Done With Winter - 03/02/15 (Charleston, IL)

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope all is going well for you back West, here in Eastern Illinois I am freezing! I am pretty much over winter for this year. Temperatures have been low, and we have close to 9 inches of snow on the ground. Cars have been grounded in the zone several times this week, so that has left us to walk everywhere, so that has been great. Haha! I manage to not get to cold most of the time.

I don't have a ton to report for this week actually... Saturday night we had a baptism! Our Investigator Nancyann got baptized by her son who drove down 8 hours from Michigan just so he could baptize her. Her son is a convert of almost one year, so it was really cool that he got the opportunity to baptize his own mom into the church! 

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders Wednesday and that was a good time. I got to work with Elder Moore in Mahomet/ Champaign! We taught a few lessons and went tracting for a good chunk of the day. I actually enjoy tracting and find that it is one of my strengths in missionary work. I also met one of their members who makes plaques for missionaries who serve there, and he had me write my name down and is going to make me one too.. so that is pretty cool! 

We have more lessons coming up this week with our investigators, a couple of them are progressing really well, enough that we might have a few baptismal dates here pretty soon. Elder Phillips and I are continuing to work hard and having fun in the process. This week the Mattoon Elders are going to be having the car, which means we are going to be back to walking the whole week. 

March is definitely going to be a great month for the Charleston area and for the Champaign Illinois Stake, and for the Missouri St Louis mission! Great things are happening here and the church continues to spread. Our mission continues to reach for the goal of 453 baptisms this year, as of this morning our mission as a whole has 111 baptismal dates and 6 baptisms this last week! Bringing a year to date total of 53 baptisms... Pretty good for two months into the year!

This Transfer I have made it a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by General Conference, and to have effective studies in the morning from Preach my Gospel and the standard works. I also study each day during my lunch hour and dinner hour when I can. I am really just focusing on learning the gospel and improving my teaching skills, and I have begun to see a difference! 

The church is so true! It is pretty amazing.. Anyways I will report again next week with more good news and hopefully some good stories for everyone! God Be with you... 

Elder Chase Peterson