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Visiting Teaching & Home Teaching - Page 20

Thanks for sharing your experiences Gaucho. Personally, Visiting Teaching made me realized how blessed I am in having a wonderful family that loves me and that I love dearly. I read once that Home and Visiting Teaching is one of the greatest demonstrations of love, besides the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Teaching Home and Teaching Visiting

"Like Mary, I hunger to feast at the Savior's feet, while, like Martha,
I need to somehow find the laundry room floor, empty my in-box,
and serve my husband something other than cold pizza. I have 15
grandchildren whose tender little spirits and daily challenges I want to
better understand, yet I also have a slightly demanding Church calling!
I don't have lots of time. Like all of you, I have to choose. We all are
trying to choose the good part which cannot be taken from us, to
balance the spiritual and the temporal in our lives. Wouldn't it be easy if
we were choosing between visiting teaching or robbing a bank? Instead, our
choices are often more subtle. We must choose between many worthy options."

(Bonnie D. Parkin, "Choosing Charity: That Good Part," Ensign, Nov. 2003, 104.)

Visiting Teaching & Home Teaching Studies Doctrine Mormon

In my "new" ward, the visiting teaching program is faltering. Today was a sepcial luncheon for the VT supervisors, to have some training and to do some brainstorming to see what ideas could be shared to help the sisters visit teach more regularly, and to help them become more committed to the focus and goals of visiting teaching. It was very uplifting, and the RS president and her counselors are so sweet and concerned.

One of the points they made was, instead of just calling the sisters in our districts and asking "did you get it done?" -- ask them how *they* are doing, how their family is. In other words, show some care and concern for the sisters in our districts, get to know them, ask them if they need help, if they are having an problems with reaching any of their sisters, offer to go with them if they are feeling uncomfortable or overwhelmed. Ask if they have been visited, and who their VT is. Let them know that they are appreciated, and that their work is the eyes and ears for the RS president, the Bishop, and the Lord.

It was a really good meeting, and I was very pleased to be able to go in the middle of the week!

Roz

Page 20 Teaching Home and Teaching Visiting

Today I went to do some visits with my companion (God knows how grateful I am for her!). We went to visit a sister who has 3 kids and one on the way. She is going through with the morning sickness that is like a whole day sickness for her. My companion (who is also her mom) took care of the children while I prepared lunch for the family (I made cannelonni and a pinneaple and raisins cake). We stayed there for almost half day. Everything came out just perfect and our dear sister loved it. I was so happy just seeing her smile!. It made me feel so good to do something like that. We shared the message with her and then we left. I think Visiting Teaching can be such a great calling when we do not focus so much on the message we have to share but when we can put in practise the love that Heavenly Father has told us we should have for each other. It was an amazing experience.

Teaching Home and Teaching Visiting

Tonight, I went out to eat dinner with my visiting teachers and the other sisters that they visit. It was a great night out. We all got to know each other a bit better and enjoyed each other's company. Most of these sisters are not people I know very well. We know each other enough to smile and say hi, but we don't really socialize outside of official Church activities. I loved it.

Earlier this month, my companion and I went out for dinner with one of the sister's we teach. She seldom gets out like this and I know she had a great time.

Now, I think it is important to do our formal VT regularly, deliver a message and see what, if anything we can do for our sisters, but part of the program is to become friends. What better ways to do that than to make an effort to socialize together?

Visiting Teaching & Home Teaching

I agree, isn't that wonderful?. I was telling my companion today that once you start knowing the sisters you visit teach and try your best to serve them in every way you can, then you start to see them in a total new different light, you become less judgmental and more compassionate.

Visiting Teaching & Home Teaching - Page 20

This is the kind of love we as visiting teachers should feel for each of the sisters we are assigned too.....:

"Nearly a year ago, in Pasadena, California, Sister Janice Burgoyne was dying of cancer. She had shared generously of herself and was dearly loved. Her Relief Society sisters were bringing her meals, cleaning her house, caring for her two young sons, helping her husband plan a funeral. It was hard for Janice to receive so much help, knowing that her sisters would find that piece of old toast behind the couch. She worried her sisters would know more than her heart. But because her sisters knew her heart, it didn't matter. They provided car pools, tutored homework, played her piano, changed bedding. And they did it day after day after day, without complaint, with boundless charity. Such sharing forever changed those sisters. Before she died, Janice turned to a Relief Society sister and asked with gratitude and awe, "How does anyone die without Relief Society?"

(From General Relief Society Meeting, September 2004, Bonnie D. Parkin)


"Now, maybe your visiting teachers haven't come recently, or maybe you haven't been prayed for by name. I'm sorry if that's been so. But you don't have to be visit taught to be a good visiting teacher; you don't have to be prayed for to pray. In spite of our differences, if we will share generously and honestly, our sisters will also share; we will know one another's hearts, and belonging will flower like a garden".

(From General Relief Society Meeting, September 2004, Bonnie D. Parkin)

Visiting Teaching & Home Teaching Mormon Doctrine Studies - Page 20

"Elder Bruce R. McConkie has so eloquently taught us that service is essential to salvation. I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. Progress is notcreated by contented people. It is up to us, you and me, to be uncomfortable in complacency, to refrain from being spectators, and to be players in the game of life. The Lord has chosen His people to perform a mighty work. Our home teaching, our visiting teaching should be more than going; it should be doing with Christian love. It can be done; you can each do your portion of the work because you desire it.” (Elder Russell C. Taylor, The Joy of Service, General Conference, October 1984)"

"I have another good friend–a contemporary of mine–Geneva Brown. She has also been a great inspiration to me. A number of years ago she became afflicted with multiple sclerosis. Her health steadily deteriorated, confining her to a wheelchair. It would have been an easy thing for her to give up, but it was not her nature. She was a person who was used to doing and being busy in all kinds of things. But she has shown more determination than ever and has kept herself busy.

We saw her one day just coming out of the temple. I watched as her husband wheeled her across the street from the temple to the car, as he opened the door, and as she lifted herself from the wheelchair into the car. I kept wanting to reach out and help her some way. But she has learned how to manage. She is interested in people and things. How easy it would have been for her to refuse a calling in the Church, even to be a visiting teacher. Certainly she had an excuse. She didn’t need to be a visiting teacher, but it was not her nature to quit. She was able to drive a car with special controls, so she would go on her visiting teaching rounds with her companion. When she arrived at the home of the sister to be visited, a beep of the horn would bring the sister out of her home to sit in the back seat of the car and be taught. Neighbors along the street, seeing the fun that was going on, would come out of their homes and join them until there was a car full. Many were lifted and edified by this wonderful woman who was willing to push on and go the extra mile.” President Barbara W. Winder, “No Joy Without The Struggle", BYU Speeches of the Year 1987-88, 7 June 1987


* Well, Christmas is coming up and I want to do something special for the sisters I visit teach. Last year, my companion and I did a make-over, foot massage, hair and make up session for them. It was great. Any great ideas that I can use?

Update: I was just thinking, what do you all think about the following idea?. I want to get all the sisters that my companion and I visit teach at the home of one of the sisters and we will cook lunch for them, I'm not sure yet what type of food, etc. That will be like our little Christmas celebration and then we will give the message and to end the afternoon there will be a giving award/recognition certificates with the names of the sisters and some of their best qualities and it will be sign by 'The Visiting Teachers', my companion and I. I thought it would be cute because it is something they can hang up on the walls and something that may also lift their spirits:)

Edited: LDS_forever on 22nd Nov, 2004 - 5:15pm