Just doing a lot of Home Teaching ? Part II

Note: This is part II in a series of posts explaining what we are doing as missionaries in Garden City, Kansas, USA. If you haven’t already done so, we recommend you read Part I first before continuing with Part II.

2. In many of the homes where we visit there are also non-members living or visiting, and we invite them to come to Christ too.

Sometimes, when we have an appointment to visit with a member, we find that one or two non-members will be there too. It is not uncommon for a member to invite family or friends to come to our discussions. These can be amazing opportunities, as they give us the opportunity to teach and testify to people who usually know something about the church because of the member. Most often their knowledge is pretty thin. Sometimes their relationship with the member has increased their interest. Other times, we’ve found that they are upset that their friend or family member has allegiance to a different church, particularly to the “Mormon” church, and they have pre-judged our message.

GCK is a lot like other parts of the “World”. Many of the less-active members are following the ways of the “world”, so we find that others in the home may be live-in boy friends or girl friends, or the children of such relationships. There are also a lot of brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, nephews, or nieces, as well as unrelated friends that live with or visit in the homes of the members we are visiting.

Memorial Day Evening in Garden City. We were early to visit a family across the street, so we took a tour through the cemetary. The scouts came through removing the large flags just before this picture was taken. The more-distant grave marker includes the boots, rifle and helmet of a fallen soldier. A stiff breeze kept the remaining flags at attention.

With the live-in relationships, there is often someone there who is providing some kind of help to one or more of the others. This may be the member helping someone else, or it may be the other way around. The strangest one we have seen is the one where the member lives with his ex-wife and her new husband. As you can guess, the type of relationship that exists usually affects how much success we can expect as we try to teach the message of the restoration.

Whenever there are non-members included in a meeting, our objectives shift a little to focus more on the non-members’ needs than that of the members. The members are still taught what they need to know to return to Christ, but the needs of the non-members are usually even greater, so they require more of our focus.

When there are non-members in the home, the members usually face extra challenges, and this is especially true when the non-members are live-in partners in violation of the law of chastity. Such cases require major repentance efforts involving more than just the member. It is not possible for the members to fully return to Christ until the partner in the relationship also changes – either by marrying or moving out.

A wedding picture. This couple just came out of the church after being married. They were scheduled to be baptized soon, and this was a necessary step along the way.

Although we have taught several such people, we’ve not gotten very far with any of them yet. Other missionaries working here in the past, however, have succeeded in a few cases, and there are active members here who were formerly in this condition. There have been several couples who have had to marry before they could be baptized, and others ended relationships so they could join or return to the church. One that we have been working with was living in such a relationship before we came to town. Her boy-friend was also a baptized member. When she decided to return to church, he refused, and burned all of the LDS literature they had in the house.

The missionaries in the Garden City District gathered for a cook-out at a member's home. We get invitations to eat with members quite often - more often than fits well with our desire to loose weight.

He eventually left in anger, and she has been able to regain her connection to the church. He still contacts her from time to time, with offers to get back together in violation of her commitment to the law of chastity, but he has forbidden her to reveal to any church members where he is now living. She is now coming to church quite regularly. This situation is quite fragile, however, and we continue to meet with her weekly to continue to strengthen her in her resolve to keep straight. We have had to broaden the selection of teaching topics beyond that normal for teaching the missionary discussions to build a stronger foundation for her faith.

When there are others living in a house often, their presense usually introduces challenges with the Word of Wisdom or finances, and we find that we have to be pretty good listeners for a while as there are stories to be told. There are times, however, when the non-members living or visiting with members make good contacts for us to work with. Our first hope is that the non-members will accept Christ and want to become members too. That would lead them to repentance, and in the process the member is strengthened too.