Visiting and Teaching By Inspiration

I spoke in church yesterday. It's the seventh church talk I've given in the last four and a half years. I had trouble getting started with this one. The wording of the assigned topic had my brain moving in several directions and it took some time to understand what the talk should be. Also, I used a word the entire Bishopric had to look up. They thanked me afterward for expanding their vocabularies. Can you guess the big word?

Visiting and Teaching by Inspiration

In the fifteen years since my husband and I got married, we have moved a lot. A lot. We spent twelve of those years moving around Utah County, though we’re both from California, and three of them crisscrossing the United States. We’ve lived in four time zones in as many years. Yeah, moving is hard, but there is something that’s made each transition a little easier: visiting teachers. Visiting teaching helps the entire family, not just those in Relief Society.

It usually takes a few months after we move to a new ward, but I always look forward to getting Visiting Teachers and being assigned a Visiting Teaching route of my own. I am a loquacious extrovert by nature, and a stay-at-home mom by choice. That means I spend most of my days with the four small people that share my last name. When that beautiful slip of paper with the names of my Visiting Teaching companion and sisters that we’ll visit is placed into my hands, I am giddy at the thought of talking to other grown-ups on at least a monthly basis.

I’ve had Visiting Teachers that treated our get-togethers as just that: a once-a-month chance to chat, and that’s all. But Visiting Teaching is so much more. The Church Handbook states “Visiting teaching gives women the opportunity to watch over, strengthen, and teach one another.” Watch over, strengthen, teach.

What does that mean? Everyone has different needs; therefore, these three tenets of Visiting Teaching will look different for each person. To really understand what each sister and her family needs, we must know them. Stopping by once a month for a short visit, or merely saying hello in the halls at church does not give us the contact we need to understand how we can best serve them. It takes a combination of time, effort, love, and sincerely seeking inspiration to know how best to serve those we’ve been asked to watch over, strengthen, and teach.

Alma’s counsel to his son Heleman in chapter 37 of the Book of Alma is perfectly applicable to the role of a visiting teacher. “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.” We need to counsel with the Lord as we seek to learn the needs of those that have been put in our care. We need to pray for them and their families and listen for the Holy Ghost to direct us. And we need to have hearts full of thanks for the opportunity to watch over, strengthen, teach, and be taught by our sisters.

My Grandma visit teaches a woman with advanced dementia. She’ll pick this sweet sister up from the care facility where she lives and they’ll get ice cream, or go sit at the park and people watch. She knows my Grandma is her friend, and that she’s from church, but sometimes those are the only details her memory will provide. In a very literal way, my Grandma watches over her and keeps her safe while they visit.

Lucy Mack Smith said, “We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.”

I have a distinct picture in my head. I was a relatively new mom, I only had one child, and my very small living room had been taken over by a mountain of clean laundry. I planned to whittle away at the beast during Peter’s naps and after his bedtime. And then someone knocked at my door. Now, this isn’t one of those lovely stories where I need help and my visiting teachers listened to a prompting and arrived at my front step. Those are good and important stories, and we should always be listening for inspiration to know the needs of our sisters, but in this case, I had simply forgotten about our scheduled appointment. I opened the door, chagrinned at the state of my house and my lack of memory. They didn’t even bat an eye. They walked in and got to work. The laundry behemoth was soon transformed into stacks of neatly folded clothes. These sweet women were watching over me and working beside me, providing a service that I needed, but never would have asked for if they hadn’t come over.

In her October 2011 General Conference address, then General Relief Society President Julie B. Beck said, “In the early days of Relief Society, a visiting committee from each ward received an assignment to assess needs and collect donations to be distributed to those in need. Throughout the years, Relief Society sisters and leaders have learned one step at a time and have improved in their ability to watch over others… With so much need for relief and rescue in the lives of sisters and their families today, our Heavenly Father needs us to follow a higher path and demonstrate our discipleship by sincerely caring for His children.”

I’ve had visiting teachers that helped me deep clean houses as we’ve prepared to move, others that have happily watched my children while I’ve gone to appointments, taken other children to the doctor, and in one memorable case, stayed with my three older children into the wee hours of the morning while my husband and I were at the hospital welcoming Sophie, our fourth child who is now nearly three-years-old, into the world. They have sincerely cared for me and my family.

I’ve also had visiting teachers that I never saw, or saw so infrequently I wasn’t sure if they knew who I was. I’ve visit taught women that were so busy with things, the only time they would give us was a quick, “Hello, how are you?” at church.

In 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball taught, “We talk about duty—“I must go and do my [home] teaching”; “I must go and do my visiting teachers work”—but we have already lost the enthusiasm, the vision, and the objective when we say, “I must go this morning and do my visiting teaching.” Rather it could be: “Today is the day I have been waiting for. I am happy to go into the homes of my sisters and help lift them to new heights.”

I’ve been lifted and strengthened by those that I’ve taught and those that have taught me. When we lived in New Jersey, my visiting teacher became my dear friend. She would come over for long visits, play dates, and lunches. I felt like she truly wanted to be my friend, not just fulfill a duty.

In the October 2011 talk I quoted earlier, Sister Beck said, “As committed disciples of the Savior, we are improving in our ability to do the things He would do if He were here. We know that to Him it is our caring that counts, and so we are trying to concentrate on caring about our sisters rather than completing lists of things to do. True ministry is measured more by the depth of our charity than by the perfection of our statistics.”

We watch over, we strengthen, and we teach one another. I love to teach, just ask my children, I’m always trying to teach them something. Teaching is fun for me, I enjoy the preparation and the opportunity to listen to the Spirit as I’m teaching to best meet the needs of those in the class. But I’m afraid I don’t always treat my visiting teaching lesson the way that I should.

This topic of visiting teaching brought a memory to the surface so I searched my blog, which I use as a journal, and found the following post that I wrote in June of this year:

I went Visiting Teaching today after the kids were done with their morning swimming lessons. My companion wouldn't be joining us, so the responsibility of scheduling the visit and sharing a spiritual message fell to me. As is so often the case in my life, too many other items (and people) demanded my attention and I didn't begin to prepare my message until we were driving from the pool to the home of the sister I was going to visit.

I found the lesson for this month in my LDS library app on my phone. As we pulled out of our parking place at the city pool, the lesson started to play over the speakers of the car. My kids have developed amazing talents for blocking out sounds, mainly by talking over the top of them. That's what they did during my lesson prep. I called to the back of the van several times for them to be quiet, sometimes I was calm, sometimes not so much.

They finally listened and eight-year-old Cooper realized what I was doing.

Cooper: Mom? What are you listening to? (pause of understanding) Is this for Visiting Teacher? (to ten-year-old Peter in the back seat) She's cheating! I can't believe she's cheating! Mom, this is cheating.

Six-year-old Phoebe: (in a voice full of experience) Oh no Cooper, she does this all the time.

Cooper was right. I was kind of cheating. Listening to my lesson as I drove over to teach it was not giving the proper time, attention, prayer, or pondering that my sisters and friends deserved.

We have a Master Teacher that we can look to to learn how we should teach. In 3 Nephi chapter 27, verse 21, during his visit to the Nephites, the Savior taught “Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel; and ye know the things that ye must do in my church; for the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do;” The things that we’ve seen Him do, we should do. He knew those that he taught. He spent time among them, he listened to them. He spent His life studying, praying, serving, and teaching. To truly be prepared to teach our sisters, we need to spend time with them, study, pray, serve, and then teach.

At the beginning of this month, Elder Jeffery R. Holland and the Auxiliary leaders of the church presented a Worldwide Training Broadcast on Teaching in the Savior’s Way. If you haven’t seen it, this is your homework assignment for the week. Go find it on lds.org and watch or listen to it. The whole thing is wonderful, but the biggest lesson that I took from it is that we must love those we teach. And to love them, we must know them. Visiting teaching is not about checking a box off each month, it is about loving and serving one another.

In his October 2006 General Conference talk, Elder M. Russell Ballard said, “What is most important in our Church responsibilities is not the statistics that are reported or the meetings that are held but whether or not individual people—ministered to one at a time just as the Savior did—have been lifted and encouraged and ultimately changed. Our task is to help others find the peace and the joy that only the gospel can give them.”

Sister Beck, this time from her October 2009 talk, taught, “It is our blessing to pray for another sister and receive inspiration as to how the Lord would have us care for one of His daughters. Visiting teaching becomes the Lord’s work when our focus is on people rather than percentages. In reality, visiting teaching is never finished. It is more a way of life than a task.”

The motto of Relief Society can also be the motto of visiting teaching: Charity Never Faileth. Charity is the pure love of Christ and it endureth forever. Charity suffereth long and is kind. Can you think of a better description for a visiting teacher? Paul taught in 1^st Corinthians chapter 13 verse 1 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” We can visit each month, prepare beautiful quote filled lessons, drop off homemade bread on a weekly basis, but if these things are done to fulfill a duty and are without charity, the pure love of Christ will not be present or felt. It is clear when we love those we teach.

Sister Beck also said, “Because we follow the example and teachings of Jesus Christ, we value this sacred assignment to love, know, serve, understand, teach, and minister in His behalf. This is one duty we have in the Church where we are certain to have the help of the Lord if we ask for it.”

President Monson taught “…When we seek the inspiration of the Almighty in the performance of our responsibilities, we can achieve the miraculous.” He also told us to “never postpone a prompting.” Inspiration and the pure love of Christ, are the keys to our call to watch over, strengthen, and teach those in our ward. I bear my testimony that inspired visiting and home teaching can lift hearts and save souls. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.