November 2012 Visiting Teaching

Because the November Ensign contain a report of the October general conference, there is not a specifically designated Visiting Teaching Message for November. Visiting teachers are encouraged to prayerfully select their message from the addresses given during general conference.

 Here are some higlights of October 2012 General Conference

Please let your supervisor know when you have finished your visiting teaching. Thanks!

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 the Scriptures

1 Nephi 14:14; Mosiah 5:5–7; 18:8–13; Doctrine and Covenants 42:78; 84:106

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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September 2012 Visiting Teaching Message

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

  

Special Needs and Service Rendered

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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 the Scriptures

John 10:14–16; 3 Nephi 17:7, 9; Moroni 6:3–4

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?
   

August 2012 Visiting Teaching Message

 

Taking Action in Time of Need

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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.

Taking Action in Time of Need

As visiting teachers, one of our purposes is to help strengthen families and homes. The sisters we visit should be able to say, “If I have problems, I know my visiting teachers will help without waiting to be asked.” In order to serve, we have a responsibility to be conscious of the needs of the sisters we visit. When we seek inspiration, we will know how to respond to the spiritual and temporal needs of each sister we are assigned to visit. Then, using our time, skills, talents, prayers of faith, and spiritual and emotional support, we can help give compassionate service during times of illness, death, and other special circumstances.¹

Through the help of reports from visiting teachers, the Relief Society presidency identifies those who have special needs because of physical or emotional illness, emergencies, births, deaths, disability, loneliness, or other challenges. The Relief Society president then reports her findings to the bishop. Under his direction, she coordinates assistance.²

As visiting teachers we can have “great reason … to rejoice” because of “the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work” (Alma 26:1, 3).

From the Scriptures

Matthew 22:37–40; Luke 10:29–37; Alma 26:1–4; Doctrine and Covenants 82:18–19

From Our History

In the early years of the Church, membership was small and centralized. Members could respond quickly when someone was in need. Today our membership is over 14 million and is spread throughout the world. Visiting teaching is part of the Lord’s plan to provide help for all His children.

“The only system which could provide succor and comfort across a church so large in a world so varied would be through individual servants near the people in need,” said President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency.

“… Every bishop and every branch president has a Relief Society president to depend upon,” he continued. “She has visiting teachers, who know the trials and the needs of every sister. She can, through them, know the hearts of individuals and families. She can meet needs and help the bishop in his call to nurture individuals and families.”³

For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org.

What Can I Do?

1. 1. Am I using my gifts and talents to bless others?
   
2. 2. Do the sisters I watch over know that I am willing to help them when they have a need?
   

July 2012 Visiting Teaching Message

JULY 2012 Visiting Teaching Message

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

  

Demonstrating Our Discipleship through Love and Service 

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.

Throughout His mortal life, Jesus Christ showed His love for others by ministering to them. He said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). He set the example and wants us to “succor those that stand in need of [our] succor” (Mosiah 4:16). He calls His disciples to work with Him in His ministry, giving them the opportunity to serve others and become more like Him.¹

Our service as visiting teachers will closely resemble the ministry of our Savior when we show our love for those we visit teach by doing the following:²

Remember their names and the names of their family members and become acquainted with them.

Love them without judging them.

Watch over them and strengthen their faith “one by one,” as the Savior did (3 Nephi 11:15).

Establish sincere friendships with them and visit them in their homes and elsewhere.

Care about each sister. Remember birthdays, graduations, weddings, baptisms, or other times that are meaningful to her.

Reach out to new and less-active members.

Reach out to the lonely or those in need of comfort.

From the Scriptures

3 Nephi 11; Moroni 6:4; Doctrine and Covenants 20:47

From Our History

“The New Testament includes accounts of women, named and unnamed, who exercised faith in Jesus Christ. … These women became exemplary disciples. … [They] journeyed with Jesus and His Twelve Apostles. They gave of their substance to assist in His ministry. After His death and Resurrection, [they] continued to be faithful disciples.”³

Paul wrote of a woman named Phebe, who was “a servant of the church” (Romans 16:1). He asked the people to “assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many” (Romans 16:2). “The kind of service rendered by Phebe and other great women of the New Testament continues today with members of the Relief Society—leaders, visiting teachers, mothers, and others—who act as succorers, or helpers, of many.”⁴

For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org.

What Can I Do?

1.  How am I increasing my ability to nurture others?
2. What am I doing to ensure that the sisters I watch over know that I love them?

June 2012 Visiting Teaching Message

June's Visiting Teaching Message centers on the importance of asking for inspiration from Heavenly Father as to what our sister need and how we can help show love to our sisters.


Let's hear what our dear President Thomas S. Monson has to tell us about receiving inspiration and showing love.

Visiting Teaching—

a Sacred Assignment

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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—a Sacred Assignment

As visiting teachers, we have an important spiritual mission to fulfill. “The bishop, who is the ordained shepherd of the ward, cannot possibly watch over all of the Lord’s sheep at one time. He is dependent on inspired visiting teachers to help him.”¹ Seeking and receiving revelation as to who should be assigned to watch over each sister is essential.

Inspiration begins as members of the Relief Society presidency prayerfully discuss the needs of individuals and families. Then, with the bishop’s approval, the Relief Society presidency gives the assignment in a way that helps sisters understand that visiting teaching is an important spiritual responsibility.²

Visiting teachers sincerely come to know and love each sister, help her strengthen her faith, and give service when needed. They seek personal inspiration to know how to respond to the spiritual and temporal needs of each sister they visit.³

“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.”⁴

From the Scriptures

Matthew 22:36–40; John 13:34–35; Alma 37:6–7

From Our History

Eliza R. Snow, the second Relief Society general president taught, “I consider the office of a teacher a high and holy office.” She counseled visiting teachers “to be filled with the Spirit of God, of wisdom, of humility, of love” before they visited homes so they would be able to ascertain and meet spiritual needs as well as temporal ones. She said, “You may feel to talk words of peace and comfort, and if you find a sister feeling cold, take her to your heart as you would a child to your bosom and warm [her] up.”⁵

As we go forth in faith as the early Relief Society sisters did, we will have the Holy Ghost with us and be inspired to know how to help each sister we visit. “Let [us] seek for wisdom instead of power,” said Sister Snow, “and [we] will have all the power [we] have wisdom to exercise.”⁶

For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org.

What Can I Do?

1. 1. 
   How can I improve in my ability to fulfill my important responsibility as a visiting teacher?
2. 2. 
   As a visiting teacher, how can I help other sisters fulfill their responsibility as visiting teachers?

May 2012 Visiting Teaching Messages

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Because the May Ensign contain a report of the April general conference, there is not a specifically designated First Presidency Visiting Teaching Message for May. Visiting teachers are encouraged to prayerfully select their message from the addresses given during general conference.

Visit the general conference website to read, watch, or listen to conference addresses.

      Here are some highlights from Conference.