Develop and Increase in Compassion

The December Visiting Teaching message is about compassion - how we can develop and increase in it, and how we can nurture through compassionate service. I chose the quote by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, to focus on:

"Disciples of Christ throughout all ages of the world have been distinguished by their compassion. . . . In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance. Let us open our eyes and see the heavy hearts, notice the loneliness and despair; let us feel the silent prayers of others around us, and let us be an instrument in the hands of the Lord to answer those prayers"

I printed out President Uchtdorf's quote on a large heart, which is meant to represent "compassion". You can download the image here.

After cutting out, fold the three sides of the heart into each other, so you get this kind of triangle.

Then write the three ways we can develop our compassion, as found in this month's message, on the folded sides:

pray (see Moroni 7:48)
open our eyes (refer to quote)
be an instrument (refer to quote)

I also wrote "Develop and Increase in Compassion" on the center back of the heart.

As you open the heart (which increases in size), discuss the ways in which prayer, opening our eyes and being an instrument in the Lord's hands help our compassion to increase.

You could also make this fun treat to leave with the sisters you visit. Cindy from Skip to My Lou explains here how to melt mini candy canes and stick together into hearts. Cute!

Become More Diligent and Concerned at Home

For the month of November, we can choose the message we would like to share with our visiting teaching sisters from the last General Conference. I chose a talk from Elder David A. Bednar, entitled, Become More Diligent and Concerned at Home.

He divided his talk into three main sections:

Suggestion Number One: Express Love—and Show It
Suggestion Number Two: Bear Testimony—and Live It
Suggestion Number Three: Be Consistent

The little handout I made was inspired by Elder Bednar's suggestions on Expressing Love. I thought it would be fun to give some post-its for surprise love notes to family members. I made a simple paper "case" for the post-its, and glued to the top the house image with the title of the talk and the three main ideas of the talk printed in the windows and door. On the flip side of the cover is a slightly longer elaboration of these ideas:

1. Sincerely and frequently express and demonstrate love.
Such love nurtures and sustains faith in God.
Such love is a source of strength and casts out fear (see 1 John 4:18).
Such love is the desire of every human soul.

2. Create and look for opportunities to bear testimony of gospel truths - and live them.

3. Be consistent in doing the seemingly small things that can lead to significant spiritual results.

I'll refer to these numbered suggestions during our visiting teaching discussion.

To make the post-its holder you need the following items:
white cardstock for printed image
colored cardstock
post-it notes (stack of 100 for each holder)
ribbon
glue or tape

Step 1: Cut cardstock to 7 ½ inches long.

Step 2: Cut cardstock to 3 ½ inches wide.

Step 3: Measure and lightly mark cardstock at 3 ½ inches and again at 4 inches (length-ways).

Step 4: Fold cardstock where marked. Then flip it over and fold the other side, both sides should be folded in towards each other. Press folds with a popsicle stick or pencil to get a nice sharp crease.

Step 5: Put adhesive all around the back of the post-it note pad.

Step 6: Place post-it pad on cardstock with even border of cardstock all the way around.

Step 7: Cut an 18-inch piece of ribbon to wrap around holder. Adhere with tape or glue to the top of the holder.

Step 8: Print out house and text (download here).

Step 9: Cut out and glue house square on top of cover, over the ribbon.

Step 10: Cut out and glue text square on inside flap of holder. I then wrote "Love Notes" at the top of the first post-it, and jotted down some ideas of places to leave surprise notes:

on a computer
in a backpack
on the lawn mower or leaf blower
on the workbench
on the bathroom mirror
on a pillow
in a cupboard
on a cereal box
in the dishwasher
in a shoe
in a book
in a clothes drawer
on a door
in a hat
in a glove
on the steering wheel

Step 11: Tie ribbon to close holder

Be sure to print out a copy of Elder Bednar's talk to leave with your love notes!

Rising Generation

The Visiting Teaching Message for October is about nurturing the rising generation.

I chose these quotes to share with my sisters:

“Our rising generation is worthy of our best efforts to support and strengthen them in their journey to adulthood. . . . In every action we take, in every place we go, with every Latter-day Saint young person we meet, we need to have an increased awareness of the need for strengthening, nurturing, and being an influence for good in their lives.” -Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Presidency of the Seventy

“To nurture means to cultivate, care for, and make grow. . . . Nurturing requires organization, patience, love, and work. Helping growth occur through nurturing is truly a powerful and influential role bestowed on women.” -Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president

I thought a balloon would be a great way to represent the "rising generation". As you share the first quote by Elder Rasband, you could take a deflated balloon, and blow air into it as you mention the things we can do to "support and strengthen" our youth. Once your balloon is fully inflated, you could talk about what it means to nurture the rising generation. Write on your balloon, using a Sharpie, the things nurturing requires: organization, patience, love, and work. Discuss the ways in which we can use these things to be better prepared to nurture those that come into our sphere of influence.

As you finish sharing the message, you could tie this tag to the balloon and leave with your sister as a reminder of the lesson. Download here.

Being an Oak

The Visiting Teaching Message for September is about how we can better understand and live the gospel of Christ. I chose this quote by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to share with my sisters:

"Faithful members of the Church should be like oak trees and should extend deep roots into the fertile soil of the fundamental principles of the gospel. We should understand and live by the simple, basic truths and not complicate them. Our foundations should be solid and deep-rooted so we can withstand the winds of temptation, false doctrine, adversity, and the onslaught of the adversary without being swayed or uprooted. . . .

"Spiritual nourishment is just as important as a balanced diet to keep us strong and healthy. We nourish ourselves spiritually by partaking of the sacrament weekly, reading the scriptures daily, praying daily in personal and family prayer, and performing temple work regularly. Our spiritual strengths are like batteries; they need to be charged and frequently recharged" ("Deep Roots," Ensign, Nov. 1994, 75).

I love this visual of being deeply rooted oak trees. To discuss the quote I made a simple visual aid consisting of a yogurt cup, some playdough, a branch, and some paper leaves. I first covered the outside of the clean, empty yogurt cup with scrapbook paper, tucking in the top edges inside the cup.

As you discuss being firmly rooted in the gospel of Christ, place balls of playdough inside the cup. The playdough represents the fertile soil of the fundamental principles of the gospel. Elder Wirthlin in his talk, "Deep Roots", mentions these specific principles into which our spiritual roots should sink deeply:

The reality of our Heavenly Father; his Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost. Elder Wirthlin talks about each member of the Godhead, and our relationship with them. He also mentions the importance of moral purity and the Word of Wisdom in giving us spiritual and physical strength.

Once your cup is full of rich (playdough) gospel soil, demonstrate how we can extend deep roots into that soil by placing your branch deep into the cup. All that soil holds up our tree nicely, so we can "withstand the winds of temptation, false doctrine, adversity, and the onslaught of the adversary without being swayed or uprooted. . . ."

To discuss the spiritual nourishment that we require, I have some paper leaves on which I printed keywords for the things Elder Wirthlin mentions: "partaking of the sacrament weekly, reading the scriptures daily, praying daily in personal and family prayer, and performing temple work regularly". I also have a few blank leaves to place on the tree as we discuss other ways we "recharge" our spiritual batteries. Things like listening to General Conference, reading the Ensign, and journal writing are things on my list.

Finally, I made a bookmark with the quote to leave with my sisters. You can download it and the leaves here.

Download in Spanish here.

Don't forget a spoon to help you dig out the playdough at the end of your lesson, so you can place it in a baggie and reuse for your next visit. Go here for an easy fun playdough recipe!

Lifelong Learning

The Visiting Teaching Message for August is entitled, "Seek Education and Lifelong Learning". I was inspired by the kit Hand Picked Daisy made last September, and wanted to put together something similar. I glued this quote from Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to the front of a brown paper lunch sack:

"Lifelong learning is essential to the vitality of the human mind, body, and soul. It enhances self-worth and self-actuation. Lifelong learning is invigorating mentally and is a great defense against aging, depression, and self-doubt"

And used another part of his quote on the bookmark:

"A few of the basic attributes needed to become a lifelong learner are courage, faithful desire, humility, patience, curiosity, and a willingness to communicate and share the knowledge that we gain. . . . "

You can download both quotes along with graphics here.
I made one in Spanish as well! Download here.

I also made this fun note, which took me way back to high school. You pull the tab to unfold the paper.


I wrote on the note the beginnings of a "To-Learn List". I got this idea here. They said this:

We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down.


To fold the note, begin by folding each of the four corners toward the center.

2. Fold each long edge to the center line.

3. Fold each point so it almost meets the folds from Step 2.

4. Turn the whole thing over. Fold one short end up so that the fold coincides pretty much with where the point from Step 3 is (about 1/3 of the length of the rectangle resulting from Step 3).


5. Fold the 2nd end at the same point, and insert the corners into the flaps of the other.


Add a fruit snack and a brand new pencil, and put everything inside the paper sack. I folded the top of the sack over a couple times, punched 2 holes to keep it together, then threaded a ribbon through and tied into a bow. I then tied a name tag to the bow.

There are sure to be some great discussions about lifelong learning - what we would all like to pursue, in both spiritual and secular learning, and how we plan to get going! Have a great month.

Temple Refreshment

Here is another fun idea to share the July Visiting Teaching Message with your sisters. Pioneer Party showed these on their blog. The message is hanging on a water bottle, with a little packet of Hawaiian Punch tucked into the pocket.

"We wanted to portray the idea that the Temple is a refreshing break from the world - as is a good ol' drink of water! It revitalizes, rejuvinates, and refreshes us! Pull out the message and unfold to read all the quotes from the Ensign."

These would be really easy to make - they just stapled the striped paper on top of the solid red to make a pocket, and punched a hole for the bottle top to go through. Fun!

Temple Worship

The Visiting Teaching message for July has to do with preparing for temple worship, and the blessings that come from qualifying and partaking of temple worship. I found this great puzzle on lds.org, on which I wrote several ways that we can prepare for the temple. They are:

obey the commandments
seek to do God's will
keep a current temple recommend
fast
pray
listen to Hymns
read patriarchal blessing
review covenants
study scriptures
count your blessings
research your family history

As you put the temple side of the puzzle together you can discuss these ways that we can prepare for temple worship. The first three things on the list are mentioned in this month's message. The rest of the list came from here, which gives some nice ideas for further discussion on each topic.

The flip side of the puzzle has different things that have to do with the temple, such as sealings, baptisms, families, the creation, and the atonement. I printed a small version of the puzzle on a separate piece of paper and cut and pasted this underneath:

This is a two-sided puzzle. After you mix up the pieces, you can look at the pictures at the top of this page to see how to put the puzzle together. Going to the temple is like looking at the box-top picture of a jigsaw puzzle. In the temple, we see better how we need to fit the many parts of the gospel together to obtain exaltation.

I love this visual of looking at the whole picture in order to better understand the individual pieces.

As you place the center picture of the Savior in the puzzle, you could read this quote from the July Visiting Teaching message:

"The primary purpose of the temple is to provide the ordinances necessary for our exaltation in the celestial kingdom. Temple ordinances guide us to our Savior and give us the blessings that come to us through the Atonement of Jesus Christ"

You could then talk about what some of those blessings are.

The puzzle and text from lds.org can be found here. You could print both puzzles on either side of a piece of cardstock like I did, or you could print just one puzzle that you would like to focus on for a more concise lesson.