Where to after here?

I have done my assignment in trying to answer the question, "where does my soul go right after I die as a Christian?" For me this is important, especially when I am about to visit a friend or relative whose loved one has died.  My words then should at least be "accurate," aside from being comforting.

After reading the Bible, I have found more scriptures which led me to believe that a Christian's soul, after he dies, goes to a sort of a "holding place" called either Hades or Sheol. 

Nonetheless, there are passages that suggest that a Christian's soul goes directly to heaven, such as:

1.  While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Acts 7:59 (NIV)
• But Stephen here was referring to his spirit, not his soul.
2. Paul said "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." 2 Cor. 5:8 (NIV)
3. Paul said "I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ,which is better by far..." Philippians 1:23 (NIV)
• In saying "away from the body and at home with the Lord" and "to depart and be with Christ," maybe Paul was referring to some future time, not immediately after he "departs" from his body.
4. Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43 (NIV)
• If "paradise" here refer to heaven, then the thief is not in heaven now because we know that when Jesus died, He did not go back to heaven on the same day that He died, but He went somewhere "below." 
5. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. Revelation 6:9 (NIV)
• Admittedly because of this passage, there might be really some souls who are in heaven right now.  But mind you, they are not the souls of ordinary Christians like you and me who are not experiencing heavy persecutions. They are those Christians "who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained." In the present times, they are the souls of the "martyrs" in the faith like those Coptic Christians in Egypt who were beheaded by ISIS. So, where do the souls of ordinary Christians go immediately after death?

But in the following passages, I found more indications that after death, a Christian's soul goes to a "holding place" as mentioned earlier, namely:

1. "May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones." 1 Thess. 3:13 (NIV)
2. "For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done." Matthew 16:27 (NIV)
3. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. Matthew 25:31 (NIV)
4. "This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels." 2 Thessalonians 1:7 (NIV)
• In the 4 passages above, Jesus will come to earth accompanied by His angels, not with the souls who are supposedly in heaven. Otherwise, those souls would accompany Jesus too. But the passages above did not say something to that effect. 
5. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:3 (NIV)
6. "For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." 1 Thessalonians 4:14 (NIV)
• Jesus wouldn't have said this if some Christians are already in heaven with Him, otherwise, He might have just added the phrase "except those who are with me already."
• The passages in nos. 5 and 6 suggest that Jesus would want to take His people - both living and the dead - simultaneously to heaven with Him.  (As where heaven exactly is, that would be a different topic already.)
7. "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man." John 3:13 (NIV)
8. Samuel said to Saul: "The Lord will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.” 1 Samuel 28:19 (NIV)
• Samuel (or his soul) here did not come from heaven when he conversed with Saul. He came from the "ground."
9. In Acts 2:34, David (or his soul) did not ascend to heaven.
10. "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned." John 5:28-29 (NIV)
• If the souls of Christian are already in heaven, will they come down to earth to enter their earthly bodies just so they can "rise to live" according to the verse? But then again, the Bible did not say that the souls of those Christians who are in heaven now will accompany Jesus when He comes to earth.
• Granting for the sake of argument that the believer's soul really go directly to heaven after death, we might safely assume also that the soul of the unbeliever will also go directly to hell or to the "lake of burning sulfur" after death. If this is so, then it would be "highly scandalous" (my apologies for the lack of a better term) to grant the souls of the wicked who are suffering in the lake of fire a sort of "reprieve" just so they can go back to their earthly bodies and "rise to be condemned," according to the same verse.    
11. "The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done." Revelation 20:13 (NIV)
12. "All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. 'No,' he said, 'I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.'” Genesis 37:35 (NIV)
• Jacob did not say he will join his son "in heaven," assuming that Joseph really died.

I hope somebody can shed more light on this topic. The knowledge of this particular subject or the lack of it may not affect our salvation as Christians, but I believe this is good for our "spiritual enrichment" of our Christian belief.