December 2004 Ensign - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...

40
To give your
heart and
soul to
visiting teaching
requires you to be
prayerful about
those you visit. The
Lord will direct you
in doing His work
as you listen and
respond.
Give Friendship
One young woman remembers how her visiting
teacher shared a spirit of caring, concern,
and friendship with her. She had moved into
a new ward at the end of her last year of law
school and found herself to be the youngest
member there by about 30 years. “Feeling
uncomfortable and not knowing anyone,”
she recalls, “I drifted into semiactivity. I would
appear and disappear in Church like a shadow
without exchanging words with anyone.
“In the next few weeks there appeared
at my door a vibrant, good-humored, whitehaired
lady who announced she was my visiting
teacher. I received visits from her on an
almost weekly basis, many times with other sisters
of the ward in tow so that I might become
acquainted. [Before long] I was no longer a
shadow in Church. [My visiting teacher introduced]
me into a vast army of friends. After
having been away from [this ward] for several
years, I still count its members [as] some of my
most cherished friends.” 8
Follow Inspiration
To give your heart and soul to visiting
teaching requires you to be prayerful about
those you visit. The Lord will direct you in
doing His work as you listen and respond.
As a Relief Society president in São Paulo,
Brazil, Elizabeth Contieri Kemeny felt impressed
to assign herself to visit a shy, pregnant
sister who attended church alone as her husband
was often away on business. The ward
Relief Society had just participated in a stake
project to make baby layettes consisting of
blankets, clothing, and other supplies for
infants. The layettes were supposed to be
delivered to the stake on a particular Sunday
morning. On that day Sister Kemeny awoke at
6:00 A.M. with a strong impression she should
deliver the layettes to the home of this sister,
rather than to the stake.
Taking along her counselor and the bishop,
Sister Kemeny arrived at this sister’s apartment
only to learn that she had already gone
to the hospital in labor. Pressing on to the hospital,
they found her holding her new baby in
her arms, with tears streaming down her own
cheeks. She had been praying that Heavenly
Father would send somebody to help her.
Her husband was out of town, and she had
nothing—not a blanket to wrap the baby in
nor money for a bus ride home.
That afternoon at the stake meeting this
ward had no layettes to contribute. They had
been given to bless a sister both temporally
and spiritually—all because a visiting teacher
had prayed and listened to the promptings
of the Spirit.
President Hinckley reminds us “to seek
those who need help, who are in desperate
and difficult circumstances, and lift them
in the spirit of love into the embrace of
the Church, where strong hands and loving
hearts will warm them, comfort them, sustain
them.” 9 As a visiting teacher you have this
responsibility and privilege. ■
NOTES
1. Visiting Teaching: The Heart and Soul of Relief
Society (address delivered at Relief Society open
house, fall 2003), 3–4, 15–16.
2. Quoted in History of Relief Society, 1842–1966
(1967), 20.
3. Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2:
Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders (1998), 202.
4. “A Vision of Visiting Teaching,” Tambuli, Dec. 1978, 2;
see Ensign, June 1978, 24.
5. “Reach with a Rescuing Hand,” Ensign, Nov. 1996, 86.
6. Visiting Teaching: The Heart and Soul of Relief
Society, 12.
7. “Women of the Church,” Ensign, Nov. 1996, 69.
8. Quoted in Barbara B. Smith, “A Story of New
Beginnings,” in A Woman’s Choices: The Relief
Society Legacy Lectures (1984), 8.
9. Ensign, Nov. 1996, 86.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MATTHEW REIER, POSED BY MODEL