In the HAERT of Washington DC North: Finding the joy in our lives

Dear all,
I can't believe it's Monday already again! This week we have been working with Tara a lot. I'm not sure if I've mentioned Tara's story before, but she is married, in her 40s, been investigating the church for about 3 or 4 years and has a son who joined the church and is getting home from his mission in a week! He's been serving in Australia so it's been great for her to have a connection with sister Stevens. Tara also has two other sons, one is in high school and the other is 24 and has special needs. His name is Julian and is one of the happiest, funniest people I have ever met. It's always an adventure when we have lessons at Tara's house and Julian is home haha! So Tara hasn't ever really read the Book of Mormon because she doesn't think she can understand it. Sister Stevens and I had another lesson with Tara about the Book of Mormon and gave her a Book of Mormon study guide to read along with it. Since our lesson on Tuesday she has been reading it every night which is huge for her! We are so happy she is understanding it and is gaining a desire. Our next step is getting her to come to church every Sunday. With her son coming home we hope it will be that spark that she needs to progress even more. On Wednesday we had a big worldwide missionary broadcast! It emphasized how we can be better teachers and answered a lot of questions that missionaries have. Some of the questions I feel can be applied to anyone regardless if you are serving a mission or not. There was one question that I thought would really be applicable to any parent because parents are some of the most important teachers. Most of you probably do a lot of these things already! (These are my notes that I took so they in my own words)

How do we become a more persuasive teacher???

Take the sacrament worthily every week and do everything that we can to be better so that we will always have the spirit to be with us
Pray for our companion as they are teaching and also as we are teaching. ~I thought this was perfect for parents and just family members in general day to day when we pray morning and night... always pray for each other~
Always look for the unseen
What are our motives?? If we teach in a way where we want to be applauded, we won't be able to teach effectively. When we start teaching for the purpose that we truly want to help our investigators, then we can have the spirit and help them understand and feel. ~I think this can go for anything, not just teaching, but our motives for all of our actions and decisions we make~
Stop beating yourself up. Nobody is a perfect teacher. Just be the best you can be and Heavenly Father will magnify you.
The Spirit should always be the senior companion. ~the spirit should always be in the home~
Write Down those experiences that you have while you are teaching in your journals and believe that those experiences will happen again. ~writing in my journal is something I really want to keep doing after my mission and try my hardest to make time for~ How do I overcome my fear of inviting people to invite??

If we are concerned about ourselves, then we will be scared...but if we focus on the love that we have to that investigator then Heavenly Father and the spirit will put those words into our mouths to invite.
Fear is the opposite of faith. We have to do the things that we know are required. Just do it.

There was also some pretty big changes that we got from the broadcast, one of them being that our schedule changed. Usually we have our studies starting at 8 and have all of our studies in the morning, and then plan for the next day at night when we get home. Now they have changed it so we don't start studies until 8:30, we only have personal study, and then plan for our day in the mornings. Then we have our own agency to choose when we have companionship during the day. Plus having planning in the morning allows us to go to bed anywhere from 9:30-10:30 which is earlier now:). It's really nice and we have more agency to choose how we spend our time each day. It's really amazing to see how the Lord trusts us and also requires more from us as He gives us agency. I love it because it gives us flexibility in our day. The other change we had has to do with key indicators which is a little hard to explain (it's the numbers and goals we set each week for our areas) but for missionaries it was a big change. We now only keep track of 4 key indicators which is a big drop. It really is just helping us focus on our purpose clearly and narrowing it down. On Friday we had a dinner appointment with a lady named Brenda and her husband Mateo. They came into the Festival of Lights during December and really loved meeting sister Stevens. It was great because now sister Stevens is in this area with me and we got to go visit them. They had invited us over for dinner earlier in the week when we first were able to visit them. Brenda is from Italy and all of her family lives there. Her husband Mateo lived in Italy for a lot of his life, but is from the United States. Brenda is an amazing cook though and we had some of the best food I've ever eaten. I'm jealous of Roman serving in Italy and getting that all the time haha! They invited about 6 of their friends over who are all very strong Catholics and so the whole time at dinner they were all just asking us questions. They made it very clear that they loved their religion, but a lot of the comments they made were that they didn't know how many similarities they had with us and didn't know that our church was so "normal" haha. It was a great experience and even though they made it clear they were Catholics and that was never going to change..it was really refreshing to meet people who loved talking about their belief in Jesus Christ together and had high moral standards.

On Sunday Michael and his 2 boys came to church!!!!!!!!!!!! We were so excited to see them walk in and so many people in our ward who knew they were coming greeted him and made them feel welcome which was great for him. Since we have Sunday school first, then relief society/priesthood and then sacrament meeting last, it was different for them and the boys were really nervous to leave their dad. But Michael loved gospel principals and stayed with the Olsens who are their family friends in our ward. They had basketball games that day so they only stayed for the first two hours. Hopefully next Sunday they can stay for sacrament meeting! He and his boys are coming to the visitor center on Wednesday this week. He has been reading the book of Mormon and he said he likes reading it but is having a hard time knowing how to apply it to his life... those were his exact words..we couldn't believe it! It is amazing to see how prepared Michael is!! Yesterday at church we had an amazing lesson in relief society about finding joy in our lives no matter what the circumstance. It was exactly the message that I needed to hear this week and it made me realize how much Our Heavenly Father knows us and is aware of us. I love the quote that says "the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives". Even when the Savior was suffering and going through every pain, he found joy because He loves us so much. If the Savior was able to feel joy in that situation, then it gives me a lot of hope that I can find joy in the trials I face throughout my life. Thank you all for your prayers and love! It brings me so much comfort. Have a great week!

Love, Sister Haertling