He Is The Gift - 12/01/14 (Glen Carbon, IL)

Hello Friends and Family,

November went by so fast, I couldn't believe it was December 1st until I walked outside this morning, There was no snow but everything was covered in a thick layer of ice! It's probably the humidity because I have never seen anything like it in Utah! 

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and that you enjoyed eating more food than you thought you probably should have! Haha! Thanksgiving for me was nice, we had the day off so we hung around and visited some members that we could. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at The Dial's, a nice family in our ward. They fed us really well with all your classic thanksgiving dishes. Afterwards Elder Abad and I shared a wonderful Thanksgiving message and we did it with a song and guitar! The song was also sung in mostly Tagalog! 

Wednesday the Office Elders in St. Louis came and dropped off brand new Mattresses, Box Springs, and Bed Frames for us! They are so comfortable and we sleep great every night!! We dumped our old mattresses due to some recent battles with Bed Bugs... But the exterminators sprayed our apartment again, and with the new mattresses we have not had any new encounters with Bed Bugs! But the new struggle is waking up in the morning! Haha!

On Friday, we had a great opportunity to be apart of a big Christmas Parade in Belleville! So big that most of the missionaries in the O'Fallen Zone were able to be in it! The church had a float that depicted the nativity scene, we as missionaries got to walk alongside the float and give out Pass along cards. It was definitely the highlight of the week. 

Everyone in our District is working hard to reach our goals for this transfer! As I predicted last week the Sisters are pulling in most of the numbers! Followed by us, then the Zone Leaders in Fairview Heights, and East St Louis in last. But we had a District Fast on Sunday and we've been praying hard and because of that the work has really started to pick up! We picked up 4 new investigators in the past 3 days! 

Ferguson has been the talk of the town all week... A lot of missionaries have been moved out of the St Louis area for right now! But Things are still peaceful over here on the other side of the river! I don't think we are going to see any rioting. 

So I hope many of you know that the Church came out with a new Video on Friday called "He Is The Gift". The church has put mega dollars into this new initiative. It is going to be in visitor Centers, Time Square in New York City, and on December 7th The Church is going to be the main advertiser on Youtube home page! If you haven't watched this video yet, you need to check it out! We have been given the task of spreading the "He is the Gift" to everyone we meet and to share it in each lesson with Active members, Less Active, and Non-members, and it is working really well so far.

The video can be seen on christmas.mormon.org 

I think that is is for this week everybody! I hope you all have a good week, stay safe and be warm! Love one another as Jesus Loves you! Try to show kindness in all that you do... be gentle and loving, in deed and in thought. For these are the things Jesus taught. ;)

Elder Chase Peterson