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