I was impressed by the Women's Broadcast this past month. One quote in particular made an impression on me pertaining to visiting teaching. Julie B. Beck said, "This (visiting teaching) is one duty we have in the Church where we are certain to have the help of the Lord
if we ask for it. This is one responsibility that is certain to increase our faith and personal righteousness and strengthen our own homes and families as we become partners with the Lord. A sister in this Church has no other responsibility outside of her family that has the potential to do as much good as does visiting teaching." then a little later she adds, "Faithfully serving as a visiting teacher is evidence of our discipleship."
Those are pretty powerful words to describe something that in essence is so simple and easy and yet so easy to disregard or procrastinate. I often wonder what I can do to serve others and go to great lengths to find ways to serve, which is a good thing--however, If I am ignoring or just doing the bare minimum for the sisters that I am assigned to visit teach then I am dropping the ball and I cannot partake of the blessings promised to those who make visiting teaching a "way of life" rather than a "task".
I have made a promise to myself to improve in this area. While thinking about this and thumbing through the great lds blogosphere I came upon a really neat blog that has given me some fun ideas on how I might present my visiting teaching message. I thought I would share it with you.
Hopefully, as I improve, the measure of my discipleship will not find me wanting.
I seem to be addicted to these milk chocolate chips found at Winco in the bulk section. I keep blaming my kids for taking them before I have a chance to use them in some kind of treat but in all honesty--I think I'm the number 1 culprit. I just can't seem to stop eating them!
We heard that the U of I was allowing people to come and pick their apples for free last week. I guess because of the early frost the apples were not going to last much longer and they would rather people be able to use them instead of just letting them rot on the trees. We decided to take full advantage of this situation. We hopped in the truck and herded our "cats" out to the orchard. We picked about 4 boxes full. Some were Rome and some were Golden Delicious.
Drew--ever the inventor-- made this "apple hammer" and had more fun chucking apples across the orchard. You'd be surprised how far those suckers could go.
I decided to take advantage of the fun scenery and indulge in a little photo op. 
I love love love it when I can catch my big manly man acting fun and silly with his little girls. There is something Oh-so-sweet about a father/daughter relationship. It literally makes my heart ache to watch them have fun together.
Notice A's gap in her teeth. It is now even bigger b/c she lost the other front one yesterday. I have to admit--it's so cute.
Look at these piles of Laundry-----What do they tell you?
They found all sorts of ways to entertain themselves along the way. I'm pretty sure that since this particular building is a city building--someone would have had a heart attack if they had seen the kids doing this. They would have dreamed about lawsuits that night for sure. We might even have been banned from walking had we been caught.
We had to stop and play at friendship square while we were there. We hardly ever go downtown and so the kids were thrilled to be able to play here. I was just glad that no one fell in the fountain as they were chasing each other around and around it.
