going home teaching

Home teaching is a function of the church that allows the members time to sit and chat and for the men doing the visiting to assess if there are needs that could be met by the church.  Bill has always been diligent in his home teaching and always prepares a spiritual message to be given to the members of the families he is assigned to visit.  This weekend he took me with him because his regular companion had a daughter who is graduating from High School and he wanted to be there to see her graduate.
The first home we visited belongs to a widow who is really incapacitated and her son is suffering from cancer.  Her request is to be given the sacrament and so Bill did this and we had a nice visit with her and she participated in the lesson and was greatly pleased that we visited.
The next home we visited is a single lady who was born in the High Andes in Peru.  She speaks Spanish fluently but said that when she was little and living in the Andes she did not learn to speak Quechua.  she has a unique situation in that she has a diplomatic birth certificate.  When she is in South America, she is treated as being a Peruvian and her US citizenship is not recognized.  In the USA she is treated as a US citizen and her connection to Peru is not recognized.  Quite an interesting situation.  She has a tabby cat that likes to be taken for walks on a leash.  It goes without saying that dogs have masters but cats have servants and that is the situation in this house hold.  The cat rules the domain.
The next home we visited is out in the country in Gardiner and the house is well over 200 years old.  This family runs ducks and chickens.  The remarkable thing about this house is that the glass in the windows is the original glass and I find that fascinating.  The wife told of how she and her sisters put siding onto the house after reading the directions of how to do it on the internet.  Apparently they had asked someone to come and do the the job for them but the person never showed up so the three sisters went about doing it. It is amazing what we can do when we set out minds to it.
The last home we visited is to a lady who is a nurse at the veterans home.  Her favorite shift is the 3 - 11 pm shift.  Her grandson is visiting with her at present.
Because Home Teaching is an integral part of the Church practice, David has been exposed to it from day one.  When he was about 4 or 5 years  old, he went into his room after Sunday Dinner and came out dressed in his Sunday clothes and had his scriptures under his arm and was heading out the door.  I asked him where he was going and he said, "I'm going home teaching."  when he was older, he has gone with his father to visit members in the various area's where we have lived.