Every month I get to be a visiting teacher. What is Visiting Teaching?
A visiting teacher is a woman assigned to watch over and help another woman in her Latter-day Saint ward or branch. Two visiting teachers are assigned to each woman; they contact her at least once a month and encourage her efforts to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. Included in this regular visit is a message of spiritual instruction that is adapted to meet the needs and concerns of the individual woman. In addition to the spiritual aspect of their calling, visiting teachers also help with the temporal needs of the woman and her family. For example, visiting teachers may provide meals after a baby is born or assist with housecleaning if a woman is sick. Quoted: Mormonnewsroom.org
I have two wonderful ladies who come to visit me each month - Katie and Charris. They are so great! And with my VT partner, Jenny Lynne, we have 3 women - Susanne, Stephanie, Jean - that we visit and check on each month. If I'm being totally honest, my commitment to Visiting Teaching ebbs and flows over the years with my own busy schedule, commitments, desire to make the effort, and the struggle of trying to fit in one more thing . . . especially when the kids were little.
But there have definitely been some blessings as I have been able to visit some great women in their homes on a regular basis over the years. What I love most of all is the variety of women in a wide range of life stages that I get to be friends with! Like the 90 year old widow, a young expectant mother, a middle-aged single woman with the most cheerful attitude, and the superstar moms of teenagers busily rolling through life and setting a great example for others to follow. There are also those who have dealt with some serious life struggles - a son's suicide, a husband's trouble with the law, and personal choices that take them away from the church.
It is a big mixed pot! Because life is different for everyone. But the thing that is consistent across each visit is the spiritual message that we share each month. To teach, to lift them up, to inspire, to share testimony.
Along with the January visiting teaching message I made a little handout to give to the ladies I visit.
Each month this year, the message will focus on an attribute of Jesus Christ. For January it was, "obedient Son." So this small handout is meant to go inside your scriptures to keep track of the attributes of Jesus Christ with space to jot down scripture references that go along with it.
And because our bishop just challenged the members of our ward to read the New Testament by Easter, I added a reading chart on the other side:
Use this link to download a PDF of the handout. Use the hash marks as cutting guides, and then fold it in half.
"Is it any wonder that Christ chooses first and foremost to define himself in relation to his father -- that he loved him and obeyed him and submitted to him like the loyal son he was? . . . Obedience is the first law of heaven." -- Jeffrey R. Holland.
