Change In Champaign - 04/20/15 (Charleston, IL)

Dear Friends and Family,

Another week has moseyed on by here in Eastern Illinois. Time is passing pretty fast, and it is hard to believe that the transfer will be over in about 2 weeks. Elder Campbell and I have been working pretty hard here in Charleston. We have been out walking all week, If I have kept track right this week we have walked on average 11 to 12 miles every day. The frustrating part about that is that we haven't seen much progress this week. There were a lot of appointments dropped and people flaking out on us. 

Our investigator Aaron is doing well. we missed him a few times this week, and he didn't come to church. But he still wants to be baptized before he buys his Harley Motorcycle and he committed to stop drinking Coffee. We are working on finding a good fellowshipper for him.

Sharon still has her baptismal date set for May 2 and she is doing great! She was probably the miracle for the week and probably the whole transfer! We had dinner/lesson with her Monday night! We talked to her about the law of Chastity, Word of Wisdom, and tithing. She committed to stop drinking Coffee. The next morning we got a text from her saying  "I only had a 1/2 cup of coffee this morning compared to my normal 4-5 cups. Two days later she sent us a text saying
"coffee Conquered. It doesn't even taste good anymore" So she is right on track, and will be ready for baptism on the morning of May 2. :) 

Eric, our "ready to jump off a bridge alcoholic" investigator found out this week that his Dad left him a bunch of land in Minnesota. Some casino wants to buy it from him and is giving him $144,000 dollars for it! Last week the man only had 3 crumpled up dollars to his name! haha! It's pretty nuts and he is trying to decide what to do with it. He wants to go to Vegas, but we told him that he needs to get a fresh start and to work on quitting the alcohol. I think I actually saw him sober for the first time this week.. it was weird. 

We found out officially this week that The Champaign Illinois Stake will be moving to the Indianapolis Indiana Temple District instead of the St Louis temple District. From what i understand this should not effect the mission boundaries, so our stake should still stay in the Missouri St Louis Mission. But at the end of May Elder D Todd Christofferson of the 12 apostles will be coming to address us in Stake conference and talk more about what will be happening in regards to the new temple and the changes that will be made. 

The Stake has also announced "Mormon night at the ball park". Which can kind of be compared to Stake Lagoon day if you live in Utah.. But out here Busch Stadium in St Louis does a "Mormon Night". Members can get tickets for the Cardinals game and missionaries get to go as well. They do this every year and I hear the mission gets quite a few referrals from it. That will be June 30th. To be able to go I would have to be a little closer. Champaign zone is pretty far. I would have to be back in O'Fallon zone, or in North St Louis Zone, St Louis zone, or South St Louis zone. So I just hope I am here one more transfer so I can meet an apostle, then get transferred to be able to go to the Cardinals game! Haha! 

I think that is about all for this week, we are going to have the car this week so we won't be walking as much. Tuesday we are going on exchanges and I will be working down in Effingham with Elder Thompson. Other than that we will be back to the normal week of teaching and finding. Gotta love life as a servant of the lord! 

Elder Chase Peterson