Monday, November 10, 2014

East Saint - 11/10/14 (Glen Carbon, IL)

Hello family Friends,

Illinois is starting to get nice and cold this week.. That has been a good experience I guess. The work is going well here, we had another week of zero's in our reports. But we found two new investigators that are super solid. We also got to teach a large amount of Less Active's in the ward. All of our investigators have fallen through on appointments all week, and we only have one progressing right now.

Tuesday we went on splits with some ward members. Elder Abad worked Glen Carbon and Troy with James Rawson, who is 17 years old and they got to teach some good lessons. I worked up in Highland which is about 30 minutes East of Troy. I was with Brother Boekout and his daughter who is getting ready to go on a mission. Not many people answered their doors, even when we saw them through the windows... weird. But we also had a lesson with a Less Active man named William, he is 80 years old and says that church is too far away and is boring to him now. But he still has a strong testimony and wants to talk to Bishop Rawson about doing his Tithing settlement. It was a very successful split day.

Friday we went on exchanges with the East St Louis Elders, and I did in fact have the great opportunity to spend 24 hours in East Saint. I was with Elder Jacobson who is our District Leader, he goes home to Seattle in 3 months. It was great being able to spend some time in a different area and I learned a lot from Jacobson.

East St Louis is interesting... It was hard being there though. There are a lot of  people there who like to yell a lot! Haha! Not necessarily at us, but just yell at each other. I was surprised to see most of the homes there are boarded up, and not in good living condition. Jacobson told me that sometimes you'll see a home, then the next day it will be boarded up due to whatever the people were involved with, weather it's gangs or drugs. The whole day we were pretty much the only white people on the bus, and the best dressed too... We met a few really nice people who we picked up as investigators, then we went back to the apartment because we have to be back by night fall in East St Louis. All in all I had a good first experience in the Ghetto except for these two people who picked a fight with each other in the back of the bus on our way home. Nobody threw any punches, but things got pretty heated! Haha! The whole situation honestly made me laugh, it was just so stupid. The whole day made me Grateful for a million different things, but I am grateful for the area I serve in on the Mission and the success we have. There is talk about closing the East St Louis area... the work is just not progressing and it's just a plain hard area, but there is still hope.

I think that is pretty much it for the week! We are going to be working hard this up and coming week, we have some good plans set to start finding and teaching more especially now that it is the end of the transfer. Thank you everybody, for all your love and support. I will be excited to report on all of the adventures and stories from the week on next Monday. Until then....

Peace on the streets,

Elder Chase Peterson

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