A Party At Your House

President Ezra Taft Benson said that home teaching is "priesthood compassionate service."
Not long ago I received a touching letter from Sister Mori Farmer.
It tells of two home teachers and the loving service they provided the Farmer family during a time when the family was experiencing some difficult financial circumstances.
At the time the service was provided, the Farmer family was out of town attending a family reunion.

I share with you first a letter written to the Farmer family by their home teachers, which the family found taped to their garage door when they returned home.
It begins: "We hope you had a great family reunion.
While you were gone, we and about fifty of our friends had a great party at your house.
We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the years of unselfish service you both have given to us.
You have been Christlike examples of untiring service to others.
We can never repay you for that--but just thought we'd like to say thanks.
Signed, your home teachers."

I quote now from Sister Mori Farmer's letter to me:

"[After reading the note from our home teachers] we entered the house with great anticipation.
What we found shocked us so much we were at a loss for words.
I stayed up all night crying over the generosity of the people in our ward.

"Our home teachers had decided that they would fix our carpet while we were away.
They had moved the furniture out into the front  yard so the carpet could get stretched and finished.
One man in the ward stopped and asked what was going on.
He returned later with several hundred dollars' worth of paint and said, 'We might as well paint the house while everything is out.'
Others saw the cars out front and stopped to see what was going on, and by week's end 50 people were busy repairing, painting, cleaning, and sewing.

"Our friends and fellow ward members had fixed our poorly laid carpet, painted the entire house, repaired holes in the drywall, oiled and varnished our kitchen cabinets, put curtains on three windows in the kitchen and family room, did all the laundry, cleaned every room in the house, had the carpets cleaned, fixed broken door latches, and on and on.
In trying to make a list of all the wonderful things they did for us, we filled three pages.
All of this had been accomplished between Wednesday and our return on Sunday.

"Almost everyone we talked to told us, with tears in their eyes, what a spiritual experience it had been to participate.
We have been truly humbled by this experience.
As we look around our home, we are reminded of their kindness and of the great sacrifice of time, talents, and money they made for our family.
Our home teachers have truly been angels in our lives, and we will never forget them and the wonderful things they have done for us."

Thomas S. Monson -Home Teaching-- a Divine Service -October 1997 General Conference

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi