February 2016 Visiting Teaching Message

fingerprint heartThe February Visiting Teaching message reviews the principle that marriage is between a man and a woman before coming to the crucial question, “How am I individually and steadily striving to “come unto Christ”?

This question reminds me of Sister Chieko Okazaki’s 1993 talk, Strength in the Savior where she stated,

“If I were to ask you what the Church teaches about strengthening families, I know that you would say things like “spend time together, have family prayer, hold family home evening, and regular scripture study.” In addition to these important things, I want to talk about building stronger families by building a stronger you—strong in your faith of the Savior. That’s where strong families come from—from strong individuals.”

What helps you to be strong? What does coming unto Christ look like for you in your life?

The visiting teaching message also draws our attention to the scripture: 1 Corinthians 11:11

Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

As we strive to be more like Jesus Christ, the perfect exemplar to both men and women alike, what feminine attributes might men seek to embody? As women, what traits that we view as masculine might help us to be more like Jesus Christ?

Challenge yourself and the women you visit teach to:

Identify one way in which you are succeeding at becoming more like Christ.

Read more posts in this blog series:

4 Responses

  1. I love what you did with this lesson, CM. I feel like I rarely visit teach people who have the Church’s ideal nuclear family so the focus on marriage is uncomfortable for me. I love that crucial question you named (and the VT lesson does, too): How am I individually and steadily striving to “come unto Christ”? Shouldn’t that be the focus of every VT lesson?

  2. Thank you so much for this! I visit teach a single mother and a woman who is married to a non-member, and I’m having problems in my own marriage. I think the aim of this month’s message was intended to be romantic…. but it didn’t work for me. At all. I love and appreciate your focus so very, very much! Thanks again!

  3. Thanks for the love! This lesson was tough for me, especially as a single woman in a family focused church. That last line about individually and steadily striving to “come unto Christ” saved the lesson for me. Yes, EmilyCC this should be the focus of every VT message!

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Managers of the LDS Church are consciously well-intentioned and convinced of their moral uprightness. Yet they suffer from distorted thinking about women’s spiritual autonomy that is comparable to that of the clergy hundreds of years ago. Hundreds of years from now, will Latter-day Saints look back at patriarchal rhetoric as irrational, anxiety-driven and oppressive? Will feminists be exonerated like Joan of Arc, who was canonized in 1920? Or, will the Saints still be convinced of the divinity of misogynistic thinking for centuries to come and dwindle in numbers? All I know is that there is a lot of cautionary content for our Church in the European history of witch trials.

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