Missouri in general is great. We live in Kansas but bought property in MO and intend to move, spend most weekends there now. We are about an hour north of Springfield but have not specifically gone down there in a while, I pass through pretty often on business and usually stop for lunch or a visit to the Grizzly tool outlet - good place to drop a lot of $$ if you are into that sort of thing. Of course it is also home to Bass Pro.
Springfield area is in the storm belt so you can figure on wild storms in the spring time and a surprising lot of snow in the winter, what starts in OK ends up going through Springfield. You are in the heart of the Ozark's so you get all the good and bad, great hunting and fishing, great attitude toward an outdoor lifestyle, but then you have Branson and all the touristy stuff to put up with. This includes a good bit of traffic especially in the summer months. Lake of the Ozarks is only an hour away, along with Table Rock, Bull Shoals and the other army corp lakes in AR. The southern half of MO is rocky with thin topsoil, I am sure you can grow a garden but it won't be the same as you are used to in Indiana.
You could certainly pick a worse place to move to.