I guess we missed a month. Sorry, Bloggernacle!
This month, we have been instructed as follows:
Because the November Ensign and Liahona contain the proceedings of general conference, there is not a designated First Presidency or visiting teaching message. Home and visiting teachers are encouraged to prayerfully select their messages from the conference addresses.
I have chosen Look Toward Eternity! by Elaine S. Dalton, Second Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency.
Items required for the lesson:
- one glass pitcher, filled with water
- food coloring or dye
- one tube of toothpaste
- one pack of Juicy Fruit gum
- one raw egg
- one dirty, muddy sock in a ziploc bag
Brother and Sister Nacle, thanks again for letting us into your home. We have an important lesson to share with you. Sister Nacle, would you please read the first paragraph of this talk by Sister Dalton?
Sister Nacle:
When our first grandson was born, the entire family rushed to the hospital. It was an amazing experience for me to see our oldest son, Matthew, holding this precious new baby boy. While standing at the nursery window with our youngest son, Chad, we gazed into the eyes of this new little spirit–so clean, so pure, so recently from heaven. It seemed that all time stood still, and for an instant, we could see the great eternal plan. The sacredness of life was crystal clear, and I whispered to Chad, “Do you understand why it is so important to remain clean and pure?” He responded reverently, “Oh yes, Mom, I get it.”
Do YOU get it, Nacle? See this pitcher of water? It looks clean and pure and delicious. But look! I will pour a single drop of dye into it, and the whole pitcher is now just as delicious, but it is crimson red. Take note.
Brother Nacle, would you please read the passage circled as Number One?
Brother Nacle:
To become unspotted from the world requires not only faith but repentance and obedience. We must live the standards and do those things which will entitle us to the constant companionship and guidance of the Holy Ghost–for the Spirit cannot dwell in unholy temples.
UNHOLY temples, Brother Nacle. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You think you can just watch whatever you like and do as you please, then on Sunday all is well? Take this tube of Crest, Brother Nacle. Squeeze it out into this cup. Now, try and put the toothpaste back in the tube. You can’t, can you? That’s what I thought. Now remember that. You can keep the cup.
Here, Ronan (puts stick of Juicy Fruit in Ronan’s mouth). Now, Brother and Sister Nacle, I would not harrow you up with these visual aids if your consciences were clean. But are they clean? ARE THEY? I fear for you, Nacle (holds egg high in the air). Like this egg, you are so perfect, so full of potential life and protein. But, (drops egg, splattering it) you are fragile and easily broken. Do you think you can put yourselves together if your virtue is broken? Er, sorry about the mess.
Now, Nacle, all is not lost. You CAN be made whole, but not by yourself. Here, Sister Nacle, read this:
One young man I know said: “It’s just too hard. Living the standards in my world is not realistic. It’s just too hard.” Yet knowing that we are sons and daughters of God, we must strive for worthiness. Another group of youth adopted the motto “I Can Do Hard Things.” They understand their identity, their mission, their source of guidance, and they receive strength through keeping their covenants. They also understand that when they make a mistake, they can change! Satan wants all of us to think that repentance is not possible. This is absolutely not true. The Savior has promised forgiveness.”
Brother and Sister Nacle, we think about you every day and pray for you. We know that things are tough. Sometimes you get muddy and dingy, like this smelly sock. Would you want to wear this sock? Would you soul kiss this sock? No. Now think about that sock as you go out there and court a young lady. Or young ladies, think about that sock as you wait to be called upon by some young man. Disgusting.
We’re depending upon you, Nacle. I hope that you have learned something. Would you ever chew this same piece of gum that Ronan has been chewing this whole time? YOU ARE NOT USED GUM, Bloggernacle! Now, go out there and always remember who you are.
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
Steve, you’re such a jerk.
“I can do hard things” ?
That’s awful.
If you imagine Steve as Chris Farley “…in a van down by the river…” I think it even adds to it…
Eating government cheese, but PRESERVING MY VIRTUE, Matt!
awesome.
I like the Ronan bit.
Geez. He managed to get every single object lesson from my days in YW into one post. That oughta get a Pulitzer or something.
ahhh dear Mogget, if only they had worked. But there are scores more to deliver: taking a bite out of a cake then frosting over it is a personal favorite.
Sadly, the young women seem to get most of the object lessons. For the young men, it was more…….. practical. And awkward.
Amri,
Beavis and Butthead beg to differ.
That’s the best HT lesson EVER!
I love having virtual home teachers! And I love the element of humor in the lessons as well, though it’s not necessary that it be funny all the time. Like any good drama, it works best for it to be funny and touching, joyful and sorrowful by turns, I think. Still, you’ve done a great job on the ones I’ve read so far. The only thing I miss is that you didn’t say a prayer at the start and end. Please consider that next month?
Steve,
I won’t have time to do my home teaching this month. I was wondering if you could do it for me.
Thank you, brothers. My soul was thirsting for just such a prayerfully considered message right now. I love the sweet instruction that even though it’s really easy to make a mess of things, restoring things back to their original pureness is basically impossible. However, you forgot to rub a snowy white gardenia until it was brown and wilted.
Thanks again HTs. I look forward to your monthly visits.
This lesson makes me glad I was never a Laurel attending standards night.
Thanks, sister meems.
Tatiana, we will return to our regular style of home teaching when Ronan sobers up, I assure you. Will you please say the opening prayer for the December visit (peers eerily into screen, Elder Scott-style)?
Oh, and there’s the one about the rose too–the one where you take a rosebud and try to open it “before it’s ready,” ripping off all the petals in the process. That’s the one I remember from YW.
The one I remember, though never demonstrated, was licking butter off of bread. I think they only didn’t demonstrate it because no-one would actually do that anymore. My grandma would have when she was a kid, (heck she might still do it when no-one else is around) but butter is just not in style these days.
Sheesh! Makes me kind of glas I was never a Laurel! Can my husband just e-mail this to his families?
ha! nice try, Tracy.
My wife and I had to do standards night last year. My wife is YW pres. We didn’t do any of this stuff. We told it how it was. My wife said she had a hard time as a youth because no one ever directly explained what necking and petting was and left it up to her imagination. So we didn’t leave anything up to the imagination. She asked me to work with the YM and she did the YW. I have to say that was the hardest lesson I’ve ever taught in my life.
I can’t possibly be the only person who talks openly about bodies and sex– euphamisms might be cute and all, but come on! Our kids need facts- and if someone is too embarassed to tell them, find someone who can. I’m not going to compare my daughter to a gardenia and my boys to plundering idiots. Sheesh.
Good job, Matt W, for you and your wife stepping up and giving the kids real information, even if it was tough.
It wasn’t the frank discussion of Sex that was tough, it was the 12 year olds with their wide eyed faces which kept changing from pale to bright red over and over…