Legal descriptions
Three main formats, and Missouri uses all of them. Once you know which one you are looking at, most of it decodes.
The Public Land Survey System. Missouri was surveyed into a grid of six mile square townships, each divided into 36 one mile square sections of about 640 acres, and sections divided into quarters and quarter-quarters.
A description like "the SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of Section 14, Township 29 North, Range 22 West" reads from the smallest piece backward. Take Section 14, take its northeast quarter, then take the southwest quarter of that. Roughly 40 acres.
See the PLSS page for how the grid works and why the squares are not actually square.
Used in platted subdivisions. "Lot 14, Block 3, Sunset Addition, as recorded in Plat Book 12, Page 47." The recorded plat is the authority and it carries the dimensions, easements and restrictions. These are the easiest descriptions to work with, which is why surveys in modern subdivisions are cheaper.
A walk around the perimeter with a bearing and distance for each leg. "Beginning at an iron pin at the northeast corner, thence South 89 degrees 42 minutes West 210.50 feet to an iron pin, thence..." and eventually back to the beginning.
Common on rural Ozarks acreage and older parcels. The quality varies enormously. A modern metes and bounds description prepared by a surveyor is precise. One written in 1940 referencing a large oak and a fence corner is a different proposition.
A proper metes and bounds description should return exactly to the point of beginning. Many old ones do not. The perimeter comes back a few feet off, or the last call is simply "thence to the point of beginning" with no dimension.
Causes include transcription errors, less accurate historic instruments, and calls to monuments that have since moved or vanished. Resolving it is professional judgment work, and it is one of the things that makes a rural survey take longer than a subdivision lot.
What to do with yours. Read it and see which type it is. If it is lot and block, find the recorded plat. If it is metes and bounds, note whether it references monuments that might still exist. Then search the state repository for surveys covering the area. See finding Missouri survey records.
Send it over. A licensed surveyor can usually tell you quickly what you are dealing with.