On Sunday, one of the counselors in our Bishopric described something he now regrets. Some years ago, in  a prior calling, he was told to make certain that all priesthood members were assigned as home teachers and all members were assigned a home teacher.

In order to at least superficially comply with this, he assigned all the priesthood members who never did their home teaching as home teachers to all the members who never came to church.

Problem solved, right?

Numbers that can be easily fudged or manipulated should never be relied on. Numbers don't mean that much in the Church and they shouldn't be relied on as indicators of how well individuals or entities are doing.

Numbers can never really be used to determine the depth of someone's testimony or even the existence of it. They don't indicate if members are being fellowshipped, loved or served.

Sending a card to a visiting teachee as opposed to actual personal contact doesn't compare. And if you do show up for personal contact, but spend the whole time talking about yourself that's not really doing things properly either, even though it qualifies as a contact in the numbers game.

So, opt out of the numbers game and stop resorting to gimmicks to make it look like you are doing your spiritual work, when you really aren't. 

You are simply demonstrating that you fear men more than God and you aren't fooling Heavenly Father .

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