The Visit That Taught Me the Most

I hesitate to tell this story.
I hesitate because I believe that Relief Society and Visiting Teaching are divinely inspired programs.
I don't want to create a misunderstanding about that.

For those of you who aren't church members and may not know about home and visiting teaching, let me give you a very brief Raggedy Old Convert's thumbnail sketch.

Every family in the church is assigned two home teachers. These home teachers are men. They are assigned to visit families.
Plus, every woman is also assigned two female visiting teachers.
Both of these sets of teachers are to visit members once a month to check on their physical and spiritual welfare, health, and happiness.
If there is a need then someone is close at hand to help.

As you can imagine, the logistics of this large an undertaking mean that almost everyone in the church is assigned to be a teacher to someone else. Assigned to love and look out for them.

Since the beginning, I think it's safe to say that millions of acts of service have taken place at the hands of teachers. Sometimes precious lifelong friendships have been born.
Countless meals have been brought to familes. Millions of houses have been cleaned. Cars have been fixed, children tended, jobs found, fences mended, furniture moved, lawnmowers loaned, rides to hospitals given, yards raked, hands held, tears dried, spirits lifted, hearts strengthened and courage bolstered.

These programs exist because Father officially wants us to love. He even gave us written instructions so we wouldn't forget. When we do anything in that spirit, miracles can happen. That includes visiting teaching.
I tell about one of those "love miracles" in an old post I wrote a long time ago called "Angels."

Sometimes though, for one reason or another, we can forget how vital love is to our teaching and instead visit with a spirit of something else.
Like obligation.
Or turning in a complete report.
But if we forget that love part, things may happen that were never intended.
I remember once when it did.

We were relatively new in the church. My husband and I were doing the line upon line thing, trying hard to adjust to the truth and a culture very different from what we'd both known growing up.
And, not only that, since it was back in the 70's, we were adjusting to a culture very different from the one almost everyone else we knew was living in at that time.
Indeed, to a convert in the 70's, that non-drinking, non-smoking, dedicated to spouse, family, and service lifestyle made Mormons a peculiar people indeed.


Anyway, I was teaching 6th grade in a big city school. It was my my first full year. A recent graduate, everything was new and a challenge.
I was also pregnant. Again. And on purpose too.
As a matter of fact I was pregnant as a direct result of the truths we were learning about eternal families and children.
And even though he understood those truths about eternal families and had cooperated in this pregnancy endeavor, Larry was scared.

You see, up until recently he had been putting me through college while supporting our family all by himself.
He did this even though with our young kids, it was almost impossibly hard to come up with the additional money needed for my tuition and books. But Larry loved me, and in addition he and I had made this deal about school.
I had a dream you see. I wanted to finish college and become a teacher.
The bargain was that he would pay for my dream and support us all. After graduating I would teach and help with an extra income.

Now we were pregnant again because of learning about eternal truths. He was afraid that when we had another baby I would want to quit teaching to stay home. Then he'd have all of us plus one more mouth to feed. All by himself again. This wasn't part of our deal.
I assured him that I'd keep teaching for years to come.
(As it turned out that was a lie. Those teaching years came after a sizeable gap of staying home with babies and working part-time from home.)

You see, (Insert Heavenly Father/ World culture clash here), we already had two kids. A girl and a boy.
And since it was the '70's, this was the "perfect" family according to all the experts.

The experts were "population explosion" scientists who were yelling their heads off every night on the news. This was the "Cause," with a capital C, of the day.
Those in the know agreed that the world was heading for certain disaster in the next decade because there were just too many people!
There was no room, no food, no water, no medicine! Famine would engulf every continent causing wars that would end all life as we knew it.
There would be no dawn of the millenium!
And it had nothing to do with computers crashing around the world either.

The scientists were sure. People had to stop having babies! Or certainly at least more than two per couple. "Replacement offspring" I think they were called by someone.

In this climate even some of our own family members expressed dismay upon learning of the coming of our third baby.
When I think about that it still stings.
Casual acquaintances felt the need to remark on our growing family.
"No responsible person would consider more than two offspring," was the comment a colleague made to me upon hearing of our coming baby.
With our next pregnancy I began to say, "The world needs all the kids like mine it can possibly get."

But we were beginning to learn to listen to a higher authority.
It seems Heavenly Father thinks babies are a joy and a blessing. He thinks enough room was made on earth for all of his children who need to live here.
He's blessed those who are able to become parents with a wonderful gift.
And spirits waiting to come to earth are given a most precious gift of their own when born into loving homes where the truths of the gospel are being taught.
And the truth is that there are those who are waiting.

So, here I am, wife, mother of two, new teacher, eight months pregnant. Trying to live truth. And finding out that living truth isn't always easy.
It's Thursday afternoon after a hard week at work and I'm dead on my feet.

I walk into our unbelieveably messy living room at 4 0'clock, hot on the heels of my unbelievably messy kids, rushing to get dinner started while connecting with them and their day.
Larry was no help at all because he worked until 11 on Thursdays.
I'd need to keep some supper ready for him. He'll be dead tired too.

The phone rings as I'm making something that involves macaroni and cheese and hamburger.
It's my visiting teacher. She also happens to be the bishop's wife. The dinners she cooks involve fresh asparagus and homemade bread.

I need to include a bit of explanation here.
The bishop's family lived on the "other side" of the ward. Across a certain avenue. I called it the "OS." Our home teacher lived over there too.
Our home teacher was a bio-medical engineer. His next door neighbor was also in our ward. He was a lawyer.
That part of our ward had big, beautiful, never messy houses or kids.
They also had beautiful, never messy moms who didn't work outside the home.

Our side of the ward had little houses.
In addition, my little house was also usually messy.
"Other side" had huge families who took up whole rows in church where everyone matched and nobody ever had a hair out of place.
My little family of four sometimes attended church with unmatched socks.

I just knew that every single one of those living on the "OS" had been Mormons all their lives and their ancestors pulled handcarts across the desert to get them here. They were born knowing how to be LDS.
I always felt inadequate when compared with them.
Even though it was only me doing the comparing.

So, new in the gospel me says a cheery hello to the bishop's perfectly competent wife who's on the phone.
She wants to schedule a time for her visiting teaching.

Crestfallen but thinking fast I suggest Monday after school.
That will give me the weekend to get this mess cleaned up.
Our little house had that awful, modern, "open" architecture concept where you could see practically into every room from the front door, including any dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. There was no easy way to hide dirty secrets. Clean-up was a major undertaking.

Back to the phone call.
"How about tomorrow after school?" she suggested brightly instead.
"No, no, no.  Friday afternoon won't work for me." I replied, panic building.  "What about Tuesday?"
"Tuesday's not good," she chirped.
"Sunday after church? I suggested. I looked down over my baby big belly to see that the floor needed to be mopped.
At least I could manage the floor on Saturday.

"No, Sunday won't work." she said.  "We have a missionary farewell to go to."
"Oh, I know what!" she went on without taking a breath,  "I'll stop by for just a quick visit before you leave for work tomorrow morning!"
Then it came.
She continued brightly, "I'll have to get up early but it can't be helped. Tomorrow's the last day of the month and I have to "get you" so I can turn in my visiting teaching report."

"Sister, tomorrow before work's really not a good time," I stammered.

"You'll be doing me a big favor," she said, "I'd really appreciate it."  "And since I know how busy mornings can be getting kids off to school, I'll only stay just a minute. Thanks so much. See you at 6:30." She hung up before I could say another word.

I hung up the phone.
Later at 11:00 that night I was mopping.
I was also thinking about visiting teaching.
Tears were streaming down my tired cheeks and dropping onto the dry part of the floor. I leaned over my big belly to wipe them off.
Larry would be home soon, thank goodness. I'd better go heat up some now congealed mac and cheese.
I hoped he wouldn't be too tired to lift some hanging hands and strengthen some weak knees.

***
Upon reflection I decided that a lot of things were not right on that Thursday night so long ago.
To start with, Christlike attitudes were missing at both ends of that phone call.

I, for one, assumed that I couldn't be honest with someone the Lord had sent to help me.
I didn't even really know the Bishop's wife, had never taken the time to get to know her, but I assumed that she felt herself above me and would judge me.
Now I wonder what she might have said if I had explained my situation that night. Is it possible that she would have understood completely?
I wonder if I missed making a lifelong friend.

But then maybe she too needed to think a bit about the importance of truly knowing and loving the women she was to teach.
And about the monthly reports and where they should fit in as a priority.

Perhaps there's something that we all should keep in our hearts as we fulfill our sacred callings.
Perhaps we should never forget that the programs of the church are put in place to strengthen the members. Not the other way around.

Yes, the spirit was missing in two hearts that evening.
So the purpose of the divinely inspired Visiting Teaching program wasn't realized.

It seems it can't be done witthout love.

I pray that heavenly Father will help me so that it won't happen again.