The Manhattan Man

This morning I was running through Central Park. A cool breeze pours
out of the avenues, flooding the park and heralding the imminent
autumn. Never mind the occasional whiff of something less than
pleasant; never mind the murmurings of an out-of-shape companion;
never mind the remnants of sleepiness still being forced from my
bodily systems. The views are spectacular, the atmosphere unmatched,
and the feeling glorious enough to move angels to sing the dawning of
a new day of missionary work! I'm a Manhattan Man now! And what's
more--a Manhattan Missionary! This is the life!

Manhattan has proved to be quite overwhelming so far. A lot more
people than the Bronx. A lot more tourists. A lot more skyscrapers. A
lot more of just about everything except feces in the streets, thank
goodness.

Being in the YSA ward, our teaching pool is significantly smaller than
most of the Manhattan missionaries, because we're limited to 18-30
year old singles. There are a lot of those in Manhattan, but most of
them don't care to listen to us. We do have one awesome investigator
named A*. She's so solid! She has such a strong testimony of
the Restoration. The only issue is the fact that her father is a
Hungarian Pentecostal preacher and she's scared to break it to him
that she's joining another church. She just flew to Texas yesterday
(where her parents currently live) to tell them she's going to be
baptized. We're praying all goes well. Right now she's shooting for
October 17th. We're also teaching a man named K* who's girlfriend
was baptized a few weeks ago. Then he decided he wanted to marry her
and she told him she wants him to take the missionary lessons first.
He's got a lot of lifestyle changes to undergo, but he seems
completely willing. He also wants to be baptized on October 17th.
Those are the only two serious investigators I've met so far, but
we've got some other people Elder Tanner has told me about who we
haven't been able to meet with.

This may seem strange, but on of the weirdest things about this new
area is the white people. I'm not used to seeing white people
everywhere and for the first few days I found myself always surprised
to get on a subway and see white people. It really threw me off. I've
gotten too used to the Bronx.

That's all for now. I'll include some pictures below. Until next time...

-Elder Samuel Burton

1. The view from our fire escape.
2. Madison Square Garden & the Empire State Building
3. IMAGINE at Strawberry Fields, Central Park.