M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Visiting Teaching - It Really Works
By Joni Hilton

LDS women could almost be divided into two groups-- the lonely and the overwhelmed. The lonely ones are crying out for Visiting Teaching, while the overwhelmed ones are wishing the whole program would evaporate. And, of course, sisters always seem to be assigned from one of those groups to the other! Letters poured in with fury and frustrations, as well as some excellent advice about how to make Visiting Teaching (and Home Teaching) really effective. Pass this column along to your Relief Society president; it will no doubt prove enlightening. Our first letter is from a reader whose problem, I suspect, is all too common:

I was so glad to finally get rid of my visiting teachers after their visit. I have never had quite an experience like this before and I couldn't quite believe it was happening. I am a widow and I live with my son, his wife and children. We lived in this home for two months before our visiting teachers showed up, complaining that they didn't get the information that we were now on their route, in general badmouthing the RS presidency. Although I have lived in this neighborhood for several years, my daughter-in-law is new to the area.

The sisters visited the whole time they were here, WITH EACH OTHER, and not with us! They went on and on about how the neighborhood has changed, who used to live in which houses, who had moved in, and moved out. They talked about the children who have married and moved on and who is now a widow, etc, etc, etc. They seemed oblivious to us and hardly ever looked our way. They didn't ask about our welfare, nor did they seem interested that they were in OUR house, to visit US. Anyway, I was glad to have them leave, they overstayed their welcome, that was for sure. If this is an example of what visiting teaching has become, we need an overhaul. Maybe some of the sisters who are visited each month feel that it is a waste of time too. Who knows? I just needed to get this off of my chest, thanks for a listening ear!

I once attended a RS luncheon featuring a hilarious skit that sounds almost exactly like your real-life experience (which is what makes comedy work). Sisters were portraying self-centered, insensitive VTs who had completely lost sight of their purpose, and were making their “visitee” feel worse by the moment. I think we’ve all had visits like that. A friend of mine even had a sister literally do “drive by visiting teaching,” hollering out her car window, “You doin’ okay? See ya!” This is not the program, obviously. I hope the guilty will read your letter and resolve never to do their job that way again.

Here’s a letter from a sister whose companion is the problem:

Having recently moved into a new area and a new ward, I was looking forward
to Visiting Teaching being a way to get to know more personally some of the sisters in my ward. I was totally delighted with the V.T.s assigned to me; they are definitely the kind of ladies I would call with a problem or to ask a personal question.

The woman assigned to be my visiting teaching companion, however, fits the stereotype of the Mormon mama so bogged down with the chores of living that she misses the spirit of the assignments. She did everything by the book but in such a whiz of activity that I never got a sense of who she truly is as a woman or friend in the gospel. In fact, after several months of doing visiting teaching together, I can recite the number and kinds of easy-bake goodies she gave to me and the ladies we visit taught, but I can't tell you one thing about her life, her family, her pains, struggles or triumphs. I find that sad. In reflecting on the "whys," I question if it isn't a matter of trust --being able to trust enough to share the meat and potatoes of who we are. I really enjoyed Joni Hilton's article and look forward to sharing it with our R.S. president. It captures an ideal I hope we can all strive for. -- Ann in Utah

Thanks, Ann. Sometimes it’s our companion who needs our influence the most. And, just as with missionary work, we also grow by learning to get along with all kinds of companions. I recommend some time alone with your companion to develop a friendship, totally apart from visiting teaching. Every woman needs some “girlfriend time,” and you can ask about her ambitions, her hopes, the things she feels a passion for when she’s not overwhelmed with the chores of living. RS Presidents, how about an enrichment night for just this purpose?

A sister from England sympathized with Sister Anonymous this week:

I really don't want that lovely sister who wrote to you to be drowned out by a chorus of energetic visit-loving people who say "What? You heretic! How can you say that about visiting teaching? If you'd just work harder you'd be happier!" I guess I really felt her cry from the heart and hope she will find relief soon.

You’re right-- not everyone feels the same amount of zeal for the same programs. We see variations of enthusiasm for genealogy, food storage, scripture study, and, obviously, visiting teaching. Thanks for the reminder that we’re all struggling, just in different ways. This reader agrees with you:

No wonder Sisters are discouraged... "exhibit enough love and caring that our sisters will confide their real concerns to us, so we can help them"..."share burdens"..."love [your] sisters, and treat them as family"... just be darn sure you get all that done in 20 MINUTES!!! I personally don't see any point in the VTs OR the HTs coming to my home for a few minutes each month and READING to me from the Ensign.... I can read when I'm alone (which is 90% of the time). It would be nice if those monthly visits were truly about friendship and compassion rather than just making the quotas. -- Cynthia Bennion, St. Paul, MN

You’re not alone. Here’s what a busy home-schooler and bishop’s wife had to say:

I know that serving one another is the heart of the gospel. Well, the fact of the matter is that I DO serve others...everyday of my life. I serve myself into exhaustion on a daily basis just meeting the needs of my large family. Would things go smoother for me if I stretched myself even further to serve some person that I was assigned to serve, assigned to be their friend, assigned to learn to love, assigned to develop feelings for? Maybe. But honestly, hand holding is not one of my better virtues. THE GOSPEL IS TRUE!! And I have a hard time with people who know that but need me to hold their hand every step of the way or they won't come. Maybe that is harsh, but it's the way I feel.

I just can't see past (my own family) to others around me who may need me to serve them. I have 7 grandchildren. I've spent the past year watching 3 of them (under five years of age) 3 to 5 days a week while their parents worked hard to purchase a home for them to live in. Sometimes I wonder how we survived that. But we did. What is left for me to visit teach with? My own visiting teachers, while I am sure they are wonderful women, are honestly an intrusion in my day. All of my needs are very well met within my own family. My older daughters and I serve one another on almost a daily basis. I just don't know how I can squeeze out anymore at this point in my life. So, I am left with guilt month after month after month as I don't go visit sisters I've never heard of before with my companion whom I don't know and have no desire to know. I guess I'm just hopeless.

Hey-- you aren’t hopeless-- you just need a good visiting teacher! Ha ha. No, seriously, a good one won’t take your time when you’re already stressed-- she’ll figure out how to reduce that stress. She could watch the grandkids on occasion, or simply help you cry or laugh, as family life often makes us do. She could send you a funny card on occasion, to let you know you’re thought of, and bring you a smile.

As for being a VT, my own personal opinion is that you need a break until you can come up for air. The prophet has told us this is a divinely inspired program, but he hasn’t said that every single woman in every single circumstance needs to get all strung out and overburdened. Ask your Relief Society President to give you some time off, and see if you can replenished your well by then. Meanwhile, read the experience of a woman who did just that:

I sat down with my R.S. President in our "PPI" and told her bluntly. I hate visiting teaching. Then she released me. For a whole summer she released me as a Visiting Teacher. I had been a VT since my Freshman year at BYU--how could she release me? But she did. Every once in a while a pang of guilt would spring up, but then relief would settle in. My husband was a high councilor, I was serving as Stake Primary Secretary, Primary President of our ward, and we had 2, 4, 8, and 9-year-old children.

Then September came. I told her I was ready to do it again. I thanked her for the break. She gave me 5 inactive women in their late 70's and she didn't tell me that my companion would be leaving for Palm Springs for the winter in a couple of weeks. It generally takes about 8 hours a month to visit them all and I take my 2-year-old with me.

At first I was a little shell-shocked. I questioned how she could give the person who had openly declared her disdain for the VT Program this kind of route. But the last year has been such a blessing to me. I live in the Pacific Northwest after moving here from Utah. I usually begin to suffer from depression by about January, early February. But these ladies helped me to lose myself. The first visit we went to I pulled up into her driveway and told my daughter we would say a prayer before we went in. At the next visit, my little girl said as we pulled up, “Don't we need a prayer?” I had just taught my daughter something about visiting teaching.

Each one of them has their own needs. One sister is in a rest home and doesn't know me, but she likes her chocolate. One sister just wants to make sure that she gets the hugs from my little one because "her little ones are all grown up." One sister doesn't really like visits, but because of her diabetes she would love to take a walk now and then. One sister stayed mostly at home and each visit was accompanied by her husband. They recently moved out of state and there were tears in my eyes as I said goodbye to a couple who had become good friends to me and my daughter. We have had one couple over for dinner and FHE. My 31 year-old self didn't feel like I had much to teach these late 70-year-old women who were set in their ways about home and church (Most will be celebrating their 80'th birthdays sometime soon), but I have learned that it's mostly giving of ourselves.

I'm getting very frustrated about how "busy" we LDS women have let ourselves become. We don't do our visiting teaching well because we are too "busy" to give ourselves to others. I have 4 kids, I'm PTA President, my husband's now in the Bishopric, I'm still in the Stake Primary. We have every excuse in the book to be too "busy." But I believe "busy-ness" is an attitude.

I recently had the most awesome Visiting Teachers in the world. They probably weren't much different then most visiting teachers that I'd had. They came, we visited a little about non-essential stuff. But they listened. One visit the lesson was on getting more out of the temple. One sister shared a special experience she'd had at the temple. I stated something about it having been over a year since I'd been to the temple. One sister said, "I'm driving down on Friday. Come with me." I said, "I'd love to, but I'd have to find somewhere for my daughter to go. (It takes about 6 hours total for a temple trip). Her companion stated, "I'm free on Friday, I'll take your little girl". And they did. The sister who took my daughter didn't have any children home, they were all in school full-time. It was not convenient for her to suddenly have a 2 year-old around all day. But she gave of herself. They will never know the blessings I received by attending the temple that day. Answers to problems I had been dealing with were given. I will forever be grateful to two women who were where they needed to be when I needed them most.

I am slowly gaining a testimony of the Visiting Teaching Program. I have truly learned that it cannot be one visit during the last week of the month. It is knowing their birthdays, recognizing holidays, checking up on doctor visits, knowing about their families, checking on trips they've taken. It's coming to know them and love them, for Doctrine and Covenants 42:38 For inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, ye do it unto me." -- Blessed in the Northwest

You did it-- you kept giving past the point when you felt you could-- and you will forever know that exhilarating feeling. Ghandi said that if you haven’t found the joy in sacrifice, you need to go back and sacrifice some more. He was right.

And bless your RS president for following the prompting she had to assign you to sisters who weren’t obvious “matches.” When I was a RS President, I had very specific guidance in many such cases, and I was humbled when several sisters asked me later how I could possibly have known that this person would be the answer to their prayers.

Here’s a letter from another sister who shows what can happen when it’s done with sincerity and determination:

Great visiting teaching really "saved" me - I was inactive and didn't like being visited. But my visiting teacher called me and chatted me up for 20 minutes every month to build a friendship with me. She started very gently at first but later managed to get some gospel input into those talks without being overbearing or bearing her testimony formally. It made it a lot easier to return to activity when I made that decision, because I already knew her at church.... I cannot minimize the importance of the impact my visiting teacher and also a very caring home teacher the previous year had made. They had truly gone above the call in a way because they visited with me ad hoc on the phone or on my driveway during the time when I wouldn't let them in.

Now I do the same thing as Sister Joni - I have sought out two of my inactive neighbors who are tougher cases and given back to them they way I received that love. I owe the Lord that much and more. My own life is blessed from making the effort.
Allison Sullivan, Atlanta area

Thank you, Allison-- you’re an example of the ripple effect that sincere visiting teaching can create. Sasha Nunley of Citrus Heights, California, agrees with you:

I was recently released as the Visiting Teaching coordinator in my ward. Let me just say, its all in the attitude. As Sister Anonymous said, we are all busy and schedules do not always blend well. But how much time does it really take? We can make phone calls while doing the dishes. And we can skip our favorite television shows a couple times a month. Its very possible. In my experience in gathering reports at the end of the month, the sisters that did it were not laying around the house with nothing else to do. They were just as busy as any of us.

Now to the heart of visiting teaching (or home teaching). We have Christ as the perfect example. He did not spend His time as only an administrator. He met with people and blessed people personally. He lifted burdens, cleansed, healed, and laid His hands on them one by one. And He did this for us all, through the atonement. Now we are asked to be His instrument for just a handful of our sisters at a time. When I think of Visiting Teaching this way, my attitude changes and I commit to do a better job. For Him.

So many of you shared similar testimonies-- many of you crediting your visiting teachers for your activity in the church today. You’ve then reached out and given that gift of caring to others, and I just want to throw my arms around all of you. Here’s another inspiring story:

Thanks for the article. I enjoyed reading your thoughts and input from both ends. Hooray and thumbs up to the visiting teaching program that is still trekking across all walks of life!!!! I love this calling I get to do with other sisters in my branch. I see visiting teaching as my "picker-upper" and putting smiles on those darn frowns. I'm in a branch on the Navajo reservation and VT can be very challenging, but we make the best of it. Just to go out (remote areas) and sit down with our people is rewarding and something to look forward to. Yes, it can be tough to stay focused on the purpose of the visit, but to at least share our love and our prayers makes it even better and we are welcomed to return again. I enjoy and love serving in my little branch, just in hopes someday of seeing more brothers & sisters coming back. VT is definitely part of planting little seeds and returning each time to water and nurture them in some small way. I will always be grateful for VT program no matter how hard, slow, tough, and challenging of a task it can be at times. It's there for me and you to share, bit by bit-- this is what the Lord wants.-- Shirl Jensen, Leupp Branch, Arizona

I vote for cloning, and let’s start with Shirl Jensen! Now on to another letter I love:

Here is my testimony of visiting teaching: I believe it is one critical way the Lord is teaching us to become celestial beings, line upon line. You see, we are counseled to love everyone, to "feed His sheep". Being human, we simply can't love everyone all at once, but we can learn to love 3 or 4 sisters in our ward at a time, if we truly want to learn to be like Jesus. Then our assignment changes and we learn to love 3 or 4 more, while still cherishing our relationships with those we used to visit.

Think of how many sisters we can learn to love over a lifetime of visiting teaching! As a former R.S. president, I know how much time I spent in prayer making visiting teaching assignments, and so every time I get a new set of sisters to visit, I think of it as a calling from Heavenly Father to visit some of his other beloved daughters. In addition, I know that often we are given a companion because the R.S. president feels that our partner needs us at this particular time in her life, or that we need her.

Let me end with a personal experience. I was once assigned to a sister from Utah whose husband had been transferred to New England. She made it very clear to all that she didn't want to be there and she put up a wall of unfriendliness that made it hard to get to know her, but each month I would prayerfully visit her in hopes that a friendship might develop.
One day I had finally gotten my two preschool children in for naps and had a canner full of tomatoes on the stove when I got a prompting to visit Sister -. What a time to get a prompting!! I thought to myself, "I'll go as soon as these tomatoes are done and I can let the boys sleep a little longer." The prompting came again, "Go Now!" Still I resisted. "I will call her instead, to see if she is O.K." Her line was busy each time I tried. I got the impression her phone was off the hook.
The prompting said, "GO NOW." So I sighed, turned off the burners, woke up my children and drove to her house feeling really dumb and sure she would think I was crazy.

When the sister answered the door, she burst into tears. She then explained to me that she had been feeling particularly lonely and discouraged that afternoon.. She had bitterly poured out her heart to the Lord saying she was convinced that He really didn't even know that she existed. And then I showed up on her doorstep.

Because I was willing to simply obey a prompting, a dear daughter of God knew the Lord was mindful of her. I cherish this experience of being an instrument in the Lord's hands, as a visiting teacher. Just sign me, A sister with a testimony of visiting teaching.

How right you are. And how blessed we are as women, with sisters like you who are tuned in to the spirit, and thus usable by the Lord. He answers so many of our prayers through others-- thank you for being one of them.

You’ll appreciate the following letter:

Visiting Teaching and Home teaching are opportunities to "get up in the middle of conference and go to Martin's Cove." We have been called to build up the kingdom, not add to some statistical report. These reports have their place because you can get a good deal of useful information from such data- such as whether people in the ward talking to one another and so on. But the real reason for VT and HT is to give service and become like Christ, and by so doing, we build up His kingdom.

I am in my own Martin's Cove right now. My VT and HT don't have a clue about my life because it "ain't exactly Ensign Quality." That seems to be the way VT and HT are today. In order to survive I have taken another road in fulfilling my duties as a VT. I am very selfish, I like getting it done early in the month so I can go as a friend during the rest of the month to those sisters that I have been "assigned". That is my way of getting around, past, and through the stigma of an "assigned friendship".

I wish my own VTs felt this way but I have not waited for this to happen. I have been "assigned" to a 92-year-old new member of the church. What a blessing she is in my life. Today I went and spent three hours with her on her birthday while her daughter (her primary care giver) was at work, talking about her friends, and family, funerals and memories, J Scott Featherstone's great work HALLELUJAH (story of Handel's Messiah and about as long as Harry Potter), looked at pictures of her home and friends that she had to move from in her old age, old church and new church, and so on. We just had a blast. As I left to go home she kissed me goodbye and told me she loved me. This truly warmed my heart and lifted my soul off the wintry ground of my own suffering. A rescue was being made.

I should have been home working ( I am self employed and in today's tough market, no minutes can be wasted in the pursuit of the all mighty dollar- it might mean your mortgage or car insurance won't get paid!!) It is after midnight and I still feel the glow of the day. I feel ready once again to face my own trials in my own Martin's Cove. I know Heavenly Father gave us Visiting Teaching to sustain us. And the beauty of it is, that it comes in two ways. If we are lucky enough to have VTs who want to bear one another's burdens, they will help build the kingdom and sustain themselves in their own journey through Martin's Cove. And as I serve others as a friend and anxious rescuer, I build the kingdom by helping to bring them out of their Martin's Cove, and I am sustained and delivered from mine. I know this works. I have a personal testimony of Visiting Teaching because of what it has accomplished in my life.

Amen. You’ve said it all, and the Spirit rings from your letter. Here’s another success story:

I would just like to tell you about my first real experience with a visiting teacher who truly changed my life. I was married very young and I had my first child before my first wedding anniversary. I have been a member since I was 8 years of age and had always thought that I was a good Mormon. I ended up marrying a non-member. After we were married he became a member. We lived in a ward where numbers meant more than anything. Soon we were starting to fall away. We had moved from my home to my husband’s territory. I had left my entire life long support group behind. I was now all alone in a ward in the gospel where I should have been able to feel all of the love and support I had left.

Well, a few years went by and we were totally inactive. We had moved into a new home and a new ward. I wasn’t very inclined to reactivate because of fear and laziness. One day I received a note in the mail. All it said was “Hi my name is so and so and I am your visiting teacher. I know you don’t know me but I would like to get to know you. If you would like to have me visit here is my number.”. Well I was pretty sure that would be the end of it because I wasn’t going to call her.

The next month, however, there was a flower on my doorstep. The next month it was a plate of cookies. I guess she finally broke me down because the next month I was actually home when she came by and I let her in. She never did give me the message for that month or for the next few months but she always came and shared her time with me. One day she asked if my two children would like to go to Primary. I thought, Wow-- three hours of free childcare on a Sunday, why not? So for the next year she would come and visit me and on Sunday take my two small children to church.

At that time things in my marriage were not going well and I knew that something had to change. I decided to go to church. I thought just one Sunday couldn’t hurt. My children were very excited that I was going, but my husband was less than supportive. I realized that I couldn’t please everyone and I needed to start pleasing myself. Well to make a very long story short that was five years ago. My husband and I are now active members; our family is sealed in the temple; and we have two more children who were born in the covenant. I now take visiting teaching very seriously. You never know when that extra touch may change the course of someone’s life for the better. Had I not had a very loving sister I don’t think that I could have gotten over the guilt and fear to come back to the Lord. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my story and I hope that it can help someone else. Thank You. Very Gratefully, Rachael I Nys

Hillsboro Ward, Beaverton Oregon West Stake

It really works, doesn’t it? An inactive sister wrote the following:

Thank you for this wonderful article. I hope it will inspire ALL visiting sisters to put the pure love of Christ into their assignment. As an inactive sister, my visiting "Sister" is my life line that keeps me connected to the Church. She has to work hard to catch me at home because of my work schedule but she never fails. I can truly feel her love for me when we share time together, or when she calls me or even though her emails. I am so grateful for this wonderful program and pray that someday soon I will receive this calling again. Please have your wonderful husband write an article like this for ALL the home teachers, mine haven't been here since Christmas.

Marie Burnett, Gonzales, La.

And I just know you’ll be a fantastic VT, too.

Our last letter gives some great advice-- as women, we often hesitate to speak up, but that’s often exactly what’s needed:

I loved this article because it exposes both the misconceptions and the real purpose of visiting teaching. Being a VT is my favorite calling, because it means I get to know sisters I'd never otherwise think of being friends with. Visiting teaching IS about service, and it's about something much more fundamental in the gospel: creating a Zion society. We can't ever become Zion as a church if we don't know and love one another. I think it's tragic that we have to be assigned to do this because we're all too busy trying to keep our individual families and lives together.

But I don't think there's a better solution now, and won't be until more members in general come to view home and visiting teaching as so much more than a checklist or additional burden on the schedules. Until we all catch the vision that visiting teaching is one of the vital links to making the Church a Zion society, being on someone's checklist is what we'll have to put up with. Or not.

What I would suggest to Sister Anonymous is to be obnoxious enough with her VTs to wake them up: actually disclose some of the milder challenges she's facing and say, "Hey, I need some help with this one." Sometimes the visit-ees have to make their visiting or home teachers do their jobs by giving them something to do that will make it impossible for them only to check the name off the list. I haven't had to do that with my VTs very often, but ALWAYS have to do it with my home teachers. You have to make them feel needed sometimes, because they won't always see what their your needs are. Things have changed a lot in my relationship with VTs or HTs that I've done that with. Don't expect them to see your needs or have the Spirit tell them. That's what we have mouths for. Be assertive! Ask for help if you need it! It'll give them an opportunity to make a choice as to whether or not they want to care about you. And if they don't, then it's their problem, and you can ask for new VTs.

Sue Neimoyer

Good advice, Sue. Too many of us don’t say anything, and then fume or pout afterwards. It’s crazy, when you think about it. We would all do well to follow your suggestions.

Last, I want to applaud the efforts of some wards around the world who are experimenting with flexible visiting teaching methods that let sisters handle huge geographic areas more easily. For example, one sister wrote about a monthly get-together similar to a women’s retreat, when they could all join to support each other and share testimonies. I wonder if a “Sisters’ Camp” wouldn’t be a great idea in other remote areas, or even church-wide!

Thanks to everyone for your great responses-- I wish we could have used them all. Be sure to sound off next week when I’ll share a reader’s ethical dilemma with you.

Click here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.