Why I visit teach each month

As I was eating my dinner tonight, I reflected on church today, especially on the lesson in Relief Society (for those of you that don't know, Relief Society is the hour of church where the women come together to teach each other from the scriptures and words of the prophets).   The lesson today was on Preident Monson's message on seeing others as they may become.  As we discussed ways that we can show others that we love them, visiting teaching came up.

Visiting teaching.  What is it?  Is it simply going out to visit the two or three sisters you've been given stewardship over to make sure they're not in a crisis and to share a brief spiritual message with them once a month?  Yes and no.  The goal is to minister like the Savior ministered and continues to minister to us through the Spirit.  The other goal is to make friends in the gospel.  But the goal is not to just have one more thing on your check off list.  Sometimes that might be what you need to make sure you make time to do it, but ministering isn't an item on a to-do list.

Ministering is keeping others in your thoughts and prayers and serving them in any way you can and that they need.  Right now I'm finding that my biggest acts of service are simply being consistent in going each month to visit, inviting them to church, and answering questions.

But why do I go visit teach every month since I've been assigned to be a visiting teacher?  It's because of two people: my mom and my sister.  I've seen the difference that my mom has made in others lives and I want to be like that.  With my sister, I've seen how she hasn't been visited very much, ever. And it makes me sad.  So I visit teach each month because I wish someone would do that for MY sister.  I wish someone would care enough about MY sister to visit her each month and to keep her in their prayers.  Because I care about my sister that much,  I figure there are other sisters and moms out there who hope the same for their sister and daughter, and so I go.

Me, my sister, my Mom

I go and over time I become friends with these amazing women I am blessed to visit. I go and I am blessed by interacting with these women.  I go and pray that sometime soon someone will do the same for my dear sister,  that they'll become friends and they'll realize just how amazing she is.  THAT'S why I go visiting teaching.

A few more things to cross off my list...

Cleaning update:

DONE with
kitchen (see previous post)
general (dusting, windows)
bedroom (underneath bed and closet)

NEED TO DO (probably my FHE activity on Monday)
bathroom
outside

GOING TO ADD
"detail" the car--windows, dashboard, vacuum, clean out trunk, new air freshner

AFTER CLEANING IS DONE
I guess I'll have to finally work on school stuff like reviews for after spring break, my Portfolio goal to look at different assessments that I want to try out fourth term and apply to next year, plan for after spring break (since I've already planned pretty well up to spring break)

I also found one last envelope and card part of stationary my Mom gave me in high school to write an annual letter to myself. So maybe I'll write a letter to myself again and look at it in a year.

And I think I will give watercoloring a try sometime this next week.

Spring Cleaning Early

After getting up at 5:25; driving to the airport; hanging out at my sister's house, talking to my brother-in-law and playing with my nephew, I decided that when I returned to Provo that I would get started on the list I made last Sunday of cleaning jobs I could do.

Here are the jobs:
Bathroom-ceiling, curtain, shower/tub--more than just a regular Saturday cleaning
Kitchen-stove, oven, floor, fridge
General-dust, windows
Bedroom-underneath bed, closet
Outside-sweep front porch and get rid of spider webs on door

Well, I was able to get all of the kitchen jobs done and dusting.  I may get to cleaning underneath the bed tonight and I already cleaned the closet (on Wednesday).

This house is going to be so clean!  I'm glad I don't clean for four hours every week, only once a year. It's really tiring.

(Note: I know my fridge, stove, whatever don't seem the dirty, but they haven't been deep cleaned for a year so it was time. And I thought they were dirty, so they were dirty enough.)

Before                                                                                                                                                After

A fabulous day!

Today was great! The weather has been so warm and sunny and happy!  After working really hard all day (and still not getting their last class point for their reward), I decided to reward my class with a few extra minutes of recess at the end of the day. I feel like it's the beginning of spring when being outside is treasured the most and I want my students to feel it because I sure love being outside in weather like this.

I've been trying to amass a bunch of projects to fill this next week starting on Saturday.  I have a bunch of cleaning coming my way, probably studying for the Praxis, maybe watercoloring, and possibly a movie night.  My spring break in three weeks will be very empty since I'll be doing everything in this next week that I did during spring break last year.  That's okay though. Maybe I'll hang out on campus in the sun more this spring break.

Headaches have still been pretty regular for the past two weeks, despite plenty of sleep, water, vitamins, and still exercising a bit each week.  I'm hoping it's just the change in air pressure.  Cody and I did finish Downton Abbey season 3 this past Sunday.  Now I can easily wait till season four comes out in a year, unlike with season 3--because I knew someone would have season 3 and I would find it.

Term 3 ends this week. It's so crazy that the school year is 3/4 of the way done already!!  I only have 9 more weeks with my students!! Well, I'll try to make the most of those 9 weeks.