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
Monday, November 20, 2017
Monday, November 13, 2017
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
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
Monday, November 6, 2017
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
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
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