Sunday, September 30, 2012

October 2012 Visiting Teaching Message



 

Honoring Our Covenants

Prayerfully study this material and, as appropriate, discuss it with the sisters you visit. Use the questions to help you strengthen your sisters and to make Relief Society an active part of your own life.
Visiting teaching is an expression of our discipleship and a way to honor our covenants as we serve and strengthen one another. A covenant is a sacred and enduring promise between God and His children. “When we realize that we are children of the covenant, we know who we are and what God expects of us,” said Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “His law is written in our hearts. He is our God and we are His people.”1
As visiting teachers we can strengthen those we visit in their efforts to keep their sacred covenants. By doing so, we help them prepare for the blessings of eternal life. “Every sister in this Church who has made covenants with the Lord has a divine mandate to help save souls, to lead the women of the world, to strengthen the homes of Zion, and to build the kingdom of God,”2 said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
As we make and keep sacred covenants, we become instruments in the hands of God. We will be able to articulate our beliefs and strengthen each other’s faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

From Our History

The temple is “a place of thanksgiving for all saints,” the Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1833. It is “a place of instruction for all those who are called to the work of the ministry in all their several callings and offices; that they may be perfected in the understanding of their ministry, in theory, in principle, and in doctrine, in all things pertaining to the kingdom of God on the earth” (D&C 97:13–14).
Relief Society sisters in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA, in the early 1840s helped each other prepare for temple ordinances. In the ordinances of the higher priesthood that Latter-day Saints received in the Nauvoo Temple, “the power of godliness [was] manifest” (D&C 84:20). “As the Saints kept their covenants, this power strengthened and sustained them through their trials in the days and years ahead.”3
In the Church today, faithful women and men all over the world serve in the temple and continue to find strength in the blessings that can be received only through temple covenants.
For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org.

What Can I Do?

  1. How do my covenants strengthen me?
  2. How am I helping the sisters I watch over to keep their covenants?

    Notes

  1. Russell M. Nelson, “Covenants,” Ensign, Nov. 2011, 88.
  2. M. Russell Ballard, “Women of Righteousness,” Ensign, Apr. 2002, 70.
  3. Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society (2011), 133.
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Saturday, September 1, 2012

September 2012 Visiting Teaching Message

Contact your sister by the 5th, make an appointment by
the 10th, visit by the 15th and report by the 20th
  

Special Needs and Service Rendered

Prayerfully study this material and, as appropriate, discuss it with the sisters you visit. Use the questions to help you strengthen your sisters and to make Relief Society an active part of your own life.

Special Needs and Service Rendered

“The needs of others are ever present,” said President Thomas S. Monson, “and each of us can do something to help someone. … Unless we lose ourselves in service to others, there is little purpose to our own lives.”1
As visiting teachers we can sincerely come to know and love each sister we visit. Service to those we visit will flow naturally out of our love for them (see John 13:34–35).
How can we know the spiritual and temporal needs of our sisters so we can render service when it is needed? As visiting teachers, we are entitled to receive inspiration when we pray about those we visit.
Maintaining regular contact with our sisters is also important. Personal visits, telephone calls, a note of encouragement, e-mails, sitting with her, a sincere compliment, reaching out to her at church, helping her in time of illness or need, and other acts of service all help us watch over and strengthen each other.2
Visiting teachers are asked to report the well-being of sisters, any special needs they have, and the service rendered to them. These kinds of reports and our service to our sisters help us demonstrate our discipleship.3

From Our History

Serving one another has always been at the heart of visiting teaching. Through ongoing service we bring kindness and friendship that go beyond monthly visits. It is our caring that counts.
“My desire is to plead with our sisters to stop worrying about a phone call or a quarterly or monthly visit,” said Mary Ellen Smoot, the 13th Relief Society general president. She asked us to “concentrate instead on nurturing tender souls.”4
President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught, “It is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom.” Yet he recognized that not all service need be heroic. “So often, our acts of service consist of simple encouragement or of giving … help with mundane tasks,” he said, “but what glorious consequences can flow … from small but deliberate deeds!”5
For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org .

What Can I Do?

  1. 1. Am I seeking personal inspiration to know how to respond to the spiritual and temporal needs of each sister I’m assigned to watch over?
  2. 2. How do the sisters I watch over know that I care about them and their families?
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