Since I've moved to Wyoming, from the very beginning, I've had wonderful visiting teachers. Marla was my first active one for about a year and a half and then she was released when her husband became terminally ill. But, we became very, very good friends and have always felt that there was divine intervention in placing her in my life and me in hers.
I've since been blessed with two new exceptional ones that have been faithful in coming each and every month. I know also that if I should need or request something from them, they would be here for me. And, they have been doing the course of Joe's medical problems.
I say all this because I know what it means to have good, no great, visiting teachers - women who I can count on even though I am an active member of the ward. I have served in a Relief Society presidency in the past and had been responsible for helping to assign visiting teachers to women in the ward. I never understood why it was really necessary to assign visiting teachers to some woman who never, ever attended any of the meetings. Wasn't that wasted effort? Wasn't our time too valuable to go traipsing around worrying about them? Yes, I'd heard and read stories about women who had become active once again because of the efforts and love their visiting teachers brought even though it might have taken years and years of visits. Sometimes these women had even become active again due to those efforts. They had sought out and loved that woman and they had made a difference.
I always though how wonderful it would be to really make a difference in some one's life. I was basically faithful in my calling as a visiting teacher in the past. I felt I had gone over and beyond my calling sometimes...I made little cutesy things each month, I brought "the message", I drove lots and lots of miles to get it done, the women seemed to enjoy my visit and I really wasn't challenged or turned away or forbidden to return. In fact, I had it pretty easy when it came to that calling.
The move to Wyoming and my new ward changed everything I'd ever known about visiting teaching. I was originally assigned five women, I believe. It was incredible! Every lady lived within just a few streets from my home. I could knock out my visits in just a matter of minutes - not hours. These ladies were basically my neighbors. It was wonderful! Because of my working so far from Casper and being gone for long periods of time and Joe's health issues, I was reduced to only two women about a little over a year ago. Even those would have been removed, but I wanted and needed for them to be seen by me. They were both inactive. One of them eventually began to return to church and even issued a calling in Primary. Another day, another post about her.
For now, I want to write about the other one - Diana. I will tell my story about her in my next posting.
