week 10

Dear all,

Being on a mission during the holidays can definitely be hard, but it is also such a blessing. Our whole purpose as missionaries is to invite and bring closer to Jesus Christ and during the holidays it is even easier to keep that focus. On Monday we went to a member's house with April. April is one of my favorite people. She is in her late 20's and comes to the Bethesda family ward instead of the singles ward. --speaking of singles wards...this past Sunday during stake conference they announced that because there are so many single adults here in DC they are forming a single adult stake-- anyways, the three of us went to a member's house named Brother Cook who lives by himself and is an older man. something I loved that we talked about was taking control of your own joy. A lot of times during the holidays it is easy to get caught up in the receiving end or what we want to get. When we do this we are putting our joy in the hands of someone else. When we don't get what we were hoping for we get disappointed and forget the whole meaning behind the season. But when we focus on what we can do to help others and serve them, we are in control of our own happiness and forget about ourselves. The new Christmas initiative that is up on Mormon.org is so great and makes missionary work even easier! It gives us step by step what we can do to turn outward and help others. We can share that light of Christ through our examples and service to others. Something that we have been focusing on in our area lately is the part member families in our ward. We have 52 part member families and have been getting to know them better. We stopped by one house this week and met Todd, who is the father of an active family in our ward but he is not a member. We found out that his in laws are missionaries at the visitors center that we absolutely adore and love so much. He was the only one home at the time so we couldn't go inside to teach him but he told us we were welcome back to talk more with him again when his family was home. On Wednesday we went to a referral that we had for a lady named Darlene. A man answered the door and he didn't look very happy that we were on his porch. He came outside and shut the door and asked why we were there. We told him that his wife had been interested in meeting with missionaries. He told us he wasn't too interested but appreciated the work we were doing. He asked us if we could pray with him which really caught me off guard, but we did and we asked if we could come back and take his leaves for him. He told us he would just blow them all off anyways but we persisted and he finally gave in. We showed up a couple days later at the time we told him we would be there and he was surprised that we actually remembered. The three of us all raked his front yard and we got to know him pretty well. He and his wife have done some amazing things and have traveled all over the world. He has grown up in the Catholic Church all his life but he said he struggles with it because there's a lot of things that he doesn't agree with. All of the issues that he told us about with his church, we were able to show him in the Book of Mormon where those exact issues are talked about and our stand on them. He really loved what we said about it all and we were able to teach the entire first lesson on the restoration with him. When we brought up the Book of Mormon he told us he really would like one before we could even ask and he told us he was going to read it. It was so amazing. We are going back this week to meet his wife, who originally was the one who wanted to learn more from the missionaries. For Thanksgiving we weren't able to proselyte so we went to April's house to help make Thanksgiving with her. She nannys for a Jewish family and they like when we come over so we got to answer lots of questions they had and were able to teach a little bit. April also had a friend from out of town that is not active in the church at all and is actually really against it. She told April she hates the missionaries so we were kinda nervous going over. We met her, her name is Carrie, and slowly she opened up to us. The next time we got to see her she gave us a hug and told us she was going to miss us. April said Carrie loved us and talked about us all day. I was so surprised at how fast she changed her mind! We didn't eat with April because another member had signed up to feed us that day, the Mermiets who live here in Bethesda but work at the VC with us. They have a son who isn't active and his wife and daughter aren't members. They had so many questions for us and we loved getting to know them better. We shared the story of the Jaredites and their journey across the sea. We explained how the only way they were able to get to their destination was by the stormy seas, the wind and the waves. A lot of times in our lives we just want smooth sailing, but really those trials and hard times in our lives are what help direct us here in life. I love how immediately when the Jaredite people arrive there, they thank Heavenly Father. Sometimes it's easy to forget to thank Heavenly Father for our trials, but they are really blessings to help us become what He wants us to be. Yesterday at church we were able to teach the young women in our ward. They were really quiet..but it was still fun to be back in young women's and teach them. This week the Festival of Lights start...things are starting to get crazy. Last night they tested out the lights for the first time and it is beautiful. This year they put over 850,00 lights around the temple parking lot and visitor center. I'll send lots of pictures next week! I hope you all had a great thanksgiving. Love you all! 

Love, Sister Haertling 

Top and middle pictures:  Lights at the temple and visitor center

Bottom:  Matching pjs and Christmas cheer

2 month mark!

Hello everyone! Sorry I don't have much time this week to write, but
there's not much to write about! We've been tracting a lot and trying
to find new investigators. The temperature dropped about 40 degrees
this week but we are starting to adjust to it. We had a referral this
week for someone who went online to Mormon.org and requested a Bible
her name is Miriam. We got to the house and it was huge! The lady who
lives there opened the door and we asked if she had requested a bible.
She told us no and that we had the wrong address. We asked her one
more time just to make sure and then a lady who worked at the house
poked her head around the corner and told us she had ordered it! We
are going to go back tomorrow to teach her more. Something I have been
studying this week is Christlike love and charity. I've learned that
our ability to love others increases as we see everyone as Christ
did/does. There is a talk by Gene R Cook from April 2002 conference
titled Charity: Perfect and Everlasting Love. When we truly see people
children of God, we will be able to feel His love even more in our
life. With that love, we can share it and be able to help so many
people find it too. Have a great Thanksgiving, I love you all!
Love, Sister Haertling

Top picture: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
Middle picture:  Cute Sister Haertling at the temple
Bottom picture:  Isn't it beautiful?

"Our focus should be on righteousness, not recognition; on service, not status."

Dear all,
Since I had P-day on Wednesday last week, I don't have that much to
write about, but time is starting to fly by! On Friday we had
specialized training for my group of missionaries that got here last
month. We got our iPads which is so nice! Planning, teaching and
trying to navigate around here is a lot easier. We are really lucky to
have them. On Saturday the VC was packed! There was one man who was
from Thailand and he was very interested in learning more. We gave him
a Thai Book of Mormon and he loved it. He gave us his information and
he's going to come back next weekend. Today we got to go to the city!
It was a really fun experience, but there is so much to see! We went
to the botanical gardens which is a museum that has all of the
different climates from around the world. We went to the capital
building, the Washington monument and the Lincoln memorial. We met a
man while we were metro contacting this week named Douglas. We were
able to talk to him for a while and he had just lost some family
members. He said with everything else going on in the world, he's lost
a lot of hope. We told him about what we believe and the hope that
comes from our Savior Jesus Christ. He said he would be interested in
learning more. He is coming to the visitors center during the Festival
of Lights and is going to meet with us more. Since we aren't in his
area we have to pass him, but we can still teach him online because we
have the teaching center in the VC. That's the nice thing about being
in the VC is that we get to stay in contact with people even if we
aren't in their area to teach them in person! I'm reading in Mosiah
right now and love learning about service. Especially this time of
year as we get closer to Christmas. Something I loved was a quote by
President Howard W. Hunter. He said, “Continue to seek opportunities
for service. Don’t be overly concerned with status. … It is important
to be appreciated. But our focus should be on righteousness, not
recognition; on service, not status. The faithful visiting teacher,
who quietly goes about her work month after month, is just as
important to the work of the Lord as those who occupy what some see as
more prominent positions in the Church. Visibility does not equate to
value". Oh and thank you to everyone In the ward for the Christmas
poster! (I didn't know it was for Christmas haha sorry I read it
anyways) I love reading everything from you all! Hope you all have a
great week!
Love, Sister Haertling

top picture:  Visiting the Washington Monument

middle picture:  The Capitol Building

bottom picture:  getting ipad training and their new ipads, 

November already!

Dear all,

Happy November!! Fall in Washington DC is beautiful. On Tuesday we had exchanges which means that we switch companions for a day/night with one of the Sister Training leaders. I went with sister Acosta who is in the Spanish speaking area. Our ward is pretty good about feeding the missionaries for dinner...but wow the Spanish branch feeds their missionaries like crazy! It was fun to see a different area. None of the investigators that we taught spoke any English so I just sat and tried to understand some of it. I was actually able to understand almost everything, or at least have some idea of what they were talking about. Sister Acosta and I had 3 referrals (people that we didn’t know that said they would be interested in learning more about the gospel) that we were going to go visit for the first time. The first address we went to led us to the end of a street that was wrong. We went to turn around and had a feeling that we needed to knock on the house in front of us. We knocked and waited at the door, but nobody ever answered. I felt a little discouraged because we both had such a strong feeling about knocking on this particular house. So we decided to go to the next referral. It was completely across town. When we got there they said they weren’t interested anymore. We went to check the last referral and plugged in the last address. When we pulled into the driveway we realized that the house we were going to was the exact same house that we both had an impression to knock on that first time. It was crazy! We knew that there was a reason why we had that impression. They still weren’t home so we left a note with our phone number on it. It was such a great experience and even though that family might not be interested right now, it was such a testimony builder to me that the Spirit is real and can guide us exactly where we need to be at the right time. On Wednesday I was back with Sister Freeman. We had zone conference all day where the AP’s, zone leaders, and President and sister Johnson taught us. We learned more about teaching the Plan of Salvation and the importance of planning. That night we went to check up on a less active member in our ward that we both had never met. We pulled into the neighborhood and realized she lives in “the mansions”. That area is one of the richest parts in Maryland by far and has the biggest houses I have ever seen haha! She wasn’t home and our backup plan was to go tracting around her house...so we decided to tract the mansions! The driveways were like a quarter mile long each and there weren’t any street lights/lamps so we couldn’t see where we were walking. We went up to one house and while we were walking up the long driveway we heard movement in the forest next to us. We just walked faster and finally got to the front door. We knocked and waited for about a minute, but the lights were out and nobody answered. We turned around and about 15 feet in front of us were 13 or 14 deer just staring at us blocking the driveway where we had just walked… Sister Freeman and I froze and even though we knew the deer wouldn’t do anything, we immediately grabbed each other and started laughing/quietly squealing. They wouldn’t move so we waited there and stared back until they left. Because it was pitch black and all of these mansions seemed empty and dark, we ran back to our car which was about a mile away. It was quite the adventure.  On Friday we had VC training and we talked a lot about repentance. A lot of times we think of repentance as going through the “checklist of R’s” (recognition, remorse, restitution, reformation, resolution). Although this is obviously very important and part of the process, a lot of times we can easily overlook the most important R that isn’t listed. Redeemer. There is so much power in the Atonement and it is always available to us. I love our Savior Jesus Christ so much and love being able to bear my testimony of Him everyday. We met a man named Winston while we were waiting for the metro, who took one look at our name tags and said he was already saved...we ended up walking to the metro together and talked for 20 minutes. He is Jewish and was up here visiting his daughter taking her to a Broadway musical or something. On Monday we taught Doris it was kinda hard because she doesn't understand the whole reverence concept in church.. She likes to clap and sing and dance, and it doesn’t make sense to her why she has to sit there and be quiet. Other than that, everything else is going great with her. On our way home that night we got lost..again.. and after 30 minutes of going in circles and almost hitting 5 deer we prayed. Less than 2 minutes later we found the road we were looking for. We thanked Heavenly Father once we knew where we were exactly and I felt an overwhelming feeling that Heavenly Father was aware of the small struggles in my life as well as the bigger ones. He is there for us no matter what, all we have to do is turn to Him. In the VC we have been decorating for Christmas while it's slow and while we were doing that, we got a call from the temple front desk saying that there was a group of monks meditating outside the temple and we should go see them. We went out and met them and showed them the lobby of the temple. They wanted to see the inside so we took them to the visitors center where we have the big temple model of everything inside. They loved it and said they would be back next week. This time of year is starting to get busy. I am so excited for the Festival of Lights which starts December 1st. They are almost finished with the 650,00 Christmas lights outside! Today we were able to go to the temple. We get to go 4 times a year and I was so excited to be inside for the first time there! It was such an amazing experience and I am so grateful to be so close to it. I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Sister Haertling

top picture: fall in Washington DC
middle picture:  talks with monks outside the temple
bottom picture:  beautiful fall landscape