The Bad Hometeacher (Me)
By Stephen Carter on Mar 22, 2007
Last Sunday the stake installed a new elder’s quorum presidency in our ward. When the outgoing president said his farewell words he told us that during his tenure hometeaching stats had plummeted to an all time low. I thought it was odd that he would admit to such a thing, but I admired his candor.
I also felt a pang of guilt. I’m an OK hometeacher. I’m usually at least on a first-name basis with my hometeachees and try to take more than a once-a-month interest in their lives (though I’m not much on the spiritual message side; I don’t want to frighten the poor people). However, as a matter of principle, I do not report my hometeaching stats.
I realize that this isn’t very nice of me. Any elder’s quorum president out there would probably like to throttle me. Why not make the poor man’s life a little easier? Why not try to boost the meager reports?
The answer isn’t too complicated or deep. I don’t report my stats because I don’t want to feel like being these people’s friend is my job. If I’m pleased to tell my elder’s quorum president each month that I visited these people then I feel like I visited them, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of a report and my standing as an elder.
Personally, I have rarely cared for my hometeachers. I always feel like I’m their job, and I hate that feeling. I go to great lengths to make our obligatory meetings bearable. I try to set up the visits as family get-togethers, or make it into a game night, or at least have treats. I want them to forget about their record and just enjoy the visit. But they have rarely taken the bait, tenaciously insisting on sticking to the form of hometeaching.
Maybe I’m just creepy.
Anyway. I tried to think up a compromise. Maybe I should just tell my new elder’s quorum president to put me down at 75 percent hometeaching every month (since I’m certainly not a 100 percenter). That way I can get what I want and he can get 75 percent of what he wants.
I wonder if he’ll bite?
Just tell him the truth. Tell him why you’re reluctant to tell him. Tell him you saw everybody (if you did). Think of it as a gift to your EQP, a way to sustain him in his calling, that has nothing to do with what you’re doing.
You do your home teaching because you feel called to do it.
You tell your EQP about your home teaching because you want to support him in his calling. Not because it has anything to do with why you’re doing your home teaching. Obviously, telling someone is not your reason for doing it. Telling someone doesn’t CHANGE your reasons. It’s just telling someone.
Comment # 1 by Ann | Mar 22, 2007 | Reply
You sound like the type of hometeacher that I’d appreciate.
Comment # 2 by Jana | Mar 22, 2007 | Reply
Wow, home teaching. I can see the point of it, but I find it REALLY tedious, especially since I’ve been assigned to a guy for several years now who is an absolute fanatic about doing it every month, so it’s harder for me to blow off. And he’s the kind of guy whose visits are chloroform in person, because he likes to mumble to them right out of the Ensign’s First Prez message.
My life has gotten busy enough that that extra hour on a Sunday is precious to me, and I’m sure I would go only 2-3 times a year on my own (if at all–there have been times when I never even met my hometeaching companion, let alone our assigned families). Quarterly seems like plenty–once a month is way too often.
But I have to admit that I do feel an almost proprietary friendliness with the people we home teach, and I think we helped at least one new family be more active in the ward by showing an interest in them. So I can see how it helps tie together a congregation socially. But like virtually everything in the Church, there’s something so damn boring about it….
Comment # 3 by Chris Bigelow | Mar 23, 2007 | Reply
I have had some very interesting experiences as a home teacher and home teachee. The teachee part has been fairly negative, but the teacher part has had some very handsome rewards.
I learned to home teach from my dad, like most of us here. His idea of home teaching was being a friend. Since my dad was a high priest most of his life, we always had part-member families to visit. I can’t tell you how many times people joined the church or came back to activity because of my dad. It wasn’t because he had a message out of the scriptures every visit. It wasn’t because he stood and bore powerful testimonies to them every time. It wasn’t because he dragged his aaronic priesthood son along with him all the time. It was because the people understood he truly loved them for who they were. No matter what! In fact, I did a lot of home teaching with him on Saturday afternoons, helping people clean out their barns (we used the s— we cleaned out for our own garden/compost), butchering pigs and cows and turkeys, fishing, not what you would consider home teaching.
That is the message of the gospel and of home teaching. We do it because we love our fellow man. Many people who are not members of the church, work tirelessly for charities around the world. They do amazing things for their fellow beings. They are doing their home teaching in their own way. Too many of us look at home teaching as a “have to” rather than a “get to.” With a different attitude, it can be a wonderful experience.
Comment # 4 by Brian | Mar 23, 2007 | Reply
When I was a member of the LDS church, I despised home teaching. I felt it was truly pathetic that we had to actually assign people to be someone’s friend. As a member of various EQ presidencies, I hated having to ask for reports. (Even as a missionary leader, I was repulsed by the constant emphasis on statistics.) As a result, I rarely made home teaching visits—almost never in the last year or so.
In one case, I was assigned a family to home teach, where I was already a friend of the father. We saw each other several times a week, and knew much of what was going on in each others’ families, etc. Still, I think I made exactly two actual “home teaching visits” to the family in nearly two years of being assigned to them.
Stephen, I suggest an entirely different purpose in reporting your home teaching. I suggest that you divorce the reporting entirely from your performance, in your own mind. Rather, make the reporting all about serving the EQ president. Give him reports, as your small part in helping him avoid uncomfortable, high-pressure meetings with the bishop and stake president, where he gets called on the carpet for “not doing enough” to see that home teaching is done. This way, your act of reporting is one more service, rather than “getting credit” for service already done.
Comment # 5 by Nick Literski | Mar 23, 2007 | Reply
I don’t mark the role at church. I just cant understand why they even send it around. Can you imagine that in any other congregation? It just feels weird to me.
And where does that info even go?
I’m paranoid, maybe.
Comment # 6 by Rick Jepson | Mar 23, 2007 | Reply