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
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