Temple Reminder

Sister's,

Just a friendly reminder... The Billings Temple will be closed from May 6 through June 4.  Make sure to plan accordingly if you'd planned to attend the Temple in the month of May.  That's a long way to drive without the blessing of actually attending!  Although, you'd probably be blessed for the effort:)

Hello from Carol, London, & Chase

Just to let you know that we have not dropped off the face of the earth or gone inactive!  The 3 of us are in  Nebraska overseeing the repairs to our home west of Chadron that was inundated with water when a pipe fitting let loose back on March 20th, flooding our crawl space with 5 feet of water, flooding out into our yard, and of course flooding the house itself.  What a mess!.  Now that it is all dried out after 2 1/2 weeks of work by Servicemaster, we have hired a contractor  and repair work begins officially tomorrow, April 16.  It will take about 3 weeks to do the work...foundation repair, wall and ceiling repair/painting, all new floor coverings and much more.   We are doing our schoolwork here, and keeping track of what is going on with our home at the same time, living at Motel 6 in Chadron (actually this one is a really nice hotel with an indoor pool...great for the kids).  London is attending early morning seminary (we are two blocks from the church), and we are attending the Chadron Branch.  Chase and London are active at YMYW and Scouts as well.  We miss our 5th ward, and when the work is done we will be back.  John is holding down the fort in Casper, taking care of all our indoor kitties and working at TSA, attending some meetings in Chase's place (like for Northern Tier).  We may be back for an interim visit (we have already been here since Sat. Apr. 7th, and were here for a week the end of March, too) for a day or two, and John may come here for a weekend as well.


The happy news?  (maybe for RS happy news time) We will end up with a largely new home (on the inside, anyway!) for just our deductible, plus a lot of time, hassle, and some stress (which comes with remodeling anyway!). That's the silver lining of the cloud!

Thanks!
Carol Broome

April Visiting Teaching Message

Love, Watch Over, and Strengthen

Like the Savior, visiting teachers minister one by one (see 3 Nephi 11:15). We know we are successful in our ministering as visiting teachers when our sisters can say: (1) my visiting teacher helps me grow spiritually; (2) I know my visiting teacher cares deeply about me and my family; and (3) if I have problems, I know my visiting teacher will take action without waiting to be asked.¹

How can we as visiting teachers love, watch over, and strengthen a sister? Following are nine suggestions found in chapter 7 of Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society to help visiting teachers minister to their sisters:

• •Pray daily for her and her family.
• •Seek inspiration to know her and her family.
• •Visit her regularly to learn how she is doing and to comfort and strengthen her.
• •Stay in frequent contact through visits, phone calls, letters, e-mail, text messages, and simple acts of kindness.
• •Greet her at Church meetings.
• •Help her when she has an emergency, illness, or other urgent need.
• •Teach her the gospel from the scriptures and the Visiting Teaching Messages.
• •Inspire her by setting a good example.
• •Report to a Relief Society leader about their service and the sister’s spiritual and temporal well-being.

From the Scriptures

Luke 10:38–39; 3 Nephi 11:23–26; 27:21

From Our History

“Visiting teaching has become a vehicle for Latter-day Saint women worldwide to love, nurture, and serve—to ‘act according to those sympathies which God has planted in [our] bosoms,’ as Joseph Smith taught.”²

A sister who had recently been widowed said of her visiting teachers: “They listened. They comforted me. They wept with me. And they hugged me. … [They] helped me out of the deep despair and depression of those first few months of loneliness.”³

Help with temporal tasks is also a form of ministering. At the October 1856 general conference, President Brigham Young announced that handcart pioneers were stranded in deep snow 270–370 miles (435–595 km) away. He called for the Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City to rescue them and to “attend strictly to those things which we call temporal.”⁴

Lucy Meserve Smith recorded that the women took off their warm underskirts and stockings right there in the tabernacle and piled them into wagons to send to the freezing pioneers. Then they gathered bedding and clothing for those who would eventually come with few belongings. When the handcart companies arrived, a building in the town was “loaded with provisions for them.”⁵