{VISITING TEACHING WORKSHOP}

This past Wednesday we had a weekday Relief Society meeting in which we were given spiritual and temporal first aid training. As a presidency we really want to use our weekday Relief Society meetings to focus on teaching our sisters skills, as this is a married student ward and we are all relatively new, young wives and future mothers.

To start out, I taught a short visiting teaching workshop. We briefly went over what the responsibilities of a visiting teacher are:
*Come to know and love your sisters
*Minister through regular contacts
*Learn of needs and offer appropriate assistance
*Look for specific ways to help
*Share and testify of gospel doctrines

I asked 5 different sisters bear testimony of one of these responsibilities and share how they've been able to fulfill that specific responsibility as a visiting teacher. We have amazing sisters in our ward and I'm grateful they were so willing to share. I see visiting teaching as an opportunity to make long lasting friendships and to be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I love visiting teaching and I love being visit taught. I completely believe what Sister Beck said in the last General Conference to be true, "A sister in this Church has no other responsibility outside of her family that has the potential to do as much good as does visiting teaching."

Taking a few hours out of your month to do your visiting teaching isn't much time, but it can make a huge impact in someone's life if you truly seek to know, love, and serve them. I gave each sister their own Visiting Teacher's First Aid Kit that included:

Rubber band: to remind you to hug one another as we are all banded together through Christ. Romans 12:10
Button: To remind you to button your lip against gossip or back biting. Psalms 34:13
Toothpick: To remind you to "pick out" the good qualities of everyone, including yourself. Philippians 4:8
Band-aid: to remind you of healing hurt feelings, either yours or someone else's. Hosea 11:4
Eraser: To remind you that everyone makes mistakes and there is forgiveness. Psalms 123:3
Lifesaver candy: to remind you to think of Jesus Christ as your "lifesaver." He will always listen. John 14:6

After the workshop we split up and learned CPR, water safety, how to treat cuts, burns, and head injuries, and then put together our own little booklet to remind us how to treat each of those things.

It was a wonderful night and I sure learned a lot!