Mom!! You're Spoiling Me to Death!!

Mom!!

What the heck! Another package?! :) haha you're spoiling me to
death!! Thank you though. Ya know, I've been trying to eat way
healthier recently, so I think I deserve all of that candy ;) you're
the best!! Can you believe the holidays are here already?! Holy
smokes. Well, just wanted to say thank you really quick. Thanks mommy!

Well, I love you so much and I pray for you about every night! Have an
awesome week and I'll get to the big family email as soon as I can!

See ya!

Thanks for my package Mommy!!

And Mommy!!!

Thank you so much for my package!!!! Thank you so much for my
package!!! I almost totally forgot to thank you!! It was so perfect.
Thank you sooooo much. And that granola is AMAZING!! I love it! It's a
perfect snack or breakfast. And the caramel corn too!! Holy moly! I
ate all of it already! It was so amazing!
You are seriously the best. I wasn't expecting that at all so it was
like the greatest surprise ever when we got mail. Well, the reason I'm
sending you this on Thursday is because we had to go home a little
early and I didn't have a chance to get wifi to send it off. Please
forgive me! I love you!! Have an awesome week!

City People are Just Different...

Hey everyone! So this is actually the second time I'm writing this
letter... Something happened with our iPads that deleted the huge
draft that I wrote to everyone. Needless to say, I was pretty mad.
Anyway...so AGAIN, it's been a pretty crazy week. It's been really
stressful for me. Taking over the area with Elder Stevenson has been
hard.

So there was a lot that happened this week but then again not a whole
lot that happened. So not a whole lot happened because...well...we
weren't able to teach any lessons this week. That was weird for me.
Usually were able to at least teach SOMEONE! If nothing else, were
able to teach some less actives or active members. But things have
been so crazy these past few weeks with General conference and stake
conference that no one has signed up to have us over. It's been
disappointing because usually getting to know the members in each area
is like my favorite part. I absolutely love going to members homes.
It's so nice to be in the presence of a nice family that has a
testimony and just loves the missionaries. This ward is a little
different just because, well, they live in Manhattan haha. City people
are just really different than most people. The city is such a
ruthless environment that people become pretty selfish and blunt. Not
that the members are really like that as much...but you still kind of
see it.

Anyways...we were able to teach a lesson to John who is an
investigator that we got passed off to us from the 3rd ward. He can
only go to church at their wards time, but he lives in our ward
boundaries. So he's pretty awesome. He actually says that he has
already been baptized when he was like 14, but we don't have any trace
of his records so were in the process of tracking those down. He's
super smart and just understands things...which can be a bad thing
which we found out this week. During the lesson, after we asked him if
there was anything we could do that would help him on his way coming
closer to Christ, he was like, "yes actually...so I know that you guys
have to teach me all of this stuff about the restoration and the plan
of salvation and the commandments and stuff...and I get it, and I
understand it...but I was wondering if we could start discussing some
of the higher up stuff. I understand all of this basic stuff, but what
I'm really interested in is our church's beliefs on becoming like God,
and the nature and characteristics of God, and what we believe about
other planets and such." Haha we were just kind of taken back and were
like, "uhhh....well as much as we'd love to talk to you about that
kind of stuff, we are called to teach people about the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Not that we don't want you to have questions like that, it's
just that we aren't really supposed to be the ones that talk to people
about that stuff. We keep things kinda basic." Haha it was interesting
but he was understanding...despite being a little disappointed.

So this week was stake conference!! It was so awesome. The theme was
aligning our will with the will of God. The speakers were really good
and the music was amazing. My favorite part was the musical number
that the stake music director put together. We were in it and there
were like 50+ missionaries serving here in this stake. So what we did
was we all sang "Called to Serve". We all sat in the back of the gym,
and as the intro started, we all stood up and got into lines, then
when the verse started, we all started singing as powerfully as we
could and walked down the aisles to the front of the chapel. By the
time we all got there and were facing the congregation, the second
verse started and the whole congregation and us sang the second verse.
It was so awesome!!! The spirit was soooo strong. Pretty much everyone
was crying haha.

The best part of the whole week, though, was my interview with
President Morgan. It was so good. We were just able to talk about how
I was doing. He asked about Elder Stevenson because he knows that he
is very slow thinking and doesn't connect the dots very well. We
talked about how it's been hard and I've had to mother him a lot, but
that overall we are doing okay. It was just good. The spirit was there
and he was able to help me out a lot.

Well, sorry this email is so jumbled. It was hard to write all of this
twice and I think I'd forgotten a lot of what I had said haha. But
anyways, that was about my whole week! I hope all of you are doing
swell. Love you all so much! Take care!

-Elder Stafford :)

So in our area, we actually found the store that has ALLLL the super

weird, fancy, expensive furniture and decor that you'd find in a super

frumpy, super rich old couple in England's house hahaha. It was

awesome!! I think I'll take the fake peacock hanging on a swing in the

background...that would look lovely in my man cave at home! 

 Super cool looking school in the middle of Manhattan. Yes, it is a castle.

So......we accidentally fulfilled my (secret) dream of leaving the

mission and going to Queens. We hopped on the wrong train on night and

ended up going across the river into the New York South mission haha.

So naturally, I took a selfie by the Subway sign that says that

you're going to Manhattan. Breaking that rule (on accident of

course!), check!

The Work is Still Movin'!

Well everyone, it's a new cycle here in the NYNY North Mission. The
city is still buzzin', the people are still crazy, and the work is
still movin'! I've got a new companion, Elder Stevenson.

So this week has been pretty good! We've gotten some good hard work
in! I'm really seeing, within myself, an urge to want to always be
working hard. I'm not going to lie, it's been a big temptation for me
before to just want to hang around or stay somewhere that's fun for a
long time, but now I can tell that I am much more happy when I am
working hard and staying busy. It's a hard balance to make, because
you also don't want to stress yourself out silly...but I think I'm
getting the hang of it.

But back to what I was saying, we did some good hard work this week.
We don't have a lot of investigators, and so we did a lot of tracting
and less active lookups. We haven't had much success with the less
active lookups, but with tracting we've found a few people.......that
all don't speak English haha. We found like two people that speak
Mandarin Chinese that we were able to give to the Chinese Sisters, and
then I was able to contact someone in Spanish (in very...VERY broken
Spanish), that we gave to the Spanish Sisters! For some reason,
foreign women just love us hahaha. We were able to talk to a lady with
some kids that said that we could come back! We set up an appointment
for Saturday so hopefully that works out! I've been dying to teach an
actual family!!! I haven't taught a family since the Cardona's in
Monticello. Who, by the way, are still ROCKING!!! I write them every
once in awhile and it sounds like they are doing so good!! Danial, the
boyfriend, is finally getting the divorce with his previous wife, and
they have plans to be married this upcoming June, and then baptized
soon after!!! I'm so excited! I really hope that I'm able to go to
their wedding/baptism and then hopefully their sealing in a year or so
from that!! :) :)

So something else that was cool this week was that Elder Perry from
the Quorum of Twelve Apostles came to the Manhattan temple chapel to
give a fireside!! It was really dumb because missionaries were only
able to go to that chapel if you brought someone with you, but Greg or
anyone else wasn't able to go :( so we couldn't go to the actual
fireside, but we were able to go to the East Side chapel, which is the
one that we go to, to see a broadcast of it. Unfortunately...and I
hope this isn't to much info for anyone...I had to miss the first half
of it because I was feeling really sick after dinner for some reason
and spent a lot of the time in the bathroom. It was pretty horrible.
Sorry again for anyone that didn't wanna hear that haha. But it was
good! He spoke a lot about religious freedom and how we as Christians
need to be more involved in uniting with other faiths to bring
religion back into a greater light of our country. Religion is dying
in the United States, unfortunately, and the Brethren want us to do
everything we can to HEALTHFULLY bring it back. I can't imagine them
suggesting that we just be super religion crazy and riot in the
streets or anything, but just have more teamwork with other faiths. In
fact he highly, HIGHLY encouraged, in fact he pretty much told
everyone, to go and be involved in a website called "faithcounts.net"
I think. It's a website that links all different faiths somehow. I
missed a lot of it, so I don't know exactly what it does, but I'd
encourage you all to get on and see what it's all about!

But yeah, I'm doing really good now. Our apartment is a lot different
because we have Elder Stevenson who isn't much of a talker, and we
also got a brand new missionary, Elder Richards, who is also a very
quiet person. Needless to say, there isn't a whole lot of talking at
home, but it's good because I've been able to be very productive with
my time! Our apartment (at least any of the places that I have to
spend any time in like our room, the kitchen, and the bathroom, are
absolutely spotless! Mother, you would be extremely proud haha. I've
pretty much turned into a clean freak on my mission with the place
that I live. I'm not weird or anything where germs scare me or I freak
out if something is dirty, but I really really like to have everything
of mine in a very orderly, clean, de cluttered condition. Haha it's
kind of funny, because in literally every apartment I've ever come
into, I'm that one elder that picks up after and throws away all of
the junk that missionaries leave in their apartments. Whenever I come
into an apartment, the only thing I do for like 2-3 days of free time,
is clean. I go out and buy whatever cleaning supplies we don't have
(and generally, with an Elders apartment...there's not a whole lot of
cleaning supplies) and then just go crazy scrubbing and mopping and
dusting and sanitizing and de-clogging. It's great!! Cleaning is
actually very relaxing for me. Whenever I get really stressed or
upset, I just go and clean a room or whatever completely and I feel
much better!

Well...I better get going, but I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Keep me updated with everything that's going on with all of you. I
love getting your emails, and even if I'm not able to respond right
away, I do appreciate them all. Keep getting closer to Heavenly
Father. He really is there, and He really does want to have a
relationship with you. I've learned that a lot of the times, we can't
just wait around for Him to come and say, "HEY! I'm here and I love
you!!". Father will show you that He is there when you do things that
invite His Spirit to be with you. As you actually do the things that
we talk about in church like pray, read your scriptures, go to church,
go to seminary...He will always bless you with His Spirit. That's a
PROMISE!! And as we know, "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say,
but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." Just do what
you're supposed to do!! There's no super confusing strategy for being
happy in life. It's literally that simple. And with that, I bid you
all adieu until next week!! Adios amigos! Man I'm multilingual today
;) see ya!

-Elder Stafford

Missionary Message from Elder Stafford

Cade Stafford

October 12 at 2:36pm · 

***EMERGENCY***
Heavenly Father WILL come to our aid when we call on Him and ask Him for help. He may not just solve everything for us right then and there, but He will always bring us solace in our difficulties. How's that for a spiritual Band-Aid?!
Mosiah 24:14-15 (in the Book of Mormon)

 — feeling healthy.