And I agree with your agreement.

I would agree with the use of the word NEED versus the use of the word WANT.

I think people who are more or less OPEN to being challenged, and probably are most open when they most NEED to be.

But seriously, rereading what I wrote, I have to agree with you. Most people likely don’t look for things that make them think outside of themselves because, let’s face it, that can be painful, difficult work. I’ll have to think about how I’d word that differently to express my faith that, deep down, people like or at least need to be challenged…

I like to think people are generally on the lookout for things that make them think, that challenge them out of their comfort zones and into new ways of seeing the world, including the gospel.

I’d have to respectfully (although strongly) disagree here. I think that’s exactly opposite of *most* people.

Willingness to fail outrageously is one of my best traits.

Curiously, even though I wasn’t impressed by how mine went, people have been talking to me about how they’re planning to adapt it. So maybe it wasn’t so terrible.

Yeah. My brilliant idea was only moderately successful. So it goes. (link)

There’s a sharp limit to how much can be accomplished through the rhetoric of guilt and duty. If it’s been tried and not worked, then some other method ought to be tried: something ideally that appeals to the positive side of quorum members’ emotions. Personal experiences about the positive benefits of home teaching could be helpful. Maybe invite quorum members to talk about the best home teachers they’ve had. Talk about what makes a good home teacher, from their experience. Talk about what they like about home teaching – and possibly what they find challenging about it. Turn the discussion into an opportunity for bonding.

From my experience, making home visits as a presidency – visits to the homes of quorum members, especially – made a bigger difference than anything else we did in my own perception of what my calling was when I was serving in an elder’s quorum presidency. It made the whole thing a lot more real than the statistics-shuffling, ward-move-coordinating, Sunday-meeting-organizing side that often seems to get more of the attention. Not as a substitute for home teaching, but just as a way to get to know the quorum members outside of Sunday meetings. We never did as well with this as I would have liked (and it was largely my fault), but it made a big difference when we *did* do it. I think if we had done it more, it would have helped us to more effectively get the other quorum members excited about doing their visits as well.

My last thought: The PPI, whatever forum it takes, should provide an opportunity for the home teacher to talk about the family and report on how they’re doing. It should be less a report on home teaching, and more an opportunity for the home teacher to “brief” his PH leader about the families he teaches.