Home teaching // leaving in a hurry // missionaries everywhere

[pne]

Yesterday, I went to Viola. I was supposed to go home teaching there with Thomas Heyen at seven, but when he didn't show up at quarter past and I couldn't reach him at home or on his mobile phone, I just went over there with Stella.

We had an interesting time, talked about this and that. Thomas came over a bit later; he had forgotten about the appointment, but remembered when he listened to the message I had left on his answering machine. Before we left, we made an appointment for next month.

This morning, Stella wanted to start right off with her resolutions, including keeping the house spick and span. She wanted me to tell her which plugs could be taken out of their sockets and put in another power strip in order to reduce the cables lying around… which a bit annoying since I wanted to get off to work. I finally left, but had forgotten my lunch.

When Stella waved to me from the convervatory (? - Wintergarten; a kind of enclosed balcony), she waved with my lunch box :p. I hurried across the lawn to underneath the window and she tossed it to me… fortunately, we live on the first floor [that's "second floor" for your Leftpondians, I believe] and so it wasn't that high up and I could catch it well.

When I changed busses in Harburg, Sister Gysler and Sister Morley got out of the bus I wanted to get in. I saw them just quickly enough to say "Hi" before they went on. I was wondering what they were doing in Harburg; it's rather outside their area.

Then, several stops later, our elders got on the bus. I told them about meeting the sisters and they said that they had spent some time with our ward's sisters. That would make sense, since they live further down the same bus line.

Now at work. We'll see how things will go; there's a fair amount of stuff to be done by Sunday night, and I may be in tomorrow morning as well.

Comments

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

It's easy to forget you are German when you use terms such as "Spick and span"! The sort of thing that you'd only expect native English speackers to come out with:)

As for the "Wintergarten", you were nearly there - it's "conservatory", though having one on the first floor is unusual, I don't expect there's a different word for it (it might be more commonly referred to as a balcony, though).:)

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

AFAIK pne is a native speaker of English, though.

NSOE

[pne.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

What subject do you give additional lessons in? In English?

home teaching

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah, no, not lessons in the "school" sense.

Home teaching (Heimlehren) is a church thing, where members are visited regularly to see how they are doing, whether they need help, etc. Home teachers also generally give a short gospel message during their visit.

All men who bear the priesthood are supposed to have a home teaching calling and visit their assigned families regularly. Some do so, others ignore their duties to a greater or lesser extent. (In Viola's case, she said that the previous time she had been visited was a year or more ago.)

Women go visiting other women monthly; this is called visiting teaching ("Besuchslehren" in Church German).

So, every adult woman in the church should have visiting teachers, and every family should have home teachers.

Re: home teaching

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Umm yeah, I'm not really into all that religious stuff. Never heard of Besuchslehren or Heimlehren either. You wrote that priests should do this sort of thing, so: Are you a priest? By the way, is this teaching thing only common in your confession or do the Catholic or the Protestant church have something similar?

Re: home teaching

[pne.livejournal.com]

Never heard of Besuchslehren or Heimlehren either.

I can imagine; it's a technical ("jargon") term used in our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (http://www.lds.org/) / die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage (http://www.lds.org/languages/mainmenu/0,5362,88-4,00.html) -- sometimes people also call us "Mormons"), not a term in general use in Germany or even in other Christian churches, as far as I know.

You wrote that priests should do this sort of thing, so: Are you a priest?

Not in the way I use the word. In our church, priest is only one "office" (role, or rank) in the priesthood. I'm currently an elder, which is another office in the priesthood; it comes after priest. (And despite the name, one can become an elder at 18.) So, I hold the priesthood, but I'm not a priest any more.

I'm not paid for it, though; our church has a lay priesthood.

By the way, is this teaching thing only common in your confession or do the Catholic or the Protestant church have something similar?

I don't know, sorry. I imagine that clerics in those churches also visit their "sheep" occasionally, but I don't know whether they have an organised program.

If you want to read more about our church, you can have a look at mormon.org (http://www.mormon.org/) (also available in German (http://www.mormon.org/welcome/0,6929,403-84,00.html)). Or post here and ask.