September 2011 Visiting Teaching Message
Strengthening Families by Increasing Spirituality
Study this material and, as appropriate, discuss it with the sisters you visit. Use the questions to help you strengthen your sisters and to make Relief Society an active part of your own life.
Strengthening Families by Increasing Spirituality
Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president, said: “There has grown in me an overwhelming testimony of the value of daughters of God. … I have felt that there has never been a greater need for increased faith and personal righteousness. There has never been a greater need for strong families and homes.”
Sisters can help create strong homes and families as they act on personal revelation. “The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life,” Sister Beck continued. “Qualifying for the Lord’s Spirit begins with a desire for that Spirit and implies a certain degree of worthiness. Keeping the commandments, repenting, and renewing covenants made at baptism lead to the blessing of always having the Lord’s Spirit with us. Making and keeping temple covenants also adds spiritual strength and power to a woman’s life. Many answers to difficult questions are found by reading the scriptures because the scriptures are an aid to revelation. … Daily prayer is essential to having the Lord’s Spirit with us.”1
We also strengthen our family members spiritually as we help them understand Heavenly Father’s eternal plan. “What can we do to better prepare our children spiritually for their eternal roles?” asked ElderM. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “Perhaps the most inclusive answer is: Teach them how to live the principles of the gospel.” This teaching comes through daily prayer, scripture study, and family mealtimes as well as weekly family home evening and Church attendance. Elder Ballard explains: “We prepare each day, right now, for eternal life. If we are not preparing for eternal life, we are preparing for something less, perhaps something far less.”2
From the Scriptures
From Our History
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught the sisters in an April 1842 Relief Society meeting that they had a solemn obligation to seek their own salvation. He said, “After [my] instruction, you will be responsible for your own sins; it is a desirable honor that you should so walk before our heavenly Father as to save yourselves; we are all responsible to God for the manner we improve the light and wisdom given by our Lord to enable us to save ourselves.”3 He taught them to be righteous individuals, to become a holy people, and to prepare for temple ordinances and covenants.
What Can I Do?
How can I help my sisters increase in spiritual self-reliance?
How can I improve my own ability to recognize and respond to the Holy Spirit?
August 2011 Visiting Teaching Message : “A Society of Holy Women
Relief Society sisters living their covenants command the respect not only of noble people, but “if you live up to your privileges,” Joseph promised the sisters, “the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.” As the sisters participated in the work of serving and saving others, they became personally sanctified. Lucy Mack Smith, the Prophet’s mother, shared the good Relief Society could accomplish: “We must cherish one another, watch overone another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.”
Click below for the complete August V.T. Message
Visiting Teaching Message Dec 2010
Over the centuries many people have died without knowledge of the gospel. Some of those people are your near and distant relatives. They are waiting for you to do the necessary research to link your families together and perform saving ordinances on their behalf. Most of the temples of the world are not busy enough. The Lord has promised that your hearts would be turned to the fathers so that the earth would not be utterly wasted at His coming (see D&C 2:2-3). There are personal blessings you receive as a result of participation in temple and family history work. One of these is the joy that you feel as you serve your ancestors. Another is that you are able to qualify for a temple recommend, which signifies your worthiness before the Lord. Those who are not worthy today of the privilege of having a recommend should be working with a bishop or branch president to qualify as soon as possible. Please don't be without this vital qualification. I testify that the Atonement is real and that sins can be forgiven upon proper repentance. As we participate in temple and family history work, we are certain to have the Spirit to comfort us in our challenges and to guide us in important decisions. Temple and family history work is part of our work of providing relief, or service, to our own ancestors. Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president. From the Scriptures Malachi 4:5-6; 1 Corinthians 15:29; 1 Peter 3:18-19; D&C 110:13-16; 128:24 From Our History "The Prophet Joseph Smith said, 'The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead' (History of the Church, 6:313). From the beginning, Relief Society sisters have supported this great work. In Nauvoo in 1842, Sarah M. Kimball's desire to help the temple construction workers prompted a group of sisters to organize themselves so that they could serve more effectively. As they began to meet, the Prophet . . . organized the first Relief Society after the pattern of the priesthood. From that time on, the Relief Society sisters helped further the work on the Nauvoo Temple. . . . "In 1855, eight years after the Saints first arrived in Utah, the Endowment House was established. Eliza R. Snow, who had been one of the original members of the first Relief Society and had preserved the records of that organization, was called by President Brigham Young in 1866 to be the general Relief Society president. She and other sisters were faithful workers in the Endowment House. Then, as the St. George, Logan, and Manti Temples were completed, these sisters traveled to each temple so they could do work for the dead there."1 What Can I Do?
Note 1. Mary Ellen Smoot, "Family History: A Work of Love," Ensign, Mar. 1999, 15. |
