VISITING TEACHING MESSAGE for
october
Honoring Our Covenants
Prayerfully study this
material and, as appropriate, discuss it with the sisters you visit. Use the
questions to help you strengthen your sisters and to make Relief Society an
active part of your own life.
Visiting teaching is an expression of our discipleship and a way
to honor our covenants as we serve and strengthen one another. A covenant is a
sacred and enduring promise between God and His children. “When we realize that
we are children of the covenant, we know who we are and what God expects of
us,” said Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
“His law is written in our hearts. He is our God and we are His people.”1
As visiting teachers we can strengthen those we visit in their
efforts to keep their sacred covenants. By doing so, we help them prepare for
the blessings of eternal life. “Every sister in this Church who has made
covenants with the Lord has a divine mandate to help save souls, to lead the
women of the world, to strengthen the homes of Zion, and to build the kingdom
of God,”2 said Elder M. Russell Ballard
of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
As we make and keep sacred covenants, we become instruments in the
hands of God. We will be able to articulate our beliefs and strengthen each
other’s faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
From
the Scriptures
From
Our History
The temple is “a place of thanksgiving for all saints,” the Lord
revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1833. It is “a place of instruction for
all those who are called to the work of the ministry in all their several
callings and offices; that they may be perfected in the understanding of their
ministry, in theory, in principle, and in doctrine, in all things pertaining to
the kingdom of God on the earth” (D&C 97:13–14).
Relief Society sisters in Nauvoo, Illinois, in the early 1840s
helped each other prepare for temple ordinances. In the ordinances of the
higher priesthood that Latter-day Saints received in the Nauvoo Temple, “the
power of godliness [was] manifest” (D&C 84:20). “As the Saints kept their
covenants, this power strengthened and sustained them through their trials in
the days and years ahead.”3
In the Church today, faithful women and men all over the world
serve in the temple and continue to find strength in the blessings that can be
received only through temple covenants.
For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org.
What
Can I Do?
1. How do my covenants strengthen me? How am I helping the sisters I watch over to
keep their covenants?
Notes
1. Russell M. Nelson, “Covenants,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov.
2011, 88.
2. M. Russell Ballard, “Women of
Righteousness,” Liahona, Dec. 2002, 39; Ensign, Apr.
2002, 70.
3. Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief
Society (2011), 133.
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