We have a new investigator!!!!

Hello family!!

So this week has been really cool! Mostly because we have a new investigator!! We haven't been able to meet with Derek at all because he's going to school here in Columbia University and he's been trying to apply for an internship over in Hong Kong (which he got!). Lina is AWESOME, though!! Like I said she just came from China so she has like no religious background at all! Me and another elder in my district taught her on Tuesday because we were on a split. It was really good! We had all intentions to start right off and teach her about the Restoration like we do with most other investigators...but after asking her a bunch of questions about who God was and what he means to her...we found out that she really just doesn't have much comprehension of who He is! It was so weird! I can't even imagine not knowing ANYTHING about Him!

But anyway...it was still really cool and spiritual as we testified to her that he loves each and every one of us and even though there's like, what, 6.5 billion people on the planet...he knows everything about us. You can see it in her eyes that she's really wanting to know, too. There's lots of people that we run into that are listening to the discussions because they don't really know how to say no or they just really like the missionaries and not because they genuinely want to find out more about Jesus Christ.

It was neat, though! She wasn't able to go to church this Sunday because one of her friends took her to a concert in Carnegie Hall at the same time, but we got a member to invite her to dinner and she was able to go to that! She's such a sweet, nice lady that is really genuine and humble. She'll make a great addition to the ward! ;)

My ward is pretty large. Not as big as the one we have in New Plymouth but close. It's mostly made up of young families where the husbands and fathers are either going to school in the city or are interns or something. There are a lot of locals and everything...but it's definitely mostly people from Utah...which is weird. I've heard it actually hasn't been that great because when investigators (mostly poor black people) come to the church, they see everyone and in their heads they're thinking, "oh great...another rich, snobby group of white people that are just going to judge me.." Which of course isn't true; people just jump to conclusions like that here...and I guess everywhere.

Speaking of wards...we got a new bishop here! He was the first counselor for the old bishop so we know him really well (well...as well as we can know him for only being there for four weeks). He's an awesome guy that is really young and ready to work. He's very energetic and missionary minded. Oh and something REALLY cool that happened...his second counselor? Walter Raine!!! If you don't know who he is, he's the super famous LDS painter!! He's so cool! And last Sunday, as he was leaving ward counsel, he slipped me and Elder Edmunds a white envelope and said "welcome to the ward!" Inside were like 10 of his painting that are signed by him!! They aren't originals or anything of course but it's still super cool!! I'll have to send you guys a couple!

Let's see...other than that...this week was kinda hard. I'm not sure what it is but it seems like once a month or so, I just get a day where I miss home a lot. It gets really hard because I'm just so depressed for really no good reason, and it's hard to get motivated to go out and work. One of the things that has been a real stitch in my side, too, has been these stupid iPads.. I love them to death and they're very useful...but I just don't feel like a missionary with it. It's so easy to just scroll up and down our newsfeed on Facebook and just get sucked into the world. I absolutely hate the feeling of not feeling like a missionary...when I feel like that it's almost like there's no point in me being out here! Very frustrating...but me and Elder Edmunds have decided to make it a companionship goal to use the iPads as little as possible. I think that once I'm away from all the stupid stuff everyone posts three times a day, it will be easier for me to be as excited as I was my first cycle. Speaking of which...I can not believe that I've been out for a whole 7 months!! That's crazy! Time really does fly by!

Haha that is so cool to hear about the concert you guys went to!! Oh I bet you felt like a teenager again or something ;) was it super crazy?! Or was it pretty mild compared to most concerts...not that we've ever really been to many haha

No we were never able to make it to the Met because we left the church later than we wanted to and so we just kind of walked around Times Square again which was super fun! I want to go there when it's dark sometime! I bet it looks so beautiful! The ads are pretty ridiculous sometimes but we just try and not look at those... :) I totally know which section at the Met you're talking about, though! Two weeks ago when we went as we were walking out we walked through the Greek statue section which is, in other words, the naked lady section...

But anyways...that was pretty much my week! Lots of fun and lots of mixed emotions but altogether it was good! I hope you're all doing well! You guys are awesome! I love you all!

-Elder Cade Stafford :)