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I’ve always been intellectually supportive of the mission of Visiting Teaching. Actually making myself do it, or enjoy being on the receiving end- or ‘teachee,’ as it were- hasn’t come as naturally.
It actually wasn’t until recently when I learned that in the early days of the church, when members of the Relief Society went visiting, they were not only out providing service, they were collecting goods or funds for charitable use by the Relief Society. The retelling of how this went down is confusing in the recently published Daughters in My Kingdom book; in one paragraph we are told that Sister Amy Brown Lyman, the eighth Relief Society general president, proposed in 1944 that the sisters stop the collection of charitable funds and goods, but two paragraphs later Sister Belle S. Spafford, who was serving as Sister Lyman’s second counselor, is quoted as saying it was the Brethren who made the choice.
I imagine it was this time period that marked the beginning of the transition from a relief or charitable organization to an auxiliary. This was, as we know, accompanied by the loss of autonomy that has been widely discussed on the bloggernacle, in Dialogue and Sunstone.
Don’t get me wrong- in my Relief Society President days I put on some awesome Visiting Teaching Conferences, if I do say so myself. I do believe Visiting Teaching can be a vehicle for amazing, inspired, important service. I really like my current Visiting Teacher, to boot. But I do chafe at the ‘assigned friend’ aspect, and the actual ‘teaching’ aspect. When I really examine my feelings about presenting (or being presented) the lesson, it feels a little bit like propagandizing.
Today I did some visiting teaching, or at least some visiting. I had fun and was grateful my ‘teachee’ seemed happy to see me. I’ve apparently been ‘released’ as an official Visiting Teacher (no one ever asks me to report anymore, can’t say I miss that) so as has been my habit all along, I waited for inspiration to strike and then followed through. Today I actually knocked on a door, but sometimes I just pick up the phone and call people who are on my mind, or write them a note, an email or even a Facebook message. They aren’t necessarily members of my ward’s Relief Society, but somehow I think the angels are still silent note-taking.
What role has visiting teaching played in your life? Do you present the lesson, photocopy it, send a link? Do you try to provide a service? Do you love it, or do it out of a sense of duty? Do you enjoy receiving your Visiting Teachers-even if they bring unruly pre-schoolers with runny noses? If you aren’t a traditional Visiting Teacher, do you wait for inspiration to serve, or do you actively seek inspiration through prayer or other means? Do you think the Relief Society is living up to its potential, and is the Visiting Teaching program part of the success of the Relief Society in your ward or stake? Guys, your thoughts on Home Teaching are welcome as well.
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If I’m being honest here, I really despise visiting teaching. I always have. I don’t like being visited, and I don’t like doing the visiting. Helping others in need? I’m there. Talking to someone who needs it? I’m there. Donating time/materials? Done. Intruding on someone else’s life, whether they like or not, because I’m assigned to it? Yeah, not so much a fan.
I see visiting teaching as a training ground teaching Mormon women to become compassionate friends and neighbors. Of course, it doesn’t always work–or, in my case, works slowly and imperfectly. Still, it’s better than nothing. And even assigned friends can become real friends.
I think, the trite, repetitive–and yes, propagandizing messages get in the way of the real purpose of visiting teaching.
I guess I have a love – hate relationship with visiting teaching. There are times when I don’t want to be bothered with it but other times when it really helps someone out. I also think it takes work to develop a relationship with someone you don’t really relate with. Sometimes it can be fun to get to know someone you might not naturally be drawn towards. I have developed some great friendships with women I didn’t think I had anything in common with. On the other hand I don’t like to feel forced to visit someone who doesn’t want to see me. I also hate it when someone tries to force me to meet their time schedule. Lately it feels like I am visiting my friends and so we just talk about work and children. That’s the best.
I too don’t like the idea of assigned friends or the inordinate emphasis on percentages that I have seen in some wards and stakes, but at the base, one-on-one level, I love Visiting Teaching. I’m an introvert by nature and have sensory integration issues that make it difficult to get close to people sometimes (both physically and emotionally), and going into other people’s homes is difficult for me. However, as a young Relief Society president in Mississippi in the mid-70s I valued the visiting teachers in our little ward as my ears and eyes into a culture and people I couldn’t begin to understand on my own. Since then I have established some life-long friendships through VT, mostly with companions, which perhaps says something about the quality of my teaching. I now have just a letter route to women who are totally inactive in the Church. One of those sisters writes back to me pretty regularly and another stops to talk to me when I run into her around town. My biggest problem with VT is with being taught. I was recently assigned a visiting teacher who has been a friend for years. She always comes alone, and I enjoy her visits but don’t enjoy having the lesson. It seems so contrived. So mostly we just talk about our respective grandchildren, a pretty safe topic.
I am not a believer in visiting teaching. I think there are rare times when the planets align, so to speak, and someone happens to show up to “teach” just as someone “needs” some help. I’m sure that happens. However, in the vast scheme of things, with the potentially millions of visiting teaching visits happening every month church-wide (if we were all that diligent!), the great majority is pretty pointless. Almost every woman I know dreads the VT coming over, and equally dreads the “responsibility” to go to someone else’s home on assignment, while putting up the “I’m here because I love you” front.
I no longer participate in VT. If they want to assign someone to me, that’s fine, but I let them know right off that there is to be no lesson. I have no problem with their children coming to my home. I try to keep an open and inviting atmosphere in my home. I love to have friends over to visit. I am happy to visit, chat, share experiences and hopes and dreams, but will not put up with the reading-from-the-Ensign lessons. I have a great relationship with my current VTs, and believe it or not, I get the feeling they actually enjoy coming over, without that lesson aspect involved, as though they are teaching me something that I couldn’t just read on my own. I much prefer to keep my friends and me at the same level.
However, I wholeheartedly believe in inspiration. If I feel inspired that someone needs a visit from a friend, or a call, I’m there. I actually find it a whole lot easier to know what is really inspiration, without the whole assignment/duty factor involved. If I feel the need to serve, I do it, and I don’t account to anybody about it.
I believe we are in tune with those in our midst by nature. The desire to serve is already in us. Giving us the assignment to serve undermines our natural ability to discern our inspiration from mere duty. Once it is given as “work”, it also becomes a “chore” that can be procrastinated, forgotten, resented, and compulsory. Trusting people to simply follow their hearts makes the service pure and heartfelt and spontaneous.
So no, I don’t believe in Visiting Teaching.
I love the idea of Visiting Teaching, and sometimes I get a lot out of it. Mostly, this was when I was a college freshman, and my VT was the bishop’s wife, a fabulous woman with a great sense of humor and even better cooking skills. Instead of doing a formal “visit”, she would have me over to her house for a home-cooked meal, and send me back to my dorm with a plate of food, half a loaf of fresh-baked bread, and a thick slice of chocolate cake. Also great was my sophomore year VT, who just hung out in my dorm room with me and brought her toddler son, which was just fun. As for the more “official” visits, with presentations of the lesson and such, I’m not really down with that. It feels sort of stilted. Also, I am a terrible VT, so I would love to be let off the hook for this stuff, even though the women I VT could probably use the same sort of care that meant so much to me when I started college.
Came to your blog post through Reddit. You already know I am signing up to your rss feed.