Today we had stake conference, it was broadcast from Salt Lake City, this meant that we had Dallin H. Oaks speak as well as President Monson. It was great to tell the truth. From what it sounds like the conference was broadcast to many in midwest stakes. The broadcast covered IL, WI, MN, ND, SD, NE, KS, IA. So quite a few states and quite a few stakes. For those of you who saw this broadcast as well what I speak of will be familiar. For those of you who did not see this conference then let me speak of probably my favorite part.

There were many parts of the conference that really touched me spiritually, however, one of the parts that touched me the most was President Monson’s talk. He spoke of those in the church who are “lost” or rather, the widowed, the inactive, those who are lonely and alone or who are not as close to the church as others. He then spoke of those who reached out to these people and “rescued” them. As he spoke of these people I could not help but think of my visiting teacher.

As I have mentioned before a little over a year ago I began to become inactive, eventually I stopped going to church all together. I was struggling with many things and eventually I ended up sinning greatly. However, near the end around the time that I started seriously thinking about coming back to church my visiting teachers were changed. The two sisters assigned to me were very sweet ladies and they took me out to Culvers on one of our first visits. One of them exchanged e-mail addresses with me and we began to e-mail each other. After awhile the other sister moved out of our ward and I never knew who replaced her. My remaining visiting teacher continued to e-mail me and visit me and encouraged me to come to church by promising to save me a seat in Relief Society each Sunday. Eventually, when the time came that I finally decided to change my life I came to church scared but knowing that there would be a seat in Relief Society saved for me by my visiting teacher.

That first Sunday back I actually ended up saving her a seat, but it was her encouragement that helped make coming back to church not so scary. We are now good friends and we talk every Sunday as well as e-mail during the week. I can attest to the fact that reaching out to those who are struggling does make a difference. I am so grateful that I had one such person in my life.

Tags: Visiting Teaching Conference Inactive

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