We Were Sooooo Blessed This Week

Wow I am SO sorry!! This is way late because I forgot to hit send and
I just saved it as a draft!! I'm so sorry I just realized it!!

So...I had an AMAZING week. Seriously. We were sooooo blessed this
week it was just ridiculous. Our area is like almost exploding now
haha. It's pretty crazy considering how dead it seemed at first. So
I'll just kinda go over the biggest stuff.

Okay so first off, this isn't like super exciting to all of you, but
we've been able to start going to the gym at West Point in the
mornings!! It's just the weight room for the staff and family members
of the staff members, but it's SUPER nice. It has everything you could
ever want. :)

So about the actual spiritual stuff, we have like 5 potential
investigators now and two SOLID new investigators that are actually
progressing!!! :) :) yup! In one week haha. So what happened with how
we found the potential investigators was we did an APF in our area.
All the missionaries in our district came and did some tracting in
Highland Falls, which is the little town in our area. So our area is
super super small. All it is is the actual West Point installation and
then two little towns called Highland Falls and Fort Montgomery. Fort
Montgomery is ridiculously small, so it's all just basically Highland
Falls. Not that Highland falls is much bigger...but yeah. So when we
aren't on Post, were usually doing service or other missionary work
somewhere in Highland Falls. But anyway, so during the APF, we were
able to get a few potential people that might want to learn about the
Gospel sometime. One was super cool!!

So we went and knocked on this door and right as we knocked on the
door, someone drove up (super awkward and it happens all the time). So
we went and waited for the lady to get out of her car and we went up
and were like, "hey how's it going? Were just going around sharing a
video about setting goals, and New Years, and not looking back and
stuff...would it be okay if we showed that to you?" (We've been
showing everyone the Mormon Message "Look Not Behind Thee" as a
finding and teaching strategy). She agreed and so we went inside and
showed her the video by her front door (one of the only times I've
actually been let into someone's house on the first visit). She LOVED
it and we talked for a really long time. We got on the subject of God
answering questions we have about things. She just kinda stopped,
looked at us, and was like, "actually...you know what? This was an
answer to one of my prayers. You really need to talk to my son. He's
not home right now but here's my number and give me a call tonight.
We'll have you over for dinner and we can keep talking." Sweet!! She
hasn't answered quite yet but we've still got hope!

So then Sunday rolled around...and this was the HUGE miracle day. So
randomly one of the cadets brought a friend that I guess had talked
with some of the missionaries before, but they only did one lesson and
it never really went anywhere. But we went and talked to him, and
asked if he would want to talk to us right now. He agreed and we went
and taught the Restoration with him and TWO of his good friends who
are members, but one is slightly less than active in the Church. It
was AMAZING. Finally someone that is mentally sane that I can talk
to!! You don't really find a whole lot of people in the Bronx that are
100% "there". So his name is Toese Tia, and he is this super big,
super nice Samoan football player that is from Hawaii.

But yeah, then after that we went and had lunch with the Lotzs. Elder
and Sister Lotz are a senior missionary couple that live right above
us. They are so cool. They're like my grandparents away from home (no
offense Grandma, Mammaw, and Papa haha). They are just so great and we
go over there all the time to hang out and talk with them at the end
of the day. But anyway, so after lunch, we taught another lesson to
Cali. Cali is a female cadet that has been coming to church for the
last month or so, as well as institute. We just haven't been able to
meet with her yet, but she is so solid!! She wants to be baptized! We
taught her the Restoration as well, except there was kind of a lot of
people there, so it was kind of strange, but that's fine! Were going
to meet with her Saturday nights now hopefully.

Then Monday we went to dinner at the Tonelli's home, and guess who
showed up? Toese!! The members have the cadets over for dinner a lot,
and they asked if Toese could come. Way cool! After dinner we got into
this really spiritual talk about how the Tonelli's learned that the
church was true. We taught Toese (Toe-es-ey) about how to learn from
the Holy Spirit and how we can gain a testimony for ourselves. He's
just so sincere and hungry to learn. Were really excited for him.

So yeah, that was our bomb week!! We are sooooo excited and so
grateful right now. We have definitely been blessed immensely this
cycle so far.
Well, I gotta go but I'll talk to everyone tomorrow!! Love you! :)
-Elder Stafford