Saturday, February 28, 2009

Can Anyone Else Relate to This?


When I saw this from http://www.9thwardcartoons.com/ I had to laugh. Here the poor man has been stranded on a deserted island, probably praying for someone to help him get off. His home teachers arrive and leave, completely oblivious to his needs.
My mother-in-law always says, "Confession is good for the soul, but not the reputation". And with that in mind, I am still going to confess something. I can relate all to well to this cartoon. (I am oh, so sorry to say.)
One day my visiting teaching companion and I visited a home of a young mother of five small children. While there, everything fell into total chaos. The baby was crying, a child who wanted a bath had taken off all his clothes and was running around naked, another child had flooded the bathroom floor. And all of the kids wanted their mother's immediate attention.


We offered to help but the mom insisted she could take care of it all, and encouraged us to be on our way. We insisted, but again she refused our offers. Truthfully, I was a bit relieved as I really had no idea where to even start. But as my companion and I walked out the door, leaving the poor mother with five crying kids, a naked child, a hungry baby and a flooded bathroom, I said to my companion, "We are the worst visiting teachers in the entire world."


I have since tried to repent of that mistake. But when I saw this cartoon all the memories came rushing back. I want to thank my own visisting teachers though--the ones I have now and the ones in the past. You are all great!

5 comments:

justmeagain said...

Ha! Ha! You ARE a terrible visiting teacher! (JK) She was probably used to the chaos and thought it would be easier to deal wtih it by herself. At least you can hope that was the case. :-) Love the cartoon.

Visiting teachers are great. I love mine.

Rebecca Irvine said...

I love my VT, but I have to admit I only got to see one of three of mine this month... I need to repent too!

Handsfullmom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Handsfullmom said...

That's really cute! The thing is with our family, we'd be stranded on that desert island for years before we even got a visit! I think in the 12 years we've been married, we've had about 10 visits from home teachers. =P

You are probably a great Visiting Teacher and that mom probably didn't feel abandoned, just relieved that she didn't have her kids acting up with people around after you left.

(Sorry for deleting the post above, I wrote it all and then noticed that my tired brain had typed desert aisle rather than island!)

Heidi said...

When you are young, it is hard to be assertive enough to just pitch in even when she kept saying no. (I think our home teachers have been pretty close to the group who have done the least for us over the years (and we really needed help!) Men! I hope I don't sound like a man hater--they truly are oblivious though!)