Following several notable alterations to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its prophet, Russell Nelson, started the second of its two-day General Conference with another stunner.
"Visiting teaching," by women Mormons, and "home teaching," by male Latter-day Saints, is over, reported The Salt Lake Tribune.
Going forward, the church will have a "ministering" system, according to the Tribune.
Visiting and home teaching has seen women 18 and over, and males 12 and over, participate in monthly visits in assigned companionships to other members of their respective Mormon congregation. Organized similar to Mormon missionary visits, they took place at the other Mormons' homes.
The visits were supposed to have had a message involving Mormon doctrine.
Nelson was sustained Saturday at the conference as the 17th president of the church, and two new apostles were announced; both are from outside the United States. In another announcement from the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, the church's two priesthood organizations are being consolidated, reflecting a change across the world in church structure, as the Tribune reported.
Regarding the changes to visiting and home teaching, Nelson announced it Sunday afternoon.
Those in church hierarchy were "seeking a better way to minister to the spiritual and temporal needs of our people," Nelson said, according to the Tribune.
The leaders pulled from typical Mormon thought about gender, the Tribune reported.
"Effective ministering efforts are enabled by the innate gifts of the sisters … and by the incomparable power of the priesthood," Nelson said.
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