Visiting Teaching

Many, many moons ago, my family would joke that we belonged to the church of Vernal 8th ward, because our ward kind of liked to do things differently than the rest of the church. Well then I moved to my current ward I had thoughts along those same lines. Don't get me wrong, we live in a wonderful ward with great leaders and plenty of wonderful people, and we love it...there was just this one little thing: Visiting Teaching. When the RS presidency came to the house to welcome me into the ward one of the first things they told me was, and I quote, "We do visiting teaching a little bit different here. We put everyone in groups of 6-8 people their same age, and if you want to recieve the message, you have to make the effort to go out and meet with your group each month!" Well alrighty then! But how is this VTing? So, trying so hard to do my best as a VTer without really being a VTer, I went to group each month where the group leader (who is now a very good friend) would skim through the lesson and then me and whichever other girl happened to show up that month would go on our merry way. I was in "make friends" mode so I would always try to drum up some sort of conversation, but for the first few months I would go home very disappointed. After all, my best friends in both Logan and Fillmore were two of the sister I visited, and we are still friends to this day. Eventually I did become friends with the group leader because there was always at least the two of there. Some of my other friends loved going to visiting teaching because it was like a 2 hour girls night, but I still maintain that it was NOT visiting teaching. Finally, beginning in January I started hearing rumors that they were doing away with groups. Apparently one of the general authorities came down and when he heard what was happening he put a stop to it. For some reason he didn't think that was the way VTing was supposed to work. He didn't think that if a sister was having marital problems or whatever that she would feel comfortable seeking help in a large group. Imagine! You mean maybe the whole program is inspired adn the church instituted it to be used a certain way for a reason? Who woulda thunk? Well, I got my assignment and my partner was totally gung hoe for it and we went and had a great time. One of the girls we teach is my new friend Alecia who has just recently become active, didn't know anyone in the ward (never dared go to her VT group), and was so excited to finally get to know someone. I invited her to playgroup and we have become fast friends. AND, she has the cutest little boy Breah's age. And then my own visiting teachers came and they are wonderful, too! Maybe I'm strange, but I am so excited to do real visiting teaching and I'm already reaping the blessings from my efforts and have 4 new friends that I wouldn't have gotten to know other wise! Hooray!