The Killing Begins - 06/15/15 (Belleville, IL)

Dear Family and Friends,

I sure hope that everyone is doing great, I know I am. Things here in the MidWest are really starting to heat up! It has been really rainy and humid too, which I have discovered is a really weird combo. I was so used to Utah were when it rained it was dry and cooler temperatures. Here it just gets humid and stays hot! 

It has been a good week here in Belleville, Elder Jones and I have finished the transfer off and Today marks the start of a new one. This will be my 7th transfer, meaning that I only have 10 left. Anyways, we were not able to get any of our investigators to church this week! For some reason all of our investigators have the hardest time with that, it is really frustrating! But we finished all of the missionary lessons with Logan, and they are just trying to figure out when they want to do the baptism. 

We had a lesson with Kisha, and her kids, Mi Mi, Shakira, and Jermain. They are sweet! We taught the restoration and the Book of Mormon and I think they understood it well. They are all just so quiet so we had to ask a bunch of questions to really keep them engaged. 

We taught this guy named Dave this week.. Dave is from East St Louis but just recently moved to Belleville and is trying to get his life in order. He started going back to church at this non-denominational christian church and is loving it there. We went over and we taught him all about Joseph Smith and the restoration of the Gospel. I'm not sure he really payed that close of attention since half way through the lesson he stopped us and said " wait... Does y'alls know how to tie ya own ties..?" haha! It was funny.. But he accepted a Book of Mormon and said he would start reading and praying about it. He really liked that the Book of Mormon is additional scripture and supports the Bible.

We had a lesson with David Hampl, the lesson active guy we have been starting to visit. He talked for almost an hour and was telling us all these funny stories and pranks he pulled while he was an Air Force Fire Fighter deployed in Germany. David says that he really badly wants to sign up to go to Iraq, but his wife doesn't want him to. David started crying and telling us he feels like it is what he is supposed to do. It shocked me, because he is just this big dude, covered in tattoo's, he trains with Navy Seals and Green Barrettes, and he just broke down. We are going to start working with him to get to Church, start reading his Book of Mormon again, and to get his Patriarchal Blessing! 

So We got transfer calls on Saturday night.. A lot is changing this transfer and half of our district will be new! We found out that Elder Jones is being transferred. Wednesday he will be moving down south to Dexter Missouri. Which is about as far south as our mission goes.. I will be staying here in Belleville as Senior Companion and I am going to be getting Elder Julian who is on his last transfer, so he will be going home in 6 weeks! I will be sending him home, or "Killing him off" to put it in Mission terms! haha! which means I will likely be staying here in belleville again next transfer to bring a new Elder in here... So looks like I am staying here for a good little while! 

I think that is all to report for this week! Until I write again next week...

Peace on the streets,

Elder Chase Peterson