I heard a story of a woman who’s visiting teachers were supposed to come on the last day of the month. Unfortunately, she developed a migraine that day, and texted them not to come because she was not feeling well. One responded “We’re bringing you lunch!” She told her that wouldn’t be necessary. “We’re bringing you dinner then!” She responded her husband was on a diet, and she was fine, and should count the thought as having attempted the visit. FINALLY, they got the hint.
What kind of home/visiting teacher are you? What stories do you have to tell?
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Wheat & Tares 
Our Stake has implemented a new strategy to do HT/Vt-we don’t go and count it but have the missionaries do it and we count that-I have to get who they visited every month and that gets counted. We get assignments but it isn’t counted so I just talk to whomever I am supposed to. I don’t know how it’s going stake wide but we were told in ward council not to go out and visit, the missionaries can do that
I hate the whole system. Just hate it. If there was a way I could opt out from it I’d be all over that. Sadly, it seems that we are here to serve the program and not the other way around.
Whizzbang, you make me glad my son didn’t serve a mission. Didn’t know that was possible.
Handle, that was my mission! If we didn’t visit someone that week, it was a guarantee they wouldn’t be at church sunday. it’s were I realized it’s just babysitting adults: hi, we see you. Come visit us! You always get the “you are the bishops eyes and ears” but that’s not true at all.
Whizzbang, I think this is the sort shenanigans that focuses on numbers, rather than people. In my stake the past 2 Decembers, the stake presidency wanted to be able to report 100% home teaching for the month. So their solution was to find out who hadn’t been home taught by the 15th of the month. Then they required the EQ and HP group leaderships to visit everyone who had not been visited, usually by dropping off a food item and calling it a visit. While I can see some sense of value in using missionaries or EQ/HP group leadership, it also seems to me that this is a way for the stake presidency to “look good” for the Area Authorities, and is really just a manipulation of the program. I’m also glad I wasn’t in leadership that had to visit all those families, because I am sure it was a real strain on them during the holiday season, and really quite unfair to these leaders’ families.
December and July are the 2 hardest months for me to do home teaching because there are so many holiday and family celebrations during those two months.
whizzbang: I can see where missionaries might receive a request from a bishop to visit certain families, but your stake program seems to me to be missing the mark. For priesthood brethren, home teaching is spoken of in three different verses of D&C 20 as a duty. We don’t even refer to it as a calling in our ward, it is considered as part of the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. Some of the greatest friends I’ve had in my life I’ve made through home teaching visits, and I would sorely miss the privilege of doing it each month. I cherished the years I was able to go with my son and I know it helped him prepare for his mission.
I find it sad that Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching is seen as a chore and something that has to be done whether we like it or not. The importance of these programs is lost on the majority of members. Not everyone has a bunch of friends. A lot of members are homebound. My husband was just diagnosed with a debilitating degenerative muscular disease. He will be homebound in a few short years. We are both 50 years old. We really do not have any close friends. I was always taking care of a parent and had no time for myself. We have a crappy ward and HT and VT is almost nonexistent. (Actually, where we live the majority of the people, LDS and non LDS are crappy. There are a few exceptions) No one from my ward has bothered to help us out and they know I have ruptured discs and can’t do anything. When my mother moved into a new ward,(different state than me) it was an awful ward with a horrible Bishop. No one in that ward did their HT and VT with my mother, who has Alzheimer’s.
I know that keeping track and using numbers and manipulating numbers to look good is bad. But how else are ward leaders going to know just how many people are being reached, looked after, and finding out who could really use help (in good wards).
What really ticks me off are people who were my Home and Visiting Teachers acted like they did not know me as soon as they were no longer assigned to me, and would not speak to me at church when they were assigned to me.
Here is a good example of what I am talking about.
My neighbor, a single mother, broke her leg February 1, 2015. I took her to the hospital, stayed with her, got her pain meds, etc, etc. Two weeks after breaking her leg she had surgery to pin the break. I took her to the hospital, stayed, took her home, got her pain meds, got her food, etc, etc, etc. She is not LDS. I do not know what church she attends. I have been helping her everyday since the break. And I have two ruptured discs and in pain myself. No one, not one person from her church has come to check on her, bring in meals, or help her in any way. She will not be able put any weight on her leg for sixteen weeks after the surgery. Her only child, a thirteen year old boy, is not any help. I have to bite my tongue when I am helping her. That kid has problems.
If she were LDS (and if she had a good ward) she would have the help she needs. No other religion has our programs where members (should, regardless of cliques and with the desire to honestly) help and serve one another.
When my Catholic uncle passed away,my aunt had no Catholic member or church support what so ever. No one from her church helped her with anything.
I have a 76 year old neighbor, Baptist, with Parkinson’s disease, who I have been helping everyday since June 2014. I ruptured my discs helping her. Her family is a mess and take advantage of other peoples generosity. They are taking advantage of my help. She quit going to her Baptist church because the Preacher came to her house and declared her saved. When her husband passed away December 2014, no one from her church came to see her,no friends, no one. Last week I took her to see her granddaughter who used to be married to a man who was raised LDS but no longer believed. The granddaughter told my neighbor that they need to get the Mormons to help move my neighbor because, quote, “that is what the Mormons do”. They did not mention asking the Baptists, or anyone else. The granddaughter does not know I am LDS. I chimed in and said why not ask the Baptists to help move her, after all she is Baptist. My neighbor said she doubted if anyone would help. The kicker is my neighbor and her husband would always say disparaging remarks about the church. Of course I would chew them out about their remarks.
We are fortunate the church has HT and VT but no one sees it in that light. No one sees it as a blessing to have.
So yes, it is maddening to me, that members do not understand the importance of Home and Visiting Teaching, complain about it, and don’t do it, or rush at the end of the month to get it done. And not only that, the ones who do go out and visit do not make a sincere effort to get to know the people they are assigned to and do not make any effort to become friends or show any interest. Yes, I try to befriend those who I am assigned to, but I am rebuffed because I am not in their clique or do not associate with, or know the right people.
It is sad that as a whole, the membership of the church has become like all other religions, Sunday only Christians.
Does anyone else wish they could opt-out of being home-taught? I haven’t really had any meaningful experiences with it, so I’d just as well relieve my “assigned friends” and free up the time and people to visit others.
(I’m a male YSA, for perspective.)
I have seen many bright and shining benefits from good HT/VT. Plenty of other times it has been less than exemplary. Our family has been greatly blessed in the past 7 years by several great home teachers and visiting teachers. Our kids still talk with one former HT all the time at church. Even my own meager efforts have benefited some people that I have served.
I asked to not have VT a year ago. It has been bliss. No more hour long sits on my sofa while people I don’t know have conversations with each other about their lives.
You can opt out of HT and VT. In almost all wards if you simply ask to have your name removed from the HT/VT list they will comply. They may question or conjole in some places, but in most they will simply express disappointment and move on. The wards where that doesn’t happen its just creepy.
EG I am sorry for your experiences. I know for myself it is really hard for me to get my VT done mostly because it is difficult to align all the schedules. I also have young children who demand a lot of time. VT would be a lot easier if we were actually paired with people who had similar schedules and lived within a reasonable distance.
I like home and visiting teaching. There are a million ways for it to go wrong, but I think it’s worth trying to get it right. That said, I don’t really look forward to our current HT’s visits. But I have such good memories of other ones, so I try to cooperate with the whole enterprise. I like visiting teaching even though it’s “assigning friends.”
Sorry, want to add: In saying the above, I’m not denying that sometimes the programs and people fail miserably. But I have a soft spot in my heart for these assignments because they’re what brought my parents into the church in a roundabout way. The consistent kindness extended to them compelled them to find its source.
#8 – Look out yer window for airborne swine, b/c we agree in spades! I too in 35+ of Church membership have detested HT/VT as a ‘make work’ program and reliance on “100%” as a measure of the faith of the members. Just shows what happens when we let the Church, which is what the LORD instituted for HIS people, get “corporate” and be about the membership serving the institution instead of vice versa. Fortunately, most ward leadership that I’ve dealt with over the years have been ‘real’.
I’ve had varied experiences with visiting teachers. (Home teachers have almost always been nonexistent, at least as a YSA). I’m grateful for the VTs I have right now. I’ve found that I actually prefer to make visits by myself; I like talking to my sisters one on one.
Visiting teaching is one of the most important programs of the Church–I think it’s where much of the real Christlike service and community can be built. Making it into a numbers game is useless. It must be grown in the heart.
being a VT was a privileged and having a VT was a blessing. Even when awkward it still built my faith greatly as no other church even attempted to. Same with missionary check ins.
As a nonactive member I really appreciate the outreach. It sustains my faith. We don’t attend as hubby lost his testimony (that’s putting it lightly).
Despite few in leadership (ward, stake, SLC) grasping it and despite the “scriptural” origins (“watch over and observe compliance”–to paraphrase the D&C), VT/HT can be of real value to individuals and to a ward.
That real value is for VT/HTchers to serve as support and friends. It doesn’t always become that, maybe not even in more than 20% to 40% of pairings. However, it does in enough for the effort to be continued. Monthly lessons or messages are largely an impediment to friendship because the tone and ambiance of visits become more like a class/sermon and not just a simple visit to see what has been going on in one anothers’ lives.
The highest and best purpose/value of a ward is to become a “community” of mutual support and friendship. Rules, structure, process, organizations, ordinances, covenants, and keys are mere means or ceremonial mechanisms to help us feel motivated to live and become more Christ-like. Becoming friends with our “brothers and sisters” (distancing terms that should be avoided!) undergirds and furthers the sense of community.
fbisti,
“That real value is for VT/HTchers to serve as support and friends…. Monthly lessons or messages are largely an impediment to friendship because the tone and ambiance of visits become more like a class/sermon and not just a simple visit to see what has been going on in one anothers’ lives.”
I agree completely. My wife has enjoyed most VTers because they usually become good friends. However, her current VT visits each month with a companion, and then they leave my wife out of the conversation when they visit, and ignore her at church. So the visit is meaningless, feels fake, feels like a numbers game, and my wife actually wondered if she should ask for a different set that actually befriend her.
Personally, I haven’t enjoyed most home teachers, and would rather be left alone rather than have them visit. On the other hand, I see value in home teaching. I did a post about a man with mental illness that I home taught for several years. At first it was really uncomfortable, and I’m a bit embarrassed at the apprehension I first had (although I think this guy went out of his way to make me uncomfortable too.) I persisted, and he called on me on several occasions to help him and his mother when they needed rides to the hospital and medical clinics. This man truly needed a home teacher, and truly got me out of my comfort zones. There was value in that, but I pretty much never gave the First Presidency message to him because it was never appropriate for him. Yet he pretty much always asked me to pray when I came to his house, pray for him when he and his mother were ill, and it is probably the only time I’ve felt truly needed as a home teacher.
There was another family that I just clicked with. I never knew them prior to becoming his home teacher, but he invited me rock climbing (once was enough for me), and our families used to get together frequently. We are still dear friends even though I am not his home teacher any more.
But often I get people I have nothing in common with, and have trouble connecting with. So leaders play numbers games to get the numbers up. We can’t always connect with people, but it is nice when we can.
Most awkward home teaching visit:
Hubby and I were talking (and just talking) in bed on a lazy Sunday. We knew home teachers were coming, but they were a little early. When the doorbell rang, kids invited them in while I rushed to throw on a cardigan (had taken it off after church and was wearing a sleeveless shell over Gs) and hubby jumped into the shower because he had to go to work immediately after their visit. Kids knocked on our bedroom to announce the visitors and I much too adamantly ordered them NOT to come in — since in our little apartment I would be right in the line of vision of the HTers (scandalously sleeveless) but for the bedroom door.
I can only imagine what it looked like to them when I came out adjusting my clothes, bedhead, with my husband in the shower. I am pretty sure I had a red face while I tried to make small talk and pretend it didn’t look like what it totally looked like.
I’d like to know why the women have to report their Visiting Teaching but the male Home Teachers do not.
mem, it is routinely known that womens VT numbers are better than mens HT numbers. If men aren’t reporting the numbers, no wonder they are so bad. (I’m not sure why you think men don’t have to report.)