You know you’ve been guilty of it – picking out a talk that stuck in your mind and teaching it to all of your families. But just because it resonated with you doesn’t mean it was what the folks you teach needed to hear. Since the May home and visiting teaching messages come from April General Conference talks, how can you best select and teach the lesson suited to your families?
If you are really on the ball, you were able to attend all four (or five) sessions of Conference. You may even have been able to hear them all! If you have small children, however, you probably counted yourself lucky to get to four sessions and fortunate to hear any talks – sort of like Sacrament meeting. Perhaps as you listened to Conference, a talk prompted you to think of someone you home or visit teach. If so, it is quite possible that such is the lesson you need to deliver. However, if you didn’t hear all of the talks, or weren’t so inspired, you can still receive the necessary inspiration to bring them the message they need to hear.
When choosing which lesson to teach, start by kneeling in prayer and asking the Lord to help. By involving Heavenly Father – who knows the needs of your families exactly – you will be more likely to select the message He wanted your families to hear.
Next, turn to the table of contents in the Ensign. If you don’t have an Ensign, then visit the LDS website and scan the talks. The titles of each of these can be very descriptive. Which talk stands out as a message those you visit need to hear? I recommend doing these one at a time; first pray for the Smiths and then search, then pray for the Jones and search, and so forth. Once you feel inspired, read the talk. Study it. Ask the Lord again what particularly needs to be gleaned from it.
Bearing the sole responsibility for choosing the lesson can be daunting. Sometimes we really want to take the ‘easy’ way and just teach everyone the same thing. In doing so, we forfeit the opportunity to really serve those we visit with. Let us prayerfully decide what lesson needs to be taught, and we can greatly benefit those whose homes we enter.
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