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