October 2013 Visiting Teaching Message

"The Divine Mission of Jesus Christ: Creator"

Prayerfully study this material and seek to know what to share with the sisters you visit. How will understanding the life and mission of the Savior increase your faith in Him and bless those you watch over through visiting teaching?

This is the first in a series of Visiting Teaching Messages featuring aspects of the mission of the Savior

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Jesus Christ “created the heavens and the earth” (3 Nephi 9:15). He did so through the power of the priesthood, under the direction of our Heavenly Father (see Moses 1:33).

 

“How grateful we should be that a wise Creator fashioned an earth and placed us here,” said President Thomas S. Monson, “… that we might experience a time of testing, an opportunity to prove ourselves in order to qualify for all that God has prepared for us to receive.”¹ When we use our agency to obey God’s commandments and repent, we become worthy to return to live with Him.

 

Of the Creation, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, said:

“We are the reason He created the universe! … “This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God.”² Knowing that Jesus Christ created the earth for us because we mean everything to Heavenly Father can help us increase our love for Them.

From the Scriptures

John 1:3; Hebrews 1:1–2; Mosiah 3:8; Moses 1:30–33, 35–39; Abraham 3:24–25

From Our History

We have been created in God’s image (see Moses 2:26–27), and we have divine potential. The Prophet Joseph Smith admonished the sisters in Relief Society to “live up to [their] privilege.”³ With that encouragement as a foundation, sisters in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been taught to live up to their divine potential by fulfilling God’s purposes for them. “As they come to understand who they really are—God’s daughters, with an innate capacity to love and nurture—they reach their potential as holy women.”⁴

“You are now placed in a situation where you can act according to those sympathies which God has planted in your bosoms,” said the Prophet Joseph Smith. “If you live up to these principles how great and glorious!—if you live up to your privilege, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.”⁵

What Can I Do?

1. How does seeking to understand our divine nature increase our love for the Savior?
2. How can we show our gratitude for God’s creations?

July 2013 Visiting Teaching Message

Teaching and Learning the Gospel

Faith, Family, Relief

     Jesus Christ was a master teacher. He set the example for us as He “taught women in multitudes and as individuals, on the street and by the seashore, at the well and in their homes. He showed loving-kindness toward them and healed them and their family members.”¹

     He taught Martha and Mary and “invited them to become His disciples and partake of salvation, ‘that good part’ [Luke 10:42] that would never be taken from them.”²

     In our latter-day scriptures, the Lord commanded us to “teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom” (D&C 88:77). Of teaching and learning doctrine, Cheryl A. Esplin, second counselor in the Primary general presidency, said, “Learning to fully understand the doctrines of the gospel is a process of a lifetime and comes ‘line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little’ (2 Nephi 28:30).”³

     As we learn, study, and pray, we will teach with the power of the Holy Ghost, who will carry our message “unto the hearts of the children of men [and women]” (2 Nephi 33:1).

From the Scriptures

Alma 17:2–3; 31:5; Doctrine and Covenants 42:12–13; 84:85

From Our History

     Our past prophets have reminded us as women that we have an important role as teachers in the home and Church. In September 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) asked us to become “sister scriptorians.” He said: “Become scholars of the scriptures—not to put others down, but to lift them up! After all, who has any greater need to ‘treasure up’ the truths of the gospel (on which they may call in their moments of need) than do women and mothers who do so much nurturing and teaching?”⁴

     We are all teachers and learners. When we teach from the scriptures and the words of our living prophets, we can help others come unto Christ. When we engage in the learning process by asking meaningful questions and then listening, we can find answers that meet our personal needs.

What Can I Do?

1.   How am I preparing to be a better teacher?

2.   Do I share my testimony with the sisters I watch over?

June 2013 Visiting Teaching

Joy in Family History

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Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has taught that the Spirit of Elijah is “a manifestation of the Holy Ghost bearing witness of the divine nature of the family.”¹

As members of Christ’s restored Church, we have the covenant responsibility to search for our ancestors and provide for them the saving ordinances of the gospel. They without us cannot “be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40), and “neither can we without our dead be made perfect” (D&C 128:15).

Family history work prepares us for the blessings of eternal life and helps us increase our faith and personal righteousness. Family history is a vital part of the mission of the Church and enables the work of salvation and exaltation for all.

President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said: “When we research our own lines we become interested in more than just names. … Our interest turns our hearts to our fathers—we seek to find them and to know them and to serve them.”²

From the Scriptures

Malachi 4:5–6; 1 Corinthians 15:29; D&C 124:28–36; 128:15

From Our History

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead.”³ We can serve as proxy in the temple for our deceased ancestors and perform necessary ordinances for them.

Sally Randall of Nauvoo, Illinois, whose 14-year-old son died, found great comfort in the promise of eternal families. After her husband was baptized for their son, she wrote to her relatives: “What a glorious thing it is that we … can be baptized for all of our dead [ancestors] and save them as far back as we can get any knowledge of them.” Then she asked her relatives to send her information on their ancestors, saying, “I intend to do what I can to save [our family].”⁴

What Can I Do?

1. How can I help the sisters I watch over to do family history?
2. Am I recording my personal history?

March 2013 Visiting Teaching Message

 Activation

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Our prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, has encouraged us to “reach out to rescue those who need our help and lift them to the higher road and the better way. … It is the Lord’s work, and when we are on the Lord’s errand, … we are entitled to the Lord’s help.”¹

February 2013 Visiting Teaching Message

Converted unto the Lord

 

Faith, Family, Relief

New sisters of the Church—including Young Women entering Relief Society, sisters returning to activity, and new converts—need the support and friendship of visiting teachers. “Member involvement is vital to convert retention and in bringing less-active members back into full activity,” said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “Capture the vision that the Relief Society … can become [one of] the most powerful friendshipping resource[s] we have in the Church. Reach out early to those being taught and reactivated, and love them into the Church through your organization.”¹

 

 

January 2013 Visiting Teaching Message

Missionary Work

We don’t need a formal mission call to share the gospel. ...

When the Prophet Joseph Smith organized the Relief Society in 1842, he said that the women were not only to look after the poor but also to save souls.¹ This is still our purpose.

 

“The Lord … entrusts a testimony of the truth to those who will share it with others,” said President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency. “Even more, the Lord expects the members of His Church to ‘open [their mouths] at all times, declaring [His] gospel with the sound of rejoicing’ (D&C 28:16). … Sometimes a single phrase of testimony can set events in motion that affect someone’s life for eternity.”²