Sunday, January 10, 2016
It is a Happy New year for Visiting teaching!
Visiting teaching is a very important part of the Gospel, because when we do it with all of our hearts, we are showing God that we not only love Him but we obey His commandments of loving our neighbors.https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/visiting-teaching-901054?lang=eng
Quoting from the Extraordinary Visiting Teachers Facebook group, one woman (Tia Fowles)said this:
"Visiting Teaching fills a variety of needs, including fellow shipping, building friendships, increasing faith and personal testimony and watch care over one another. I think one of the most important things Visiting teaching can do is let each person know they are remembered, cared for and wanted. I often get the requests that people want to have good visiting teachers. I rarely have "good" visiting teachers, that is, visiting teachers who consistently reach out to me. I have done my best to BE a good visiting teacher so that at least someone out there can say that they have good ones. I am ot perfect, far from it, in fact but I hope the sisters I am assigned to know that I think about, pray for, and genuinely enjoy getting to know them."
President Monson said:
"We are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort our kindness.... We are the Lords hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. (2nd great commandment) He is dependent upon each of us."
And Julie B. Beck said, "Visiting teaching is an expression of our discipleship and a significant way to honor our covenants. This element of our discipleship should closely resemble the ministry of our Savior." As committed disciples of the Savior, we are improving in our ability to do the things He would do if He where here." Tia Fowles
Can Visiting Teachers actually make a difference in peoples lives? Yes, yes they most definately and most certainly can. Sister Rochelle Miller shares her experience in this way:
"I joined the church at age 19. But at age 21, I found myself back to my old ways and friends. I remember one day seeing two women coming to my door dressed in dresses and I immediately knew they must be from the church. They knocked and I hid!!! I remember hearing them finally leave and at that moment my heart was touched and I began to cry as the spirit entered my heart and my home and a feeling came to me so strongly that I needed to return to church. I did and went on a mission, was married in the temple and my mother joined the church when I returned from my mission. I have been active ever since that day. (25 years) Those two RS sisters took the time to search me out, and even though I never answered the door or spoke to them or even today know who they were, the spirit spoke to me and to this day they do not know their visit to only a knock on my door, changed my whole life."
Sister Miller goes on to say, "Never give up because you can't get in a door or get a phone call answered or returned. We can touch lives just by doing our duty of trying every month."
Sisters, you simply never know how or if your visit will touch the life of a sister, and in Sister Miller's example, her life was changed forever because two unknown, loving sisters were obedient, following the second great Commandment, and following their own promptings to visit her. Sister Miller said that those Visiting teachers must have walked away thinking, "If we could just get in to see her, then maybe we could invite her back or help her," but the Spirit of the Lord can go through the walls and touch hearts, simply by your visit.
Yes, It can be a very Happy New Year, both for you and for your sisters. It is up to you, but I know that by loving your sisters as the Lord has commanded, He will help and bless you in your righteous desires, and those things you do for others come back into your own!
HAPPY NEW YEAR--- Now go out and do your Visiting Teaching!
General Conference Talks
General Conference Reports
Proceedings of Recent General Conferences
What shall we give?
An Apostles Easter Thoughts on Christ
This short video is an Important message from the mouths of our Prophets!
My broken wagon wheel, hath bit the dust!
July 6 - Pioneer Cooking
Click on this link to take you to the Pioneer Recipes:
http://visitingteachingsurprisedocuments.blogspot.com/2009/07/pioneer-recipes.html
I was also thinking that if you were to copy some of these recipes and print them off, that might be a fun handout for the Sisters you Visit Teach!
July 2nd - Diana Lucina Spicer Block
Visiting Teaching Tips, handouts and Ideas
For many years, I have been creating very cute and fun things to take to the ladies I Visit Teach. I have shared from time to time, my ideas with others and they have really appreciated them. I decided that since I do these anyway, I would start doing one every month and then post it on this blog to share with anyone for their Visiting Teaching. I do need to make a disclaimer.... the ideas, thoughts, stories, graphics etc. used are created by me and they are not in any way official LDS Church quotes, handouts or ideas. They are my creations or others as noted, except for the quotes that will come directly from the Monthly Visiting Teaching message found in the Ensign. Also, many thanks to the talented designers of the digital paper and elements that I use to create the beautiful artwork, and handouts you see on my blog.
You can go to http://www.lds.org/ and look up and even print the monthly message if you do not have your own Ensign magazine subscription in English or to choose to read the Liahona or Ensign in a different language go to http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=03103c7ff44f2010VgnVCM1000001f5e340aRCRD&locale=0.
For Spanish you can go to http://www.sud.org.es/
I highly recommend you get your own subscription because you will find a wealth of really good & wholesome, moral reading, that you can't find anywhere else. If you go to http://www.lds.org/ and click on "Gospel Library" then click on "Magazines" you can order your own Ensign, Liahona, New Era, or Friend magazines.
Posted by Katie Gauger at 10:41 AM 0 comments
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"Returning to the Past" A Relief Society Activity Idea
Dear Katie,
I just found your blog. It is so great. I love the idea of the Hearts of Angels. I am trying to figure out how we can use it for our VT conference and incorporate some of the things for our VT interviews. I am a new R/S president and all these things we have to do throughout the year are a little overwhelming. I love all of you ideas. So much work involved, thank you for being willing to share with all of us! I would love anything else you could pass my way.
WE had the thought earlier to use a theme of "Returning to the past" for our activities this year. So all of your old-fashioned pictures will be great to use as invites and handouts.
You might be interested in the idea we had for our B-Day dinner. We always have a progressive dinner in December to the homes of different sisters. We divide them up into about 5 smaller groups and go around to the different sisters homes in the ward. Because of the weather we cancelled it and had it at the church. We decided to do it for our B-Day dinner instead when the weather would be better. We are having the women bring a sack lunch with them and to wear something old, like a grandmothers broach or shawl, or to dress up in the time of the 1800's, and to bring a pint jar with a lid. We will have the sisters make lemonade at the first house and take with them in the jar that they brought, and then go to the next house. At the last house we will have and old fashioned cake to serve like apple walnut cake or something like that.
We still have some details to work out but at the end each member of the presidency will be at a different home and will share a prepared script. It will be written as if they were at the very first R/S meeting when the prophet Joseph Smith organized the R/S with just a handful of women.
Anyway, thank you for sharing what you have! You have a great talent!
Stacey McClellan - Blackfoot, Idaho
SELF RELIANT SISTERS BLOG HAS A GREAT ACTIVITY ABOUT GARDENING WITH KIDS - go to http://selfreliantsisters.blogspot.com/ It is well worth the time and a terriffic idea as Spring is just around the corner! Here is a tiny bit of information that you will see at the site.....
Gardening with Kids has great tips on getting kids started with gardening. Give your child some space; literally! Kids loving having spaces that are all their own, whether it`s their own desk area in the house, or the tent they've created with chairs and blankets in the family room. The same is true for gardening. Dedicate a small plot of the garden just for them. Put a fancy border around it, perhaps purchase one of the stepping stone making kits found at crafts stores in which they can mold their name and make their hand print.
Let them join you at the nursery. Let your kids know you value their opinion. Ask them which kinds of plants, flowers, and vegetables they like. Explain what will work well in your garden and what won't.
Give them (limited) choices. While you're at the nursery, ask them if they'd like pansies or petunias, marigolds or zinnias. This will give them the feeling of power without letting it get out of control.
Remind them money doesn't grow on trees. With older children discuss the budget. Let them help select seeds and blossoming plants at the nursery - and turn it into a math lesson. Let your child do the money calculations; they can tell you when the money runs out.
Let your child do what he will (especially if you have a preschooler). Let him dig, explore, play with bugs. You may be tempted to steer your child in another direction (like actually watering or weeding his garden), but this is a great way for your child to explore this exciting new universe.
Plan, plan, plan. If you have older children, say 8 or 9 or older, let them plot out their own garden on paper. Provide him or her with graph paper, pencils and seed catalogs. Give them a group of flowers and vegetables from which to choose, and then let them draw out their garden.
Get them their own gardening tools. Nothing will motivate your little gardener more than having her own little shovel, her own gardening gloves, and her own watering pail. And don't forget those bright colored rubber boots. You need to go to the site and explore all the rest of the links and ideas.