Hi Mom

Hi Mom!
 It was so good to talk to everyone today. I won’t be sending anymore emails though today. Love you so much!

Bye!

7 Days till Christmas

Dear all,

       It blows my mind that next week is Christmas. It doesn’t feel like it at all this year. I feel like I’m stuck in October and there’s still 2 months left. We had transfers last week and Sister Bingham and I are staying together for another transfer!! This is Sister Bingham’s last transfer which is really crazy because I came out just one transfer after she did. 

         The Festival of Lights is really taking off! Over 6500 people came in last night and it was so much fun to have everyone there. The performances were great, and every seat in the 600 seat theater was filled for both shows. So many people who have just seen the temple off the beltway come in and have questions about the church. Many even accept to learn more and the visitors center is an amazing way to spread the gospel. 

        On Wednesday we had a lesson with a guy named Jorge who some elders had met while knocking doors last week. He is YSA age, so we get to teach him! We met him at the visitors center and were able to teach him about the restoration and he loved the Book of Mormon. On Sunday he came to church and we asked him if he had a chance to read from the Book of Mormon yet. He said that he had and started telling us in detail all about the first few chapters. We were so happy! Our YSA stake just started a coed basketball program and he is going to play on our wards’ team. He has a lot of friends in the ward now which is great. That is something that I really love about the church. You will always have a support group no matter where you go. 

        Friday night we were able to meet with Jean at elder and sister Chesamore who are the military relations missionaries here. There are two guys in the ward who are also at the military base with Jean that know of him. They were able to come to the lesson with us and it was one of those nights I will always remember. One of the guys has been in the military overseas for a while and has been recovering from a serious injury along with the mental side of things after going through/seeing so much. They were bearing their testimonies and talking about very detailed things that they had gone through while overseas. It was really incredible and humbling to hear what they had gone through for our country and the freedoms we enjoy. It makes me so much more grateful for everyone that makes that sacrifice in their life. Their testimonies of the plan of salvation made an impact on me that I also will not forget. They said a quote that I haven’t heard in a while... “the only thing that we are promised today, is that tomorrow isn’t”. Living the gospel of Jesus Christ every day pushes us to be our best selves and be prepared for the day when we meet our Heavenly Father again. 

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Love you all! 

Love Sister Haertling 

 

Snow better place than DC

Dear all,
It has been a really busy day so I’ll have to email really quickly! It finally snowed this week!! Jean and Mohy came to church on Sunday. The two girls also came to church that I talked about last week. We got to talk to one of them for quite a bit after church about her life and future plans. It was amazing to see how far she’s come in the last few weeks and how much of a difference that’s made in her life. She told us that she’s planning on going weekly to the temple. We were so happy when she said that. It makes me so happy to see others come back to church but even more happier when people come back full force.
Also, Jean wants to get baptized! We’re working on the date. He came to the ward Christmas Party this week and had a blast. He made about a dozen new friends at the party and they all welcomed him to church when they saw him. Jean is literally our best friend and we’re so happy to know him and see him progress in the gospel.
Transfers are this week. Many of the sisters are going home so it was very bittersweet for us as they bore their testimonies. It’s amazing to see how firm their testimonies are of the restored gospel. It builds up my testimony each time.
Last night a 16 year old, anti Mormon, atheist came into the Visitors Center to persuade some of the newer missionaries thats it’s “all a scam”. One of the senior couples told me what was going on and shoved me into the room. The two sisters looked like deer in the headlights as this boy pounded them with question after question. As soon as they saw me they relaxed and it was as if the spirit started speaking through them. Their young testimonies of the Restoration were so firm and strong against the “mighty storm” of the adversary. I simply sat there and listened to these sisters invite this young boy to pray earnestly and to repent. His countenance changed ever so slightly as he exited the room. The sisters looked at me and I’m pretty sure I had the biggest smile plastered across my face because I was so proud of them. I think I was there to witness their fervent testimonies to help build on my own testimony. I grabbed each of them and hugged them. The church truly was restored by Joseph Smith and I know without a doubt all of it is true.
One of my favorite parts of this week was when we got some great advice from our mission presidents wife. She said, “That’s life. If you look back and notice all of the things you could have done better then that means you’re learning and changing. Regrets can be a good thing.” And I’ve repeated that to almost all of the other sister missionaries. When we look back and see all of the things we could have done better that means we’re repenting and improving. Elder Uchtdorf talked about this last General Conference. He said, “Choosing this path of discipleship will lead to untold happiness and fulfillment of your divine nature. It will not be easy. It will require the very best that you have- all your intelligence, creativity, faith, integrity, strength, determination, and love. But one day you will look back upon your efforts, and oh, how grateful you will be.”
How grateful we will be. I am so grateful to be blessed with the gospel in my life and even more grateful for the opportunity to share it with others. We are so blessed! I love you all!
Love Sister Haertling

Festival of Lights

Dear all,

I have a lot to write about this week. So much has happened. On

Tuesday last week we began setting up for ambassador night and getting

ready for that. These two nights of the year, ambassador and diplomat

night, is a time where leaders (ambassadors and diplomats) of

countries and those in public affairs come to the visitors center for

the lighting ceremony to start the Festival of Lights. This year the

ambassador of South Africa was the one who turned on the Christmas

lights for the lighting ceremony. Elder Bednar and Sister Bednar came

as well which was amazing to hear from him and meet them. On Wednesday

night all of the diplomats and ambassadors and their families came.

After the ceremony, the countdown begins to illuminate the lights.

Everything goes dark and that’s when Elder Bednar and the ambassador

of South Africa press the big red button to turn on all of the

Christmas trees and 700,000 Christmas lights outside. It didn’t seem

real because it’s my second year now being a part of this event. It

feels too soon to be singing Christmas carols and setting everything

up! On Thursday the visitors center was open to the public again and

it was the first official day of the Festival of Lights. We are there

most of the nights during the week. We spend the morning and afternoon

in our area, and then help most nights at the visitors center. Over

the past 3 nights, over 12,000 people have come in...by the end of

each night Sister Bingham and I feel like our feet are going to fall

off, but it’s the best feeling in the world! My favorite was on

Saturday night over 4 thousand people came in through the visitors

center. Sister Bingham and I stood at the temple model for over an

hour and a half and just taught people over and over again who had no

idea what the temple really was. Sometimes (well most nights) it’s a

little bit hectic and can be hard to teach with so many distractions

around, but the spirit is still there and people want to learn. It’s

the best! One cool experience that happened on Saturday night was

three college students came walking in. Two of them were sisters and

they had their best friend with them. They were all really nice and we

assumed they were all members. They told us that they were in the same

ward that we are serving in, but we had never seen them before...They

also told us that their friend had never been to the temple before and

wasn’t a member. Sister Bingham and I really clicked with them and

spent some time with them. Their friend ended up taking all of the

pamphlets and a Book of Mormon and was really interested. As we said

goodbye and they were walking away we heard their friend mention how

she would like to come to church. The next day when we walked into

sacrament all three of them were there and they had a great time at

church. We later found out that the two sisters hadn’t come to church

in a long time, that’s why we didn’t recognize them. I really love

them all so much. It was also a tender mercy to see that even though

we don’t have as much time in our area with the visitors center we can

still see miracles at the visitors center with people that are in our

area as well.

Another miracle that happened this week; so a couple of months ago,

Sister Kunz and I found this really cool lady who was interested and

said that she had a son who was a young adult and wanted to find a

church. Sister Kunz and I had sent her sons information to the

missionaries for the YSA. His name is Emory and sister Kunz and I

taught him a little bit over the phone. Well this week some

missionaries came into the visitors center with a young adult guy. We

said hello to him and he said his name was Emory!! I asked if his moms

name was Rachel and he said, “yes!! Are you the ones that taught her

and sent missionaries to me and talked on the phone?”. I said yes and

he told me he was getting baptized! I was so excited for him. This

last Saturday Emory got baptized and confirmed. Our ward got split a

couple of weeks ago and so now Emory is in our ward and we will get to

teach him the new concert lessons. It’s amazing to see the Lords hand

in everything.

Today we got to go to the temple! I forgot how much I love being

inside the temple and the feeling that is there.

On Sunday night I met a really cool man. He is the Father of a Coptic

Orthodox Church and he is known as the “Father of giving” to all of

the people that know him. I learned a lot about their religion and

showed them around. He pulled out some little bracelets and a two

dollar bill and gave it to me. He only spoke Arabic and so his

translator told me that he wanted to leave this with me to remember

the special night. It was really sweet.

Mohy has been doing great, he was traveling in Africa for work and so

he wouldn’t come to church this week. He has met with a lot of members

of our ward throughout the week and is really close with them.

Last week for part of the #lighttheworld, Sister Bingham and I and

some members went to the metro and sung Christmas carols. A lot of

people stopped to listen and we gave them light the world cards. We

sang I am a child of god and a couple of people came up asking where

we got the song from. One lady wanted her kids to sing and so we had a

lot of people joining in to sing. It really lifted my day and was fun

to have everyone else be a part of it or even just to stop and smile.

I hope you all are finding ways to light the world every day too! I

love you all!

Love Sister Haertling

 

Happy Thanksgiving November 20

Dear all,
This week we had an incredible zone Conference with Elder Ringwood and his wife . He is a member of the seventy and his wife, Sister Ringwood is the daughter of President Russel M. Nelson. We had that conference on Thursday with three of the zones in our mission. A lot of what we talked about was faith and having a mission of miracles.
On Friday we had a special training at the Visitors Center in preparation for the Festival of Lights..it starts in NINE days which is just the weirdest thing to me. It feels like this was just happening....but that was a whole year ago. Later that day we went on exchanges and I got to be with Sister Yancey in the Kentlands area. Sister Yancey and I came out together at the same time, so it was fun to be able to be companions for a little while. While on exchanges we had a member meal with the Pratt family in their area. They asked me where I was from and when I said the tri cities, their Dad who is in his 70s told me he lived in Kennewick for 15 years or so. He asked me if I knew Lowell Barber and I said of course I know him! He told me he knew him very well and wanted me to tell him and his family he said hello. I told him it would be easy for me to do that since his daughter and son-in-law were my aunt and uncle and our families are so close. Also I met another two families at the visitors center this week who were from the tri cities. There are always so many small connections that I find each week and I know that Heavenly Father is aware of each of us.
Another miracle happened on Saturday. We were walking back to our church building from the metro and we saw our mission president sitting in his car. He waved to us and told us there was a baptism in another ward that was happening in a little while but he was here early. He had a lot of things to ask us about and as we were talking, an older lady came up behind us. She told us that she had met missionaries last Easter and works with a lot of members of the church. She started naming off a lot of her friends that are members of the seventy and very well known members of the church. President Johnson, Sister Bingham and I all looked at each-other and were pretty surprised at why she was there at that moment if she had so many connections to these other members of the church. She said she didn’t have much family around anymore and is moving apartments and the missionaries had told her to come to this church if she ever needed anything. We talked to her together and she told us that she has always been drawn to the Mormon church. We told her that there was a baptism happening in a few minutes if she wanted to come and see what it was like. She accepted and came in with us. She turned to me half way through the meeting and told us that she thought everything was so beautiful and that she loved the feeling that was there. We gave her the missionaries number and they are going to be able to teach her now. I know that the Lord’s timing is perfect and he puts people in our path that are truly prepared.
This past week at the visitors center I found a really cool miracle as well. I’ve been teaching a guy online from New Jersey for the past couple of months. He initially came online and called in to Mormon.org. His sister is a member of the church in North Carolina and he has always been curious. He wasn’t quite open to have missionaries come over at church, so Ive been able to teach him online through the teaching center at the visitors center. About a month ago he finally accepted to meet with the missionaries in New Jersey. He will hopefully be getting baptized next month. Well I was on the phone with him this week and he told me that he has to commute from New Jersey to Virginia sometimes for work. I realized that he probably goes through DC to get there and asked him if he’s ever seen the temple before. He told me that he has seen that a lot because his sister lives near it. Then out of the blue he says, “you know, my sister has been going through a rough time lately. She lost her husband while he was serving in the military ten years ago, and her son has been battling cancer. I think that this message that you all share really could help her out”. He gave me all of her contact information and she lives in our mission! I was so excited and called her right after that. She is in the Air Force and sounds like an amazing woman. We talked for a while and told me about her sister who is a member and how she has seen a change in her life since joining the church. She accepted for missionaries to come over and meet with her! I see the missionaries in her area quite a bit and can’t wait to hear how it goes.
On Saturday the YSA stake announced that they would be creating 4 new wards. There are now 11 YSA wards in the stake. It is just crazy how many young people are around here. On Sunday we were having a munch and mingle after church. There was a guy there who I didn’t recognize and so we started talking to him. He told us that he plays rugby with someone in our ward and that he invited him to come to the activity. We were able to talk to him for a while and he agreed to start meeting with us. Also while we were there a girl in our ward came up to us and introduced her friend Austin to us who isn’t a member. He told us that he went to school with a lot of LDS people and was interested in learning more from us. We have a busy week and are really grateful for all of the miracles that Heavenly Father has let us be a part of recently.
Last night we were at the visitors center and Mohy who we have been teaching came in! President Johnson was there and met him and taught with us. Mohy loved the temple and also learning about modern day prophets/apostles. We showed him how there are copies of the Book of Mormon in a lot of different languages. He picked up a Book of Mormon in French, German and Amharic and just started reading. It was amazing to hear it read in all of the languages. He said that he feels that this is true, and knows that this is where God wants him to be! We are really excited for him.
Something that I really loved studying about in Preach my gospel this week was faith. In it, it talks about how faith leads to action, and how it is a principle of power. “God works by power, but His power is usually exercised in response to faith”. A lot of times we hear the phrase ‘faith to move mountains’ when talking about faith. There is an amazing talk on faith by Richard C. Edgley, called “Faith-the Choice is Yours”. It says, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove” (Matthew 17:20). I have never witnessed the removal of an actual mountain. But because of faith I have seen a mountain of doubt and despair removed and replaced with hope and optimism. Because of faith I have personally witnessed a mountain of sin replaced with repentance and forgiveness. And because of faith I have personally witnessed a mountain of pain replaced with peace, hope, and gratitude. Yes, I have seen mountains removed”. I know that if we trust in the Lord and have faith, that he can help us with those personal “mountains” that we each have. Sometimes they aren’t removed completely, sometimes He gives us the faith to get over them and the strength that is needed. But I know He is aware of each of us. I love you all so much. Happy Thanksgiving!
Love Sister Haertling

November 13

Hello all!
Sister Bingham and I had a BUSY week, but we were able to see many miracles. On Sunday, Mohy came to church. He’s from Sudan originally but lives here in Washington. He works for the State Department in the peace sector. I talked about him in my letter last week, but we were able to teach him and his friend. We met in DC and taught the Plan of Salvation. He told us that he knows this is true and we invited him to be baptized! He said he would pray about it and move forward with whatever his answer is. In testimony meeting this week when he came the speakers were truly inspired because he turned to me in the middle of the meeting and said, “this is really good!”  We have a meeting with him this coming Wednesday and we can’t wait! Another fun fact about Mohy is that he plays soccer for the university here and speaks 6 different languages!
     We got a referral this week for a man named Jean this week. He met with missionaries in 2013 and even had the Baptismal interview. He’s more than just “prepared.” He lives on the military hospital base called Walter Reed which means we don’t have access to him (easily) so we had the Military Relations missionary senior couple get him and bring him to their house. Jean explained his story and told us how frustrated he was with his life right now. That’s when Elder Chesamore said something that really touched Jean a lot. He said something along the lines of this:

“Jean, do you play volleyball? There’s a story I want to tell you about Nebraska’s college volleyball team. They lost 6 seniors last year making them the youngest team in the division. They weren’t expected to be good whatsoever but they’re doing surprisingly well. When interviewed to ask their key to success, the coach and players all said, ‘we play point by point. One point at a time. They don’t worry about the point before nor the point after, if they’re down ten points or up twenty, they just play one point at a time’. And that’s you Jean. You want to worry about the previous points and the points that lie ahead, but that’s not what’s important.
What’s important is here and now- what you’re doing now to win this point. And I know that meeting with these sisters will help you win the game because they have Jesus Christ on their side.”

Now we’re meeting with Jean every Friday!! Sometimes we just need to play for this point. It’s easy to get caught up in the mistakes of the past and the worries of the future but as we focus
on the now, we see that God’s hand is truly in our lives. He’s here to guide us along. (Moroni 7:33) Sister Chesamore mentioned one of my favorite quotes by Elder Holland. “The great thing about the gospel is we get credit for ​trying,​ even if we don’t always succeed.”​​​​
Miracles really do happen as we try our best. I see that every day out here as a missionary and what a blessing that is. I love you all!
Love, Sister Haertling

Transfers, cousins, roadtrips and miracles November 6

This week is definitely, hands down, one of the busiest but favorite weeks of my mission. (I feel like I say that every week!). Well on Monday night we received a call from our mission president about transfers. If we are going to be moving to a new area or changing companions, we get a call on the Monday before transfers from President Johnson. If you don’t receive a call, you know you will be staying for another transfer. So once we saw our phone ringing, Sister Kunz and I knew. He told sister Kunz that she would be staying in the area and getting a new companion and.........he asked me if I would go to the DC 2nd YSA ward to be a sister Training Leader with Sister Bingham! I was really sad to leave Sister Kunz, but so excited to be with Sister Bingham. She is from Saint George Utah and we share a lot in common.
    At transfers on Wednesday I realized while driving to the stake center that Dallin (Well Elder Spurgeon now!!!) was probably going to be there. We pulled up and waited for the new missionaries to come outside with their trainers. I saw him walk out and he immediately saw me. He waved to me and started walking really fast over. He had a huge smile on his face and we shook hands since that’s what we have to do as missionaries haha! It was so fun to see him! He has a great trainer, and everyone couldn’t believe that we were cousins and serving in the same mission. Our mission president and his wife told me that when they picked him and his group up from the airport he asked them if they knew a Sister Haertling. They said they definitely knew Sister Haertling and he was so excited to say that we were cousins. We will most likely get to see each other at Zone conferences and mission events that will be going on in the next few months.
     Since the Festival of Lights is starting at the end of the month, we have a lot going on already trying to prepare for it. Last week all of the Christmas trees came up around the visitors center......it’s starting to hit me that it’s near that time again. There’s about 12 huge Christmas trees inside the VC and every stake in the surrounding areas is assigned to decorate the trees. They go all out for decorations and they look beautiful. Outside the VC, our area is doing so great! I’ve never served so close to the actually city of DC, and now we cover it all! We have a really big area and so we spend a lot of our time near the college campuses and in the city where all of the younger people are for internships, school and work. Something really cool about this area is that because there are SO many young single adults in this area, last year they created a stake JUST for YSA. Its different teaching people who are my age now, but a lot of fun as well. Yesterday there was a stake conference for the YSA in Virginia, but we needed permission to go since it was outside our mission boundaries. We asked our mission president and he said that we could go AND he would drive us there! Mission presidents are some of the busiest people ever and so it was really special to be able to spend time with President and Sister Johnson.
    We had a really cool miracle while finding people in DC this week. We were walking down the busy streets one night and it was kind of crazy because everyone is in a hurry trying to get places. We were walking past someone and I stopped and turned around to talk to him. He was really nice and started talking to us. His name is Mohy and from the Middle East. He works here for the embassy and was waiting for his coworkers to go to dinner. While he was waiting we had a great conversation with him. He had a lot of questions about after this life and Heaven. We taught him about the plan of Salvation and he LOVED it all. He said towards the end that the message we shared felt familiar and he is really busy but wanted to hear more. We are meeting with him on Wednesday and I know it was know coincidence that we were able to meet him that night.
   The stake conference yesterday was one of the best I've ever been to and Elder Kunz of the Seventy gave such an amazing talk. He served as a mission president in Omaha Nebraska which was a fun connection! He focused on the doctrine of Christ which is faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. (Some great places that I love to study about that are 2nd Nephi 31, 3rd Nephi 11, and 3rd Nephi 27). By studying the Doctrine of Christ we can come closer to Our Heavenly Father, and feel the peace that comes through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know that I’ve felt those two promises as I’ve studied throughout my mission. Something that I came across while studying this week reminded me of God’s plan for us and being willing to accept it. It made me think of the story in John 21 about Christ’s apostles fishing. They have been working hard trying to catch fish and do what they’ve done for a long time. But they haven’t been catching anything. Then Jesus who is on the shore calls out to them and tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They pull the nets up and there is more fish than they can even handle. A lot of times in our lives I feel like we may be doing the things we THINK we should be doing, but forgetting to involve the Lord. But He knows all things and exactly what we need to do in our lives to find happiness and receive all of His blessings. When we pray to know God’s will for us and are WILLING TO ACT, then we will be able to see all of the blessings that he has in store for us. Just like His Apostles, there will be so many blessings that follow when we listen and act on what he wants for us. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!
Love Sister Haertling

October 30

Dear all,
It’s been one crazy week! On Tuesday we had exchanges with the sister training leaders. I stayed in Carrollton with Sister Rawlins and we had a great time. On Thursday we got a call saying that we were going to be moving the next day, so we needed to pack all of our things and all of the furniture. The rest of that night we spent cleaning and packing, which is my least favorite way to spend an evening, but we needed to get it done. We got up really early the next morning to finish, went to our Friday training meeting at the visitors center, then came back and started moving with elder and sister Miles. Luckily everything was packed and ready when they got there and we moved everything out. We were really, really sore the next day since we had to move all of the desks and dressers out. Elder and sister Miles told me that they want me to do a training at zone Conference since I’ve set a record for the number of times I’ve had to move out of an apartment in the middle of a transfer haha. Transfers are this week, so I’m really hoping I don’t have to leave. On Saturday I was at the visitors center when I saw someone really familiar walking through the door...it was Jenn, Autumn and Tom! They were out here visiting with close friends who are actually in the Bethesda Ward! They stopped by the visitors center and it was so much fun to see them. Yesterday was an amazing day....Taiwo got baptized!! Taiwo is from Nigeria and the rest of his family is there while he is here working. He has been prepared for so many years and it’s no coincidence that he met missionaries two months ago. With his work schedule, he could only be baptized on Sunday, but we didn’t want him to have to wait a whole week to be confirmed. We decided with the ward council and Taiwo to do the baptism Sunday morning before church and so he could still get confirmed that day. Sister Kunz and I got up at 5:30 to get ready and then go and fill the font up for the baptism that day. Taiwo was really excited to be baptized and when he came up out of the water he had the biggest smile on his face. The ward really loves him and he loves coming to church each week. He was confirmed in sacrament meeting and will be able to receive the priesthood in two weeks. Taiwo will always hold a really special place in my heart. Today we went to the city which was really fun! We went to the American history museum and walked around the mall. There is so much to see in DC and I could spend days there. One quote that I really loved this week while studying is, “There must be works with faith. How foolish it would be to ask the Lord to give us knowledge, but how wise to ask the Lord’s help to acquire knowledge, to study constructively, to think clearly, and to retain things that we have learned”. We have been teaching a lot about faith recently and it’s helped me reflect on my own faith and how I choose to strengthen it each day. It requires effort on our part every single day. I love you all!
Love Sister Haertling

October 23rd

Dear all, 
Sister Kunz and I had an awesome miracle last Monday night after Pday was over! We were out knocking on doors, when we heard our phone ring. It was Paul, who is a great man we are workin* with from Sierra Leone. About a week and a half ago, we fasted with Paul for 24 hours so that he could get Sundays off. He has really been wanting to come to church and knows how important it is to keep the Sabbath day Holy. So anyways, Paul calls us and says he has good news. He told us that his boss had just gotten off the phone with him and told him that she was going to move his schedule around so that he could get Sundays off. The great part is that Paul hadn’t mentioned getting Sundays off once after we fasted. He had asked his boss about 4 months ago if he could get that day off but she said she had no control over that. He was planning on asking her again after we fasted, but she called him before he even could. It really strengthened my faith in the power of prayer and fasting. The Bundor family is doing great. We went over and had a lesson with about 6 of the 9. We taught them more about eternal families and how their family can one day go to the temple to be sealed. They were really curious about temples and told us that their sister talks about the temple back home. They said, “my sister just traveled to Ghana to go to one of the temples with her whole family. She was talking about something like sealing her family”. I couldn’t believe it!!! Her sister back in Africa had just gone to the temple to be sealed, and here we were teaching the rest of the family the exact thing. They all came to church this week and are preparing to be baptized for the beginning of next month. We are still working with Taiwo and he is just amazing. He comes to church every week and we meet with him multiple times throughout the week. A member from our ward always comes with us and he ward loves him. He is being baptized this Saturday! We are so excited for him. One of my favorite members in this ward is from Nigeria, her name is Oreo and is a recent convert. We went to her house on Tuesday and she said that she had a special surprise for us. She came out with this beautiful fabric that she had ordered from Nigeria. She made us these wrap skirts with headbands. It was so nice of her. A cool miracle that happened at the visitors center yesterday really reminded me of how much Heavenly Father puts us in specific situations at the right time. I was talking to a family who walked in and we talked for a while. They mentioned to me how their daughter was on a mission in Tahiti. They went to walk around some more and a couple minutes later a woman walked in who was walking really quickly to the bathroom. I had seen her once before but I wasn’t sure how I knew her. After she came out I went to talk to her for a while. She was about to leave and I felt prompted really strongly “ask her where she is from”. So I asked her where she was from and she said Tahiti. I told her that I was just talking to a family who has a daughter serving there and I could introduce them to her. She was a little shy but I walked over and found them. I introduced them and said that she was from Tahiti. The mother immediately started crying and the woman from Tahiti said that she was from a little island that she thought they wouldn’t know. Well their daughter was currently serving on that little island where the woman was from originally. They all started crying and hugging eachother and it was special to see. They were showing her pictures and she knew so many of the people that their daughter was serving around. It was amazing to see the timing of it all and how we are guided to places for a reason.  Also while I was at the visitors center I met a couple, Lynn and Janice Child from Quincy!!! They know the Cobias really well and also they said they know Lowell and Shannon! They served in the Columbia River temple too for a while a long time ago. We talked for a long time and it was so much fun. We had ward conference yesterday and there was a really simple sentence that the stake president said that stuck out to me. He said, “We come to church to be reminded of the gospel. We go home to learn it.” I had never really thought of that too much but I love it. He talked about the importance of daily personal worship and taking the sacrament each week. It is the only ordinance that we do more than once for ourselves and how sacred it is. Well I love you all and I really am so grateful for your prayers and fasting recently. I have seen great miracles the past week in regards to my health and I know that so much has come from you all. Have a great week! 
Love Sister Haertling 

October 16th

Dear all,
I hope you all had an amazing week. Carrollton area is amazing. I love serving here. On Thursday we had zone Conference. We had to leave two hours early to get there because traffic is so bad, but zone Conference was so I can't believe it's already
half way through the month! People at the visitor center are already setting up all the thousands of Lights! It's the 40th year, for Festival of Lights.
 This past week, Sister Kunz and I were at the visitor center at
ton! It's been getting more and more busier with tourists and
visitors. We were able to teach a really sweet young Vietnamese
couple, who lives in the area. They randomly just stopped in to the see the Temple. We were able to give them a tour and teach them about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. When we gave them each a copy of the Book of Mormon in Vietnamese, they said, "Wow we are going to read this tonight". They both are Catholic, which was great because we were able to take what they already knew and add to it. They loved everything about the visitor center. Before they left, they each asked
us to share our testimonies and how the church has blessed us, in our lives. It was a sweet opportunity, to bear a simple testimony, about the gospel.
Our investigators, are doing awesome! Taiwo has now come to church
three times! He really enjoys it! Yesterday, there was a child's
baptism, for Oreo (recent convert's son). It was great because, Taiwo was able to stay and watch. Oreo and Taiwo are from the same tribe, in Nigeria which is awesome! I love Taiwo so much. He had a huge smile on his face the entire time. Also our cute family, the Bundors came to church! This is their second
week! They are the cutest family! We have a lesson schedule, with them tomorrow!
This week while I was at the visitors center, I saw a lady at the temple model who looked familiar. It turns out that I have never met her, but she grew up in Moses Lake and is somehow related to a lot of people I know. It was really great to talk to her. She has 4 girls about the same ages as me and my sisters and her husband is the bishop in their ward.
Another great experience that we had at the visitors center was on Friday when a super cute young couple came walking in with their baby. They are from California and live out here now. They know a lot about the church and actually had just gone to an LDS church two weeks ago. Their best friends in California are members and they know a lot. She watches Mormon messages and had great things to say. We got to teach them and ended up having the best time with them. They loved the idea of eternal families and ended up writing down all of their info for missionaries to come teach them more. It was a huge miracle and I was so grateful to be able to see that happen.
I love you all and hope that you have a great week. Thank you for your prayers, I am truly grateful for them.
Love Sister Haertling

October 9

Dear all,
Sister Kunz and I had a great week this week. On Tuesday we were out talking to people and met a man who was in a hurry. He was walking to his car and said that he was going to a doctors appointment but gave us his address and phone number and told us to call him. His name was Okinto and he is from Sierra Leone. We called him later that day and he said that we could come over to teach him that night at 6:30. He lives right down the street from our apartment and so we went over to teach him. We asked him if his family would be home and he said yes, his wife was there. We went inside and there was about 7 other people there with a couple of kids running around. They were all family, doing hair, making dinner and talking. Everyone was SO happy to see us. They all asked where we were from and said that they had seen missionaries from our church in Africa. Also they have family members who are members! They pulled out two chairs for us in their family room and all of them gathered around on the ground. I’ve never had another lesson like it. They soaked it all in and we were able to teach them the restoration. All of them had great questions and we invited them to pray to know if this is true. They all said yes and accepted to be baptized!!!! Some of them live in surrounding areas not in our ward, but 3 of them live in our ward. It is so exciting. I already have a strong love for them all so much. Right after the lesson with them, we raced over to a lesson with Paul. Paul is also from Sierra Leone and so we showed him a picture of the family that we had just met. He pointed to every single one of them and said their names!!!! We couldn’t believe it. He said that he was good friends with their family back home and he had no idea that they were here. He couldn’t believe that we were teaching them. We brought sister Peral in our ward to the lesson with Paul and it was great to have a member with us to teach. Almost every lesson that we have taught here is with members. I really appreciate how willing the Carrollton ward is to help us and fellowship everyone. We were able to have a lesson with Taiwo this week and he is working towards being baptized on the 28th. He loved general conference and church this Sunday. He got along great with the new family the Bundurs that also came to church this Sunday. Two weeks ago at church we had a lesson about the word of wisdom in Sunday school. Tawio told us when we met with him two days ago that he had something to tell us. He told us that he gave up drinking coffee! We didn’t even know that he had a problem with that but he said that after the lesson in church he knew he needed to stop. Today we had a very special price late of going to the Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. Every six months, missionaries who will be going home in the next six months get to go. The elders went in the morning, and all of the sisters went in the afternoon. There were about 25 of us who are going home in the next 5 months. We spent about 4 hours long and a senior couple was our tour guide. It was an amazing, amazing experience. One of My favorite parts of it was the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” ceremony. It was very emotional and something I will never forget. It made me really appreciate the freedom that we have here in our country and the sacrifices that were made by so many. It also made me realize how because of all of this, we are able to live in the place where the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored. It has truly been prepared in this place and I dxxdWs very grateful to be able to share that message here in the Nations capitol. I love you all so much!
Love Sister Haertling

General Conference

Dear all,
I loved having general conference this week. We went and watched it at
the visitors center which was really great. On Saturday morning during
my studies I thought of some questions that I have been having lately
and things that have been on my mind. I ended up with four questions
written down. Something that I tried to do was be as specific as
possible. I heard once (something along the lines of), "if you want
specific answers from Heavenly Father then you need to ask specific
questions". Every single one of my questions were answered and I felt
like i was able to get so much out of Conference. It blew me away how
fast it went by this time. I absolutely love watching general
conference as a missionary. It was sad to think that this is my last
general conference as a missionary. When I was in the MTC elder
Bednar came and spoke to us about how to get the most out of general
conference every time we watch it for the rest of our lives. That has
helped me a lot and I'm sure it will continue to help me for the rest
of my life. This week a new ward mission leader was called for our
ward, brother Peral. He is from the Philippines and his wife is also
from there. They both served missions and are great to work with. They
took us out to dinner at Chipotle after our meeting with them on
Thursday. At the visitors center this week it hasn't been too busy,
but the temple finally opens tomorrow after being closed for cleaning
during this month. Outside the visitors center there are people
stringing thousands of Lights around the trees. It's really crazy to
think that it's already this time of year. The program for the
Festival of Lights is already up and people are reserving tickets.
Earlier this week we had a great lesson with Manuel. We are helping
him overcome smoking. So far he has gone from 12 to 8 to 6 to 4 and
now he is only smoking 1-2 cigarettes a day. He has made a lot of
progress and loved church last week. While we were in his home
teaching him this week with Sister Taylor there was an older man who
was there just typing on the computer. He turned around every once in
a while to listen to what we were teaching. At the end we said a
prayer and he asked if he could join us. He prayed with us and
afterwards said that he really enjoyed listening to everything. He
asked if the next lesson we had with Manuel, if he could come too! So
that will be fun to teach both of them this week. Lately I've been
trying to find ways to make my studies each morning more meaningful. I
came across a quote from elder Russel M. Nelson. He says, "Living the
Lord’s standards requires that we cultivate the gift of the Holy
Ghost. That gift helps us understand doctrine and apply it personally.
Because truth that is given by revelation can be understood only by
revelation, our studies need to be prayerful”. I never had thought
about that last sentence before. Truth that is given by revelation can
only mean someone to us or be understood by revelation. When we take
time and preparation for the things we are trying to study and learn,
we will be able to have the spirit testify and receive revelation to
identify truth. There is a big difference for me between a prayerful
study and just reading from the scriptures. Both are good, but we can
gain so much more when we allow the spirit by praying beforehand and
really studying from the scriptures and words of living prophets. The
things that were spoken of at conference can mean so much more to us
when we go back, pray, and study the messages again. Sorry I only have
a limited time to email today, it was a crazy day. Love you all!
Love Sister Haertling

Transfers

Dear all,
    This week was transfers and........I left Kensington AND got a new companion!!! I was really sad to leave but SOOO excited to be with......sister KUNZ!!!! Sister Kunz was the only person I knew coming into the MTC (because I stalked her on instagram) and she was the first person I met in the MTC. She is from Idaho and we have been such great friends on the mission. We never thought that we would get to be companions! But now we are and it has been a blast. We are in Carrollton, and it is a great area to serve in. Most people that we pass on the street are from either Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Nigeria, or Ghana. It's a lot different than any of the areas that I have served in, but I love it. The ward is pretty small, it almost reminds me of Kent Island branch and there is a lot of diversity.
     Yesterday I had the coolest experience on teaching center at the visitors center!!!! So I had a girls information who went on Facebook and I wasn't sure what she wanted. All that I had was a phone number and her name. I had called her a couple of times, but no answer until yesterday. She answered the phone and her name was Gemma. I started getting to know her and she said that she had a lot of friends who were members of the church (She's 15). I asked if she had ever heard of the Book of Mormon and she said no, but that she would really love a copy for herself. I asked for her address so that we could send it. She told me it was in Las Vegas and I told her how one of my best friends was serving her mission there. We finished talking to each other and I was so happy to have finally been able to talk to someone who actually is sincere and wanting to learn more. I sent it the local missionaries and it assigned it to Gemma's local ward.....the missionaries name who popped up was......yep, Sister Haylee Maughan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so so so excited to send her a referral and so I was able to leave her a message about this awesome girl who wanted to learn more. It was really cool.
  This week we were able to start teaching a man named Manuel. He has been taught a few times from missionaries close by, but he just moved into our ward boundaries. He came to church with us this week and is doing so well. He wants to be baptized and hopefully by the end of next month he will be able to. He struggles with the Word of Wisdom, but has a strong desire to overcome it, so we are helping him with that.
   Another miracle this week is about a man named Tawoio. He is from Nigeria and really great. Sister Wilcox (my MTC companion) and sister Kunz found him last transfer, but he has never been able to come to church. This week he finally came and stayed for the whole time!! Also he opened his Book of Mormon to where he had Book marked and he was in Alma 5!
   At church on Sunday I met this really cool member, but she didn't speak any English. I thought I heard her speaking Spanish and went up to introduce myself. She told me her name was Nágila Aparecida Dos Santos Bills. I found out she was speaking Portuguese and I got excited to tell her that my dad went to Brazil and spoke Portuguese on his mission. We talked in Spanish/Portuguese for a little bit and she told me that she served in Recife Brazil (The exact mission my dad served!!!) on her mission around the exact same time that he served! It was a tender mercy for sure.
On Thursday we went over to a lady's house in our ward who has been less active and struggling a lot with certain things concerning her testimony. She has really been trying to work on it and knows that it is true but has a hard time. She asked us for some help painting, so we went over that morning. After we were done helping her, we shared a message with her. The message we shared was something that sister Kunz and I both felt inspired to share; faith. We both had studied that previously that morning and one quote that I loved was from a talk called Choose To Believe. It says, "Belief and testimony and faith are not passive principles. They do not just happen to us. Belief is something we choose—we hope for it, we work for it, and we sacrifice for it. We will not accidentally come to believe in the Savior and His gospel any more than we will accidentally pray or pay tithing. We actively choose to believe, just like we choose to keep other commandments." She came to church this week which was great and it just helped me remember how important it is to continually be doing things each day to strengthen our testimony. It takes effort and faith on our part, which will increase our desire to strengthen it every day. I love you all!
Love Sister Haertling

One Year!!

Dear all,
Crazy to think that this time last year I was about to get on a plane
to head off on my mission. I'm really loving my mission right now and
our area is great! I love the Kensington Ward a lot. So on Tuesday we
had a cool experience at the visitors center. We had a tour scheduled
for a man from Africa that lives here right now named Leonard. Some
missionaries came in with him at have been teaching them. Missionaries
being their investigators to the visitors center often and the sisters
here all prepare lessons for them to show them around. Leonard has
been reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church, but didn't see a
need for him to be baptized if he had already been baptized in another
church. We had an awesome lesson with him and we watched a great video
about the Holy Ghost. It was then that he finally realized why being
baptized with the proper priesthood authority and receiving the gift
of the Holy Ghost was so important. It was amazing to to see him
completely have a change of heart and he has a date set to be baptized
on October 14th!! I love being able to serve in the visitors center
and meet so many incredible people who wasn't to learn more. Damian,
who I talked about last week is doing great. We had a lesson with him
on Friday. A member of our ward, brother Coleman came with us and he
was PERFECT for Damian. They really connected and we were able to
teach him the rest of the Restoration. He is planning on being
baptized next month! Sadly Sister Vespucci caught a cold, and then I
caught it as well....so we have had to stay in our apartment for a
couple of days.. Gladys Knight has been doing a tour on the east coast
with her choir and so she came Saturday and Sunday. All of the tickets
were gone and pretty much all of the 1500 seats were taken. It was a
big event. Since we were both sick, we couldn't go which was really
hard. The good news is that Joan (our miracle who walked into the
visitors center last week) was able to go with one of the ward members
and LOVED it. She filled out a referral card saying that she would
want the missionaries to come and teach her more so we are excited to
finally be able to teach her. Also Nancy came to church yesterday
anddd her whole family came to Gladys Knight! They really loved it and
we were happy they could go. Last night we came to the visitors center
to grab some medicine and as we were in the parking lot I saw three
little girls running towards me yelling, "sister Haertling, sister
Haertling!". It was the Meena family who were all baptized in the
Bethesda Ward. I hadn't seen them all since I left and it was so
special to see their whole family. I got lots of hugs from the girls
and Nirma. I started the Book of Mormon over last week and am in 1
Nephi 16, which is one of my favorite chapters ever! I got to the part
where Nephi breaks his bow and everyone is upset about not having
food. Nephi makes his own bow and prays to know where he can find
food. I found a quote that talks about our own lives when things might
not be going according to our own plan or when we are facing trials.
Elder Robert D. Hales says, “I have come to understand how useless it
is to dwell on the whys, what ifs, and if onlys for which there likely
will be given no answers in mortality. To receive the Lord’s comfort,
we must exercise faith. The questions Why me? Why our family? Why now?
are usually unanswerable questions. These questions detract from our
spirituality and can destroy our faith. We need to spend our time and
energy building our faith by turning to the Lord and asking for
strength to overcome the pains and trials of this world and to endure
to the end for greater understanding”. I have really been thinking
about this and it came to me at a good time. I was pretty upset about
being sick and my shingles coming back again, which meant we couldn't
do much and stay in. I was asking those questions that elder Hales
talked about, "Why do I have to keep having these health problems
right now on a mission" (I always thought missionaries were exempt
from that on their missions haha!), "why me". But afterwards I thought
of all the things I've learned from these experiences and how it has
added to my testimony. I know that my understanding of the Atonement
of Jesus Christ wouldn't be what it is now, and also my relationship
with my Savior wouldn't be as strong. It's usually the hard stretching
experiences on my mission that help me learn and grow the most. It's
one of the first things I learned while in the MTC that has always
stuck with me, "there's no growth in a comfort zone, and no comfort in
a growth zone". Even when it is hard to see in the moment, we will all
be able to look back and realize how much we have learned when we turn
to the Savior and our Heavenly Father. I love you all!
Love Sister Haertling

Week 51 Miracles and Unity of Faith Walk

Dear all,
This week was absolutely full of miracles!! We now have two of the coolest investigators.
The first one we met on Thursday when we decided to do an optional morning shift at the VC because we felt like we needed to be there. That afternoon, an Italian lady named Joan came in wanting to know what the temple was for. She lives two miles away from it, but never had stopped in. We taught her the temple model, and she loved it. She loved the art exhibit we have from Liz Lemon Swindle that depicts the life of Christ (she was an art professor for 18 years). You could tell she was really touched by the peaceful Spirit she felt on the temple grounds. She was saying things like, "So suppose someone, I'm not saying me, were to want to join the Mormon church...how would you go about doing that?" And "I feel that I have been missing something in my life but I don't know how to fill it"and by the end of it all she told us she wouldn't mind having some missionaries stop by her house.The best part is...she lives in our area! So we get to teach her!!
     Friday, we had a lesson with someone we had never met before, a man named Damian. He was a referral from other missionaries who met him on the street. We called and set up a time to meet. He is in his early thirties and has two young boys. He and his wife got a divorce a couple of years back and he manages a business in silver spring. We met him next to the business where he works. He is a really successful guy who really wants to do what is right. He mentioned how with the job he just moved from which was in the entertainment industry it was hard to keep from getting sucked into all of the distractions of the world. We got to talking and he had amazing questions for us. It ended up being one of the best discussions we've ever had with someone because he had such great questions. He told us that he has admired Mormons all of his life and really been curious to learn more. He passes the temple everyday on the beltway and said how he's always thought it would be important in his future someday. We asked him to read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and Restoration pamphlet and he texted us saying that he had more questions for us but was so happy because it just feels so right and true to him!!!!!
So this week I was in the visitors center on the computers working on Mormon.org. I've talked about it before but I'll explain what teaching center is again. So each day that we are at the visitors center we have time that we are in the front talking to people, and then other times we are in the back of the visitors center online answering chats, phone calls and Bible/Book of Mormon requests from all over the world. A lot of the visitors centers have these call centers in the back where we can teach people and so if someone calls in, any sister in a visitors center around the world can pick up the phone (everyone is just in a big queue). Anyways, there was a number calling in that had an area code of 509!!!! My computer froze and so I couldn't answer the call but when it came back on, the 509 number was still calling. So I answered it and it was a man named Bill that was looking for some information. He told me about how his friend who he works with's brother passed away very recently and they wanted to know where the services would be. All they knew was that he was Mormon and that was it. I asked him where his friend lived so I could find out a number that he could call. He told me the Tri Cities and since there are so many buildings there I thought I probably wouldn't be able to help them out. I asked him what the last name of his friends brother was that passed away maybe hoping that I knew the family. I didn't recognize the name that he told me, so I went on LDS tools and ended up being able to find the ward in the Pasco Stake! I gave him the information that he could find on Mormon.org and he then continued to ask me more questions about the church. He said that all of his friends at work really wanted to support their coworker/friend and come to church! It was a really cool experience
     Sunday afternoon we volunteered at a Unity of Faith Walk in D.C. and it was probably one of the coolest things I've got to do on my mission. The Unity of Faith Walk is an event the do every year since 9/11 to unite as many faiths as possible. There was an opening ceremony at a Jewish synagogue, and a walk-about with a 2 mile strip of all these different churches (almost 12 of them!!) open for the public to tour. We got to volunteer at the Book of Mormon and just serve booth where everyone was at the beginning of he event. At the booth, we would give people a random page of the Book of Mormon to read, and they would circle things what stood out to them. Most people marked references to "charity." Afterwards, all of the volunteers and missionaries who were helping would mingle with the crowds and help people if they needed anything. In the process, we got to see the following churches: Greek Orthodox, Russian orthodox, Annunciation Catholic, Jewish synagogue, Muslim mosque, Sikhism temple, Hindu temple, and the Vatican embassy. Since we were volunteers and wearing bright red volunteer tshirts, people were very friendly with us.
This week I was studying an amazing talk by Joseph B. Wirthlin about kindness. I have been trying to study more about kindness, charity and love over the past couple of weeks. It's something that I feel I can always improve on. One of the quotes I loved which was very direct and clear was, "The Church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The Church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to return to our Heavenly Father. Each one of us will travel a different road during this life. Each progresses at a different rate. Temptations that trouble your brother may not challenge you at all. Strengths that you possess may seem impossible to another. Never look down on those who are less perfect than you. Don’t be upset because someone can't do something as well as you. We are all children of our Heavenly Father. And we are here with the same purpose: to learn to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.One way you can measure your value in the kingdom of God is to ask, “How well am I doing in helping others reach their potential? Do I support others, or do I criticize them?” If you are criticizing others, you are weakening the Church. If you are building others, you are building the kingdom of God. As Heavenly Father is kind, we also should be kind to others". I love how clear his message is to us all about the importance of our kindness towards others. I love you all! Have a great week.
Love Sister Haertling

September 4th

Dear all,
I feel SO grateful this week. Thank you all who have wished me happy birthday and thought of me this week. Im always thankful for that, but especially on a mission it meant the world to me! I've always heard that the older you get, the less exciting birthdays and holidays are and they just seem like a normal day. So I thought that this would be true, having a birthday on a mission. But it turned out to be one of the best birthdays ever. I had random visitors coming into the visitors center dropping off treats and all of the sisters here made it special. Also all of the letters and gifts from home were so much fun to see/open. I felt very loved and grateful for everything. The weeks have just been flying by, and I can't remember what even happened the last 7 days. After Pday ended last week we had exchanges with the sister training leaders which is always a great experience. I was with Sister Rawlins and we stayed in our area. We went on the metro to talk to people and while walking there we met a really awesome girl from Ethiopia. Her name is Thembi and we ended up talking to her for about 20 minutes. She said that she had a Christian background, but hadn't been to church since she moved here. We asked if she would like to come to our church and she really wanted to. We have an appointment with her this week which should be good! While we were waiting for the metro, a man kept walking past us and looked like he wanted to talk to us. We said hi and he started asking us where we were going. He told us right away he knew exactly who we were and that we weren't allowed to talk to him about any of our religion. We smiled and started asking him about his life. About 2 minutes into our conversation he began asking us questions about what we believe haha. Our conversations usually end up that way with people like him. We got on the metro together and he continued talking about everything he knew about Mormons. As we were talking I turned around to see our bishop sitting there with a big thumbs up. It was pretty funny. The four of us then had a great conversation about the restoration and even though he didn't want to accept missionaries, it was still a cool experience. On Thursday we had zone Conference with the silver spring zone and our zone. We have been studying chapter ten of preach my gospel, which is all about becoming better teachers. We did a lot of role playing and practicing teaching with each other for 8 hours, but it was so inspiring. Yesterday we pulled in to the church parking lot to find a couple of members standing outside the door and hardly any cars. We went up to them and asked what was going on. They told us that the power went out in the whole neighborhood so church was cancelled! We called the AP's and they told us to go to the Potomac ward or Bethesda ward. Of course we chose the Bethesda Ward, and it was the best thing ever!!!! One of the best parts was, as we were sitting in sacrament meeting Miriam and her kids walked in (they all were baptized in May and her husband in June). Sophia and Sebastian saw we and ran over to sit by me. It was a great reunion and it made me so happy to see hem still coming to church. After church we had a lesson with Nancy and one of the ward members Sister V came with us. We were going over the Restoration together and she had a lot of great questions. Nancys husband was in the other room and he never joins in with us. We started talking about the priesthood being restored and as I was explaining it I had a really direct impression to talk about my dad giving me blessings of healing and comfort. I kind of brushed it off because I didn't want to get into specific things or go into too much detail. But the impression came again so I shared it. Nancys eyes filled with tears and yelled for her husband to come into the room. She asked me to explain it to him and so I told him. The spirit was so strong and he thought it was a really amazing thing that men could hold that priesthood. Their two daughters struggle with different things, emotionally and physically and Nancy told us that she really wanted the priesthood in her home. It was a testimony building experience to me to know that the Holy Ghost can guide us and tell us exactly what people need to hear. Also it made me very grateful for my dad and the wonderful examples that I have in my life that hold the priesthood. After that lesson we had dinner with a family in our ward who invited one of their friends over. He is from Africa and had met with missionaries where he lives. He had a lot of questions for us and we enjoyed being there with everyone. Something cool happening in a couple of weeks is that Gladys Knight is coming to put on a "devotional". We can't call it a concert, but it is going to be AMAZINGG. She is putting three or four performances on and everyone we talk to and invite want to come really bad. It has been a great tool in talking to people and inviting people to learn more.
While preparing for zone Conference this week I was studying a talk by elder Jeffrey R. Holland called, "A Teacher Come From God. In it he talks about the importance of teaching others. He says, "When crises come in our lives--and they will--the philosophies of men interlaced with a few scriptures and poems just won’t do. Are we really nurturing our youth and our new members in a way that will sustain them when the stresses of life appear? Or are we giving them a kind of theological Twinkie--spiritually empty calories? President John Taylor once called such teaching “fried froth,” the kind of thing you could eat all day and yet finish feeling totally unsatisfied. During a severe winter several years ago, President Boyd K. Packer noted that a goodly number of deer had died of starvation while their stomachs were full of hay. In an honest effort to assist, agencies had supplied the superficial when the substantial was what had been needed. Regrettably they had fed the deer but they had not nourished them". That really made me think about what I teach others (my companions, investigators, strangers, family, myself) and was a good reminder of how important it is to focus on studying the doctrine of Christ and reading the Book of Mormon. Those are what will be the foundation of our testimony and bring us close to our Savior. I love you all! Thank you for everything, especially this past week.
Love Sister Haertling

11 months!!

Dear all,
This week was really busy and flew by. The weeks are just all mixed together for me. I can't believe it is already September this week....which means it is my last week of being a TEENAGER..! Wednesday night we had a lesson with a recent convert named Bogo. He is an elderly man who was baptized a few months ago. We went with a sister in the ward and talked about the temple. He is working on going to the temple to do baptisms. On Thursday we had the opportunity to go to Shepherd's Table and serve. It is a shelter for people who are homeless to come and eat a meal. So we went there for dinner and I loved it. That day started off really hard for me for various reasons, but I was looking forward to helping out there because I knew that it would cheer me up. It did a lot more than cheer me up, that's for sure! It definitely humbled me and made me realize how much I have to be grateful for. The problems that I had faded away and I felt so much happier. We were helping with a couple of people from the ward as well as another Christian church with a few members. Last week I got an email from Elder Tome (Marcos) saying that he had been teaching a man named John that had moved to DC. He had his phone number attached and so I decided to give him a call. He answered and didn't seem too interested but very nice. On Thursday we came back to the Visitors Center after Shepherd's Table and a man walked up to me to say hello. He introduced himself and it was John! We had a great conversation with him and learned that he has read the Book of Mormon 3 times already and wants to come to church. We're not exactly sure what is holding him back from joining the church, but he is a great guy. He is in his 50's and is here for work for a while. On Friday we had a lesson with a man named Robert and his daughter named Rachel who is 12 years old. The Mtichells (a couple in our ward) came with us to teach them and it went great. Robert has known about the church for years and says that he has always admired the LDS faith. He really wants his daughter to grow up in a church like this and have good standards as she enters middle school/highschool. I'm really excited to be able to teach Rachel, and she is such a sweet girl. We also had interviews with president Johnson on Friday which is always my favorite. I found out that President Johnson and I have the same birthday! Later that day we got to have a lesson with Nancy, who I'd never met before, but Sister Vespucci had been teaching her in the past. She is an amazing lady (in her 50's) and we were able to answer a lot of her questions about the Plan of Salvation. She came to church with us on Sunday and really loved it. At church on Sunday we got to teach the CTR 8 class last minute since they couldn't find anyone that was available. There were about 9 kids and they were a lot of fun to teach. I'm always amazed at how much kids know and how strong their testimonies are even at that age. Yesterday a really cool group tour came in. They were Mennonite and have been studying a bit about Mormon's. Sister Vespucci and I got to take them around for about an hour and a half to teach them. There were about 25 of them and they ranged from age 18-40. They had a lot of similarities in beliefs and they had so many questions for us. They really enjoyed learning about the temple and eternal families. They value the importance of families and have very high standards. One of them had a question about specific standards, so I showed her a "for the strength of youth" pamphlet. She asked if she could have it and by the end, every single one of them wanted one also so we gave them all pamphlets. This group was probably one of my favorite groups to teach on my mission so far. At about 7:00 last night I was in the front of the visitors center talking to one of the senior couples when a couple walked through the door. It was Brianna Daw (I forgot her new last name) and her husband!! I gave her a big hug and we got to talk for a while. I didn't know that they had been living here and it was really fun to see a familiar face. Also while we were at church yesterday some of the ward members were telling me how there is a group of moms who play basketball and they just changed to Monday morning (which is perfect because it's Pday) and that we could go. So we went to go play and it was SO much fun. There were a lot of young moms who were really good! It felt so nice to be able to play again and it was great exercise. This week I have been studying a talk that someone recommended to me called, Then Jesus Beholding Him Loved Him by Elder S. Mark Palmer of the Seventy. On Sunday the relief society president got up to teach and told us that her lesson was based of that exact talk! So I know that it was no coincidence that I've been focusing on love this week. There were four points that he focuses on in his talk:

1) As we learn to see others as the Lord sees them rather than with our own eyes, our love for them will grow and so will our desire to help them.
2) No true teaching or learning will ever occur when done in frustration or anger, and hearts will not change where love is not present. Whether we act in our roles as parents, teachers, or leaders, true teaching will happen only in an atmosphere of trust rather than condemnation
3) Love should never be withdrawn when a child, friend, or family member fails to live up to our expectations
4) Because He loves us, the Lord expects much of us. If we are humble, we will welcome the Lord’s invitations to repent, to sacrifice, and to serve as evidence of His perfect love for us.

"My dear brothers and sisters, now anytime you feel you are being asked to do something hard—give up a poor habit or an addiction, put aside worldly pursuits, sacrifice a favorite activity because it is the Sabbath, forgive someone who has wronged you—think of the Lord beholding you, loving you, and inviting you to let it go and follow Him. And thank Him for loving you enough to invite you to do more."
As I've been remembering this throughout the week and trying to show more love for everyone around me I have felt more peace in my life knowing that I can give everything to the Savior. Sometimes it can be a lot easier said than done, but Christ DID give everything to us so that we can access peace and strength through His Atonement. He loves us with a perfect love and always is there. I love you all!
Love, Sister Haertling