Curly Fries And Fire Flies - 06/08/15 (Belleville, IL)

Dear People I care about,

Another week has scampered on by! The days just keep moving.. I am starting to understand now when people say that the days are long, but the weeks are short on a mission. That is definitely true. Time is just really weird as a missionary! It is something you can't explain..

This week was kind of a slow week, most of our appointments dropped and most people have been really hard to contact or set up appointments with. We only saw one of our investigators this week, and that was Kisha's 11 year old daughter Mi Mi. We taught her the Plan of Salvation lesson, but she is really shy so it was kind of hard to gauge her understanding. We are also having a hard time getting our investigators to come to church! But things should pick up this week!

So this Thursday night we had just got back to our apartment and there was this weird looking bug on the wall.. I had never seen it before, but it was pretty big. So I look around and grab the first thing I saw to kill it, which just so happened to be a frying pan. But When I smashed it, it left This bright florescent yellow all over the wall! It was then that I realized  I had seen my first ever Fire Fly! haha! They are so cool! well in the dark anyways... They are starting to come out now that summer is here!

Friday we had to go do Service at the Senior Center in Mascoutah, since Thursday we had District Meeting down in Waterloo. when we got to the Senior Center, all of the old people were doing Zumba, dancing around to Pop music! It was so great! I couldn't stop smiling and laughing! A few of them kept telling me and Elder Jones to go out there with them! haha.. I knew Elder jones wouldn't do it, but I really wanted to! We were pretty busy making them sloppy joes anyway. But I decided that next time we go do service on a Friday, I am going to go and do Zumba with them for a few minutes. I will be sure to take some pictures and videos of it for you folks back home! 

Sunday we had a sad and also touching experience at the same time.. We went to a Funeral for The Petersen family.. They had a baby girl born this last week who wasn't expected to live, and 20 minutes after she was born, she passed away. They had a great funeral service Sunday night for her. A lot of ward members showed up and some Nonmembers that Brother Petersen works with on base. Through such a sad event it was amazing to see how comforted and happy the family was to know that they are sealed as a family and that nothing can take their daughter away from them. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, death has no sting and the grave has no victory. All little children are saved through his grace! Their daughter was so righteous that the only thing she needed in this life was simply to get her physical body, and make such a huge impact on so many people in just 20 hours that she lived.

After the funeral the Meinhart's fed us dinner! Since it was like 7:30 and we had to be back to our apartment soon. They cooked us up some Hot Dogs and Curly Fries! They are such a great family, and they take care of us really well. 

Well this is the last week of the transfer, time has sure flown by! Elder Jones will probably be leaving, since he has spent 3 transfers here. Not sure who I will get or what will happen! There is a good chance I might be called to train next transfer.. This summer we are getting lots of new misisonaries.. 12 New this next transfer, 22 the next, then 29 in September. So by September, there will be 51 trainers! That month half of the mission will be training or being trained! So things are gonna get crazy soon! Anything can happen!

have a great week, I love you all!

Elder Chase Peterson