These are a few of my Favorite Home Teachers

Our family was once assigned a Very Busy Home Teacher. He traveled around the state, and was gone quite frequently, but he was very diligent. He came to our home with his 14-year-old son. They had been assigned to us for about 3 months when he was unable to make his usual visit. It was the last week of the month, and he was out of town. We got a phone call one evening from the young son. Could he come and see our family? Of course we agreed, and he appeared at our doorstep with his friend, another Aaronic Priesthood holder. Both boys were too young to have their driver’s licenses, so the 16-year-old sister had driven them the 15 or so miles to our house. They gave us a well-prepared lesson and a prayer. After their visit, my Mia Maid and Beehive remarked that they didn’t seem like the same rowdy boys they knew from the ward. The mantle of the priesthood had descended upon these boys as they served our family. These boys came on their own to Home Teach us about once every three months while we lived in that place.

It’s not easy to visit a large, rather unorthodox family. It’s been a struggle calling everyone together for a Home Teaching visit, and if we do succeed, it is then too loud to hear any kind of lesson. My favorite Home Teachers have been those who have used their creativity to get to know and influence our family. I remember vividly a visit where my little girls were demonstrating their back handspring skills in the living room. The 17-year-old Home Teacher, to his dad’s surprise, stood and did a back handspring in his clunky army boots. What respect the girls gave him after that demonstration!

The home teacher we have now showed up in his work clothes at our home last May. He had his rototiller, and he spent the evening helping us prepare the soil and plant a garden in our back yard. One Sunday evening recently he arrived and saw that we had picked a large batch of zucchini and yellow squash. He spent the visit in the kitchen, preparing a dish of fried squash for us to savor.

For me, what makes a great Home Teacher is the amount of time he spends getting involved in our personal lives. I don’t care if he comes to the house every month with a lesson, but if he sends a card on a birthday or attends one of the kids’ soccer games, he will have my attention when he has advice to give.