January 2018 Visiting Teaching Printable Handout

Have you heard about the new changes this year to the visiting teaching messages?

No longer will we have a specific message, rather we are focusing on how we can best minister to those we visit teach. And this change is awesome! I love that the focus has shifted to how can we really help those we visit every month, rather than having a checklist mentality for visiting teaching.

But this change left me in a quandary about the visiting teaching printables that I make every month. Do I stop making visiting teaching printables? If I keep making them, how am I supposed to know what message to put on them? Will I be wasting my time by continuing to make these printables?

These are the questions that I have been asking myself ever since I heard about the change. I have prayed and thought about these questions a lot. And the truth is, I am not sure exactly what I will be doing this year. 😉

For now, my plan is to keep making monthly printables. I plan on picking a message that resonates with me based on the season, and the messages I read in the Ensign and in the scriptures. Of course, the messages will be uplifting, inspirational, and applicable to everyone, whether they come to church regularly or haven’t come in years. What do you think? Sound good?

For this month’s printable, I chose a quote from this month’s First Presidency message. Not only is perfect for the start of a new year, but it’s also very inspirational. And it’s from our sweet prophet. That’s a win-win-win in my book! 🙂

I actually love the entire first paragraph of this message:

“Our responsibility is to rise from mediocrity to competence, from failure to achievement,” President Thomas S. Monson has taught. “Our task is to become our best selves. One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final.”

I love that one of the messages of this statement is that there is joy in trying again.

Ummm, I don’t know about you but I am usually not happy when I fail at something and have to start over. “Joyful” is not one of the ways I would describe this process. In fact, more accurate descriptions include: annoyed, frustrated, and discouraged.

But President Monson is teaching us that starting over is a gift. Something we should celebrate. And the reality is that we are going to fail in life from time to time. This is a reality of mortality. So I am going to pin this printable on my cork board and try to remember that I need to find joy when I get to try again. Or start over. I want to find joy in the process.