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, January 23, 2012




Hello. I did get your package. Thank you so much!

And now that i got a new memory card i can send you this one home with all the pics and vids and such! Make sure you’re tracking them really well. I put all my pictures on my hard drive but I don’t know what happened but the hard drive doesn’t have some of them anymore. So just make sure you still have all my pics from the mish.

The Conference was really good with Elder Clayton. It was really short. Just 2 hours but he spoke Spanish which surprised me. I didn’t know he spoke Spanish. And i didn’t realize he was the one that gave a talk in conference in October on missionary work. He only spoke for a
little bit then president Galvez, sister Galves and elder Amado of the 70 also spoke. Then elder Clayton opened it up for questions. Elder Amado told us not to count our days that are left but to count the things that we’ve learned and the blessings we’ve reviewed in our time in the mission.

Last Tuesday, Wed, and Thurs we were out of Neilly so we didn’t get to plan sacrament meeting with talks and such. So guess who it fell on... We got to be in charge of the primary, the youth, the priesthood, relief society and everything.

Our numbers for the zone this month are not too good. We will finish with one family, 2 men over 18 and 4 baptisms. And we have to go next week to san Jose to a leaders conference
and present all the monthly numbers for January which are pretty discouraging..

We are gonna have a baptism though Saturday. His name’s Johan. He´s a single 30 year old
guy. He’s really good. We already have it planned to make him the young men’s president.

But now I’m off. Love you
Elder Graham

Monday, January 9, 2012

Busy Busy Week!

a real palm tree. a REAL one. not imitation
Cacao Beach

Thats my branch
presidents house. doesnt have a front door. doesnt need one.
My District
Cacao Beach
Cacao Beach

The First Vision
Cacao Beach
Fishing

Hey there. Go ducks.

Day by day... Tuesday and Wednesday we worked normally. We work a lot with our branch
president. He’s honestly the greatest guy. I’ve never met anyone as humble as him. Wednesday we had branch counsel though. We had to run the whole thing. Elder Bertrand says that it was the 2nd one in the history of the branch. And the first was last month.
There are members that have been members a really long time but they still don’t know how things really work. And There’s a ton of less actives. There are 412 people on the records and 24 came last Sunday. So we have lots of work to do.

Thursday we had a zone meeting in Perez Zeledon. My first zone meeting. it was 4 hours away.
We got up at 4 to take the bus at 4:45 to have the meeting at 11. Then we stayed there and went to a lesson with the sisters there. We helped with a family they have that the guy can’t quit smoking. We made a cigarette smoothie and gave him a blessing. He hasn’t smoked since. We then got on a bus at 630 to come home and got home at 1030.

Saturday we went to a member’s house that lives 2 hours away on bus and comes every single Sunday.
Then Sunday we were in meetings and doing numbers all day. No one from the primary
showed up so me and Bertrand switched off. He gave them the lesson then i did sharing time with them. And in the first hour i taught the gospel principles class and we had a family of
investigators that we had been fighting for this weekend. They hadn’t really been excited about committing to getting married and baptized. So In the class we talked about the Holy Ghost and i had the other converts in there share their testimonies about how they know that the church is
true. They all were crying and so right then i committed them to be baptized and married this Saturday and they accepted so I’m hoping that it all works out.

Then after that i had to whip up a quick sharing time. At first all the kids just wanted to run out in the hall but i got them together and just started teaching them the only few Spanish children’s songs that i know all of by heart. Then it all worked out and i had them draw things. I had them draw what they think about when they think of God and they all stood up and shared it with everyone.

Then we had to get on a bus an hour to Rio Claro to a district presidency meeting with all the branch presidents and district president, and we held a training. Then we went back to our church to have a PEC and presidency meeting all of which we conducted because no one had done them before. Saturday night we were in the church until 11 taking out all the tithing settlement info for Sunday. Then we had to finish it all Sunday night.
I’ve learned so much about leading branches and districts and we have to do all the church finances. People that need economic help we fill out the forms and get them approved. I never
imagined all that dad had to do as a bishop. But there’s so much, and I’m doing it on a much smaller scale.

Then today we went with the branch president to Golfito to the beach and we cooked meat and platanos on the beach. We went to cacao beach. It was pretty sweet.
I'm out. Gotta go. Love you, Elder Graham


Monday, January 2, 2012

New Year's Eve and FISH!!

New Year's Eve at the Abuela's
She cooks for us

Great Big Pile of Fish that We Caught and Ate

Branch President
Greatest Guy!

Hello. It’s so hot here. You honestly have no idea and before i forget i would like it if
you could send me more garments. Within minutes my garment tops are literally
soaked through with sweat. Just to paint you a picture of the heat and
sweating. Last night my comp did his call home because he couldn’t on Christmas
because they were traveling. So we got home at 7 and i took a
shower. I then sat and studied and such for 2 hours sitting down.
And before I went to bed i had to shower again because i sweated so much.

For New Years we went to the abuelas and she cooked for us. Then at midnight
there were a tons ton of fireworks going off from every direction in this
little tiny town.

The talk was good. I talked about the 4 points the missionary
work in the branch can improve. Being united as a branch, fulfilling our
callings to their fullest, sharing our testimonies and strengthening ourselves
and families. It was a big crowd pleaser with the huge attendance of 10
that we had. My comp and I were 2. Then the branch president.
3 kids under the age of 4 and 4 women. There’s some improvement to be done.

Today we hiked out to our branch presidents house who lives an hour out in the middle of nowhere and went fishing and then went and cooked them and ate them. I hate fish.
and everyone knows that. And we just fried em up and ate them. He was looking at me when i ate him.

Welppp I gotta go.
Love you. Elder Graham