Merry Christmas

Dear all,
Merry Christmas!! I can't believe it's Christmas THIS Sunday already..
this week has been very busy, but we have seen so many miracles. Sorry
I wasn't able to send a big email last week, I've been sick and our
pday was cut short. One experience that I had though last week was one
that I will always remember. It was last Saturday night I had been
sick for a week and none of the doctors were able to help me so I was
frustrated. I hadn't been able to eat for that week because the sores
in my mouth and I just wanted to get back to normal missionary work. I
had been praying for that whole week so hard that I could just be
healthy and everything was just getting worse..so we were at the
emergency room on Saturday and the doctor was doing a lot of tests to
try and figure out what was wrong with me and at this point I was
really wanting my mom there next to me and just felt really alone. I
was confused why I was so sick as a missionary and felt like Heavenly
Father wasn't answering me. They were taking some blood, when I looked
down and saw that drop of blood I had a very, VERY direct and clear
thought that I know wasn't my own. The words I heard were, "I bled
from every pore". It was so strong and I knew right then that Jesus
Christ knew what I was feeling and Heavenly Father was aware of my
struggles. It was an experience I will never forget, and I am so
thankful we have a savior who knows exactly what we are going through
all the time. This Tuesday a nice lady in our ward invited us over
because she was making seafood for us since she heard I had been sick
the last week and needed to "boost my immune system" haha. She is
Chinese and so it was a mix of Chinese food and seafood. It was so
sweet of her because she had been preparing it all day long and was so
excited to feed it to us. A lot of the fish I wasn't even sure what I
was eating and the texture was really different but I had to just keep
thinking of Cayden in Zimbabwe and the things he has to eat haha. It
didn't help when I was eating some ball of fish/eggs/something else
and she told us that almost all of what we were eating had been
crawling or swimming earlier that morning...haha. But I'm grateful for
amazing members who always invite us over. On Wednesday I was standing
in the visitors center and had just gotten done teaching a man. Right
when you walk into the visitors center there is a big statue of
Christ. I was standing there when a little girl around the age of 4
walked by holding her moms hand. I could tell they weren't members of
the church. They were walking past the statue in a hurry trying to get
out the door when I saw the little girl look up at Christ and say,
"mommy, He was holding me in heaven". It completely caught the mother
off guard and she just stopped and looked at her daughter. Right then
one of the senior missionaries walked up to me and needed my help
finding more pamphlets so I'm not sure what ever happened, but I felt
the spirit so strong from that innocent little girl. I love when the
little kids come in and just want to be by the big statue of Christ.
They are so drawn to Him and it is amazing to see how much they love
Him. Every night now there are sisters from the Baltimore mission or
the Washington DC South mission that come in to help with the Festival
of Lights because it is so busy and so we go on exchanges with them
every night. It's fun having a different companion every night for a
couple of hours in the VC. On Friday night it was about 9:45 and we
were getting ready to close. I was standing in one of the rooms with
the nativities from all over the world and started talking to a man
from Guatemala who had a sleeping daughter on his shoulder. I was
asking him about his family and their beliefs for a while when elder
Fowler (our VC director) walked up to us, put his hand on the man's
daughter and said, "She's yours right? Well do you want to live with
her forever?" The man answered yes and elder Fowler said, "Well that's
why we have temples, you can be sealed to your family for time and all
eternity". The man asked if we had anything he could read to know more
about our religion and I explained to him about he Book of Mormon. He
asked where he could find one and I told him we had a whole room in
the back filled with them in every language he could think of. I asked
if he would like to learn more from local missionaries and he said he
would like that a lot. It was such a great example to me about how
lots of people are just waiting and so prepared to hear more about the
restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes I get scared that people
are going to think I am too pushy or they will say no, but really it's
not like that and it's ok if they say no! At least they are being
given the opportunity and later down the road they may be more open to
learning more. I was able to meet quite a few people from Pasco this
week that came into the VC which was really fun. I didn't know them,
but we knew mutual people. There was a family that came into the
Festival of Lights about a week ago and they moved here from India
about 5 years ago. They have a little baby and just came to see the
lights. Sister missionaries taught them while they were there and they
eventually said they would be willing to meet with missionaries. So
since they live in the Bethesda area, we are the missionaries who get
to teach them. We went over to their house on Saturday and were able
to teach them the first lesson. Before we were even able to ask them
anything they asked us if they could come to church with us. We are so
excited and they told us they had started to read the Book of Mormon.
Another great teaching opportunity we have had is with an older lady
named Mary. She also came to the VC for the Festival of Lights and she
was interested in meeting with missionaries too. We got to teach her
there and found out that she lives in our same apartment complex. We
went over last night and got to teach her about the restoration and
the priesthood power. She was so sweet and told us she had the Mormon
tabernacle choir recorded if we wanted to watch it and was dressed up
really nice in a dress since we were coming over. She told us she
would be interested in coming to church on Sunday for Christmas and
asked us to come over again to teach her more. It was amazing. I love
being able to serve at the visitors center. There are so many miracles
that happen there on dedicated ground and I know people can feel the
spirit there. I hope you all have a great Christmas, I love and
appreciate you all so much!
Love, Sister Haertling