NaBloPoMo--Writing, Writing, Writing

Hey, just what I need: a reason to spend more time at the computer! If I actually wrote something each day for National Blog Posting Month instead of just surfing through political websites it might be a useful thing. I think of stuff to write now and then, but often I get home from school and I am just too tired to do something intellectual. So, surfing through a variety of rantings from different sides of the political spectrum is about all the "thinking" I have energy to do.

So, this month, I'll see if I can write a post that someone would care enough to read. Here's today's attempt:

We had a lesson on visiting teaching today. I've given this lesson many times. The one where we try to get the sisters to decide that VT is important enough to prioritize, to plan for it. Statisically, this ward is at about 70%. That is better than some wards I've been in, but when you put it in terms of, say, bringing back 70% of the students you took out on the field trip (as our RS president did recently) then you see that it's not a good number.

I know all the reasons why it is difficult to do VT. We're all busy. We're don't know the people very well. They're not exactly excited to see us. They're inactive in church and wonder why we keep bugging them each month. Or...you're busy, you know the sisters you're assigned are also busy. You see them in church every week anyway. You know they're fine. And, here's another one I've never personally experienced in my adult life: you're not in need of one more person to "check up on you" because you have a busy and full life with your [fill in the blank] children, siblings, grandchildren, lifelong friends.

Since I've been a married woman, I've lived "temporarily" wherever we've lived. I've always known we were going to move. Someday. We've lived as long as ten years in some places, but it was usually year to year--I didn't know it was going to be 10 years--the job could have moved us at any time. Many of our ward members were also affiliated with the military, so they were temporary, too. So, it is a new thing for me to live here in Las Vegas in an established neighborhood where it is the norm for people to have been born, raised, married, had children, and now their grandchildren, all while living in the same neighborhood, or at least in town.

My incentive for being a concientious visiting teacher is that I have been befriended by women tasked with being my VTs and it was a life-saver on a number of occasions. It gave me someone trustworthy when I had a crisis--large or small. I was grateful to pass forward that blessing. But, when you have sisters, childhood friends, children or grandchildren just around the corner, maybe it isn't as compelling.

My current visiting teacher (a very busy woman about my age, who works, sings in a professional choral group, is in the stake RS, and has grandchildren living locally) came to my house last month. We sat and talked and laughed about our similar childhoods (she grew up in Idaho about 100 from where I grew up in Wyoming). It was so nice to sit and talk to someone for fun. She stayed almost an hour. We could have talked for another hour, but she needed to get home after a long day. Yes, she sees me every week at church. Yes, I'm well, so is she. But it is nice to sit and enjoy a calm chat with another woman. It filled a need I didn't realize I had.

I could tell you a whole book full of inspiring stories about people who helped me, or people whom I've helped (I found one such lady a couple of years ago here in Las Vegas--it was very random--our paths had crossed 27 years ago in San Diego when I was her VT briefly). But the reason I wrote this is to tell you that no one but you can compell you to be a consistent visiting teacher. If you are willing to put in the effort, you will be blessed. So will someone else, and she may really be needing it, whether she knows it or not.