This is always one of my favorite Visiting Teaching Messages and also the hardest! There are so many amazing General Conference talks to choose from. To choose I usually pray, than read through the titles and go with the one I feel is right. Sometimes I read through several talks before I choose one. The talk I choose for May's Visiting Teaching is
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8x10
Full pg will be 8x10 but handout portion will be 5.5 X 8.5
My Thoughts:
So why did I choose this article? I choose it because I love the topic of Marriage and family. They are at my top importance and I loved what Elder Christofferson says about it! I love how he talks through the process and the plan from the beginning. That marriage is one of those things essential to our Heavenly Father's plan. There were so many things I loved about this talk, I will just list a few:
- “Marriage is more than your love for each other. … In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. … So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.”(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (1953), 42–43.) My thoughts: Why do I love this quote? I think I have come to appreciate the links between generations as I have done family history work. It is a visible thing when you look at a fan chart or a pedigree chart and you see generations and generations of people linked to you. I love that this quote says, "So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God". It is just that, I know that when I was married and sealed to my eternal companion it was a binding union, a covenant made between both me and my spouse as well as our Father in Heaven.
- "In the premortal world, Lucifer rebelled against God and His plan, and his opposition only grows in intensity. He fights to discourage marriage and the formation of families, and where marriages and families are formed, he does what he can to disrupt them." ("Why Marriage, Why Family" By Elder D. Todd Christoffereson, 2015 April General Conference) My Thoughts: I do not doubt anyone can not see this in the world around them. If Marriage and Family is ESSENTIAL to God's plan than of course it is going to be the thing Satan will put his full forces on to destroy. We see this with the rise of divorces, the world trying to change the definition of marriage and even just in the contentions we see in families and marriages. For me this gives me more determination to make my family and marriage thrive.
- "One young mother recently confided to me her anxiety about being inadequate in this highest of callings. I felt that the issues that concerned her were small and she needn’t worry; she was doing fine. But I knew she only wanted to please God and to honor His trust. I offered words of reassurance, and in my heart I pleaded that God, her Heavenly Father, would buoy her up with His love and the witness of His approval as she is about His work." ("Why Marriage, Why Family" By Elder D. Todd Christoffereson, 2015 April General Conference) My Thoughts: I think another tool that Satan uses is to make us feel like we are failing or that we are not good enough. My wise Stake President said at a women's conference, "You are doing much, much better than you think."
Gift Idea:
Attach the tag above to something you feel is "Essential". Ideas could be, a bottle of essential oils, a bottle of water, a little kit of essentials, any kind of food :)
Here is the link to previous Visiting Teaching Posts.
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