ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!

Hey there mom. I got the shoes last week thank you very much! They are sweet and definitely sturdy. Honestly the next pair of black shoes should finish me out the mission. I don’t need any new ones.

Last Thursday, my one year mark, was great. I did the traditional shirt burning. I took a video of it but others took pictures. Hopefully I can get you a picture of the shirt burning. Then the tradition is that the one turning a year buys pizza. It’s usually not that much because it’s usually for just you and your comp. But I had to buy pizza to fill 8 missionaries. And I do have pics of that. There are 8 missionaries that live in our house, 3 companionships besides mine. For the most part they’re all pretty cool.

I can’t believe that my mission is already halfway done. I have been waiting my whole life for this and now I only have a little bit left. And it made me realize that I really will only be here 2 years and not forever. That even though time doesn’t seem like it’s passing it really is passing. I have a lot left to do and not much time.

It’s been pretty tough here. The members here are different than in Moravia. In Moravia you knock on a door of any member or less active or anything and they love the missionaries and let you in to feed you and give you juice or something. Here we try to find where the members live to work with them and they just stand at the door asking why we came to their house. Almost all the members on my side live in a place called la Carpio which everyone says is the most dangerous place in Costa Rica and we can’t go there after dark. But everyone there works until dark everyday so we can’t really work with them.

We’ve had to do some definite wandering because we really don’t know what to do. We contact people and they all are from other places in the country. Like imagine contacting in downtown Portland. 98% of the people walking around don’t actually live in downtown. As far as the area it has been a fun atmosphere to live in and walk through. There’s a ton of tourists that always stop me and ask me to help them around or to translate. And 2 different families of members stopped us and one bought us taco bell. At least they like us.

Okay gotta go. I love you.
Elder Graham