Visiting teachers must excel and give leadership to the women into whose homes they go. They must excel in energy, and awareness and thoroughness—and in testimony, for above all things, their testimony is unanswerable....


“He which soweth sparingly,” said Paul, “shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” (2 Cor. 9:6.) We don’t get anywhere by just saying words. We have to put our heart in the words, and we have to plan and prepare our minds. I wonder if there are any sisters that ever fast, maybe the morning they are going visiting teaching. I don’t know that it is required. There are a lot of things in the Church that are not required, a lot of things we would like to do. The one who goes just to visit homes, to knock on doors, to pass the time of day, and then goes back to make the report is a little bit like the one whom Paul speaks of who is “fighting as one that beateth the air,” (1 Cor. 9:26) and not making any progress. We need to go forth and do our job as we should do it.

Can we have it all?

But, my dear granddaughters, you cannot do everything well at the same time. You cannot be a 100 percent wife, a 100 percent mother, a 100 percent church worker, a 100 percent career person, and a 100 percent public-service person at the same time. How can all of these roles be coordinated? Says Sarah Davidson: “The only answer I come up with is that you can have it sequentially. At one stage you may emphasize career, and at another marriage and nurturing young children, and at any point you will be aware of what is missing. If you are lucky, you will be able to fit everything in.” Doing things sequentially—filling roles one at a time at different times—is not always possible, as we know, but it gives a woman the opportunity to do each thing well in its time and to fill a variety of roles in her life. A woman does not necessarily have to track a career like a man does. She may fit more than one career into the various seasons of life. She need not try to sing all of the verses of her song at the same time.

The Lord said, "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will." (D&C 58:27.) Good things can be done through the Church organization, community organizations, and very often through no formal organization at all.

In humanitarian work, as in other areas of the gospel, we cannot become the salt of the earth if we stay in one lump in the cultural halls of our beautiful meetinghouses.

"To begin with, Abraham was in the world, a wicked world very much like our own. From childhood to the grave, he was a stranger in his society because he insisted on living by the principles of the gospel and preaching them to others wherever he went, even if it meant getting into trouble. Those principles, teachings, covenants, ordinances, and promises were alien to the world, which was bitterly hostile to them. So Abraham's whole life, as is often stated, was a series of trials or tests, and by example and precept he tells us how to come through victorious.

"His object? Not to conquer or impress but to bless all with whom he comes into contact, ultimately shedding the blessing that God gave to him upon the whole human race. For that he is first of all the magnanimous, the great-hearted, the ever-hospitable Abraham, who always does the fair and compassionate thing no matter how badly others may behave toward him. He is the friend of God because he is the friend of man, pleading on his knees for Sodom and Gomorrah. That is the moral pattern for all men to follow.

"Only by 'doing the works of Abraham' can we hope to establish a better order of things on the earth, that order of Zion lost since the days of Noah. This takes courage, tact, unfailing faith, and the constant aid of divine revelation. It entails more than human contrivance or human wisdom. — Abraham must acquire ever more and more knowledge. The guiding principle is intelligence, an awareness of things as they are: the physical world, the structure and nature of the cosmos, and the spiritual realtities that are behind everything. For Abraham, everything is a prelude to what lies beyond.