by

On Sunday afternoon I went to visit a woman I home teach. I went by myself. The guy who had been going with me couldn’t do it anymore. My actual companion isn’t anxious to do it, and the logistics of trying to organize a visit that way make it so it would hardly ever happen, and this woman very much wants and needs to be visited. So a couple of months ago I asked her if she would mind if I just came over myself, and she was perfectly fine with that. She’s 83 years old. At church in the morning she had asked me whether I was still her home teacher (because I had missed January), so I figured, oops, I had better get on it. We arranged a time after church to meet at her home.

There was no Ensign lesson; I’m not a big fan of doing that. Rather, we just had a conversation. She lives alone and appreciates having a sounding board. She is planning to move across the country to be closer to her daughters, but the prospect is overwhelming for her. So we broke it down into pieces to make thinking about it more manageable. And every now and again I would put on my lawyer’s hat and ask her if she had thought about this or that contingency, or suggest that she do such and so if something were to occur. For me it was just conversation, but she was extremely grateful to have someone to help her think through things. She said there were a half-dozen things I had mentioned that she hadn’t even thought of and that were extremely helpful to her.

When we finished our conversation and I said a prayer, I realized we had been talking for two hours. I didn’t begrudge the time; it seemed to me time well spent, and she was very appreciative.

As I drove home, I said a prayer of thanks for the concept of home teaching. This woman is pretty much alone; without the church she would have no one to talk through something like this with.

And I also realized what a blessing it was for me. To spend my Sunday afternoon in service to another human being was a very good thing. And without the church I don’t know how such an opportunity would present itself. It felt really good to make myself useful to someone who really needed the connection and conversation and advice.