Festival of Lights

Dear all,

I have a lot to write about this week. So much has happened. On

Tuesday last week we began setting up for ambassador night and getting

ready for that. These two nights of the year, ambassador and diplomat

night, is a time where leaders (ambassadors and diplomats) of

countries and those in public affairs come to the visitors center for

the lighting ceremony to start the Festival of Lights. This year the

ambassador of South Africa was the one who turned on the Christmas

lights for the lighting ceremony. Elder Bednar and Sister Bednar came

as well which was amazing to hear from him and meet them. On Wednesday

night all of the diplomats and ambassadors and their families came.

After the ceremony, the countdown begins to illuminate the lights.

Everything goes dark and that’s when Elder Bednar and the ambassador

of South Africa press the big red button to turn on all of the

Christmas trees and 700,000 Christmas lights outside. It didn’t seem

real because it’s my second year now being a part of this event. It

feels too soon to be singing Christmas carols and setting everything

up! On Thursday the visitors center was open to the public again and

it was the first official day of the Festival of Lights. We are there

most of the nights during the week. We spend the morning and afternoon

in our area, and then help most nights at the visitors center. Over

the past 3 nights, over 12,000 people have come in...by the end of

each night Sister Bingham and I feel like our feet are going to fall

off, but it’s the best feeling in the world! My favorite was on

Saturday night over 4 thousand people came in through the visitors

center. Sister Bingham and I stood at the temple model for over an

hour and a half and just taught people over and over again who had no

idea what the temple really was. Sometimes (well most nights) it’s a

little bit hectic and can be hard to teach with so many distractions

around, but the spirit is still there and people want to learn. It’s

the best! One cool experience that happened on Saturday night was

three college students came walking in. Two of them were sisters and

they had their best friend with them. They were all really nice and we

assumed they were all members. They told us that they were in the same

ward that we are serving in, but we had never seen them before...They

also told us that their friend had never been to the temple before and

wasn’t a member. Sister Bingham and I really clicked with them and

spent some time with them. Their friend ended up taking all of the

pamphlets and a Book of Mormon and was really interested. As we said

goodbye and they were walking away we heard their friend mention how

she would like to come to church. The next day when we walked into

sacrament all three of them were there and they had a great time at

church. We later found out that the two sisters hadn’t come to church

in a long time, that’s why we didn’t recognize them. I really love

them all so much. It was also a tender mercy to see that even though

we don’t have as much time in our area with the visitors center we can

still see miracles at the visitors center with people that are in our

area as well.

Another miracle that happened this week; so a couple of months ago,

Sister Kunz and I found this really cool lady who was interested and

said that she had a son who was a young adult and wanted to find a

church. Sister Kunz and I had sent her sons information to the

missionaries for the YSA. His name is Emory and sister Kunz and I

taught him a little bit over the phone. Well this week some

missionaries came into the visitors center with a young adult guy. We

said hello to him and he said his name was Emory!! I asked if his moms

name was Rachel and he said, “yes!! Are you the ones that taught her

and sent missionaries to me and talked on the phone?”. I said yes and

he told me he was getting baptized! I was so excited for him. This

last Saturday Emory got baptized and confirmed. Our ward got split a

couple of weeks ago and so now Emory is in our ward and we will get to

teach him the new concert lessons. It’s amazing to see the Lords hand

in everything.

Today we got to go to the temple! I forgot how much I love being

inside the temple and the feeling that is there.

On Sunday night I met a really cool man. He is the Father of a Coptic

Orthodox Church and he is known as the “Father of giving” to all of

the people that know him. I learned a lot about their religion and

showed them around. He pulled out some little bracelets and a two

dollar bill and gave it to me. He only spoke Arabic and so his

translator told me that he wanted to leave this with me to remember

the special night. It was really sweet.

Mohy has been doing great, he was traveling in Africa for work and so

he wouldn’t come to church this week. He has met with a lot of members

of our ward throughout the week and is really close with them.

Last week for part of the #lighttheworld, Sister Bingham and I and

some members went to the metro and sung Christmas carols. A lot of

people stopped to listen and we gave them light the world cards. We

sang I am a child of god and a couple of people came up asking where

we got the song from. One lady wanted her kids to sing and so we had a

lot of people joining in to sing. It really lifted my day and was fun

to have everyone else be a part of it or even just to stop and smile.

I hope you all are finding ways to light the world every day too! I

love you all!

Love Sister Haertling