Monday, December 23, 2013

Home (Teaching) For The Holidays...


In the culture where I live there's something called Home Teaching. It's part of our religion. Basically, Home Teaching is when each church member is assigned to visit a number of families in the congregation each month. Depending on where you live (and the activity rate of the group...), you might be assigned to one family or ten. It just depends.

If you are steadfast and faithful in this calling, you set up an appointment with the families in the first part of the month. We've been asked to visit our families before the middle of the month. That's the goal, anyway. Our responsibilities are to check with them and make sure they're okay. We should also deliver a spiritual message each month. Again, that's the goal.

Home Teaching gets a bad rap, sometimes. Many (like us...) seem to be scrambling as the end of the month arrives. There's a joke that goes something like this: "I only do my Home Teaching 10 times out of the year because I don't like to visit my families on Halloween and New Years Eve." 

Why do we do this? We are told we should be our brother's keeper, and neighbors constitute brothers, and sisters. Tonight my son and I loaded up the car with three loaves of homemade bread, so freshly baked they were still warm. Because I did not make appointments, we were 0 for 3. No one was home so we brought the bread back. We'll try again later. After all, we still have a week to go, and I'm not above visiting on New Years Eve.

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