What do you think would happen if you would not let the home eachers give your family a lesson, spiritual thought or even say a prayer? Would you be called into the bishop's office for an interview? Would your spouse go crazy?

Would you be shunned? Cast into outer darkness? Lose your throne in the after life?

What do you believe would happen?

My dad has had some families on his list like that before. I don't think anything happened to them. Most of them were inactive though.

...we always had to hide the beer cans when they came. We called em' "home creatures".

I merely told the HT that I didn't believe what he taught and soon I was in the bishop's office with the TR taken from me. Well, I did also tell the HT that I didn't believe JS was a prophet, etc.

Nobody cares. HT is about 10-20% accomplished month-to-month.

Your HT may make a note and pass it on to your EQP. That's about the extent of it.

When I worked Sundays and nights, I told the HT's that I wasn't interested in trying to accommodate them the last Sunday of the month. They tried contacting me the next month, on the last Sunday, and I told them we didn't have time for them. I *was* active at the time, but both my wife and I were working, and I didn't want to spend limited free time listening to them.

It's not as though the EQP and HT's have copious amounts of free time to chase you down, either. They'll just mark you as not home-taught that month, and they may or may not try again next month. It simply doesn't matter enough to them (nor, in my opinion, should it) to care a whole lot.

I remember years ago when I moved to Reno, NV. After our first Sunday in our new ward the Bishop asked my wife and I to stop by his office for a few minutes afterwards. It was a standard "get to know you" meeting but he really caught my attention when he ASKED if we would like to have home teachers. That kind of surprised me, so I asked, "Do I have an option?". The Bishop said, "Yes. Some families feel they don't need to be visited". I glanced at my TBM wife knowing that in her mind she was thinking, "It would be great to have other priesthood holders drop by, think of the blessings they will receive for their service, blah, blah, blah". So I told the Bishop, "Well, how about we start off without home teachers and if we feel we need them at some point we'll let you know". He nodded his head and said "Great". When our meeting was over I walked out of his office thinking, "I'm going to like it here". And I did. The church was a little different in Reno.

When we were on our way out of the church we got some new home teachers. I was talking with them outside in the front yard and my wonderful telepathic 105 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback picked up on the fact that I didn't much like one of the guys. She did something I had never seen her do before that ended our meeting really quickly. She started running and she threw a cross body block on him right at knee level and I thought he was going down big time. A vision of him being injured and suing was a real thought. He was sore and that was his last visit. I believe this was our last HT visit in the church. It was a great way to go out. Thanks, Mazzy, wherever you are.

michaelc1945 Wrote:
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> Thanks, Mazzy, wherever you are.

Ahhhh.....I would have liked Mazzy a LOT!!!

:D :D :D

I had the same thing happen with a cat. The last time the a home teacher ever came by the cat bit him. I had this cat for 16 years, and never before or after did he bite anyone! I miss that cat.

Might not be the norm but it isn't all that unheard of.

She was a single woman who lived alone and one of the home teachers kept coming on to her. He was mentally and emotionally challenged and no one had taken the time to teach him social graces. He said very rude things to Deenie at every visit.

Although she remained active after that, she told the bishop she would not be part of the home teaching program and to take her off the list.

She had to talk through the door a few times and remind the offending young man that he could not come in and that he should not return. It worked for her not to have church visitors even though she was very active in other programs for a long time.

Nothing....if you're inactive with active prominent parents with $$'s like mine were. About 1985, just after I'd finished building our new farm home we were assigned home teachers. My Catholic wife hated the idea but I let them come for several months out of some misguided sense of propriety. But they (especially the guy) was a creep and overly personal so the next time he called I said don't come back. Well, he acted extremely insulted. I told Dad about the incident and he told me nothing had been said to him and that he had nothing to do with them coming to us in the first place.
I never heard another thing about it. Dad and Mom were beloved and respected in the ward and stake and I surmise there may have been a hands off policy when it came to my brother and I.

Ron Burr

Why refuse. Just tell them you are busy for several months or don't answer the phone. Unless your HT is totally without social skills (as some are) they should leave you alone. Just tell them you like cookies so they can drop them at the door and still count you when his leaders ask about his HT success.

My sister had a socially inept HT that banged on her door and yelled: "I know you are in there." No lie.

She called me and asked me to call her bishop and tell them to back off. This was back in the day when I was still making regular payments on my celestial mortgage to LDS Inc. I called and the bishop called off the dogs.

Total protonic reversal. Imagine every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. That's what would happen.

Don't cross the streams!!

I knew an inactive family who did that. As far as I know nothing happened. My guess is that the teachers were insulted and relieved at the same time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 01:15AM by bona dea.

When I was a kid, I hated it. They always came during a favorite TV show and this was when we had one TV in the living room and VCRs and digital recorders were in the distant future.My mom would sometimes let us turn the sound down and watch anyway. while she entertained the teachers. It never occured to them to call or to leave if we looked busy.

Your post took me back. I'm so glad your mom was kind to you. My dad loved having home teachers come. I think most people in the ward avoided him and so this was his chance to drone on and on for a captive audience. I swear those visits were hours long, but kid time is different. I probably got visited about 3% as an adult. I wouldn't even make my kids sit in. They had to come say hi, but that was it.

For the last 5-6 years of my marriage, early 90's until 1996, we had a very reliable home teacher, in the sense that he would come at the very worst time every month. Either we were backing out of the driveway to go somewhere, or we had people visiting, etc. My wife and I were flying somewhere on a Sunday afternoon, on the way to the airport, and here he comes and was quite put out that we could take time for him. He did come every month, but he never called ahead so it was hard to plan.

I don't complain much about the church and am not particularly hateful or bitter, but I hated home teaching, doing it and being done. They always wanted me to treat them as friends, and I used to think that for the most part, I'd choose more interesting friends.

"They always wanted me to treat them as friends, and I used to think that for the most part, I'd choose more interesting friends."

Bingo.

Sadly, I know too many TBMs who probably wouldn't have (or wouldn't know how to) have friends if they weren't assigned to them.

The same guy has been our HT for well over 10 years, maybe closer to 20. He is faithful about his visits and is a sweet guy. He never tries to shove any churchy crap down our throats. He may read a bit from the current Ensign, and he and DH discuss it, but in any event, I respect his sincerity and faithfulness. If he ever croaks or becomes disabled and we are assigned a new HT, my DH might just tell them not to bother.

You'd have a pleasant evening without them?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 02:58AM by verilyverily.

Why stay in the church have them assigned in the first place?

We were never given an option. I always resented having these men in our home teaching my family things that my husband and I were perfectly capable of doing ourselves. It's like TSCC saying, "we don't trust you to indoctrinate your children on your own. So here's these two men to do it for you."

Plus they NEVER setup an appt. Dropping by unannounced is just about the most disrespectful thing you can do without beings outright offensive.

Anyone who doesn't want it has to tell them and put up with the social consequences which might be mild to moderate disapproval.

Funny story that I thought I'd share after I read your post. My wife and I left the church about a year ago (never had our names removed, just made a conscious decision to stop going after learning the truth). We didn't tell anyone that we had left (we both agreed it was no ones business but our own, but if someone asked, we would just inform them that we no longer attend) and kept our social ties to member friends and neighbors just as they had been before leaving the church (keep in mind that we live in happy valley and so our ward boundaries consist of our street and the 2 adjacent streets). For almost 8 months, not one person asked about our attendance (or lack there of), not even the bishop, EQP, etc. Then, 8 months after we stopped going to church I get a call from my HT (first time in the 3 years living here) asking when a good time would be for him to stop by to give a message. I responded by saying that I would prefer that he didn't because we no longer attend and don't want to associate ourselves with it. He said "ok" and that was that. Then the next day I get a call from the bishop asking about my recent decision to leave. My wife had numerous ward members ask her the same thing over the next couple of days. Within 1 week of that phone call, both my wife and I had multiple ward member "friends" give us the cold shoulder and would literally ignore us when we tried to talk with them. Many said they were "disgusted" with us and our decision to leave. Funny thing is that this is something we did almost a year ago.

Moral of the Story - For the most part, none of the members really care if you go inactive or have a hard time attending on a regular basis. They throw a fit when you tell them you are never coming back.

Yeah, it's funny when folks find out that you're really 100% out, you lose credibility no matter who you are outside of the church.

Nothing. When I stopped going I made it clear that I did not want home teachers. My wife did not care. We'd only really had one HT that was worthwhile. He was a guy who did actually believe in helping his neighbor and was your friend before he was your TSCC-approved spokesman. Even if you didn't go he still liked you and went out of his way to genuinely help.

But I digress. Since we'd never had any other good HTs, and there was no benefit to having them come over, it was not a big deal to her when I said no. She does still have VTs though, but I think they only come to see her about twice a year.

We told them when we stopped attending to no send home teachers. The home teacher said we did not have a choice.

So when he would show up often we were eating dinner in the family room watching TV and he would stand at the door while we ignored him....lol

This happened for months until he moved. Then we were left alone for a long time.

!!! Weird!

Oh ya...the guy was super weird.

He and his wife were the type of people to come running to church frantically yelling for the bishop because they could not decide what color to paint their kitchen...true story.

I posted a thread earlier today which people can check out if they like. It's about VT not HT tho.

As a convert, I had no idea the stigma attached to refusing visiting teaching until after I left and someone else who also left told me a story about a bunch of snobby RS sisters who refused to let another sister send me a get well card from the RS when I was really sick, because I had refused VT. This was when I was fully active and had a calling and was a VT myself.

I didn't ever really refuse. I live with a family member who hates TSCC so that was why. I was always happy to accept a phone call or a card.

I suspect the VT thing was totally their excuse to not send me a card because they just didn't like me, but I had no idea it affected anything! Imagine taking joy from being vitriolic about withholding a get well card from a sick person! Stupid women, stupid cult.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 11:44AM by safetynotguaranteed.

It depends. 100 different people could try, and each would get a different reaction.

I think if you said to most Home Teachers that you don't want to be contacted, and that you'll contact the EQP/HPGL/Bishop and tell them not to include you in their statistics, then they'd probably not visit you again. The main problem is that they are constantly moving families around and swapping companions, so whenever you end up with a new Home Teacher they'll try and contact you again. You'd probably find yourself getting contacted once every few months (which is better than every month I suppose, but still not ideal).