It seems like each visit with our Home Teachers gets worse. These wonderful men arrive on time, in white shirts and ties, with a prepared message, and then it happens. My darling little children evolve into monsters!
During their last visit, even before they could sit down, my son began tossing sofa pillows at his sister. As they engaged in a full-blown pillow fight, our toddler mischievously giggled as she flipped the light switch on and off. All of this occurred, of course, just five minutes after we reminded our children of appropriate behavior during Home Teaching visits. Sound familiar? These are the times when I ask myself, “Why do we even do this. I’m not feeling The Spirit. Is this really worth it?”
Whether you have little ones in your home or you have been assigned to teach a family with young children, chances are you’ve witnessed something similar. Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching callings can provoke similar frustration and doubt when you face less-than-ideal circumstances.
Maybe the frustration comes from an assignment to Home Teach a family who is conveniently never home even when an appointment is scheduled. Maybe the doubts are due to visits with a less active sister who seems to allow you into her home only to debate LDS doctrine. Maybe the distractions in your life are due to working two jobs and you feel overwhelmed trying to fit Home Teaching appointments in between the chaos. Whatever your circumstances, at times, you may wonder, “Is this really worth it?”
Take comfort, it really is worth it! Regardless of your situation, Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching are the Lord’s work! Your dedicated service has eternal rewards, both for yourself and for those you teach. You may not see the fruit of your labor immediately or even in this lifetime. However, if you can say that you gave your best efforts, even under difficult circumstances, the rewards will be great.
Stress, frustration, doubt and disappointment may accompany Home and Visiting Teaching assignments. These are chief tools of the adversary. We must remember the source and know there is “opposition in all things.”
Maybe the next visit with the home teachers will go better. Maybe the next attempt to visit with a difficult family will be inviting. Maybe the next time the Home Teachers come the children will listen. Our challenge is to maintain an eternal perspective. We do this by tuning out the distractions and following the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
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As I sat down to read the current Visiting Teaching message a few days ago, I couldn’t help but notice my old and tattered shoes sitting by the front door. The threads around the sole were loose, the leather was scuffed across the toe, and a little patch of dirt was stuck to the side of the heel. Believe it, or not, these are my favorite shoes!
I soon recalled the sisters for whom I was preparing the Visiting Teaching message. My mind wandered to thinking about what type of shoe each sister might consider as her favorite. I thought, “Maybe Megan’s favorite is a pair of strappy sandals? Maybe June’s favorite is a pair of running shoes? Do I know them well enough to even know?” I was abruptly reminded, by the spirit, that part of our callings as Home and Visiting Teachers is to do more than show up with a lesson we need to try “walking in their shoes.”
While this sounds great, it can actually be more difficult than it seems. Sometimes the “walk in their shoes” might be easy if we visit someone who is very similar to us spiritually, temporally, and intellectually. However, most of the time, this type of empathy and understanding requires great effort.
I reflected upon my most recent interactions with those I visit. I realized how easy it is to be caught up in seeing things from my own perspective, “walking in my own shoes.” As comfortable as that may be, it is more important to get “in her shoes.” Many times I have poured out my feelings about the gospel and tried so hard to “convert” them into activity when a simple testimony, from her perspective, would have been more powerful!
I even considered my willingness to serve them and “walk in their shoes.” I thought, “Do I let my hectic schedule dictate my ability to fulfill my calling? Do I schedule service only when it is convenient? Should service even be scheduled? Do I allow the spirit to guide me to opportunities to serve?” Selfless understanding and genuine service is one of the best gifts we can give as Visiting Teachers.
How do we Home Teach and Visit Teach so we are “walking in their shoes?”
1) Seek the Holy Spirit often and follow the promptings.
2)Pray for ways to selflessly understand those you serve.
3)Listen carefully to those you visit.
4)Follow Jesus Christ. By following in His footsteps, not only do we become more like Him, but it is also great practice for “getting out of our own shoes.”
Brother and Sisters, we can do great things through our efforts as Home and Visiting Teachers. Take a “walk in their shoes,” the rewards are eternal.
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Many years ago, I was assigned to home teach a single sister in my ward. She and her two granddaughters lived in a small apartment in the rear of a larger home that had been converted to apartments.
On this particular visit, we had the usual small talk, how are the girls doing in school, etc. When we left, I commented to my companion that it seemed a little tense. He agreed that it didn’t feel right. But we went on with our usual activities, not thinking again about what we had felt.
The next month when we walked into the kitchen and I felt that something was seriously wrong. Without preamble or other small talk I said, “Sister Little what is wrong?” It caught her so off guard that she blurted out “we are hungry.” My companion and I just stood there. In the few minutes that it took to realize what she had said, there was total silence. We didn’t ask how much food they had or why there was nothing to eat. We excused ourselves and headed to the car. We went directly to Bishop’s home he gave us the keys to the Bishop’s storehouse and instructed us to immediately take an assortment of foods to Sister Little and her granddaughters.
To this day and so many years later, I still feel the remorse and sadness I had that evening when I realized we had let this family go hungry for another month. I had felt something was wrong during the first visit, but did not act on the prompting. We have a sacred calling and the Lord will guide us, but it is up to us to listen.
K. Fraser
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Because the May issue of the Ensign is a report of last month’s general conference, the magazine does not contain a specific First Presidency Message or Visiting Teaching Message for May. Home and Visiting teachers are encouraged to prayerfully select a conference address to share with those they teach. Visit www.lds.org and the general conference archive for conference transcripts, streaming audio and video, and downloadable handheld device files.
After prayerfully selecting the conference message to share, here are some ways to present the topic:
1) Prepare a simple handout with a scripture or quote from the conference talk. Encourage the family to post the scripture somewhere in their home for at least one week. Explain that leaving a scripture or quote visible for the family will help family members recall the message and apply it.
2) Prepare a visual aid to help you share the message. Many of the general authorities use very descriptive stories to illustrate their messages. Use an object that relates to the story told by the general authority to help you present the lesson. For example, you could use an apple to illustrate a story about an apple tree.
3) After prayerfully choosing a message to share, print copies of the entire general authorities address from www.lds.org. Encourage those you visit to prayerfully read the message again later that same week.
4) Select a conference address that is particularly focused on the life of Jesus Christ. After sharing the message, give the family a copy of the new “Finding Faith in Christ” DVD. This would be most ideal for those that may not have an Ensign subscription. Ask them to view the DVD before your next visit and be sure to follow up the next month.
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Visiting and Home Teaching is hard because it is so important. Over the last 25 years of my membership I’ve had examples of many different styles of “teaching”. I’ve had absentee teachers as well as those who have often “gone the 2nd mile”.
I had one home teacher counsel me to take more vitamins when I asked for a health blessing. Being a fairly new member and being concerned that I had made an inappropriate request, I discussed my home teacher’s response with my Elder’s Quorum President and Bishop. Soon after, the Elder’s Quorum President invited my home teacher and myself into a quiet classroom during a ward function. The Elder’s Quorum President proceeded to discuss the importance of priesthood blessings. Still needing a health blessing, the brethren prepared to give me a blessing. The Elder’s Quorum President asked my Home Teacher whether he wanted to anoint or seal the blessing. My home teacher turned bright red and stammered. He then admitted that he had never given a priesthood blessing.
At that point I understood why he had suggested the vitamins. It was pride. My home teacher didn’t want to admit that I had asked something of him that he was nervous about. After receiving guidance from the Elder’s Quorum President, he anointed and did a good job. We both went away feeling better. I’ve thought about him over the years and have wondered how many blessings he has since participated in.
What I learned is that Home Teachers (and Visiting Teachers too) are human. They have faults and failings just like I do. Since I want forgiveness and understanding when I’m less than perfect, I strive to do the same. Even though we humans are riddled with faults and failings, the Gospel is still true. Some experiences give us the opportunity to learn how to apply the principle of forgiveness as well as gratitude.
Cecelia B.
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Dear Sister Cahoon,
I was baptized July of this year. My husband has been Mormon his entire life. I am still receiving new member instruction. Have never seen a Home Teacher. One of the new member teacher’s mother came this past Tuesday and gave me a calling as a Visiting Teacher. I really want to serve. I don’t drive. I have a number of health concerns. I am still willing but don’t have a clue how to. Figured I would watch, listen and learn.
I am really afraid–especially if I get paired up with the sister who lives just 4 doors down. She puts me down in her own special way. I hurt so bad because of some of the things she has said and done. My friend told me to go to the bishop. But I feel like such a tattletale if I did. I am so afraid I’ll get paired with her. I need strong women of God to be paired with. Help!
Anonymous Sister
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1. Care more about the sister than a check mark by your name.
2. Find all the good qualities that you can in each sister you visit and compliment them often.
3. Sincerely get to know the sisters well enough to become their friend…
4. Learn her children’s names and say hello to them too.
5. Be more concerned about bringing a God’s spirit and message than about bringing something that only looks cute and clever.
6. When personal problems are shared be sure to try and understand how your sister is feeling and find ways to help — even just a sympathetic ear is a huge help and often all that is needed.
7. Remember that there are many things about each sister that you do not know so stay clear of judging and concentrate instead on lifting and helping.
8. Become friends with your companion.
9. Never forget that you are God’s representative and should be looking for ways to serve as He would if He were there — be sure to ask for His help! Pray with your companion and with the sister as part of your visit.
10. Always strive for unconditional love both for the sisters you visit and for your companion.
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The sun came out this morning. I had been inside for so long as the winter’s clouds and cold had driven me away from the cold Canadian winter.
I’d been pretty faithful in feeding the birds over the long dark months. Lately, I’d noticed the redwing blackbirds and the other blackbirds they flock with, returning. I’d seen a dark bird with very long legs fly over as I lay in bed looking up at the sky one morning. That meant the blue herons had returned. I’d seen a duck on part of the pond that was no longer covered with ice a few days earlier. But it wasn’t until I went for an early morning walk that I realized what had happened.
No sooner had I stepped outside, than a multitude of bird songs filled the air. The chickadees were singing their spring song. A dozen Koy-la-reee’s of redwing blackbirds came from scattered spots across the marshy valley. Songs that reminded me of summer dotted the trees. A bluebird’s song came from a distant tree.
I knew where they’d been. I’d seen them atop live oaks in Florida, on palms in the Yucatan, in mesquite bushes in Texas. They’d had a lovely sunny winter while I’d shrivelled beneath the oppressive clouds. As flock after flock of Canada geese flew overhead, honking and endlessly reforming their ‘V’, I thought of the masses of them that must have inhabited some marshland of the south.
They knew enough to return when the time was right. A few weeks ago a robin had sat on a post overlooking the deep snow. But it wasn’t until today that I’d realized how much migration had been happening right outside my window while I’d hidden inside.
As I sat and basked in the blessing of the song of spring, I wondered if I and others were changing in a very imperceptible rate; imperceptible to ourselves, anyway. How had our trials and adversities changed us? It is certain that the day will come when we emerge from life’s difficulties and realize we’d grown slowly like the one or two birds that trickled northward whilst winter was still on the ground. It’s so easy to be consumed by what our life contains that we forget the big picture. The winters of our lives overwhelm us, but they also change us. In tiny bits we grow in understanding and knowledge from pain, sorrow, disappointment, etc. Probably like I never noticed how many birds had returned, we haven’t a clue how massive the changes have been in our lives. As I saw one or two redwing blackbirds, I didn’t realize how my entire experience outside was going to be so different because of them. I’d only seen a few, but in reality they were nearly numberless. Perhaps it’s that way with the changes within us. We may notice that we don’t fall into the same bad pattern we tried for years to overcome, but while we were working on that one thing, trying not to drown in the cares of life, we probably underwent incredible transformation that we haven’t the sight to perceive, yet.
The day of sunlight will come and the characters that we have developed will be as the symphony of the spring song, seen for the first time. The growth will always be gradual, but the full flavour of it won’t be apparent until we emerge from darkness into glorious light.
As I stood by the stream pondering these things, a large red shouldered hawk sat atop a crag not 20 feet away. Its rusty breast was huge. It looked massive, powerful and the called ‘kee yurr’ as the king of the forest. It saw me move, spread its wings and took flight. I watched the striped tail, as it headed up over the forest, banking on the breeze. I wondered when it had arrived. It was a glorious bird. Perhaps some of the changes within me were as momentous as it was, and as hidden as the day of its arrival for spring.
Nancy Sont is the mother of five. She lives with her family on a hill in a boreal forest in eastern Ontario, Canada. She is a stay-at-home mum who freelances for newspapers and magazines writing travel articles and nature books. Outdoor Life Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens have both used her work. http://www.travelwriters.com/nancyvsont/
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I cut off the pointed top of a weathered beaver stump the other day. They felled the old tree alongside the stream, a place I loved to go. I cut it off level so that I could have a spot to sit and watch.
From where I stood, the alders on the other side looked bad. Many dead or broken branches leaned this way and that against the red ones that were still alive. It was easy to tell which were dead now that the leaves weren’t hiding anything.
The snow that had bordered the icy water had melted away, the odd chunk of ice floated past. Through the clear water, I could see a bit of the bottom: small stones and sand, sticks and logs that had moved downstream with the fluctuating level of runoff, the deeper channel where the current kept the bottom clean and the tapering, shallow edges where the silt had built up.
I’d been here a lot last summer, but finally the view of the dead alders along with the dead cedars behind me, all killed by the beavers over the last few years, was enough to drive me back up to the house and abandon our family campfires by the stream.
I sat down on the newly created chair, knee-high yellow grass rustling beneath my boots. A wave of peace flowed over me. I could hear the brook babble clearly, musically now. The sun shone on my face and I leaned my head back slightly. When I eventually opened my eyes and looked downstream, I realized the stream was reflecting the perfectly blue sky. It painted a curving line back and forth downstream as it passed the pond. It suddenly wasn’t a colourless winter day. All around the stream, I’d been seeing the branches and logs hiding in the yellow broken down grass. It had been a yellow and grey world with a bit of white ice still laying in puddles where I’d been working at cleaning up the beaver and ice storm damage. The view of the stream was summer, brimming with colour: the blue water, the brownish pebbles beneath it, the black dots of bugs firmly attached; the yellow grass leaning over, touching the water, the deep green of a spruce that I’d rescued from a cluster of dead cedars that had surrounded it; the red alders with blue sky peeping through the vertical branches. The view was so different than when I had stood alongside, glancing down at it, seeing the dead waterlogged branches it carried.
It occurred to me, how much like relationships this was, people we’re asked to home or visit teach. If I stand up and look from a distance, the people are spotted and speckled with faults and irritating annoyances, sins that are seemingly insurmountable, closer up they’re overshadowed by the good.
It was only when I sat at the level of the stream that I could see the beauty, that I could see what it was like to be the stream; where it flowed all day; what it was like to be living beside the yellow grass that tapped its surface continually; how many small animals were nourished by it; how incredible the music was. It was coming from an old waterlogged stick that bobbed up and down as the water rushed over and around it. I’d nearly taken that stick out till I realized that the music would have stopped.
I wondered if my helping to clean up their flaws had stopped people’s music. My, how invisible were the dead cedars that stood nearby, that had driven me out of this area. I never wanted to leave now. I wanted other stumps nearby for the kids to sit on. How much I’d missed by thinking it was an ugly spot. I’m sure it was the same for some people I had known.
I was glad I’d spent some time here and cleaned up the dead sticks that had been scattered on this side, trimmed off crooked dead alders, taken out the dead cedars that gave it such an unwelcoming look. But I hadn’t shared its life until I had sat alongside the stream. I felt differently now. It was a friendlier place, the kids could come and sit here on the log and stump and fish or catch frogs. I stood up to go. I’d learned something today, something I hoped I’d remember.
Nancy Sont is the mother of five. She lives with her family on a hill in a boreal forest in eastern Ontario, Canada. She is a stay-at-home mum who freelances for newspapers and magazines writing travel articles and nature books. Outdoor Life Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens have both used her work. http://www.travelwriters.com/nancyvsont/
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The first hurricane I was in made me think of that three little pigs story. It also made me think of the wolf, “I’ll huff, I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down.”
I was serving a mission in Mexico, near Puerta Vallarta in a small coastal town called San Blas. As missionaries, news was scarce, and we didn’t get word of the storm until it was almost too late. At the time the hurricane was moving into where we were on the coast. We listened to the local station go off the air because the water was coming into the station. We tried to sleep but the wind was howling and the rain was pummeling the house. The next morning we went out and we surveyed what had happened. The power was out. The trees and wires were down. There was some minor damage in the town plaza. We had to wash and flush using the water we had stored in the bathtub before the hurricane hit. We ate by candlelight and made our visits through knee high water and ankle high mud.
Though the storm had beaten up everything around us, the things that really mattered were safe. Psalm 91:1 tells us, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It goes on then to say in verse four, “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler (Verses nine and ten), “Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”
In recent weeks, we have had the hurricane blowing against our lives - there’s the night terror and the flying arrows - stalking pestilence; but, the Lord says very clearly that it will not come near us. He says, “If we make the Most High your dwelling, it will not befall us. No disaster will come near our tent”. It sounds like our night in a hurricane - everything around us being blown around but the core is safe.
The Core – it’s our relationship with the Savior; our relationship with our family; our central mission. The wind outside may be doing a lot of damage. The adversary is nibbling around the core. It’s important during a hurricane to see the difference between the core and the non-core things. We pray for protection on the core of our lives. It will pass. We need to guard carefully the priorities that keep the core things healthy. Regardless of what may be happening in the present, we can’t let the hurricane blow us away from those priorities. We may live in troubled times, but the times will get better.
Nephi of old taught us that, “this land shall be a land of liberty…I will fortify this land against all other nations” (2 Nephi 10:11-12, read verses 10-16). Hurricanes may blow, rain on and flood our lives, but we can rest assured that we are under the watchful eye of a supreme protector.
Brent M. Williams is an Information Design Manager and Instructional Designer, for Indy Interactive in Orem, Utah. He lives in Payson, Utah, where he serves as Valiant 10 teacher in Primary. Home Teaching is a MUST!
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