Why visiting teaching is hard...and easy...

I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting today about the blessings of visiting teaching.  I started preparing my talk a week ago, but was having a bit of a mental block, so I decided to write the following blog post instead:

Visiting teaching is like a calling tree for service.  It's the framework that provides a structure of stewardship among the women of our church.  Each sister in the congregation is paired up with a partner and the two of them work as a team to look after a handful of other women in the church.  The idea is that everyone is watching over someone, and in turn being watched over by someone else.  We are encouraged to visit with our assigned sisters in their homes at least once a month, share a spiritual message, provide a listening ear, and offer support and service as needed.  Then report any needs to the Relief Society president who then reports to the bishop of the congregation.

It all sounds so wonderful, doesn't it?  And it really is.  So wonderful, in fact, that every visiting teaching message in 2012 has been about visiting teaching...and every general relief society meeting since 1842 has talked about visiting teaching, and though I haven't been to relief society very much over the last 10 years due to serving in other auxiliaries, the lessons I have made it to have always mentioned something visiting teaching.  It's a subject that is continually being drummed into the sisters of the church for two reasons: 1-because it is so important, and 2-because there are some particularly hard-headed individuals that don't seem to get it the first hundred times they hear it.  I am one of those individuals.  While I do believe that visiting teaching is an inspired program, and a wonderful opportunity to do the Lord's work, I must admit that visiting teaching has been a real challenge for me.  I have not had the best track record with visiting teaching, and I can say that it is something that I have really wrestled with the Lord over for a number of years.
 
I remember receiving my first visiting teaching when I was a freshman at Rick's College (now BYU-Idaho).  My companion was a freshly returned sister missionary, on fire with the spirit of service, duty and calling magnification.  She was my trainer when it came to visiting teaching.  She taught me that we should always dress in church clothes when we are in the service of God, and that we should prepare in advance with study and prayer.  We would meet at one of our apartments before our visits, kneel in our Sunday best, pray for guidance, and then take a freshly baked plate of goodies a whole twenty yards to the sister down the hall.  That was when visiting teaching was new and exciting.  It came easily, felt natural and fun.  I had time and energy to socialize, fewer responsibilities, and more interest in small talk.  I had the confidence of a young college student, with an older, experienced companion to lead the way.  That was my golden day of visiting teaching.

It's hard to really pinpoint when visiting teaching really went downhill for me.  I think maybe that when I married my best friend, I began to think that I didn't really need my "assigned" friends anymore.  Then I had my first baby, and while I'm sure I was grateful for the meals that were brought over by my visiting teachers, I certainly didn't want anyone coming into my home and seeing what a disaster it had become overnight.  With each consecutive child we welcomed into our home, I felt my time and energy become more and more strained.  My work load increased, and my confidence wavered.  Somewhere along the line, I became a bit of a social recluse.  I began to resent my "assigned" friends.  I wanted real friends, people who loved me because they wanted to, not because someone told them to.  Often, I felt so overwhelmed with the things that I needed to do each day, that I couldn't see how I could possibly find time or energy for visiting teachers.  Who has time to visit when there's not even time to go grocery shopping or catch up on laundry?  There were days when I hadn't even found a moment to sit and really look at my children's faces when instead I turned and shouted at them to hurry and pick up the house before the visiting teachers came, and then shushed them while I tried to make small talk and have a "spiritual" moment with my assigned fake friends.  It felt so backward.  So not how it was intended.

Then there came a time when my real, best friend was assigned to be my visiting teacher.  It should have been the most natural thing in the world, but it wasn't.  Our visits that used to be relaxed and comfortable were now official business, and now there was some other woman sitting in on our conversation.  I was fully aware that the attitude I had developed about visiting teaching had nothing to do with the sisters that visited me.  These were good, Christian women who were doing their godly duty and acting out of Christlike love.  It was my own insecurity, business and pride that I had turned into resentment toward visiting teaching.  My anxiety about the visits grew.  I would dread phone calls, avoid people at church, and try to find excuses to get out of visiting teaching appointments.  Knowing that an upcoming visit was scheduled would put me in a bad mood all day.  I began to think that something must really be wrong with me.  These women only wanted to fulfill their calling.  What was my problem?  Then I would get angry with myself for my bad attitude.  I felt guilty for being so negative.  When I was tired of feeling guilty, I would begin to rationalize, "If their job is to serve me, and it's causing me this much anxiety, then I should just tell them not to come.  When they ask if there is anything I need, I should tell them--Yes!  I need to be left alone!" 

With this cancerous, negative attitude brewing in my gut, you can imagine now how going out and doing my visiting teaching became equally difficult.  While I truly do have a desire to obey, serve and do the Lord's work, I can't help but wonder if the sisters I visit feel the same way about visiting teaching as I did.  Are they scrambling to pick up messes before I knock on the door?  Have they been dreading the appointment for days?  Are they avoiding eye contact with me at church?  Am I really doing them a service?  Or just causing them added stress with my visits?  How can I fulfill my assignment if I don't have a testimony of the work? 

About a year and a half ago, I was given a new visiting teacher.  Imagine in your mind the most humble, selfless, soft-spoken, loving, unpretentious, sincere and charitable woman you have ever met.  That was my visiting teacher.  Did I admire her?  Yes.  Did I want her in my home.  Not a chance.  I wasn't even afraid that she would judge me.  I knew she wouldn't.  Maybe I was afraid we wouldn't have anything to talk about, or that her goodness would make my badness that much more apparent to myself and others.  After much deliberation, I finally decided that I was just too tired of pretending.  If not wanting visiting teachers made me a bad Mormon, then so be it.  I'm a bad Mormon.  But, so help me, I was going to be honest and just tell that sweet woman not to come to my house.  I carefully composed my message to her, trying to explain my feelings in a way that would be the least offensive, explaining that it was my problem, not hers, but that I really just wanted my privacy, and needed to be left alone at home.  I would be more than happy to see her at church on Sunday.  I sent the message and immediately felt guilty.  What kind of person rejects the most Christlike woman in the ward?  I might as well have rejected Christ himself.

Sister Hale was relentless.  In her unwavering desire to do the Lord's work, she gently pursued me.  She suggested at first that maybe we meet at her house instead of mine.  She offered to teach me to make yogurt, which I had absolutely no interest in whatsoever, but was grateful to have something to do rather than just make awkward small talk.  I felt relief in knowing that she knew how I felt, and was still willing to love me.  Slowly, I began to soften, and felt a real desire to find my own testimony of visiting teaching.

I was reminded of the pioneers, (why are they always the answer to everything?) and all they were asked to sacrifice in an effort to build the kingdom of God.  They left behind homes, family, friends, and wealth.  They lost children, body parts, sometimes their own lives.  I too, have made covenants to sacrifice my time and talents in an effort to build the Kingdom of God.  But instead of pushing a handcart through the snow or selling everything off to build a temple, I've been asked to endure a couple of visits a month in the comfort of a warm house.  It really should not be that hard.  I just have to do it.

President Boyd K. Packer once said that the testimony is found in the bearing of it.  In my case, the testimony of visiting teaching came in the doing of it.  This past January, I made a new year's resolution.  I committed to do my visiting teaching every month for an entire year.  And when my visiting teachers wanted to schedule an appointment with me, I would receive them willingly, and never scramble to clean my house for them.  This was something I could do.  If visiting teaching is my opportunity to serve an obey the Lord, then I will do it.  We have been promised that obedience brings blessings.  I may not think that I need visiting teachers, but heaven knows that I do need blessings.  And I'm willing to do what it takes to claim them. 

The Lord blessed me with a wonderful companion this year who supported me in my goal.  Together, we worked to find time in our busy schedules to visit the wonderful sisters on our route.  I found that my attitude changed as I began to see visiting teaching as more than a social network.  Visiting teaching is missionary work.  This month's visiting teaching message stated, "Visiting teaching gives women the opportunity to watch over, strengthen, and teach one another--it is truly a work of salvation.  Through visiting teaching, sisters minister in behalf of the Savior and help prepare women for the blessings of eternal life." 

I want to serve.  I want to obey.  But service and obedience only work if we do them with a good attitude.  Elder Quentin L. Cook said, "If we rejoice in what we have, if we feel joy and express it, we are happier.  We do what the Lord wants us to do, we become better people, and by association those around us--our children and friends and neighbors--are happier.  Joy is the key.  As we share the joy of the gospel, we accomplish what the Lord wants us to accomplish."  I knew I needed to change my attitude about visiting teaching, and the key to changing that attitude was to see the reason behind the commandment.

My visiting teachers weren't just assigned to be my new best friends, nor was I simply assigned to check up on others.  Visiting teaching is intense spiritual exercise that helps us all become more Christlike when we take the opportunity to minister as Jesus did--individually, in the home.  We aren't only serving one another, we are also serving our Father in Heaven-- bringing souls to Him.  I might not always know the best way to serve others, or even recognize what service I might need, but Heavenly Father does know, and because He has given his children stewardship over one another, we are entitled to His guidance.  He will help us help each other.  I truly believe that the ability to recognize and follow promptings from the Holy Ghost is one of the greatest talents we can develop.  What better opportunity do we have to practice that talent than through visiting teaching? 

Visiting teaching brings many blessings--some more obvious than others.  This past week, I did a quick survey with the sisters I visit, and asked them what their biggest blessings from visiting teaching have been.  They all mentioned that they were grateful for the friendships they had found through visiting teaching.  Visiting teaching offers such a great opportunity to get to know new sisters--many times people that we might not have thought we could have anything in common with.  I have gotten to know a different side of many women, and have learned more from the ladies I visit than I ever hoped to teach them.  I am grateful for the friendships formed through visiting teaching.  These women truly are my sisters. 

The most important blessing I feel I have received through my experience with visiting teaching, is the reminder that hearts are changeable.  We all struggle with something.  It might be visiting teaching, regular church attendance, maybe a calling we find difficult to fulfill, addictions we fight to overcome.  If we desire to be better, the Lord will help us change.  But it takes time and patience.  We are perfected in Christ gradually--line upon line--not all at once.  We never know how the things we say or do will affect others.  My visiting teacher couldn't have known how her example and humble efforts to reach out to me would soften my heart and help me want to change.  But the Lord knew us both, and because she was faithful, even after I told her to leave me alone, He was able to use her to reach my heart.  In like manner, I believe the Lord can use each one of us to reach our brothers and sisters.  Be humble.  Be prayerful.  Be teachable.  Have faith in yourself and others.  Trust that the Lord is at work.  He needs us to work together to help one other get back home to Him.

President Brigham Young said, "Let us have compassion upon each other, and let those who are strong tenderly nurse the weak into strength, and let those who can see guide the blind until they can see the way for themselves."  Sometimes I will be the strong one nursing the weak, and other times I will be the weak one who needs nursing.  The point is, we need to see one another as God sees us, and recognize that weaknesses--in ourselves and in others--can become strengths.   

I no longer wonder whether or not I'm going to do my visiting teaching each month.  I've made a commitment to it.  I already know I'm going to do it.  Now it's just a matter of pulling out the calendar, picking up the phone and making it happen.  I also look forward to receiving my visiting  teachers.  They are Christ's messengers.  I would not want to reject my Savior if he came to visit my home.  Why would I reject His servants?