. How was thanksgiving? Who all came to dinner? I completely forgot about thanksgiving until my bishop late in the evening told us happy thanksgiving and asked us if black Friday was real in the states. He didn’t really believe me. Did you go do your black Friday shopping this year with the Deb Meister?

On Friday night we were walking through San Jose and we turned a corner and saw the most glorious sight. Carls Jr! That may sound silly to you but there is now Carls Jr in Costa Rica! We then cancelled our lunch for Saturday to go and it was the nicest restaurant ever. There are waitresses that come to your table and bring you honey mustard and refill your pop and such. It’s the nicest restaurant in this country.

Today I’m hitting 2 thirds of my mission, which is so crazy. I still feel brand new here.

We have a family that just needs to get their divorce through so they can get married and then
baptized. We’ve been waiting over a month now for it to go through and the second it does they will be baptized and married. In their house their mom was a Jehovah Witness and died 3 weeks ago in the house. Ever since they haven’t felt good in the house, so Friday they asked us to bless their house. When we kneeled down to do it and I said the blessing I felt a blanket of the spirit cover me and when we finished they were all crying. The house just felt much brighter and happier. It was a cool experience to see the night and day difference so quickly of the blessing of a house that needed it.

Today we’re making final purchases for the Christmas packages and sending them. I’m gonna need to take out some cash for all that and maybe a decent amount.. Could you cover that??

Buttt i gotta go.
Love you.
Elder G.

The Streak is Over

Elder Cherrington~Elder Graham~Elder Reimschizzle

As a joke before the meeting I asked to get a picture with Elder
Reimschizzle because he was leaving and turns out that my joke came true

Heyy therrree. How can that even be possible about Oregon
losing? What happened?

Today was changes but we had it on Monday this time.
So it was pretty nuts. All this week we kept saying that Elder
Reimshizzle was gonna go AP then we found out that he didn’t have changes.
But I kept saying that he was gonna go AP and they were gonna surprise
him with changes. It was basically a joke. In every prayer we
blessed Elder Reimshizzle in his new calling as AP and he was getting really
mad and annoyed but we kept saying it anyway. and sure enough he went AP today.


Soo there was a Zone leader spot and an open spot in our
house and the greatest thing happened. Elder Stevens from the MTC was
called to fill that spot. So we get to be roommates again for a change.
I’m pretty happy about it.

This week things have gotten a touch better but I realized
that the personal goal Elder Reimshizzle I had to baptize every month this year
won’t happen because I won’t baptize this month. The streak is over.
But things look pretty good for December so were hoping for big things
there.

So I’m not sure if you’re gonna send me a Christmas package.
But if you do. The only thing that I request is that I want to give
a Christmas present to sister Mena. She is the greatest and told me that
she was gonna get me something so I told her i would get her something but here
there’s really nothing cool I could give her. But I was thinking about
some nice framed picture of Christ or something like that from Deseret book.
Her house is a very humble one so something like that she would freak out
about. She deserves something nice for everything she does for us.

We have started going to the mutual activities just to teach
all the young men. About 40 young men show up to their mutuals because they
just have a 20 minute message then they play soccer. 85% aren’t members so we
have gone the past 2 weeks and we teach all of them. It has been fun
because the way the places are around here in Paso Ancho all the kids just hang
out in the street all the time. Everyone knows everyone so no matter where we
go we know everyone and all the kids in the streets and they yell heyy elders!!
And the idea is to get in with all the families of the kids. But it’s
a process. But it has been fun to work with them. It gets me
excited to be a high school teacher. Along with that we have started
teaching English classes on Saturdays for everyone to come for free.
EVERYONE in this country wants to learn English so we get a decent turn out and
it makes me excited to be a Spanish teacher.

We have an investigator named
Jennifer who is a 24 year old girl who had a baby 3 months premature and it has
been in the hospital 2 months with 5 holes in his heart and it finally died on Friday
and when it died that night she took the body home with her and slept with
it... She slept holding its hand. Quite possibly the creepiest
thing I’ve ever heard.
Yesterday at sacrament meeting
it was pretty fun. I was just sitting there hanging out and the first speaker
spoke and then we sang the intermediate hymn.
Then the bishop stood up and said ok, now we will hear from our concluding
speaker, Elder Graham. I looked at him like you’ve gotta be kidding me.
Then I looked at the time and I had 25 minutes to speak. And
literally not even 5 seconds to prepare. I stood up with absolutely no
idea what to say. They have called on me before but they let me know
before it starts because someone didn’t show up and asedk me to speak for like
5 minutes. But I guess they planned for a long time that I was the
speaker just no one let me know. I was even in the PEC meeting before
church and no one said anything to me about it. So I had to whip
something up without any preparation whatsoever. And after I got more
compliments on that talk than ever before.

Sooo I had to take some money out to pay for part of a divorce and a little for christmas prresents... can you check my account, and maybe put some money in? Thanks Mom

Annnnndddddd……I’m out! Love you,
Elder Graham

Tutorial for Passion Fruit Juice

1. This is passion fruit. First you cut them in half. Then you put them in
boiling water
2. Then you blend it up with water and sugar and strain it. Then you put in more
water and sugar

3 passion fruits make 4 liters of the most delicious fresco. It’s super super sour and citrusy you blend the whole fruit. We also made a starfruit one last week. and a fruit called cas. At walmart here you buy packs of 3 for a dollar



Heyy there! That’s pretty exciting about Oregon
beating Stanford. I talk us up pretty big here with all the Utah kids so it’s
nice to come to zone meetings after knowing that we won and Utah keeps losing.
It’s good to let everyone know where the powers at.

Interviews last week were pretty good. Mine was the
longest I’ve ever had. One of our zone leaders kept coming to my area to
see a girl. A member from Paso Ancho called President Galvez and so we had a
long talk about everything that he had done. and he was then given e changes.
So theres a new ZL in the house.

I’ve really been enjoying the meetings/interviews with
president lately. He always asks my opinions about things and talks about
my ideas. He doesn’t always just teach me he always asks what I think
about things. It’s really cool to have these types of conversations with
him because he is a man that will no doubt be a seventy and he is valuing my
ideas and opinions.

We had a pretty awful week last week as far as not being
able to teach many people. But we have been really getting in better with
all the members and we’re getting them to start working. Every day this
week we have appointments set with references in the houses of the members and
all of them supposedly are all legitimately already interested. So we are
hoping to have a good week even though the past 3 or so have been absolutely
terrible.

I stood up and preached again
in the bus but I did it with Elder Cherrington but he was afraid and can’t
really speak well enough to do it so I did it all alone. Some people pay
attention and listen and sound interested but the majority completely ignore
me. We’re not really getting a whole lot of success from it but we’re also not
getting a whole lot of success from anything so I’m going around challenging
everyone in the streets and buses to be baptized in hopes of finding one.

Alright I’m out. Love
you.

Elder Graham and Elder Stephens and their "kids"

Great big old moth

Hey thereee.. First off the leadership conference was absolutely amazing. The things that President Galvez talked about in that meeting were nuts. He did some serious head chopping because last month was the worst month in a very long time. But he decided to teach us about heavenly father. He had a 3 hour presentation about our heavenly father that was the most intense and epic presentation I’ve ever seen. It was the most powerful thing ever and may have changed my life and the way I think about the world.

I did the divisions during the conference with Elder Portillo. He was my ZL in Moravia and just went from being ap. He was pretty good to work with.

Last week I did divisions in Hatillo and me and Elder Solomon stood up and preached very loudly in a very full bus. I want more than anything a picture of me preaching in a bus. It was a definite adrenalin rush and I finally found someone to do it with me. We went through and got 5 people who said they we could come to their houses to teach them from the bus preaching.

As far as working it has been really tough. We have just been contacting and knocking doors like crazy. We had 15 appointments fall through Wednesday and Thursday so we decided that we needed to change the members here. That has been very tough because the missionaries before us have all been soo lazy and everyone in the ward has hated them. One of them is in Don Bosco and still goes to my area to see a girl every time he gets a chance and members see him and it makes us look terrible. So we decided to make a survey and we have been going around to every single member and asking a few questions. For example we ask the people to think of the best missionary that they’ve met and to describe the things they did to make them so good. Then, we did the same but basically asked about the worst ones and what made them so bad. And I asked what we could do to be better and what they thought they could do to make the work better here in Paso Ancho. It has gotten better in these few days. I asked to give a talk this Sunday to get people excited so we will see if we can make changes.

Today we had our one month check up for Elder Cherrington. This is the meeting where I went to that mountain with President Galvez, but they don’t go to the mountain anymore. We just went and had meetings with president and the aps. We had a meeting in president’s office with only the trainers and he said that we are the kings of this mission and that we really truly are the best missionaries in the mission right now and we have a longer lasting affect than anyone else in
the mission. Because we basically decide how good the next generation of missionaries are. It felt pretty good to have him praising us so much. And tomorrow we have interviews so that should be pretty good.

I met a new missionary today that’s serving in la Rita right now and he said that his parents found and read my blog and that they sent him pictures from my blog.
I gotta go. I love you all.

Elder Graham

Happy Halloween!

The pics of the little kids are so cute! Those are the silliest little guys. I’ve asked several times and no one has told me does Calvin wear glasses?

That’s soo exciting about Nick Hess’s job! They really have been called to serve their lives in the Portland area. I’m hoping I am too.

Happy Halloween! What’re you guys doing for Halloween? We’re celebrating by getting our heads chopped off. As a zone we didn’t meet our goal. But As a district we did! Hopefully that will save me a little.

Elder Cherrington is good. He does make me think of me a year ago but he’s a little different. He’s a much more quiet person then me. With members and people he’s not quite as crazy. I’m always running around chasing the little kids and joking around with the members so that they feel comfortable with me. You can see that he’s a way good hardworking missionary but he’s just gotta come out of his shell a little. Yesterday we were walking in the street with a member and I was chatting with the member and all of a sudden I looked around and didn’t know where my comp was. I looked back and a block behind he was contacting a guy alone. That’s something I wouldn’t have done a year ago. He teaches me a ton. He’s a very sincere missionary that just wants to do the right thing at all times. We set a family and a man over 18 as our goal for November and that’s something that if you set and don’t get everyone hates you and you just get your head destroyed. So I haven’t set it in a while. But we knew we could do it so we’re working hard to do everything possible to do it. He’s my first comp since Elder Felipe that really doesn’t hold me back. I can work as hard as I want, be as obedient as I want and he will never complain. I’m really in the best work rhythm I’ve ever been in.

I got a weird allergic reaction last week.. I thought, where on all my joints I had weird spots like mosquito bites that itched a ton. I called the mission nurse and she explained that that’s just a result of being tired and stressed.

I can tell that the lord knew I couldn’t handle stress before the mission so he puts it on me where I have no choice but to perform. Before the mission when I has stresses about school or anything I would just run away from it. If I was worried about a class or homework, instead of being stressed about it I just wouldn’t go. Or I wouldn’t do it. And I would just try and forget about it. But the lord put me into a place where I have to do stuff and I don’t have a choice. I can’t run. I have to work under high expectations. I’m a training district leader. Really probably the hardest thing to do, because even as zone leader you have a companion who’s a zone leader. But I just have to do it all. And I have no doubt that that’s not by accident. The lord puts leaders and trainers there because they have a lot to learn.
Alright I’m out. Love you. Elder G.

Another Week in the City

There’s a family from California that was in don bosco for 3 months while the dad was working and they always had us over for dinner. They don’t speak Spanish so we would go to the primary to translate for them. The dad is from India so they always made us Indian food and they
eat the rice with their hands. So that’s us eating with our hands. For some reason the kids who were always jumping all over us got really shy when I wanted to take a picture with them.



Well hey there. I don’t feel like much is new. Last week we found 3 families that we taught and all got really excited about baptism and then they all had to get married and they all wanted to get married. But 2 of them need to get divorced from their old husband/wife to be able to get
married. And the other one came here from Nicaragua when she was little and has no id or passport or any sort of papers. She’s basically a ghost. So those were all very exciting moments that got really discouraging. I’ve already called the lawyer about all the cases and he’s already
gotten the divorces going though. But a divorce takes from 1-3 months. So we will see how they come out.

Training is coming along great. I’ve never been so tired in my life. I never have time to even sit between district stuff and then working.

Next Monday and Tuesday there’s a 2 day leaders conference with all the district and zone leaders and elder Martino who is in the presidency of the area of central America will be there. We will have to present our goals from last month with what we met and what we didn’t meet. President Galvez and he will just be sitting in chairs right in front of me with all the rest of the leaders behind them. But we already met our district goal so that’s good.

Last week I went to Hatillo in my district to do a baptismal interview and I didn’t go on divisions. I took Elder Cherrington with me. When we got there the lady was just completely set
on not being baptized. Elder Solomon who is also training and I had about 2 hours of her saying no and we just had the best lesson and it ended with me doing the interview and her being baptized. That was my first real call as a district leader to fix a problem with someone’s investigator.

Today we played soccer.

Last week price mart was good I bought a bunch of stuff! Peanut butter, instant oatmeal, a giant thing of Gatorade powder that will finish my mission, etc.

I gotta go. love you.
Elder G

A Great Week!

Baptism of Damaris, Pablo and Paulina

Damaris, Pablo, Paulina

Well. We had a baptism last week. It went pretty good.

Training has been the most trying thing I have ever done. I was reading the attributes of Christ in preach my gospel and every single one is tried in training. He always says that he has no idea what to do and so he just follows me and does exactly what I do. Which is nice sometimes but I have to be so careful always. I really have to be perfect. The hard part is doing everything.

Literally everything and more. I feel like I’m making a documentary. Because someone just follows me and I have to explain literally every single thing I’m doing. But the good part is that I feel good helping him. We get 2 hours of comp study and we watch videos and stuff in the
house and he thinks I’m the best missionary in the world. After every lesson he tells me that I killed it.

President Galvez called the other night for the ZLs and I picked up and he asked me how I was feeling. He told me that I was going against every norm training a gringo because he needs
extra help with the language and that he trusted in my Spanish to help him. I feel really bad because he really wants to help more in lessons but he doesn’t understand anything and really can’t say anything. I don’t say that to bash him. He really tries and is the most humble kid I’ve ever met but it makes things very very difficult. I had him baptize on Saturday so he already has
baptized in his first 3 days.

We have set a goal to find a new family to teach every single day and Thursday we hadn’t found one and it was 8:15 PM. So we went to start knocking doors and in this country people go
to bed at 8 and get really mad when you knock their door past like 7:30 but he had to find our family. I knocked several doors and everyone was getting mad at me. So I finally told him it was his turn. He knocked his first door in his mission and a lady came out and he said in super broken Spanish that he had a message for her family and she said ok. And then he looked
at me not knowing what to do at that point and so I talked to her and for maybe the 3rd time in my mission (the first time was MY first door knocked) knocking doors people let us right in. She had a beautiful family of 3 and I alone had to teach the first lesson.

But I’m offf.. And we’re going to go to pricemart today, the store like costco. Will you pay me
back for the things I buy there? thanksss..

Love, Elder Graham

I Have Posterity!!

My brand spanking new companion....Elder Cherrington!
Baptism of Damaris's grandaughter
Cutest little girl!

Hey mom! Some news! I have posterity! I’m
a trainer! I’m training a gringo! Which almost never happens.
His name is Elder Cherrington. Hess from Orem and basically doesn’t
speak any Spanish. But he’s so excited about everything and I know he’s
gonna whip me into shape. He seems very humble and very very excited about
everything.

After changes we had a special meeting with President Galvez
and he explained to us the new training program. We have 2 hours of
companionship study every day and we have a book that we need to follow that
tells us what to study every day. Along with a portable DVD player and
dvds of examples and things to watch in our comp studies. In the meeting I
looked around at the other trainers and everyone had been zone leaders and 2
had been APs. President told us that we are the elite and the chosen of
the mission and that the trainers are the best of the best and that we are
there not only because president has complete trust in us but because the lord
does. It was pretty special and makes me feel a little overwhelmed.
If I mess up in the slightest I’m done.

But everything will be good! All the baptisms for this
weekend are solid! And I’m pretty excited that the first weekend of his
mission he’s gonna baptize. I took him around San Jose and explained the
important things and bought him some fruit that he’d never seen. I did
get the package. Thank you so much. I am currently uploading the music
from the flash drive.

At changes meeting a ton of people came up to me and told me
that they saw my brother. I didn’t believe them. I am pretty speechless
about all of it. I just wish he would have told me he was coming so I
could have told him some important things to do and see.

The District is doing good.
It really has amazed me how much revelation I really get to receive for
my district. I haven’t had any issues for ideas for anything. Ideas
just come to my head. Last week we had a zone conference and I had to
present our goals and my plans to meet them in front of president. I was
a little nervous because he always chops every leader’s head but he didn’t cut
mine! Being district leader I feel like is being like a dad. I have
to look how to help everyone in my district but things to really help them.
I can’t be too strict or to loose with them and I have to guide them but
not do it for them.
I’m out. Love you mom.
Elder Graham

Sister Mena- Best Member Missionary!

View from Elder Graham's bedroom: the mountain we climbed today

Top of the Mountain

District

Doing the "O" on the top of the mountain

District

Elder Whittaker and Elder Graham

View from our bathroom
Our Balcony

Hey there. I did love
conference. I watched it in the stake center which was my old Don Bosco
building. The people I watched it with weren’t as fun as the last time
but conference was still great. My favorite talk which may be one of my
favorites ever was Elder Uchtdorfs first talk. When he talked about how
compared to God we’re nothing but to him we are everything. It was an
amazing talk. It made me think of my last high adventure when dad talked
to us about how there are countless stars and we are like the stars but God
knows and loves each of us. Which was your favorite conference talk?
I’m putting on my ipod a bunch of the talks from last weekend
Today we took a vigorous hike to the top of a huge mountain.
Remember the mountain we went to for my 1 month check up? well we went
there but to the top top of that mountain and there’s a giant cross on top.
It was absolutely beautiful and ridiculously tiring. It’s
completely straight up. And on the way back down we decided to take a
different route and got lost and did some pretty intense mountain jungle
climbing to get back down.

I have started to see a little of what being a district
leader is. Thursday I went to don bosco to meet a family that they’re
teaching and Friday I had to do my first baptismal interviews! So I didn’t
work in my area for a few days. And Thursday i had my district meeting
and Friday was a zone meeting and all the dls had to do a training about
something for the whole zone then present their district goals and their plan
to meet them. A little tiring but it was good. I liked doing the
interviews but I was way nervous before them.

As far as investigators I have to tell you about a sister in
our ward named Sister Mena. She is nuts but in a good way. She’s
the best missionary I’ve ever met. She contacts people in the streets.
Anyways she contacted a lady in the street like a month ago and got her
phone number and said she could visit her with us and then when she called to get
an appointment the lady changed her mind so nothing happened. There’s a
sheet that we use with the members where they write down a bunch of names of
people they know and they pray for those people and we work with the members to
contact them. Anyways she told me that she filled out that paper and
prayed for over an HOUR with that list and when she was done she got a phone
call from that lady and told her to bring us over. When we got there the
next day she told us that she had a dream with me and Elder Reinoza and Sister Mena
and others, before she ever met me and we were really happy and doing joyful
things on a cloud and she was miserable on the ground and wanted to be where we
were. So she called Sister Mena and then we came over. And then she
asked us what she needs to do to be where we are on that cloud. She and
her kids are getting baptized on the 15th. An awesome expierience of the
power that members have in missionary work when they really want to.

Now that were only 4 in the
house we moved to the 3rd level in the building were in that’s smaller and sooo
sick! There’s a balcony outside and all the walls are basically glass.

Wellll, gotta go!
Love you, Elder Graham